Praise then darkness, and creation unfinished

We were discussing where to go for dinner at a convention, I think the Farthing Party. Nothing noteworthy, except that "we" included Mike Ford; I think I had exactly one at-con meal with Mike, which was him, elisem, me, and L WINOLJ, and we ate in the hotel coffee shop. Elise wasn't in this dream, but I'm not sure who was (maybe if I'd posted when I woke up, not over a day later). I don't recall Mike turning up in my dreams before, but I rarely remember my dreams.

A few of us were visiting papersky. The phone rang, and she asked me to answer it. It was nancylebov, who asked for someone who wasn't there, because she had a question about lactose intolerance. I said "she's not here, would you like to talk to jonsinger?" Nancy said yes, and Papersky delightedly asked "Singer is here?!"

From Saturday morning (when I woke well before adrian_turtle). As best as I can remember this, Adrian was staying with me and cattitude, and I had just been rehired at the place where I'd had the Commute From Hell. I'd accepted the position because they had moved to somewhere within the city, and the commute wouldn't be hellish.

I had just realized that I had to go to work, that this was leaving Adrian at loose ends, but fortunately cattitude had the day off. I wasn't worried about them finding ways to amuse themselves either separately or together, but about having said I'd be available and having to change that on almost no notice. It also turned out, with various Standard redbird Train Dream Bits, that the new place of work was out in Flushing, hence almost as time-consuming to get to as Port Washington had been, except doable by IRT which runs every three minutes, instead of once-an-hour railroad and then van.

I don't think this means much of anything, though it's reassuring that my subconscious knows that "leaving my partners alone together all day" is not any kind of crisis. And that I really don't want to work for PCH again, or maybe that I don't want a really long commute again. No surprise in either case.

Last night, I dreamed that Artemis had hunted and caught a starling (I think a youngish one). After she'd caught it, she was holding it down by one foot--in dream fashion, the foot was webbed, so this worked. During this time, the starling reacted by washing itself, cat-style, and I wished for a camera, because the total effect of Artemis looking calmly at the washing bird was very cute. Then it tried to get away, and she killed it by lying on it and suffocating it. (We're talking about an 8 or 9 pound [3.5 or 4 kilos] cat, who regularly stretches out on my chest at night.)

She remains a mighty hunter, and we praised her when I woke up and told cattitude this, and made a point of giving her plenty of lamb this evening to help keep her strength up, in case she has to hunt another starling.

(There was also a less-pleasant bit of dream, in which I took two checks [not large, I think total around $100] to the bank, intending to deposit part of the money and get part in cash, and the teller told me I couldn't, because I only had $6.73 in my account, and thus could only take out some random amount less than that. I was worried, in part because while my dream-self knew I didn't have a lot in the bank, it wasn't that little; I told the teller just to deposit the entire amount, then.)

I was in a place where they were working on letting lions live in the same spaces as people. The technique involved giving the people some kind of throwable objects that, when they hit the ground in front of a lion, would pop! loudly and cause the lion to go away.

A lioness approached us, and the object-thrower got ready to fling one. I told the third person "He has a good throwing arm" (I knew, but our other companion didn't, that the thrower was a baseball player). The first popping thing landed in front of the lioness and went pop!, most properly. The lioness hesitated, then kept walking toward us.

My companion flung the rest of the objects, all of which failed to pop on landing. We humans headed, calmly (or pretending to be calm) in different directions. The lioness approached me. I held still. She sort of leaned against my flank for a few moments. I then hurried into an area where some animals were grazing (maybe zebras), and then climbed a tree because it seemed safer, though I worried a little about how I'd get down again.

While I was clinging to the tree, something stung my left hand, hard, then flew off. cattitude appeared at about this point, at the base of the tree, and urged me to stay up there. I did, for a little while, then came down and showed him my stung hand. There was a single mark, looking like a small puncture, and it hurt a little.

[This is as much as I remember: I'd forgotten it this morning until we were walking to the subway together.]