What...?

Maybe it's Hell Week. Maybe it's returning from vacation. Maybe it's the stress of planning the next vacation and training the puppy and buying furniture and opening the show and learning to knit hats and and and....but my dreams have been getting curiouser and curiouser.

Here's a brief recap of Friday night's joyfest:

Act I: Josh Gets A Haircut

I bump into Josh on the streets of Winter Park and, though I cannot possibly explain why, he asks me for a haircut. So we run into some shop/cafe/business where, apparently, giving haircuts to acquaintances is a standard practice. Except I don't have scissors. So he says not to worry about it, just use this (hands me a comb). What the hell? Well, my years of experience in the equestrian field came in handy. If anyone's ever had to "trim" a horse's mane, you'll know where this is going....I wrapped a section of hair around the comb and gave it a good yank. Eventually he had something that looked.....well, kind of awful. A few bald patches here and there....like a Chinese Crested, but with a better sense of humour. But he was completely unphased by it, and I had to admire that.

Act II: Eric's Off To Battle

Eric stops by in his fatigues to wish me goodbye as he heads off to boot camp. He's joined the Army and is very excited about starting his new career as a paratrooper. I don't have the heart to tell Eric that he just doesn't seem the paratrooper type, given his excitement about the whole thing. He's also brought Walter along to say farewell...Walter is allowed to come with him to boot, which is surprising given that I never knew that military boot camps were tolerant of soldiers arriving with their pet baby dwarf hippopotamuses. That's right, Eric was the proud parent of the cutest tiny hippo you've ever seen. Actually, it would probably be the ONLY tiny hippo you've ever seen. We had a nice long chat about the bum rap that hippos get (in my foggy dream world, they're quite cuddly really, not aggressive at all) and played some games with Walter and Little Bit. (Travis must have taken Brodie somewhere...?) I tried to convince Eric to let me have Walter while he was away, but he wasn't having it...and after all, the military has such a great Baby Dwarf Hippo Daycare program. You'd be a fool not to take advantage of that.

Act III: Travis Moves Out To Avoid A Two-Mile Commute

Travis gets home from work all fired up about his new business he's starting building custom choppers. (Remember that, because it comes back into play later.) He has mentioned this before, so I think nothing of it, in the dream or in real life. He goes on to announce that he's leaving that night, and he'll be gone for at least four weeks, possibly more. Distressed, I ask where this place is that he has to actually move away - he hedges, "It's pretty far, baby, and I'm going to be so busy there's no point in coming home." Distressed then about the bills, I fret and he assures me he's planning to send me $200 a month. What?! How can I make the rent on that? "Just make the minimum payment." But the rent IS the minimum payment! So he's basically being a butt about this whole thing, and then his friend Suzanne (whom I have never met, and who moved to Texas several months ago) shows up and starts arguing on his side and tells me how unreasonable I'm being (Uh, Suzanne, really not needing your help here.) She offers to take me and show me where he'll be working if that'll calm me down, and it's all of about two miles away. Perplexed as to why he needs to move away to do this, I start to kind of freak out...and this is where I wake up, alone in bed. Convinced I've been abandoned, I start to freak out again until I can pull myself together and wake up enough to realize that Travis is only in the office and Josh probably still has a full head of hair and, after a text message to make sure, Eric indeed does not have a baby dwarf hippo after all.

Afterword: Okay, It's Sort Of Making Sense...But What Happened To Walter?

Act III started to come together when my mom told me that my dad, who Travis reminds me of a great deal, went on a little road trip to visit a friend and deal with his newfound sense of "What the hell do I do now" since his retirement, which he has mixed feelings about. (So my father, the recently-retired helicopter mechanic, has satisfied that whole bit about "choppers"...I just had the wrong definition for chopper in the dream.) He left on Friday evening. Kooky.

And a check of Josh's blog reveals he did just get a haircut. Weird. Though I'd have to assume no one ripped the hair out of his head...thankfully. I have no idea what this act of the dream meant, but I'm steering clear of combs for a while just in case.

Eric joining the army with his baby dwarf hippo? Well, I got nothing. But I would advise Eric to steer clear of recruiting stations and short fat chicks.