Thursday, April 07, 2005

Woke up very pleasantly this morning -- make that, about five minutes ago. The alarm went off once, and rather than hitting snooze, I simply reset it. A dangerous thing to do on a work day. On this particular day, I slipped back into my dreamworld effortlessly. Ensconsed in my dream once again, I bobbed and dove in a warm coastal sea. I met a man and a woman who were currently working for a director I once worked for. We exchanged pleasant stories as we swam, the sea moving us in toward the shore. We were very close to the beach at this point. My friends said goodbye and continued swimming. I decided to drift into the beach by allowing my body to go limp. The waves picked me up and shifted me around so that my head faced the beach, and with one large wave, my body gently came to rest on the sand.

Here's the uncanny bit. When I opened my eyes, I expected to see the shore, but I was actually lying in bed. My body was in the same position as my dream body, one lying on the shoreline of an anonymous coast, and one lying in bed in Los Angeles.

I wasn't disappointed by this. In fact, it was one of the nicest awakenings I've ever had. Peaceful, really. I wish that every morning, my body would be deposited upon the shores of consciousness by my dreaming mind.

Friday, April 01, 2005

Applesauce! Applesauce everywhere! How could this happen?

This is what I came home to last night. Applesauce in every conceivable place in the kitchen: dollops on the floors, sticky evaporated puddles on the countertops, dripping down the side of the fridge . . . on the ceiling!! This sounds insane. The mind reels. Where did all of this applesauce come from? My wife was no where in sight and I doubt she would be firing off M80s in jars of applesauce for fun. It's just not her way, you know?

So I cleaned and I mused, "I hope she has an explanation for this or else some very bizarre theives visited our house." I imagined masked toddlers, with cartoon sized kegs of TNT, pulling off the biggest applesauce heist of the year and something going horribly awry.

"Mugsy," one would say, "I told you we didn't need that much dynamite for a glass jar. Now look at what you've done!" Mugsy would sit in stony silence, convinced that his plan was best if it weren't for his partner's need to put his filthy mitts into his business. Curses!

My wife returned home from her Cardio-Jazz class at the Y as I was cooking turkey burgers on the George Foreman grill.

"What's with the applesauce?" I asked, one eyebrow raised in Perry Mason fashion.

She started laughing. "Ok, you're not going to believe this . . ."

"Probably not," I said.

She continued, "I was trying to open a new jar of applesauce before I left for class. I hadn't eaten all day, and I needed some quick energy." She took up her position next to the fridge, hands up in the air as if listening to a canteloupe. "The jar was really tough to open, you know? And you know how sometimes the pressure built up inside the jar squirts applesauce when you first open it?"

"Yeah, squirts, but that doesn't explain the explosion." I returned.

She kept going. "As I was twisting the jar," she grimaced, "I used so much force, I twisted it right out of my hand. This sent the jar in a spinning, spiraling arc across the kitchen, into the fridge, and then onto the floor where it rolled to the sink."

I laughed. "I can't believe it."

"I cleaned it up the best I could before I left," she said.

I stood, incredulous. "You cleaned some of it already?"

She began to describe the other places the sauce ended up. On the stove, the runner boards, the glass display cabinetry, the breakfast table.

Like I said, the mind reels.

If an NFL placekicker had booted the jar through the house, I don't think it would have caused as much of a mess as what happened yesterday. We are still finding traces in the most unexpected places. And yes, it did end up on the ceiling as well. The surprising thing is that the jar didn't break in all of the mayhem.

Remind me to purchase containers with EZ remove caps.