16 November 2024
I don’t know if it was the drive or the booze at dinner last night but I was exhausted and turned in at 8:30 am. That meant that I was awake at 4:30 am. In between time I had three vivid dreams. I blame the petit filet since I so seldom eat meat these days.
The first dream had me awaking at 4 am after hearing voices in the parking lot below. Realize, I’m on the tenth floor and hearing voices in the parking lot below is unlikely but not impossible. I spent one night on the 19th floor of a San Francisco hotel and heard every conversation from below because the buildings close by echoed the sound upwards.
That was not the case here. Anyway, I opened the curtain to take a look and saw about 50-60 people in folding chairs staring out farther into the parking lot. They were mostly wrapped in blankets so I assumed it was a little chilly. After listening a while, I finally managed to understand they were at a casting call for an audition to some tv or movie. Why 4 am, I have no idea, but hey, it’s my dream.
I eventually tried to take a photograph (for the blog, course) but couldn’t get rid of the glare from the window. I finally went back to bed. This was so vivid a dream that when I did wake at 1 am, I did a double take on the alarm clock.
The second dream was explaining to friends where I had eaten last night. Apparently we were in my grandmother’s home in Morton and I could not remember the name of the restaurant. I tried Googling it and could not find it using any search terms. I then had the bright idea of checking my blog. I didn’t mention the name in my blog. I never came up with the name. One reason may have been I was Googling “Sheraton” when I was staying at a Doubletree Hilton.
In between dreams, I realized it was Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse. Note bene! I forgot the possessive on the name of the restaurant in yesterday’s blog – maybe that’s why I dreamed about it.
The last dream was a recurring one albeit always slightly different. I was working at Broward College and apparently, due to the way personnel had the records, I was retired with the exception of having to teach two classes. After those two classes, I was free to go home. There are several parking lots on South Campus and faculty have designated spaces on two of those. If you have late classes, you may not get a parking space because students and nature fill a void. If so, you may have to walk farther than you usually do to your office or class.
In any case, I was through with classes and needed to get to the Jeep to get home but I couldn’t remember where I parked – more and more common these days. On my key fob, I have a button to remotely start the Jeep which is proceeded by two honks of the horn and a flash of the lights. That’s how I find my vehicle when I can’t immediately locate it. The problem was I walked the campus and all the parking lots and the Jeep didn’t respond. On top of that, a storm was coming that predicted six inches of rain in one hour. Fortunately, after several travels around the campus, I waked and didn’t loose the Jeep. Hopefully the rain is not a premonition. I’ve already had two floods at the house.
I packed up everything and after a breakfast they charged me that was supposed to be free and for two valet parkings, I headed out on I-95 again until I got off on I-20. I was 7 minutes from my next hotel and 3.6 miles away when we came to a dead stop. There was a left lane closure ahead and like South Florida drivers, the left lane drivers all tried to get to the head of the line and then cut in. This was causing a significant backup in both lanes.
To the credit of a semi driver, he moved into the left lane and blocked anyone else from trying to cut in. I loved it. Kudos to the driver!
I checked into the hotel and they gave me room 238. I had reserved a room on the fourth floor to keep the elephant noises down but I didn’t want to make a stink. However, when I got to the second floor, there was no 238. The rooms stopped at 235. Back down I went.
After much discussion between two employees, they upgraded me to a king bed on the fourth floor. That made me happy.
Today’s drive was almost less than yesterday’s but with the traffic jam on I-20, it ended up being around 5 hours again. Tomorrow is supposed to be a 3 hour drive but never believe what the GPS says.
Stay tuned!