Boy did I have a strange dream last night.  Normally, I don’t remember them, but this one was long, involved and memorable.

***** Dream cloud surrounding the following narrative.  Comments are in italics ****

I was sitting on the porch of my house and a mid-sized red car comes up the drive. A lady I knew stepped out of the car and asked if I wanted to go someplace with her. She was very sorry for coming out to the house without calling, but really wanted male a companionship for this outing. I was more than willing to go, since I was thinking of asking this lady out for some time. I hadn’t been asked out much during my life, and I liked the feeling….
In reality, I have no idea who this woman was and the house porch I was sitting on was my parents’ house, and it was sold to my new neighbor almost 5 years ago. Yes, I do like the feeling of being asked out.

Before I could even step into the house to get my wallet and keys, a LifeFlight helicopter was landing in the front yard. Now I had no idea why they were coming here, and the life flight nurse was sure that this was the place to pick up the an emergency patient. I tried to explain that the only two people there were the two they saw now. Then a school bus comes barreling through the woods, not on the road, but right through the woods, and over the swamp. This is when I told the LifeFlight crew that this must be the person/people they were waiting for. While talking to the crew, the school bus turned into a tanker truck. Helping the people out of the tanker and unto the copter took so much time that my date and I were too late to go to her function. So we made plans to get together at a later date.
Ok, this just happened very quickly in the dream. The lady in question (I sure wish I would have had a name associated with this dream.) The next section of the dream occurred in the blink of an eye.

I was sitting at a table of a park lodge with the lady of my dreams (I like the way that sounds!) and someone fell off a speed boat on the lake in view from the lodge. Leaving my date behind I run and swim out to rescue the person. Coming back into the lodge, I ran into my father-in-law. He was giving me a thumbs up sign on my date. I then went into a restroom (straight out of a Harry Potter Movie) to change my wet clothes. My brother-in-law came into the restroom to make sure I put on the suit he brought me. He wanted to make sure I was ready for the wedding. What wedding, I was here on a date?? Anyway, I get dressed and step out of the restroom to tell my date about the wedding. Instead of finding my date, I find my late wife. She said “Hurry up, we can’t miss this wedding.” I’m going, “Wait, you aren’t supposed to be here, you died years ago.” She said, “I know that silly, I just couldn’t miss this wedding. Come on, let’s go.” I said I had to explain it to my date. My wife said that this was already taken care of. Me, I’m wondering how she took that.

The gorilla ushers took my bag (where did that come from?) and we took our seats. The wedding was over before it even began
Yes, this was surreal. Even in the dream it had a feeling of weirdness. I’m not sure who the wedding was for, but all but 1 daughter was in the dream.

After the wedding, my dear wife said she had to be going. I wanted her to wait, but her time was at an end. Then I went looking for my bag. (Why not the date?) I couldn’t find the gorilla who took it. In fact I couldn’t find any of the gorillas. The girl at the lobby desk told me she would go through the security tapes to find the gorilla that took my bag. I was watching it with her and saw the part where I came out of the restroom. I saw me talking, but I was talking to nobody. My wife was not in the video. Then I remember my date. Did she know why I was gone, did I ruin another date? I find my date, and she was still waiting for me. I told I was sorry for being gone so long, and she said it was no problem. She had a nice talk with some lady who told me I had to be at a wedding at the lodge. She was told I was surprised and didn’t know about the wedding. Hmm, how did that work out. She then said a gorilla gave her my bag.

******* Here the dream ends….. *******

I’m not what was going on in this dream, but after telling it to my youngest, she reminded me of a dream I had a bit ago. In that dream I had a date with a raven haired psychic. This lady in my dreams, also had raven hair, but I don’t recall the face of either lady. Hmm…. But then again, I’ve always liked dark haired women. Just a weird dream I remembered today.

I felt too restless to write blogs, but I’m too tired to take the kids anywhere, so it’s either write in my blog or sit here on my computer looking up scary ailments that could be afflicting my husband.  So blogging it is…

As you may have read on other tangents.org blogs, our community theater is about to open its production of The Nerd – an (I still hate putting the word “an” in front of hilarious, but oh well) hilarious comedy written by Larry Shue.  My husband is portraying the Nerd, a character named Rick Steadman, who is without any social ettiquette whatsoever, to put it mildly.  He does an excellent job at the part, if I do say so myself, and that’s a compliment, really it is – he’s not a nerd in real life!  In the play, Rick has an autographed picture of Hugh Downs, and all this time during rehearsal, I’ve been wondering, who is Hugh Downs?  The name sounds familiar, but I didn’t know anything about him, so I looked him up.  Turns out he is a fellow Ohioan, born in Akron, went to high school in Lima, and he’s still alive.  He anchored the newsmagazine show 20/20, hosted the Today show, was the announcer for The Tonight Show with Jack Paar, and he also hosted the game show Concentration.

So having an autographed picture of Hugh Downs is quite nerdy.  But then again, I looked him up on wikipedia, so what does that make me?

I have a few drafts of blog posts started, but I haven’t really felt like writing lately – too much effort when my mind is so preoccupied.  Then I got this fun forward in my email and thought it would make a good blog post.  Little effort on my part, which is great because I’m so tired from not being able to sleep.  And it is actually a pretty fun forward; I looked it up for each of my kids and put them at the bottom of the list – enjoy:

THIS IS REALLY FUN!

Last night (after C and taylhis‘ recommendation), I watched The Orphanage, a brilliant, suspense filled movie that just held your attention the entire time. So much so that to go into detail would almost certainly ruin it. Totally much more suspenseful than gory which is always a plus (but I think my favorite scene was probably the most twisted scene of the entire film). I also thought the use of the burlap mask was well conceived; harkening back to the Scarecrow’s face in Batman Begins which was also creepy. I think the idea to use a burlap face for our haunted attraction is a great idea. The Orphanage was in Spanish with English subtitles but (although necessary unless you are fluent in Spanish) was not a huge distraction.

Guillermo del Toro, producer of The Orphanage, is in the process of writing the two film prequel to The Lord of the Rings trilogy. He will also direct The Hobbit films (the first of which is set to be released in 2011). Peter Jackson, who was largely responsible for bringing the original trilogy to the big screen will share writing duties with del Toro. My experience with the adventures of Bilbo Baggins is limited to the Tolkien novel and the Book and Record (remember those?) set that was released with the 1977 animated feature. I never saw the animated versions of the novels. But, I will definitely see these two films.

So, I HIGHLY recommend checking out The Orphanage; oddly enough it is not available through Blockbuster.com

Well, I got the results from the Ultrasound today and there is good news.  They do not show anything.  So, there is nothing visibly wrong with my Pancreas, Liver, Kidneys, or Gall Bladder.  YEAH!

However, this also brings some bad news.  Lisa & I have to wait to find out what the heck is wrong with me until possibly next Wednesday!

I will be getting a gastroendoscopy and colonoscopy on Thursday and then we will have to wait 3 – 4 business days for the result.  🙁

Wish me luck!  I am trying to keep positive but also must admit I am very scared.  I just am so thankful to have such a wondeful wife to support me!  SHE IS PERFECT!

Yes, a fun day indeed, if you read Jamiahsh’s blog, then you know what I’m talking about.  To get our minds off of certain medical dramas (not like House or Grey’s Anatomy or anything like that – our real-life medical dramas taking place right now are much worse than some crappy tv), we decided to have a day of fun.  It began with go-carting, which is always fun but even more so if you can fill up the track and drive with people you know – which we were able to do.  I like the place we went to because they don’t charge any extra if you take a kid along with you, and seeing as how we had a few nice adults who didn’t mind chauffering some little kids, all 3 of our daughters got to go around the track a bunch of times.  But I’m the dummy who forgot my camera, so I didn’t get a picture of my little almost 2-year-old in a go-cart like I wanted.  It’s funny because I had the camera with me, just forgot to use it, which should signal how scatter-brained I’ve been lately because of the worry and lack of sleep resulting from my husband’s as-yet-unidentified medical condition.  And while we’re on that subject, we won’t know anything until next week now, because they’ve ordered further tests for Thursday, and they won’t get the results back until next week.  But they’ve eliminated gallstones, so at least we know that much.  He blogged a little update here.

But anyway, enough tangents, back to the fun day.  After go-carting, we decided to practice in the batting cages for our upcoming annual theater softball game.  The batting cages reminded me how hilarious last year’s game was – I mean, theater people playing softball?  It was a riot!

After that, we went to a nice little restaurant we like on the river.  If you sit outside, you get to enjoy the beautiful weather, the view, and a game of cornhole while you wait for your food.  I like cornhole; if anyone has a set, we should bring it to the theater family fun day and play that along with softball…  Why is it called cornhole?  Is that a NW Ohio term for it?  They have that where I come from in Illinois too, but I don’t think they call it cornhole.  In case you aren’t from NW Ohio and you don’t know what I’m talking about, I’m referring to the game with the wooden ramps with holes in them…  you have 2 of these and station them about 15-20 feet apart with half of the team at each end; then you throw bean bags into the holes – hopefully.

After dinner, the kids fell apart (what else is new?  They’ve been acting HORRIBLY lately!), so we had to leave, but I hear the rest of the group went mini-golfing.  I was actually tempted to mini-golf earlier in the day but I knew the kids would drive me nuts because they get bored of it after about 6 holes.  So we left, thinking maybe the kids would fall asleep in the car, giving me and hubby a much-deserved and needed night alone together to watch a movie.  Didn’t happen.  And starting with the kids spazzing out at the restaurant about bees (and there weren’t that many – our almost 9-year-old is a wimp about certain things and her craziness got her sisters going – don’t you love how they chain-react to one another?  Hence the name of my blog), things went from bad to worse.

I’m going to blame Carol and Megan for this one, since they brought it up earlier in the day, but what a coincidence – we got pulled over on the way home.  So thanks Carol and Megan for jinxing us!!  Just kidding, of course it’s not your fault…  I guess poor Chris really got used to putting the pedal to the metal on those darn go-carts.  The state highway patrol officer who pulled us over had the personality of a housefly, and she wasn’t going to act like a human being and be thankful we weren’t drunk driving or even think about giving us a break on labor day, so our fun day ended up being pretty expensive when you include the $100 speeding ticket.  Our luck SUCKS lately, but if we can get the all-clear on my husband’s health, then I will stop complaining.

Oh yeah, so anyway, when we got home, our almost-2-year-old was the last one awake, and since she had only napped for about 10 minutes during the day, we thought we were almost home-free for a nice evening together – WRONG!  About 30 minutes into the movie, our oldest came down, asking for a snack.  No biggie, but “Did you wake your sister?” we asked her, panicked beyond belief because our 4-year-old has been a little hellian again lately.  She said she didn’t think she woke her up, but 5 minutes later, guess what happens?  Sammie comes down the stairs, and now we’re in the middle of an R rated movie with all 3 kids awake and downstairs.  So much for our peaceful early night, sigh.  We sent the oldest 2 upstairs, and that’s actually the last we heard from Sammie, believe it or not.  Disney, the youngest besides the baby (and he’s not old enough to cause any trouble yet, thank goodness!), got so OVER-tired that she started crying for about 45 minutes straight until she finally fell asleep.  But then Taylor, the oldest, must have come down the stairs at least 3 more times because she was worried about various bugs that were in her room and in the house, according to her anyway.  If this were still the age of the VCR, our movie would have been eaten by the VCR by now because of all the pausing and unpausing we were doing…  but ultimately, we just gave up anyway because I was falling asleep during the first part of the movie, and we could tell Taylor was going to be “bugging” us all night…  So we missed the end of No Escape – some crappy Ray Liotta action film from the 90’s.  I think it was crappy anyway, I really didn’t see much of it – let me know if it’s any good and maybe we’ll go back to it.

But for what it was worth, the day provided a nice destraction from the worries that have been plaguing us lately, so thanks to all who participated.  Now we just have to wait another week to find out more medical test results…  ugh, I hate the waiting!

Since my pal jamiahsh mentioned my $8.00 putter, I guess now is a good time to tell how I happen to own said putter. I am not a golfer by any means. I’ve played maybe 2 games of golf in my lifetime. In both games, I did lousy. My drives were short, but straight, my short game was all over the place, and putting on a real green, forget about it. The one thing I do reasonably well with a golf ball is miniature golf, especially the par 2 Putt Putt courses. I’ve played on a few, and while I’m nowhere near to being a Putt Putt pro, I usually can break or make par on these courses after a round or two to get used to it. As with any sport, somedays you just don’t have it, so I don’t always make par.

Anyway, on to the story of my $8.00 putter. A few of years ago (was it really so long??, yes, it was during our magic show) a group of us were invited to have a day at the nearest Putt Putt / Go-Cart place. I got to the town a little early and we stopped at a local sporting goods store. I’m not sure now if I stopped with the thought of picking up a putter, or just saw it when I got there, and had the idea, but anyway C is a slightly competitive person, and his friends know this about him. Me, I’m never beyond trying to set someone up for a joke, so knowing about his nature, I wanted something to play games with his mind.

So I picked up the cheapest putter available at the sporting goods store. For 8 American dollars, I picked up a putter that was much better than the clubs at the local Putt Putt. And it gave me a wonderful joke to play on the rest of the gang. I arrive at the Putt Putt with putter in hand. Now everybody thought that I was a serious putter. I saw fear in their eyes. (not really but it sounds good doesn’t it?) I did have a really good game that day, having quite a few holes-in-one and ended up in first. I was lucky my putter worked. I may have looked a fool if I didn’t have a good game. After that I don’t think too many believed that I just picked the putter up that day. They can comment if they remember. But I think my youngest convinced them.

So now, I always have that putter with me during the summer months. My youngest and I frequent the putting places often, and I’ve grown used to my stick. Sometimes, like today, it brings out the fear in my opponents…. Ha ha ha (how do you write an evil laugh???))

Very often, the best way to help ease the tension of a rough few days is to do something fun with people whom you consider dear friends. This past week has been a doozy. I learned through a rather ill-timed phone call that my mentor, (one of) my greatest influences, and staunchest supporters (to put it mildly) is in her final days of her nearly year-and-a-half battle with leukemia. Then, I learned that one of my best friends, influences, and staunchest supporters is having medical problems of his own. I am constantly praying and hoping for both of them, but that was not at all what today was about.

Following my shortened shift at work today, friends gathered at the area miniature golf/go-cart racing park. It was a blast. I loved the thrill of traveling at breakneck speeds along the hairpin turns and steep banking of the quarter-mile track (more or less). Most times, I was accompanied by one of three darling girls (even when they are highly animated when faced by spiders/bees) who enjoyed it at least as much as their adult(?) counterparts. I am quite pleased to say that I do not believe that I finished anything less than 3rd place and came in 1st at least once that I recall. If only I had not kept tapping the brake at inappropriate times…

The group then decided to visit the batting cages at a nearby park in order to practice up for our 2nd annual funday/softball game coming up in a few weeks. Some of us did better than others but it was just another excellent diversion.

Following our early dinner (must have been early as some of the items on the menu were not available before 5), four of us returned to the Putt-Putt location and accepted the round offered by our resident miniature golf regular… who claims that he has made a hole-in-one on every hole but one on the course). Although I came in third, it was still fun and I thought I did well… a 58? Justj just happens to carry his $8.00 putter (that was the clearance price) wherever he goes.

Before we departed our other group of friends, I could tell that C was beginning to feel fatigued. I just hope that all goes well tomorrow and am certain that his tests come back with good results. And I know that Ma 2 is soon going to be in a much better, peaceful place and remembered by everyone whose lives she touched and will continue to touch. To paraphrase a quote from a classic curmudgeonly (guess that is a word) science-fiction physician: She really will not be gone as long as we remember her. (I refuse to use the “d” word).

So thanks, Chris, Lisa, Taylor, Sammie, Disney, Christopher, John, Megan, and Carol. You all are so important to me and I cherish every moment we spend together. I love each and everyone of you.

HELLO EVERY PEOPLE!!!  I a come a to you live from Hamilition, In diana in America country, yes?  On day of Sun, Obamalasa come to vist small town near home of strange person.  A person who a shop at market where strange person work say he a go see Obamalam and got photo with him.  He a eat food, take photography, shake a his hand, and kiss a baby.  Is a dis how people become new owner America country?  Man at markey he  say he could not get to water hole in Hamilition, In diana very easy, but they a get there somehow.  It’s a too bad for Morat… he a not get to Hamiliton, In diana fast enough to see Obamalad.  But he a keep going until he a see him again.  A Happy Day of Labor to a you all.  I a no understand… why you a celebrate work?  A very strange  custome

I was offline all of yesterday due to a cable problem.  I have located the problem- it seems the outside cable is worn through in a spot.  I have jury-rigged it to test it for now, and as you can see since I am writing a post that it is indeed the problem.  Unfortunately I can’t keep it up.  Obviously they have a record that I am accessing the internet now, but I can always tell the tech I was just testing the problem myself, and I was.  I will have to remove what I did though.  Unfortunately it means no internet for me for two more days since my appointment isn’t until Wednesday afternoon. 🙁

Hopefully I can get sub jobs for the next couple of days using the phone instead.  Of course that means no blogs until then either…