Living in dreamtime

Magnet #859 - Dream

People say that if you want to remember your dreams, you should write them down in a dream journal, and with each dream that you remember and write down, you'll be able to better remember your dreams in the future.

But, for far back as I can think of, I usually remember my dreams. It's weird, I know. I think it's because I'm one of those people. You know them - the ones that come up to you every morning and tell you when they've had a weird dream.

I mean, I can remember telling my friends about my dreams in seventh grade homeroom in the bandroom. What's more, I can probably even tell you some of those dreams that I had back then.

Doesn't everybody have those dreams that stick in your mind, no matter how long ago you had them? I remember being less than 10, and having a dream of being back in Chicago, living at the old house in Palos Heights, and finding a present in every nook and cranny of my bedroom. I vividly remember the dream, because of the cool presents I was supposed to unwrap (never got to, darnit!), and because the whole dream had a pink hue to it, as if I were looking at the dream in rose-colored glasses.

And there are many dreams I've had that I remember vividly. Every so often, they give me feelings of deja vu - like yesterday when I had dinner at East Coast Wings, telling my friend about meeting Dave Price. I've dreamed that entire restaurant/dinner set-up before. I was even waiting for a phone call that was supposed to come through, while I was telling her about meeting Dave. I've never been to ECW, and up til last week, I'd never met Dave. The phone call didn't come through, but still. Freaky.

The weirdest part is looking up the things that I dream about in any online dream dictionary - more often than not, it's right on par with what my subconscious is feeling. Sometimes, scarily so. Like the dream about helicopters and kumquats. Or, the roller coaster rides or speeding trains. Scary.

Oh! You know what else is scarier than you'd think? The other week, I dreamed I was on a mission with Burn Notice's Michael Westen. Like, we were ducking and covering, because people were shooting at us. You know how cool it looks when you're watching on tv? That stuff's scary in dreamtime, man. Like you wake up in a sweat with your heart pounding, you realize it is SO not cool being in a shoot-out. Heh.

Anyway, I just bought this magnet as part of a set at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts gift shop (hello, love their gift shop and the museum). I figured I'd use it for today, since I have a 12-hour train ride to finish THINK ABOUT YOUR FUTURE, Part Two, Get-a-new-life Bugaloo, wherein I actually have think about my own future, rather than that of my company.

Of course, maybe after tomorrow, it'll be decided for me. Maybe not.

But, a girl can dream.

eta, sometime later in the middle of the night:
So the downside of remembering these dreams, is that you remember the bad ones just as well as the good ones. *shiver*

I'm not writing that one down here.

eta2:
But, I just looked it up, and damn, did that just make sense. Whoa.

Died of a theory*

Magnet #858 - White House of the Confederacy

And, here it is, the White House of the Confederacy, nestled in the heart of Richmond, where we went last week on the BFF Babymoon Over the Confederacy roadtrip. It's part of the adjacent Museum of the Confederacy.

I always feel a little weird going anywhere with heavy Southern sympathizer tendencies, mainly because some of the teachers I had growing up in the South were old enough to remember the last years of an America before the Civil Rights movement. I remember being the fifth grader asking the hard question about which camp this little Filipino girl would fall in. And, I was always considered the Yankee (and foreigner) who moved from Chicago to North Carolina...in kindergarten.

But, I suppose history is something you can't ignore, and when you're here in the South, it's almost unavoidable. But last week, we actively sought out history, to look it right in the face.

The Museum of the Confederacy was actually a pretty cool little museum - it takes you through the major battles of the Civil War, which of course, I totally related back to North and South, and the battles that Orry and Billy Main and George Hazard fought.

But the White House was supercool. It was the residence of Jefferson and Varina Davis, and their six kids. He took us through the receiving room, as well as the sitting and retiring rooms, as well as the upstairs private rooms. Though some of the decor was questionable, it was quite amazing to walk the halls of history.

From the coal-shaped "IED" that the confederates would stuff with gunpowder and stick into coal piles to be able to blow up ships/trains, to the rubber hoses made by Mr. Goodyear to pipe gas down from the chandeliers to the table lamps. And learning that Jeff Davis didn't believe in disciplining his six kids, believing that it would stifle creativity...so much so that whenever they placed nanny ads, they had to place it blindly, with a fake address and a fake name, so that no one knew it was for the Davis kids.

C'mon, that's a movie in the making right there.

Such a great tour. And you know I always say that the tour guide makes the tour. Always.

The 3pm tour last Thursday the 24th of June? Out. Standing. He was so good. You could tell the kid wanted to share much more about the lives of Jefferson and Varina Davis, and the Civil War. He was just bursting with information, and he was coaxing us to ask the right questions.

Loved it. No matter how you feel about the War between the States, this museum/tour is definitely on my Recommend list!


“If the Confederacy fails, there should be written on its tombstone: Died of a Theory.”

- Jefferson Davis

"Finest prison in the world."*

Magnet #857 - The White House

This magnet's part of my presidential set I bought at the Kennedy Library a while back. They stuck in a few symbols of the Democracy in the packet.

The White House is definitely something I need to check off my list - touring it as an adult. I remember doing it as a kid - maybe - but I know I've never done anything but peer through the gates of the whatever lawn since then.

But, I'm particularly curious, having just toured the White House of the Confederacy (yes, there's a magnet for that) this past weekend. I can't actually wait to see how the real White House differs from Jefferson Davis' residence.

Now, I just need to get that letter to my congressman started.

* “The White House is the finest prison in the world.”

- Harry S Truman

Sticky rice

Magnet #856 - Mahatma Rice

My dad eats rice with every non-breakfast meal. For serious. Rice, and a banana, with whatever entree they've made to go with it.

Which means a good 75% of our dinners growing up, we had rice as our main staple. Not unusual in a Filipino family.

But, this Mahatma magnet is not that rice. I've never actually heard of Mahatma, but apparently, it's America's favorite, according to their site. My sisters gave this magnet to me, from an Embassy day they did in DC.

I actually had to look this up, cuz I was convinced Mahatma was a country I didn't know about. Don't judge, I just had no idea.

The Mahatma site also has a section devoted to Riceipes, which makes me crazy for a couple of reasons. The very concept of rice recipes is completely foreign to me - that they exist and that they involve different ingredients and rice. On the other hand, there's a small part of me that wants to try them.

We've always had the steamed rice you normally find in Chinese restaurants. The other stuff's just foreign to us. It's beyond our ken that someone out there actually wants unsticky rice.

I mean, I've actually mocked those commercials that show the cooked rice freely tumbling into the bowl.

Silly Uncle Ben's.

By a Lady - Guest blogger, DC Sister

Magnet #855 - Winchester Cathedral

I've been deemed inhuman in some circles because of my non-fluency in the Jane Austen oeuvre.

I know. I can't help it - even after my seventh grade English teacher reco'd Jane to me, I just couldn't get into her. I skipped Jane and jumped right into Loveswepts.

But, my middle sister has a thing for Jane Austen. So I figured since she brought this back for me from Winchester, she'd be the best person to magnetblog it out.

- joy

____________________________________

Joy's off having quality BFF time, so she asked some of us to pick from a selection of magnets to blog about.

Well, of course I chose this one. I gave it to her!

I've been to Jolly Olde England about five times now, starting with a high school band trip. I wonder if my parents had some kind of 19th-century "all girls must take a grand tour of Europe" philosophy because we all went to the Continent in high school. Anyway. Back then I had only a slight interest in Jane Austen. We'd seen the 1980 Pride & Prejudice adaptation in English class, I loved the chemistry between Elizabeth and Darcy, and I muddled my way through the book (still my fave ever). So you'd think I'd have known that Jane Austen was buried at Winchester Cathedral when I was, you know, at Winchester Cathedral way back in 1995 on that high school trip.

But no. I was kind of distracted at the time (cute boys will do that to you), and so I totally missed that fact. So ever since then I've wanted to go back to Winchester.

And since those halcyon days of high school, my love for Jane Austen has grown exponentially. A few years ago I re-read all her books in order of least familiar to most familiar (if you must know: Northanger Abbey, Persuasion, Mansfield Park, Emma, Sense & Sensibility, then finally P&P).

Right afterward, I went on a Great Great Britain tour: two weeks of traveling through the country via train. LOVE. When planning the trip, I asked my friend: Do you want to see or do anything in particular? His reply: Not really.

Wheee!

Left to my own devices, I scheduled us tons o' Jane Austen stuff! We went to Chawton Cottage, where she spent several years and saw the little table where she revised P&P and Sense & Sensibility and wrote Persuasion, Mansfield Park and Emma. Imagine: this woman all hunched over this tiny table laboring over these books that, during her lifetime, were published anonymously, described as being written "By a Lady."

Today those same books are a veritable industry. Crazy!

We went to Bath, where I succeeded in suppressing my squees at seeing the Pump Room and Milsom Street and Queen's Square (all associated with her books) and the Assembly Rooms (closed for a private event -- boo!). Then we got to the gravel walk where Anne and Capt. Wentworth reunited in Persuasion -- my second fave book -- and I couldn't hold it in anymore. Squeeee! People looked at me funny.

An we went to Chatsworth, the Peak District home of the Duke/Duchess of Devonshire and the supposed inspiration for Darcy's Pemberley estate, though a few estates are said to have that same distinction. Chatsworth, y'all? Amazing. I mean, damn.

It actually was Pemberley in the 2005 P&P movie with Keira Knightley, who incidentally returned to the home again to film scenes for The Duchess [as in Devonshire]. In a nod to Austenites like me, the estate's sculpture gallery still has the bust of Matthew Macfadyen that played a part in the P&P movie. Of course I have a picture with it. So go if you can. The ride on the bus there was cool too - lots of barren peaks and moors.

Very Heeeeathcliffffff!

So with all those Austen-y adventures planned, you'd think I went to Winchester on that trip, right? Wrong. I was at Winchester a few months ago on my woman-on-her-own trip to London. Finally.

We just couldn't fit the town into the Great Great Britain Tour or on any other visit to the U.K. I've taken in the past, oh, 15 years. It took an hour to get there and I spent about 30 minutes total in the cathedral and about 45 minutes at the gift shop, buying this magnet and a book examining the social context of Austen's novels.

They have a few of her letters on display in the church and she has a memorial window, a marker inlaid in the floor plus a plaque on the wall. All in all it was very cool. Still, though, I think of all the places I visited, I still love Chawton the most, with its whole OMG-she-lived-in-this-very-house vibe.

Anyway, I was going to include links and interesting facts about Jane Austen, such as she moved to Winchester in 1817, the year she died.

But you know what? You only need to know one thing: Jane Austen kinda rules.

Tennis is crazy*

Magnet #854 - Wimbledon

My sister brought this back for me from her tour of Wimbledon a couple of months ago. How timely.

Seriously, boys. How do you play for eleven hours, five minutes. Across three days?

Never-ending tennis. They broke pretty much every record in tennis you could think of.

Though, really, all I thought of, after he got off the court was, whoa, that John Isner is hot.

And he has to play again. Today.

Sheesh.

*Live quote from said BFF of the BFF Babymoon Over the Confederacy Roadtrip

The Old Well

Magnet #853 - UNC's Old Well

The Old Well is a long-standing symbol of Carolina, once the only water supply for Old East and Old West, now two dorms. Old East is actually a national landmark, they call it the oldest state university in America (from 1795).

There are a few legends about this well, though. The first is that all in coming freshmen should drink from here, to ensure great grades. The other, is that there's a reason some folks nicknamed it the Pee Well. Ewww.

I picked this one that my sisters got me a couple of weekends ago, because in a few hours, I must get up and over to my BFF's house, so we can get this roadtrip on the road.

We'll be stopping along the way for a late breakfast in Chapel Hill with another friend and then the start of the BFF Babymoon Over the Confederacy Roadtrip to Richmond begins in earnest.

Richmond's a place that we've both driven through, but never been. I mean, all I know about Richmond, is what I know from whizzing by it on 95. The crazy streets with the tons of crazy drivers, zipping around the corner of that really pretty church. I swore I've never been, but I have a dim memory of driving around deserted streets. My dad confirms that "Oh, c'mon now, don't tell me you've never been to Richmond! We've had Chinese dinner there!"

Uh, yeah. That totally doesn't count!

I'm superexcited about our trip. The Virginia Museum of Fine Art is what I'm hanging my hat on. You'll see why, soon. Just gotta get into that gift shop!