Dream - Underground Molester

I had a really disturbing dream last night. It started with me visiting a very grand hotel. The owner of this hotel has several other hotels around the world, all just as grand as this. I met up with a young friend, and he started telling me the owner isn't who he seems to be. On the outside, he is a respected and well-liked philanthropist and businessman, but underneath this facade, he is a sadistic child molester. My friend is one of his victims. He led me through a series of hallways and stairways, and finally arrived at an underground chamber lined with two short rows of stone beds. Against one wall is an elegant chair and a small altar with incense. My friend showed me a menu of items the man will make them do, in addition to being sexually assaulted. I read through the list and some of the things weren't too bad compared to being raped. One was having bugs crawl all over you. Lying on the beds were little boys. My friend told me these are his victims. He has many others, here as well as at his other hotel locations. My heart went out to all of them. They all looked so young and innocent. How can a monster do this to them?!

I started asking how they are feeling, but the man was in the room all of a sudden. I sat there not knowing what to do. He lit several sticks of incense, one stick for each of his present victims, and when he started addressing the boys, I got up to leave. He asked me where I was going. "I'm leaving." "No, you're not." He got up with a handful of incense in flames. "You cannot leave until your incense has burned out." He has claimed me as one of his victims. I started towards the door, but he threatened me by shoving the burning incense within an inch from my eye. I felt like I didn't have any choice but to sit down.

A couple of minutes later, I told him I was thirsty, so he allowed me to leave the room to get some water. I ran up and out of the hotel and bought a bottle of water. I thought, "How stupid of him. I can just run away right now. He can't find me." But I thought of the little boys waiting for their punishment. If I didn't go back, I knew he would hurt them even more, maybe even kill them.

As I made my way back to the hotel, I knew I was walking towards my death. Going down one of the escalators, I saw two friends I haven't seen in more than a year, since my wedding, and I hugged them and told them that I love them, something I've never done. They both gave me puzzled looks. A few feet away, I saw someone I really don't care for too much, but I gave that person a hug anyway to say hello. Continuing on, thoughts were racing through my head. Should I make a scene so that if people don't see me for a while, they may start to wonder where that girl who made a scene had gone? Deciding it wouldn't make a difference, I headed back to the room. I slowly crept down the stairs leading down to the stone door, taking a deep breath with every step, afraid what I would see inside. I reached to push the door open, and I woke up.

I think all of this happened because of 1) I watched "Kick-Ass" last night, and 2) I've been thinking of a couple of my friends lately. Weird how dreams will warp and bend your thoughts into something so strange.

World Champions

I've never been a sports fan, let alone a baseball fan, but during the past couple of years, my husband has been trying to introduce to me the world of organized sports. It will probably be a very rare occasion that you find me watching baseball by myself (which I've actually done!), but I have come to "like" the sport, especially when experiencing it at AT&T Park in SF. The atmosphere is always incredible. I don't go just for the game, but for the food, the fans, and when we're lucky, the fireworks! This past year, I've learned a little about our team, the Giants, through my husband and Gary Radnich in the morning. I've come to like the players, like Aubrey Huff and Buster Posey and good ol' Tim Lincecum, something I never would have been able to say last year. As a matter of fact, if you asked me to name ten baseball players that ever played in the MLB, I probably wouldn't be able to do it back then. I knew of Barry Bonds, but who didnt'? But I can now! So as a friend of mine labeled me, I would consider myself to be a "casual fan" of baseball.

Anyway, I don't know what called for the long intro that has barely anything to do with the post, but the San Francisco Giants are the champions in the 2010 World Series! I've never been excited about a sporting event before, but now that I am armed with a little bit of knowledge, I actually am very excited! I definitely do not have the history many of the real fans have, but just hearing their stories, seeing their reactions, reading about their history, and feeling their emotions, brings out the little hidden fan in me too. It's contagious!! My favorite scene was seeing all the players overwhelmed with joy, jumping on each other and embracing with so much emotion. Brings a tear to my eye... and to many others too, I'm sure. It is such a wonderful thing to see something like this bring so many people together.

Well, just wanted to say congratulations to the San Francisco Giants, the underdogs, the misfits! They've been waiting a long time for this moment, and boy, they certainly deserve it. Their performance throughout the post season games has been spectacular, and none of this would be possible without Bruce Bochy. I do feel bad for the Rangers and Pat Burrell though... :(

Go Giants!!!

Photo: AP Photo (http://www.mlive.com/sports/index.ssf/2010/11/san_francisco_giants_win_first.html)

P.S. Now, I just hope tickets to next year's games won't be too expensive...

Dream - It's the Experience

Two nights ago, I had a dream that my younger sister won first prize on a raffle. I heard the announcer rewarding the second place winner with a techy gadget and $500,000. I thought, "Wow!! $500,000?! If second place gets that much, I wonder how much first place gets!! Wow!!" Guess what first place received? The grand winner gets to dress up as Bell Biv Devoe (a 90's R&B trio) and perform on stage. Second place gets $500,000 and first place gets to dress up in funny clothes and jump around on stage. Wow. You've got to be kidding me.

My sister and her very wacky friend Lynda were ready to go (in my dream they looked ten years old... so cute), but they needed a third member. You can't just have Bell and Biv and no Devoe. So I reluctantly agreed to do it. I was in the shower getting ready, but thinking, "This isn't a PRIZE!! It's TORTURE!!!!" I don't want to dance on stage!!! Second place is so much better!

Here, my dream ended, but without understanding the moral of the story. It's not the things that you can buy that are important, it's the EXPERIENCES you gather through life.

Screw experience! I'd rather half a mil!

Rebecca

My older sister highly recommended Rebecca to me a long time ago, but I finally got around to it a couple of weeks ago. When I received my copy from the mail, I was a little disappointed and a bit hesitant to read this because of the book cover. It looked really cheesy like a Danielle Steele book... I know you're not supposed to judge a book by its cover, but people do! That's why there are book cover artists! Since this was agreed upon as our next book in our book club (comprised of two, sometimes three, people), I started Rebecca without expecting too much.

This book is told through the voice of a nameless young woman who falls in love with a very wealthy, older man. The majority of the book is spent on his estate, Manderley, made popular by his late wife Rebecca. Even though Rebecca has been dead for nearly a year, it seems as though she is still alive, her presence felt throughout the mansion, even at the edge of their property by the gray, hungry sea. Reminders of her exist almost everywhere. The heroine seems to be drowning in Rebecca's past.

I finished this book several days ago, and I find myself still thinking about that time, that world. Like F. Scott Fitzgerald, Daphne du Maurier is a very talented writer. Her words transport you to that time period, that estate, that room, experiencing the very feelings the narrator is feeling. It started off a little slow, but things pick up. There are twists and turns that blew my socks off! Thinking about it gives me butterflies. :) It starts off being a little naive and youthful, but quickly becomes haunting, beautiful, and sometimes sinister. I really enjoyed this book, and I'm recommending it to everyone.

The Great Gatsby

I remember reading this book sometime in high school and recall thinking it was "not bad". And this being my husband's favorite book of all time, I decided to reread this great American classic a few days ago. I don't recall the story being so tragic, leaving an uneasy feeling in my stomach. Being the sucker for romance, I would prefer it to have a happy ending, but I'm sure it wouldn't be as popular if it had. Fitzgerald's way with words is truly amazing. The way he chooses to describe something may be nothing like what I would have thought. Through his eloquence, I saw ordinary things at a different perspective. There were countless times while reading where I stopped to imagine his words. I found myself thinking "wow... that's nicely written." I have to admit that in some cases, he's so eloquent, that I found some parts difficult to understand. Other than that, I thought it was a great book. I can't say that it's my favorite, but it's definitely good.

I Know this Much is True

I bought this book at an airport several years ago. This was chosen because it had Oprah's seal of approval and was a #1 New York Times Bestseller. I've never read any books from Oprah's Book Club, but just assumed it was supposed to be good... Forward to three years later, and I'm finally done with the book.

If it took me three years to finish it, it's obvious I wasn't too fond of it. I actually had to start all over again which was a pain because the whole book was rather depressing. It's about a pair of twin brothers Dominick and Thomas. The first is "normal" while the other suffers from schizophrenia. One day, Thomas hacks off his arm in a library because of the voices in his head and is immediately placed into an institution. A portion of the book takes you through the obstacles Dominick, the "healthy" twin, goes through to try to help his brother, while a large hunk of the book talks about their past growing up with an abusive step father and a mother who's afraid of her own shadow. The story of his grandfather is also told through an autobiography his grandfather left behind before he passed away. That was the most interesting part...

I find this book to be quite depressing, dark and moody. There is not one happy person in it. Happy moments can be counted one hand, and those are always crushed by something horrible that happens afterwards. Almost everyone has major mental or emotional issues. This was just not my kind of book. I like to escape to different times and places to experience adventure, romance, good humor... This book didn't deliver any of these. If you like books that are dark and depressing, this one's for you!

Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff

This is the story of Jesus' childhood told through the voice of his childhood best friend Biff. I am fairly ignorant of the stories told within the bible, but apparently, all of the stories that have been written only includes Jesus' birth, skips his childhood and early adulthood, and continues when he is in his 30's. I think. This book fills in this huge gap. Since no one knows what really happened in these three decades, the author Christopher Moore, fills us in and writes of Jesus and Biff's adventures during this time with a really big dose of humor. I laughed out loud several times, so it was definitely an enjoyable read. I think it was a little risky to write a book like this because chances of offending people may be pretty high, so having a good sense of humor is a must. But Gregory Maguire, author of Wicked and Son of a Witch did say "Lamb is hysterical, sexy, and really deeply moving: Moore performs a sleight-of-hand, a balancing act, of fiendish exactitude - not an ounce of bathos too much, not a shred of potential heresey for anyone who takes the story too seriously, not a joke-op missed." And not only was this book funny, it also brought you through adventures of ancient lands. A bit of history, a bit of humor... Sounds good to me!