Sunday, August 27, 2006

Nick, One Who Skis

I was up on Massanutten Mountain practicing skiing with Nick (former step-brother). We were doing a kind of cross country skiing along this narrow path/ledge on the side of the mountain, and there was a steep drop off to our right that went down about 20 or 30 feet, and then the land was flat from there. The main part of the mountain was on our left.

As we were coming around the mountain, Nick slipped and went straight off the edge of the path and down the drop off. As he hit the ground below, which looked like solid snow, he broke through the surface and it turned out there was water below him. He was thrashing around and
trying to get out, but his skis got stuck on the muddy bottom of the pond or lake that he was in.

He was finally able to get out, and he was all soaking wet. Even though I knew he was really pissed about the whole thing, I couldn't help but to laugh. We left and went to the ski lodge and went inside to dry off and warm up a bit.

After a little bit we went back outside, and things had warmed up considerably. It was more like spring time out, and the snow had mostly melted away in places, showing patches of green grass and flowers.

We walked back up the ledge where Nick had fallen off and looked down. We could see his skis down there sticking up out of the mud where the pond/lake had been, almost forming a V shape.

Thursday, August 24, 2006

Albus Dumbledore's Dentist

I was at a mall with Em (wife) and Matthew (brother) so that he could go to a dentist appointment. We got to the dentist office, which was on the third floor, and went in. It had the feel of one of those nail salons that you usually see in malls. We were told that we couldn't come in now, but we would have to come back later.

So we left and went walking around the mall for a bit. At about the time that we thought we should be able to go back up and see the dentist, we started heading that way. When we got to the second floor and were going to take the escalator up to the third floor, we noticed that the escalators had been shut off. Not only were they off, but each step had been turned do that all the top edged came together and formed a flat slope instead of stairs. We tried to go up, but we kept slipping back down. At the top of the escalators were a couple of mall cops, and they were telling us that the mall was closing and that we couldn't come up there anymore. We told them that we had to go to the dentist, and they didn't care.

We left the mall through an underground tunnel/mine shaft. When we were almost to the end, we came to a cavern type of place that had a pond in the middle of it that was about 30 to 50 feet long and about 20 feet wide. I noticed at this point that I was with Ron and Hermione from Harry Potter instead of Em and Matthew. Anywho, there was a rickety wooden dock poking out into the lake about 6 feet or so, and there was a small rowboat or canoe there tied up that was only big enough for one person at a time. Hermione got into the boat first and made her way across. After she got to the far side and got out, the boat came back on it's own.

Then Ron tried to go across. We were each carrying a bundle of belongings like clothes and school supplies, and after Ron put his stuff into the boat and got in, it started to sink. He got out and we dumped out the boat and looked for the leak but didn't find one, so he tried it again. The same thing happened. After emptying out the boat the second time, I decided to give it a try.

When I got into the boat, it sunk faster than it ever did with Ron, almost as if I had just jumped directly into the water. I was frustrated at first, but I quickly realized that the water was only about chest deep anyway. We get our stuff and carry it high and we just decided to wade across. After getting to the other side and getting out, we turn around and take a few steps along the bank of the pond to our left. (which had been the right side of the pond as we were trying to make it across). I noticed at this point that there was a bit of an embankment that ran all the way around the pond and we could have just walked around it rather than wading through it.

We stopped and looked back at the dock where the boat had been, and I noticed that there was a tunnel under the dock. The tunnel seemed to have a distant light blue light in it, and before I realized it, there was a creature that came swimming up out of the tunnel and towards us. It was a blue dolphin, except that it was all deformed. It's face was more like that of a human rather than a dolphin. It's left eye was kind of bugged out, and the right one was either closed tightly or missing. It had a large bulbous forehead, a broad flat nose, and it's mouth was all crooked and hanging open on the right side. It had lots of scars all over it's face, and it had two muscular arms. He spoke perfectly good English, and he informed us that he was Albus Dumbledore's (headmaster from Hogwarts in Harry Potter) dentist. He grabs Ron, who was not really happy about it, and proceeded to give him a dental exam right then and there.

The exam was a bit strange in that I saw the exam from different view points throughout the thing. First it was normal, just as if I were standing there watching. Then I saw it as if I were Ron, and he was working on my mouth. Then I saw it from the view of being inside of Ron's mouth and looking out, seeing his teeth all around the border of my view. The dolphin dentist used this magical toothpaste that he put all over Ron's teeth, and once it was on there for a moment, it loosened the teeth so that he could move them around into their correct place instead of giving him braces.

After we were finally done, we left the tunnel and we wound up on top of Massanutten Peak somewhere around dusk during a snow sledding competition. We went into this warehouse/mill/factory type of building where there was a chute at the far end that you were supposed to do the sledding on. Ron and Hermione didn't know how to do proper sledding, so I had to show them. I had one of those flimsy sleds that's like a sheet of plastic that just rolls up. I got a running start and then jumped, letting the sled unroll under me while I was landing in the air, and then landing on my stomach and slide quickly down the hill.

After showing them one time, they did it, too. We all went at the same time, and as we were going down the hill, it turned out to be more like the half-pipe tubes that one slides down at a water park. It was going round in a clockwise spiral and just went down down down. It was like the building we had just been in was sitting right on the edge of a very high cliff, and these chutes ran down at least a mile. There was a good bit of fog and snow blowing about as we were going down, but we were having great fun. It took at least 5 or 10 minutes for us to get to the bottom.

After we got to the bottom, we went back up to the building and had another go. Robin Williams was there at the top instructing us on how to have a better slide, and he was also at the bottom judging us on our speed. After the second time down, we picked up our stuff and went to the parking lot where we had a black SUV of some sort waiting on us. We milled around and talked for a moment, and I think Harry Potter actually showed up there for a bit because he had been sledding, too. Then we all got into the SUV to go home.

Thursday, August 10, 2006

Extremely Gay Nick

I started out by walking into some sort of living room of a house or a classroom or something with Em. It was kind of a strange dingy yellowish color and it seemed very run down. It was lit with fluorescent lighting that flickered and added to the yellow tint of the room, and it had a bit of a musty/moldy feel or smell to it. It was like it was in a basement because there were no windows or anything in there. At the same time, it ALMOST had the feel of walking into the side door (from the garage) or through the door that went into the kitchen of the Shipplett's house.

Just after entering the room, I heard a familiar voice, and I started looking around for the source. I think that I thought before hand that it was Nick's (former step-brother) voice, but I wasn't sure. I went forward towards the opposite side of the room from where I came in and looked through an open door that went into another room or large closet. I think I said something to Em about hearing his voice while I was looking around for him. As I looked into this "back" room, I saw him there on the left hand side as I rounded the corner to look into the room.

His hair was shorter than it was when I last saw him. It was cut to to the length of his chin and jaw line, and it was longer in the front than in the back. It may have even been somewhat shaved in the back. I spoke in a loud and (fake) warm tone, greeting him and holding out my hand to shake hands with him. I realized that I wasn't very keen on actually talking to him. There were other people around, kind of like they were part of an acting group or something, but it may have just been his friends. (or both) I think he got up and came over and shook my hand, and he had this goofy grin on his face where he had his lips all pushed out, looking almost as if he were trying to squirt water from his mouth.

We talked briefly, and I got the distinct impression that he wasn't really happy to see me despite the fact that he kept his grin on his face the whole time. There were times that he said or did something that it felt like he was making fun of me to his friends, but still "acting" nicely so that I couldn't tell him how much of a dick he was being. I noticed, too, while he was talking, he was using a very forced lisp, like he was trying to sound like he thought he was extremely gay or something. Part of me felt that he was putting on, and the other part of me felt that he wasn't. I even felt like he was putting on so much to exaggerate the truth so that the actual truth wouldn't seem so bad or something. It was like he was acting more gay than he actually was because he thought he had to so he could take the spotlight off of actually being gay, because acting outrageous would make people think it was just all a show.

I think that someone there had taken a sweatshirt that belonged to Em. I'm not sure if we were actively searching it out, or if we were just keeping an eye out for it as we moved around. Nick took us around and had us talk to several of his friends. Eventually we came around to the right side of the dingy yellow room we had first walked in to. On the right hand side of the far wall, kind of in the corner, was a door. It was like a small hallway that went back into another room like the one that Nick had been in. This room was just to the right of that room, with only a wall separating them. In the middle of the left wall of the short hallway was another door, and it turned out to be a bathroom. I think we found Em's sweatshirt in there. I'm not sure if someone was in there with it, trying to hide it from us or not, but I'm pretty sure that's where we found it. Evidently it was some sort of dark bathroom with trees.

Then I guess we left, and we wound up in a car and we were driving down an interstate, I think. Em's mom was with us, and I think that I was driving and she was in the passenger's seat, and Em was in the back. I don't know what car we were driving, but it seemed like a big old white or light gray car. I think that Em's mom was bickering about something, but I don't remember what it was. It seemed like Em or I came up with some quippy comment that shut her up from complaining about whatever it was, but I could be wrong.

Then there was something about a cherry tree that was "outside". (outside of what or where, I don't know) I think it may have been in grandmamma miller's yard where the walnut trees were in front of the chicken house. I don't remember exactly what was going on, but something happened where I took a "core" or some sort of drilling from the middle of the trunk of the tree and tasted it. Even though it was mostly sap, it was very sweet and sugary, almost like a taffy or chewy candy. It was cherry flavored, of course.

Weasly Alien Invasion

I was in a house that was a lot like my in laws', and I was in the formal living room area with Mr. and Mrs. Weasly and Ginny (from Harry Potter). I think there may have been another girl there, but I'm not sure. It was like we were in Book 5 (Order of the Phoenix) and we were hiding out in a place that was supposed to be like 12 Grimmauld Place. It was night time, and we only had a candle or two lit to bring light into the small room.

We were right by the windows and we could see some of the city buildings over beyond a row of houses that were just beside us. We were watching the sky through a telescope, and I think that Ginny and I were the first ones to spot it. There was a large space ship of alien making that was streaking down through the sky right towards us. It was huge and black and rather pointy, and it looked like it was out of control, like maybe it had been shot down or something.

I think I realized that it was more likely to land in the back yard instead of right on the house, and I ran out of the room, up the hallway, and out the dining room/kitchen door and onto the back patio and into the back yard. Em was out there, but I don't remember what she was doing. She seemed a bit oblivious to the fact that the ship was streaming right for us. I grabbed her arm and ran back into the house with her in tow. Just as we got inside, we looked out of the formal dining room window and saw it crash just in front of the city buildings a couple of streets over.

There was a big orange glow front he fire shining up onto the far buildings. I don't think the ship itself landed on any of the buildings. It just crashed in the street. We ran back into the front room where I had been originally, and Ginny was there looking out the windows. Mr. and Mrs. Weasly were sitting in dining table chairs that were back to back, and they had their arms interlocked. It was their was of consoling one another. I think that Mrs. Weasly was crying a little, and Mr. Weasly was gibbering a bit. I watched outside as the light started to change.

I noticed that the orange light from the wreckage was moving, and lots of little pin-point fires starting moving around on the side of the building. They swirled around in a circular and spiral formation for a moment, and I understood that these were basically the aliens' version of spotlights. After swirling for a moment, they formed an angry looking alien face on the side of a big windowless brick building.

Then it changed quickly, and it was suddenly in color and changed appearance to look like a blond girl of about 8 or 9 years old who looked a little like Violet from the recent Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. The girl had put up her hands to the sides of her face and had a worried look in her eye, kind of like something was scaring her and she didn't know what to do besides protect her cheeks. (something kind of resembling Kevin from Home Alone) Then in a quick moment, the face changed again. It was a black haired girl, and her hair was long and stringy, and he skin turned gray. He eyes bulged, but her face was actually rather expressionless. As it appeared, I heard a loud mechanical sound of a girl screaming that I knew was emanating from either the picture itself or from the alien craft. It scared me so badly that I woke up.