Life in Pillvillle, Dreams of the Dead, and Cat in the Hat

DREAM: I was young--17 or 18 years old-- and I'd been sentenced to death by the Grand Dictator of our failed nation. My father was with me in the dictator's court as the sentence was handed down. My father in the dream was my real-life father looking pretty much like this, but wearing a white shirt and tie with a beautiful teal cashmere pullover instead of the dark suit.

In real life, I never knew my father when he looked like this (and neither did my mother) since he was 55 when I was born. Anyway, in the dream, my father and I accepted that I was doomed. The dictator granted me one last day to spend with my family, and my father and I decided that we would not divulge my sentence to them since it would only spoil our last hours together. The Grand Dictator agreed that my father could accompany me to my execution and I took comfort in that. We knew that I could not escape. The secret police were watching the house. It would be bombed if I did not return to meet my fate, and if we all tried to escape, we all would be hunted down and killed. I woke up before the execution--so that was nice, I guess. I don't know what my crime was, but I was young and rebellious and the country was in shambles.

I think my father might have visited me in my dream because I yelled at my mother last night. Yep. Outright yelled. After she tried to clear the table looking like something like this.

Cat in the Hat with stuff

So my mom dropped the container of salsa which went everywhere--all over her, her I've-fallen-and can't-get-up button, the cabinets, the floor--which is not so terrible, but then she bent down to clean it up when I told her I'd get it, that she shouldn't be bending down to clean it up and of course she almost tipped over. So I yelled. Because just before dinner, maybe 30 minutes earlier, she was wiping the kitchen floor with a paper towel, (some drips of water that I'd probably splashed while washing the carrots) and I said, "Um, how about using the mop," (which is handy just a few feet from the fridge) "because, um, remember you're not really supposed to be bending over like that because you could fall again." And mind you, there were martinis involved here. And just a couple of hours before that, when we were returning from our trip to Miracle Ear, and she was Cat-in-the-Hatting it out of the car with her purse on her arm, and her cane in her hand, and kleenex too, and my empty water bottle and a shoe, and two empty ice cream dishes, and two silver fishes, and two plastic spoons and a piece of the moon, etc., (okay, the shoe, the fishes and moon are an exaggeration) I said, "Mom, please just get your stuff and let me get the rest, that way you have a free hand in case you need it." 

She doesn't remember shit. Or she has absolutely no impulse control. Or both. 

And I shouldn't yell. So I have no impulse control. Well, shit.

And just yesterday I half-jokingly told a friend who is a retired attorney that she would be my first phone call when the police come to ask about all the bruises on my dear old dead mother. I mean, this could seriously happen. I still get a chill when I remember the moment in the pediatrician's office when I was asked to step into the hallway so the doctor could question my daughter about her two black eyes and her pear-sized nose. 

And did I mention that I've had an irrational life-long fear of ending up in prison?

Well, anyhow. Thanks, Dad, for the warning. I'll try to keep mom from serious bodily harm as best I can. And I'll try to keep myself from being executed or ending up in prison. And I'll try not to yell.