Weird Dream Channel

I am in a school, my co-teacher and I are in our classroom doing some decorating or crafts thing which is only vaguely hinted at. I can't see who my co-teacher is, just a white blouse and navy skirt. I'm wearing a white shirt. What is very clear and the focus of the dream is my hands are full, I have a pair of silver scissors, a roll of paper packing tape, a pink eraser, a pencil and assorted pieces of paper (probably construction paper, but I can't really tell).

Another teacher, a tall, slender blonde woman in a stylish, diagonally striped dress in shades of orange and brown (the stripe pattern varies in color and width) and I are in the hallway, I have been borrowed from my co-teacher. It happened quickly, I did not have time to put down everything I was holding. I still have the pencil, eraser and roll of tape. As we walk down the hall, she explains to me that we are going to go help another teacher, in room A-38. She has two pieces of pink paper, she shows one to me - it is a test paper. She is trying to explain what I need to fill out, but I'm not understanding, and not keeping up (she walks very quickly), and the next thing I know I am in another hallway, and see her halfway down the hall, opening the door to A-38. I get the impression it is a multi-building campus, and the A stands for Building A. But that's unimportant. I go into A-38, and she is sitting toward the left/back of the room, separate from the class, her desk/chair angled about 45° toward the center of the room.  She motions me to the desk/chair beside her. Once again she hands me a pink sheet and tries to guide me through filling out the top part. There are several little sections, and it is not clear to me what I am looking at, except it is a test.

I know how to fill out this page, but I humor her, knowing she likes helping. And thinking that maybe helping me could be the start of a relationship. She's very sexy in that dress.

After the top sections are filled out, she sits up straight, apparently watching the class. I assume the class is taking a test, but I can't see - they are yards away. It is a very long room, and we are way in the back, and the 30 or so students are way in the front. I am still holding the pencil and the roll of tape in one hand, the pink test paper in the other. I'm not sure if I am supposed to be watching or taking the test. I wake up not knowing.

My tweets

• Fri, 14:24: Call it laundry, or spending Quality Time with the Smalls..
• Fri, 17:34: OMG WTF 8 2 much @ Denny's. Damn you, Baconalia!
• Fri, 22:07: battery meter says 80% charge on my 8-hour battery means 7 hours left. One of those numbers is obviously wrong...
• Sat, 08:39: It's raining. Must be Prom Night.
• Sat, 08:43: Killed my #loudtwitter account, re-applied LJ's extensions for Twitter to slurp things up that I post here. Let's see if that works.

But Nobody Does Anything About It

Today has been a textbook case of Eastern seaboard cold front weather. Masses of cumulus clouds, with some blue sky between groupings, short periods of torrential downpour with an almost constant light rain the rest of the time. Gusty winds, and the only reason we're not getting lightning is the hills east and west which interrupt the updrafts from the valley. And the Bay, which is colder than the land around it, so no updrafts there.

Very odd weather pattern for this area any time of year, almost unique for June - from what I see online, this has only happened twice before since they started taking records in the mid-1800s.

The clouds are high - maybe 5,000 feet ceiling - so it's pretty bright even when it is raining. Have not seen any rainbows - the cloud cover is too continuous.

I've taken refuge in a Starbucks near the rehearsal space (25 minutes from home) and will wait for a bit longer before driving home. Nothing planned for tonight. I have a couple of DVDs to watch, and some shopping to do. Maybe I can do that shopping here - Story Road near Little Vietnam (aka Little Saigon) must have an Asian grocery somewhere around here.

Auditions, etc

Did not sleep as soundly as usual, kept waking up to the sound of heavy rainfall on the apartment roof. Vaulted ceilings and bedroom-side drain pipes make it seem louder. It rained for most of the day, typical east coast cold front, atypical here in the SF Bay Area. Bottom line is new all-time June 4 rainfall records were set.

Did not wake up at 5 as I had planned, but left the happy birthday song on my Baltimore sister's machine a little before 10 her time.

A little before 10 my time, I was in the parking lot of Best Buy. I thought I left the house at 10, but looking at my watch it was only 9:28. There was a massive line of umbrella people in front of the REI next door, but only three of us geeks. The car stuff installer was there, I thought they did not install on Sundays so asked for a Monday appointment. He said they don't install Mondays, the do install Sundays. So I have a 10:30 appointment tomorrow. It will probably still be raining.

Went home, wasted time and had lunch, and wasted time again till 1:30. Headed south to the school in SJ where Lyric Theater was holding HMS Pinafore auditions. My appointment was for 2:30, but they said to get there early. I was there a little after 2. Long drive, much traffic at the 101 exit. Insane drivers - Little Saigon traffic is not much different than real Saigon traffic. Except it's cars instead of scooters.

Saw a few friends, including the regulars. Filled out the form, had my photo taken, and waited. They got to me at about 2:30, I sang my song in the wrong key - the accompanist gave me a starting chord instead of the starting note, and the top note was not my starting note. It was low. G instead of C. Made it real easy to hit the high note at the end.

Music director was the excellent one from Carousel, he had me sing some scales to find out if my high note was as high as the character's high note. I have notes to spare. I read a paragraph from the script - I did this part at Stanford 11 years ago, and remember that line as the most difficult one in the show, possibly for any character. I asked the director if she wanted accent A or accent B, and she said how about Plan C - read it as angry. That's not how I see it as being written, but I suppose it can be read that way so I gave it a shot. Not sure if I succeeded. Stumbled on the bits I always stumbled on. All in all, not a winning audition. Callbacks are the 10th, I don't know when the list will be posted for them. This was the final day of auditions.

After I was done, it was gloomy and rainy and I figured I ought to explore a bit, since I am rarely down that way. Found a Starbucks in a new shopping plaza which was a great place to park for a couple of hours and test the new netbook battery. Tried to sync my phone calendar with the netbook's Outlook calendar, but it duplicated some things and ignored others. Needs more research.

Since I was in Asiatown, and I had not made my Chinese market run yesterday, I looked up the local Lion store, which turned out to be the oldest one there is, narrow aisles, crowded, insane check-out configuration. I was especially looking for fresh water shrimp, picked up two bags of the stuff which the sign said was on sale for $10 each. Checked out, got to the car, and there was no shrimp. It wasn't on my bill either. So I went back to the cashier, and she was all "duh?" but her manager was there, who said the cashier had dropped them behind the counter and did not notice till I was gone, and they were back i the bin already. So I had another 15 minutes in line. Would have been 5 minutes, but two people ahead of me was a man whose wife kept running back into the store and bringing more stuff to the counter. What had been about 10 items ended up as 30 or so. :-(

And when I got home I saw I was charged the non-sale price for the shrimp. :-(

Wanted to take 87 home, to avoid the insanity at the under construction Tully Road 101 ramp, but somehow got turned around and ended up most of the way to Milpitas instead. Recalculated, drove to Story Rd. and took 101 from there.

Home, the music clips to go with the new music stand had arrived. I'd had the higher-amp cell phone battery on charge all day, installed that, and we'll see what happens. Sad news is I don't get 4G or even 3G at the apartment, good thing I have wireless.

Dinner was steamed Ha Gow and dessert was Ngaw (Rambutan). Lion had whole frozen Ngaw (rhymes with paw) for the same price as canned, peeled & pitted. It's fun fruit to tear open and get the good stuff out. Worth trying, but freezing made the bits surrounding the pit too tough to eat. I'll stick to canned, I think.

Something kevin_standlee posted reminded me of a photo I took in 1973 for the Daily Astorian, which was picked up by AP. This time I found it in my string book easily. Cool story: it was one of my first assignments, the Seaside Marathon in February. My job was to take photos of the winner crossing the finish line. I don't recall if I got that shot, I think not. I did get a photo of him a few seconds after he finished the race. I don't know about the runner-up, I'll have to look at those negatives after I get the film scanner. But the race for 3rd place was the big story. With only a few feet to go, #3 was a foot or so ahead of #4. He slowed down, reached over and grabbed the hand of #4, and they crossed the finish line together, hands in the air. The photo is ( behind the cut )

In other news, Monster.com has a bug in their (beta) job search agent. It keeps showing me the same posting, day after day, month after month, for a job which I'm sure was filled ages ago. Often it is the only job found in the search, although a manual search of the same items gives a couple of pages of listings.

Plans for tomorrow:
Best Buy at 10:30
Brunch at one of the cafés across the parking lot
The rest depends on the weather
If it is still raining/cloudy at sundown, I'll cancel my Del Valle camping reservations for Tues/Wed.