Strange Things are Happening to Me

Night is a funny time.

The activities of the day should be sufficient to make me tired enough to sleep restfully.

Sometimes that is just an impossibility. For whatever reason, my mind views the night as an opportunity to hit the road and try out every possible and impossible scenario as if it were real.

Trust me when I say, in my sleep, I have done it all.

Last night was a prime example. I was at astronaut camp. Yep. Me. They wanted me to come join the astronauts because of my vaunted skill set developed over years as a wife, mother and homemaker. My educational credentials, limited as they are, even impressed them. Apparently, NASA has really low standards in my dreams...

I was living in an odd time bubble where I was experiencing life both an adult as I am now and as a teenager in high school. One of my friends from that time period of teenage angst and school was ALSO at the training facility. Mary was part of the mission crew. I had no doubt in my mind why she was there. She is BRILLIANT. She has cool mad skills. She knows about computers and coding and how to make things successfully complete the designed mission. She also plays the flute, which somehow wove its way into the whole mission. It was a strange moment where the flute somehow was part of the science experiments on board.

I began to wonder if I was just there to whip up a batch of space brownies.

The scenario unfolded in dramatic fashion...

Prancing around NASA's vast campus in my blue jumpsuit, I was learning a lot about how the whole of NASA made space flight a reality. I was attending classes and lectures, I was driving the moon buggy and I was learning what the astronauts would experience when THEY blasted off. It was exciting. I was eager to be part of the team, but couldn't see how making Dutch oven dinner would be useful in space. The day arrived where we were given our assignments. I was fully expecting to be part of the ground crew prepping the actual astronauts who were to carry our mission and message to the stars. I could see myself in a NASA barbecue apron toiling over some hot coals for the pre-flight dinner they would be enjoying.

Then... my name was called as part of the team. HOLY MOSES! Are you kidding me? A "mission specialist". My brilliant and wonderful friends in the group sure looked like the NASA worthy professionals that would be able to pull it off. They all smiled and assured me I was going to do a great job.

I was terrified and wondered how I was going to manage it with my family left at home. For heaven's sake, Jared can't even drive and would be at home alone all day. For whatever reason, my mind cooked up a scenario in which Rick would be traveling for his company and Jared would be left in the capable hands... uh, make that PAWS, of Gypsy who would watch over him and report each day's progress via satellite linkage.

As if that wasn't weird enough to make you say "Do what???", the nagging thought of my own weaknesses physically thrust themselves into the conversation. Sometimes, I get motion sickness, so how was I going to manage a space flight? I don't think NASA has little foil lined barf bags aboard their rockets..."THAT DOESN'T MATTER!!" the booming voice of our faceless trainer intoned. I'm glad HE thinks so! Our adventure began.

We trained, we ran, we did exercises to ready our minds and bodies for the tasks that would be part of our crew's jobs. We were launching on a modern, updated version of the Saturn V.  A great whacking rocket painted in the brilliant white and starkly contrasting black that we've come to expect from our space program. I've always thought that being launched into space would be kinda cool... I can get over my motion sickness and enjoy the ride in due time.

Partway through the events of our post launch mission, we were eating these little floating bags of Cheerios. I love Cheerios, so that part of the dream didn't seem all that odd, except for the fact that the little bags would just appear when I needed a snack. It actually kinda made me happy. I don't want to eat weird stuff in space. That might add to my motion sickness in ways we shall not discuss here.

What happened next still strikes me as scary-strange even though I know it was a dream. We were immersed in our various mission responsibilities when we heard a loud metallic bang. It was not good news. A rent in the spacecraft was threatening our mission. Warning klaxons sounded out their dire distress tones. Our ship and our lives were in danger.

Everyone looked at me. With my Cheerios in hand, I wondered what they were looking at. "You need to fix this for us and take care of us!", they chirped.

Do what???

Have you all lost whatever remains of your everlovin' pea pickin' minds???? Do I LOOK like I can fix this???

You have engineers, physicists, scientists, computer geniuses and all manner of experienced NASA ready people who can most certainly do a better job than I can muster to repair this ship... yet you have all turned into some kind of helpless and floundering goombahs who are unable to ascertain the problem, let alone how to fix it??

Holy Moses! In my dream I was praying: "Lord, please help us all... for they are depending upon me who must certainly be the "least of these" on this ride!"

Acting robotically and reaching into my Mary Poppins carpet bag (I told you this was weird), I pulled out a London Fog Umbrella. Woo hoo! It was just like the one I had destroyed for Daddy when I was an adventurous kid trying to fly... and yeah, I'm seeing the irony in this moment.

Pushing it through the hole in our spacecraft, I popped the button to deploy the umbrella then, in an instant, was performing EVA work to seal in the atmosphere of the ship with some camouflage duct tape which I secured around the rim of the umbrella. The camo tape part is totally Brad Paisley's fault since I was listening to him before bed.

The hilarious thing was, the slapdash repair even lasted for our reentry. NASA's heat tiles and their failure doom ships, yet a London Fog umbrella guaranteed our safe reentry. Go figure. At last I can redeem myself for flying with Daddy's umbrella!

Dream meanings are escaping me on this one since it is such a mismatch of some very real life circumstances blended with fantasy of the most epic nature.

Is it, as Momma used to say, a 'liver and onions dream' that is just weird? Or is there something revealing about my personality that will certainly prove to be either dangerous or just plain psychotic?

What does it mean? Does it mean anything? I don't know. I may never know.

But now you know why I wake myself and others up by talking in the middle of the night in gibberish and gobbledygook about Cheerios, NASA and dog babysitters.