scary cat dream

had some freaky dreams last night. first one involved angst getting loose into the backyard, bolting, and hopping the fence. he’s a tough old cat but, sadly, doesn’t have front claws, and he’s really skittish, so i freaked out and thought we’d never see him again. i ran inside, told doc, who didn’t seem too concerned about it (this was DEFINITELY a dream), and dug around for the key to the back gate. i ran outside, opened the gate, and realized it was dark and i’d never be able to find him without a flashlight. i went back in and got the big LED flashlight, but it wasn’t shining very far and i couldn’t see much with it. so i made doc get the other flashlight and come outside with me, and we started searching through the underbrush by the creek, calling his name and shining the lights around. i knew that it was hopeless, that he was gone or hiding and wouldn’t come out. i went back inside after a while, and there he was sitting in the upstairs window with the other cats, watching us search for him. when i woke up the first thing i did was go find angst and make sure he was OK. of course he was just fine, sleeping on the sofa in my studio.

in the next one, i was walking with a couple of people for very important reasons that i cannot remember. we were traipsing through a forest and came out onto a 2-lane road. on the other side was an incredibly steep dropoff — probably 80 degrees or so. it was covered in low to medium brush and snow, and looked completely insane, but the people i was with just went merrily tramping down this hill. i think they were dwarves, and they had blue name labels floating above their heads. apparently i’ve been playing too much world of warcraft. anyway, i didn’t want to try to get down that hill so i thought i’d wait at the top for them to come back after they were done doing whatever it was they had to do. i sat down on the side of the road, but then realized that this was washington state and in this state they simply didn’t have “sides of the road” — there was only about 3 inches from the white stripe marking the edge of the lane, to where the dropoff began. i sat down but realized that i was actually in the road, and there was traffic coming. i tried to scoot as far as i could to the edge but there was no way i could fit on a 3″ ledge. i think at this point i went ahead and went down the hill.

i’m not sure about the plot points of the rest of this dream, but we were staying in various houses on our journey, and it was kind of like people were letting us stay in their houses while they were gone, but it was just for a quick sleep for one night and we weren’t supposed to disturb anything, and then we needed to leave in the morning. one house had a bed in another room that had two old-style wooden school desks attached to it, one where a nightstand would go and the other on that same side but at the foot of the bed. there were two more school desks in the middle of the room. i think it was at this house that i stole a diet pepsi from their fridge. then at the end of this trip or whatever it was, we were looking at some photos that we’d gotten developed from the trip, and kim was in one of them holding a giant fish, and i said “you know, this trip was really going badly until kim caught that huge fish. then things started to turn around!” and then i woke up.