Pages

January 10, 2010

A Crazy blogger's dream involving a giant stuffed rhinoceros and an Orinda soccer mom



Any dream interpreters out there, you're welcome to offer input on this one, the dream I had just before waking up this morning.

I'm driving east on Highway 24, just coming out of the Caldecott Tunnel. Maybe someone is in my car with me, maybe someone isn't. And if there is someone, I can't identify who it is. 

I look to my right, as we're approaching the exit for downtown Orinda and see a truck with a very long and wide flatbed trailer. Tied with ropes to the top of the trailer is a huge, whale-sized carcass of a real rhinoceros. The dead animal is lying on its side, stiff.  I can see its distinctive tough, rough, itchy looking hide.

"Wow," I say to my mystery driving companion, "I need to get a picture of this for my blog! Wow," I say to my companion, I've never seen a rhinoceros in real life, even in a zoo!"

(Never mind that this one is dead!)

So, I pull behind the truck so I can follow it. Somehow I know the destination: a piece of property at the top of a hill in Orinda. It's maybe a well-known nature museum/preserve, or it's some rich person's private estate where they would display huge stuffed animals, such as this, and invite the public in to view them.

And maybe the woman who runs/owns this property is a 40ish blond with short hair, and I recently saw her photo in a local magazine. In the photo, she is standing in front of her sprawling Cape Cod-style home on top of the hill. In the background you can see more oak-covered hills and Mount Diablo. The story talks about her activism in schools and in the community and for her kids' soccer league.

The dream skips to me, in my car, having driven up a windy Orinda road. I've temporarily lost site of the big truck with the dead stuffed rhino. I've also, mysteriously, lost my companion. I'm parked in a crowded lot used for, perhaps, a community park or center.

But I'm parked there, looking out for the truck and the rhino.

I see it! Behind oaks, climbing up an even narrower road. I put my car into reverse and slam my foot on the accelerator to back up ...

Smack into the side of a silver-green Lexus SUV. And who is in the Lexus but the blond with the Cape Cod-style estate? There she is. And although she's wearing sunglasses, I can tell she's wearing a shocked, disconcerted look. Damn!

First, I don't need to deal with a stupid collision right now. I'm in a hurry. I need to catch up with the truck and get my photo. Also, as it happens, a year or so ago, I reversed in a parking lot into the back of another car, that was pulling out at exactly the same time. I put a dent into the other car's bumper, and had to deal with insurance and all that.

Second, I don't want to annoy the person whose property I need to gain access to in order to take my wacky, crazy rhinoceros photo.

But then, I think, this is a dream! I can go back in time! That's exactly what I do. I go back a few seconds,  and I reverse perfectly, narrowly avoiding the blond's silver green Lexus SUV as she drives it out of the lot and onto that road, to follow the big truck hauling the sad, dead rhinoceros.

Okay, as with all dreams, this one sort of fizzles out.  I make it to the top of the hill, to the blond's property.  I'm there in time for the workman to start moving the rhinoceros carcass off the flatbed.  But the rhinoceros is so huge! And with the camera I have, lens-wise or otherwise, I can't get back far enough from the rhinoceros and the truck to capture the whole scope of this crazy image. I try. I try. I snap a few shots, but all I get are some images of the sides of its belly, a leg.

One perhaps key thing in this dream? I never see the rhinoceros' head, including the distinctive rhinoceros horn. What could that mean, in dream world? What could any of this mean?

10 comments:

Jojo Potato said...

I'm sure the road into the hills and the house and woman are all from your recent column about that poor woman burned to death in her car on that remote road and the tie in to the previous murder. Was her car a Lexus? As for the rhino that's the story you didn't get even though it was so big and obvious that you couldn't miss it. Ten cents, please.

Anonymous said...

Have you been smoking the pot stash at WCI?

Anonymous said...

so, after all that, you only really want to know what is symbolic about only seeing the ass of a rhino?

sometimes I think you really have no time for anything but the stuff that goes on in your own head, AKA SM - i've wondered if your kid wonders this too...

Anonymous said...

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/10/magazine/10psyche-t.html?pagewanted=1

here's something that may apply

Anonymous said...

Folks are being hard on you, SM. While I'm not wild about self-focused, self-indulgent bloggers, and they're a dime a dozen, I think your dream blog is fitting. To me it simply seems to be about you fearing what you miss or can't get to; as a reporter or perhaps as a curious human being.

DumbAsBricks said...

I love dream interpretations and think I just may start a blog about them. Anyway... this one is easy.

You are in the pursuit of the Rhino. The Rhino represents that which you do not know. Seemingly lame and uninteresting, you will go all out to make it interesting. The passenger is your child, who you fear may not be able to have the time to learn enough from you.

The blonde is The City of Walnut Creek, that which you both despise and envy at once. The promise of a home at the top of a hill is in sight, but at times unobtainable. You are inconvenienced by taxes, parking fees, and blonde bitches driving around in their SUVs. They will keep getting in your way of being a great parent and you will do everything possible to force the situation, even if it means going back in time.

All you need is a Delorean going 88 mph.

Martha Ross said...

Dear Readers,
Thanks for your input, and no, I haven't been smoking any WCI weed. As I've said that's not my drug of choice.
And, was this post self-indulgent? Absolutely. Should I be spending time on more worthy pursuits. Absolutely.
3:18: Thanks for the link. I'll check it out!
DumbAsBricks: I cannot respond at the moment because I am laughing too hard, but I think you are onto something. Or many things.

Martha Ross said...

DumbAsBricks,
I just read your comment to my husband, who also started laughing, and said, "that is very funny," and he knows you pretty well...

DumbAsBricks said...

I am sorry I can't tell you more, but all of my creativity has left me for the remainder of 2010. Sarah Palin is a Fox News anchor and I am so shocked I can hardly breathe.

What a blow to the journalism. I have died a little inside today.

LeftCoast said...

Wow everyone is much more insightful than I. I was just going to ask you what sort of 'shrooms you sauteed in your pasta last night....