Disturbing Dreams - On So Many Levels

Yesterday, I spent the better part of a day going through 3.5 inch floppy disks using my highly unreliable old HP laptop. The only reason I have hung onto it is that it has a 3.5 inch floppy drive. Even after DH got his new desktop (4 years ago) and purchased a USB floppy drive, I kept the old laptop. Just in case.

When I attempted to use his USB drive - it did not work. So I dragged out the old HP laptop from the laptop graveyard and proceeded to erase 200 floppy disks. Glad I went through them as I found tons of scans I had not transferred to the current or even the previous laptop. When I was down to the last 25 the computer flashed a blue screen and then the following message:

Operating system not found

Groan. So I turned off the old HP and went to bed.

Cut to dreams. There were two that I remember. The first one, I was part of the Bush transition team. Seems the former governor of Florida and brother of the Prez, was answering all the White House email and getting a little too snarky for Laura's taste. Yes, on a first name basis with the First Lady. After working late one night, I had a couple I wanted advisement on and called the FL and she said to come up to their private quarters. Who can resist? So private quarters included a huge master bedroom with a private bar and bartender. The Prez was drinking some frozen Hard Mike's Lemonade and getting swiftly snockered. The FL and I were going over the two emails I had questions about and GW is telling us how drunk he was. Here he was in a room with 3 women (bartender was female also) and he said he didn't know what to do about it. Several years ago, I compared the two Bush Prez and said I thought they were both premature ejaculators. Trying hard in my dream not to express this to the Prez and FL. Finally, after demurring on a Christmas trip to Texas, I left.

Cut to second dream. I am visiting friends at the hospital I worked at for almost 9 years, most of them prior to my marriage. I wanted to see Jo, one of the pathology lab techs, whose husband was the department head that kept all the hospital machinery going. I was hoping to get a fix for the old HP laptop. She told me to let it rest overnight and try turning it on in the morning. I did what she said - in my dream that is - and it worked! Go figure.

So this morning, when I woke up, I tried turning on the old HP laptop. It worked. Go figure!

Anyone Else Find it Disturbing?

Maybe it's because I am a baby boomer - not one of those 1960's boomers but an early 1950's boomer - that I am disturbed that the director and lead actor of "Valkyrie" had no idea they were portraying a real event in the movie released on Christmas day. Not only that, but a critic was not happy with the ending.

What are our students being taught about World War II, anyway? I know there are people out there who believe the holocaust never happened. What do they think happened - that aliens zapped them off the face of the earth.

Growing up in post world war America and during the height of the cold war, we knew who are enemy was. We knew who Hitler was and what he did. Apparently, children born after 1965 have not got a clue that Hitler's own supporters tried to assassinate him.

A New Christmas Tradition

DH is very good about helping me clean floors. He is a handy guy with a vacuum and has no problem moving furniture around to vacuum under it.

However, this year he started a new tradition. He tried to suck up the draping I had around the stereo - to hide all the cords and stuff underneath.

So this new tradition got me thinking about Christmases past. I remember how the girls used to play with Colorforms. And they discovered that they stuck to the doorwall, so our doorwall was always covered in these little shapes, people and other stuff. Cleaning that stuff out of the doorwall tracks was not fun though!

Older daughter's first Christmas - her paternal grandfather, who is known to his granddaughters and their cousins as Big Kid - spent a hundred dollars on mechanical toys for an eight-month-old child who was terrified of this stuff. Especially the Indian Monkey who beat a drum. Interesting that Older daughter really likes all kinds of monkeys now. Her second Christmas was spent with us yelling at the dog to leave the Christmas tree alone until we discovered it was OD pulling off all the decorations.

Younger daughter's first Christmas Santa brought her a little doll with a rattle in it called Jingle Baby. She slept with that until she received her little brown bear for a birthday gift from OD. YD gifted OD with a white bear who was promptly named Teddy. YD and OD still have these well-loved stuffed animals.

This year, I tried to start a new tradition of going out for dinner on Christmas Eve. After all, I am the only who cooks the big family dinner, I deserve a night off. Good idea in theory, but most places closed really early and we got kicked out of Steak n Shake at 6:15. Maybe next year we'll get pizza!

Christmas Traditions

I was going to write about Christmas Traditions, but Middle-Aged Woman over at Unmitigated did that job for me. So I am going to write about something else, that has been bothering me - feet.

Not mine - mine are mostly okay, even in their just like dad's dryness. I go through tons of lotion and my Ped egg and I are almost inseparable. What is bothering me is this Homedics commercial where they show the foot massager and I have to wonder - is the model related to DH and Younger Daughter? She has their feet. If you look closely, toes 1-4 are all almost the same length and then little baby toe is about 1/3 the length of the other toes. I thought this was a family trait and now I am wondering if this points to an ethnic group. Is it really possible for someone else to have those extremely long toes?

The Gremlins Behind the Door!

Yes, yes, I know DH let the monsters out of the closet, but it looks like we also have gremlins behind the doors. You know, those beings that push an open door partly closed so that if you aren't watching where you are going - *SMACK* - face first into the door. This is particularly worrisome for me when I need to get up in the middle of the night. If I turn on a light, it is guaranteed I won't go back to sleep. Instead, I walk arms extended, waving, like a spastic blind-person, hoping to thwart the gremlins.