Tag Archives: Jess J.

Mexico’s Killer Catfish

Cast of Characters:

  • Jess J. – BFF in Madison, WI.  We’ve probably traveled to 20 countries together, no joke.
  • Cardinal Jessica – One of my BFFs who I met about 10 years ago.  She was the door girl at the best bar in the world, the Cardinal Bar, in Madison, WI, where I spent a large portion of my time in the mid-2000s.  We both then moved to Chicago, where we became great friends.  She now lives in Minneapolis.  We have traveled together to five countries… and counting!
  • Jackie – A current co-worker… the “dark-haired ginger.”
  • Sarah M. – A current co-worker.

Historical Context:

  • Jess J. and I traveled together most recently to St. Maarten last year.
  • Cardinal Jessica and I traveled together most recently to Mexico earlier this year.
  • I love Mexico!
  • I used to go fishing for catfish with my dad in rural Wisconsin.  I haven’t eaten or touched a catfish in probably 25 years.
  • We have a lot of meetings at work, and Jackie always seems to be the one taking the notes.
  • Sarah is in charge of our loyalty program at work.

Wednesday night’s dream:

There were three separate parts to this dream.  The dream started in a hotel room in Mexico, though it was a pretty accurate spacial depiction of my last room in St. Maarten.  I was standing there alone, in anticipation of Jess J. arriving.  It was very dark, and I had all of the curtains closed (in real life, I never close the curtains wherever I am at any time of day).  I knew she wasn’t going to like the room.  I went outside to the beach.  It was cold, windy, and gray outside.  I was overlooking a gray, choppy ocean, and there were sticks and seaweed littering the shore.  The beach was empty and the air absolutely silent, though there were waves crashing ashore.  I knew that Jess wasn’t going to like the beach either.  I went back into the room, and Jess was there.  She said that she was fine, but that she wasn’t going to leave the room.

Flash to me standing in a different hotel room in Mexico.  I opened the safe and took out my credit card statement.  I saw that there was a charge on my visa for another hotel room in a Mexican beach town farther south than where I was staying.  I looked towards one of the beds, and Cardinal Jessica was there packing.  I asked her about the charge, and she said that the charge was for the place she was going to stay later that night.  I asked her to please put that room on her own credit card, and I reached into the safe to pull out my phone.  I told her that I’d be happy to call the hotel for her since it only cost me $0.50 per minute in Mexico.

Flash to me laying on a lounge chair in my bikini in the middle of our Traveler conference room at work.  It was our real conference room at work, but it was located in a hotel in Mexico.  Jackie was standing at the white board with a blue dry erase marker.  Sarah M. was sitting across the table from me to my right.  We were meeting to discuss whether or not to make one of our clients a member of our loyalty program.  We were brainstorming pros and cons.  All of a sudden there was a slimy, wet catfish lying on my stomach.  I was grossed out and didn’t know why there was a catfish there.  It was squirming around.  All of a sudden, the catfish was soft and velvety, and I started to pet it.  It inched its way up to my chest, and then out of nowhere, it lunged towards my neck and locked onto it, sucking harder and harder, trying to swallow my neck.  I grabbed it with both hands, trying to pull it off, while screaming to Jackie for help, over and over again.  She said that she couldn’t help and that we had to get back to business.  I just kept screaming and eventually started to suffocate.  I woke up from my dream choking.  How pleasant.

Lavender Snow Pants and Tunnel Robots

Cast of characters:

  • Jess J. – BFF
  • Maddie – Jess’s 4-year-old daughter.
  • Tunnel robot
  • Random extras (one with popcorn)
  • Me

Historical context:

  • Reoccurring dream! – Being late for a flight and rushing to get to the airport.
  • I miss Jess and Maddie.
  • I’m going to San Francisco at the end of the month.
  • I watch lot of crime dramas on tv that utilize two-way mirrors during interrogations.
  • No connection to lavender-colored snow pants, tunnels, or robots, per se.

Last night’s dream:

Surprise… three nights in a row with mentions of Jess.  Guess we know who’s in my thoughts. 🙂  This dream was definitely anxiety ridden.  I  haven’t been sleeping well at all.  The dream started as I was standing in the middle of Jess’s living room.  It wasn’t her real living room.  This was a HUGE room raised at least a story above ground level, overlooking a birch forest in the middle of winter, facing West.  It was carpeted in tan carpet and had brown wood paneling on all of the walls (anyone remember the brown and tan Ford Explorer from last night?).  The ceiling was a cathedral ceiling, about two stories tall, with a brown wooden ceiling fan at the top.  It was completely empty other than for a bunch of random cloths and toys strewn across the floor.  I looked over into the other room behind me, which was about three steps up from the living room.  Jess was standing there and told me not to forget the lavender snow pants that she bought for me.  I then remembered that my flight to San Francisco was leaving in less than an hour, and I was late.  A duffel bag magically appeared in my hands, and I knelt down on the floor to start packing.  I first packed my lavender snow pants, and then started shoving some of the other random crap into my bag.  It would not all fit.  I kept trying to shove stuff in, but the bag was too full.

Suddenly, I was not in the middle of the floor with my duffel bag anymore.  Rather, I was standing along the North wall of the living room.  There was a light pink curtain hanging over a portion of the wall.  Maddie suddenly appeared, wearing a horizontal striped red, white, pink, and turquoise shirt, and bubblegum pink pants.  She pulled the curtain aside to reveal a black tunnel leading out of the living room.  I went in, of course, and all of a sudden there were a handful of other people with me in the blackness.  We followed the tunnel East for a few dozen yards, when we game to a giant window into another brightly-lit white room.  It turned out to be a two-way mirror, not a window.  We could see into the white room, but anyone in the room could not see out into the tunnel.  Suddenly, a gigantic, silver, man-shaped robot appeared with a black face mask.  He started to smash his head against the mirror, over and over again.  The mirror glass started to crack, and we all started running away down the tunnel.  The robot finally broke through the glass and started chasing after us.  One lady flew her arms up while running and spilled a bunch of popcorn into the blackness.

The end!

The Price Is Right!

Cast of characters:

  • A Bob Barker/Drew Carey hybrid
  • The audience
  • Michael Jordan
  • Me

Historical context:

  • I used to loooove The Price Is Right when I was little.  When I stayed home from school sick, I would set my alarm for 10:00 am so that I could wake up and watch it.  I also used to get weekly allergy shots at the clinic in Columbus, WI, and while waiting in the waiting room for 20 minutes after my shots to make sure I didn’t die, I used to make my mom play The Price Is Right with me.  And I always made her play the same game… the price tag game.  I’d make two sets of four price tags with different prices.  I’d hide one set behind objects in the waiting room… a lamp, a piece of doctor’s office art, a chair, a plant, etc.  Then I’d give my mom the other set.  When I said, “Go!” she’d have to run around and put each price tag next to the object that she thought was that price.  Then I’d check, and if she had any wrong, she had to do it again until she got it right.  Bob Barker was the only ever real host of The Price Is Right.  Yes, I loved The Price Is Right.
  • You couldn’t pay me any amount of money to get on a big-box cruise ship.  They are death ships, or ghost ships, in my opinion.  See “Carnival Cruise.”  Jess J. and I once watched a 4000-passenger death ship in Aruba sail off into the darkness with no sound at all.  Creeeeeeepy.
  • I have no particular affinity toward Michael Jordan or Ford automobiles.
  • I used to work a lot in Miami and kinda liked my airport transfers in big, fat, black Cadillac Escalades.
  • My Prismacolor colored pencils were some of my most treasured items in high school.

Last night’s dream:

Yayyyyy!!!  I was on The Price Is Right!  I was standing with the host, sometimes Bob Barker and sometimes Drew Carey, staring out at the audience.  I remember that I was facing North (directions are always really important to me in dreams).  And low and behold, it was my turn to play the price tag game!  It wasn’t the mid-1980’s version of the price tag game that I would have expected.  It was a cheaper, older, 1970’s-ish version of the price tag game.  There were hand buzzers (like you use in Jeopardy) involved.  I don’t know why.  The colors of the game were peach and goldenrod.

I had about six price tags that I had to put on different items, and about three seconds to put the tags out until my time ran out each time.  When my time was up in the end, it turned out that I had priced two items correctly.  YAY!  Victory!  But what had I won???  Somehow, even I didn’t know at the time, because it turns out that I couldn’t see the items I was pricing.  They were printed on a piece of paper and folded up on a table.  I opened the first piece of folded paper to discover that I had correctly priced a set of Pentach (not Prismacolor) colored pencils at $175.  I then opened the second piece of folded paper to discover that I had correctly priced a super combo pack of prizes at $26,000.  And what did I win for $26,000?  I won a brown and tan Ford Explorer!  I won a trip for four to Miami to hang out with Michael Jordan at some basketball championship, complete with limousine transfers to and from the airport (they showed a video clip of Michael Jordan standing in front of the limousine at this point… he was excited to meet me)!  AND, I won a trip for four on a cruise ship in Europe!  YEAH!!!

That’s it, friends.  The end.

Close Quarters

Cast of characters:

  • Jess J. – BFF since 1999.  Met during study abroad in Bonn, Germany.  Mother of my godson.
  • Drew J. – Husband of my BFF, Jess.  Father of my godson.  Cool dude.
  • Mark – Friend and one-time roommate.  Godfather to my godson.  Overall great guy.
  • Michele – Met during study abroad in Bonn, Germany.  We keep in good contact.  Cool chick.

Historical context:

  • Ummm… not much.  Lum Ave. holds no particular place in my heart.  Piggly Wiggly does, however.
  • I miss my friends in Madison.

Last night’s dream:

So last night’s dream was very quick and pretty uneventful.  Jess and Drew lived in their same house in Madison, but their street in Madison was actually Lum Ave. behind Piggly Wiggly in Waterloo.  Evidently everyone was trying to move closer to Jess and Drew.  Michele had just bought a house next door… a raised ranch with an old deck overlooking Piggly Wiggly.  She had an old 1970s fishing boat in the back yard, and there was a black and white cat slipping in and out of view in the grass around the boat.

While talking with Michele on her deck, she pointed out a small, angular, and cramped house on the other side of Drew and Jess’s house.  She explained that Mark has just bought that house.  I was stunned and asked her why the hell Mark would give up his nice, luxury condo in downtown Madison to move into that little house.

Done. 😉