Snakes @ MindSay

Two nights in a row, that's the only answer.

So, I had another dream last night, and it was quite different (and patchy) from the one before.

In the first part of the dream I had a pet snake. It was blue and had a strangely adorable face. I was outside with it on our carport when it went over to the weeds and a black snake shot out and chased it back over to me, where it stopped at my feet, waggling it's tail and looking up with pleading eyes, wanting to be held (much like a puppy or something). Shortly thereafter I found another snake that I decided to care for. It was green, and I don't remember much about it except that it morphed into a spiney, worm-like creature. Not really a centipede or anything like that....I can't really explain it.
In the second part of the dream was of me at work, wanting to wear two pairs of earrings at once. One pair was a pair of wire-wrapped silver stars, the other a pair of round black plastic studs (very vintage looking). And so, while at work, I pierced my ear with the black earrings. I only managed to pierce one ear because it hurt like a bitch, though.
In the third part of the dream I had just gotten home. I was outside and I could hear one of the TVs in the house blaring. I went inside and followed the sound upstairs to the guest bedroom/library where I found Jen, the annoying black girl from Hells Kitchen, confessing that she stole the sunglasses.
Wtf?

Mostly I'm wodering about the first and second parts of the dream. I'm curious about the meaning behind the three snakes, their colors, and their "relationship" to me. Also, black reoccurred twice in the dream (black snake, black earrings). Anyone good with dream analysis? Also, if you know of a good book on dreams in general I'd love to find out about it.

Have been getting some hiking in every day for the past 3 days- feels good - like training for the daily hikes in Yellowstone in just a few short weeks.

Friday we took the entire core (70+ kids) down 6 1/2 miles of the Monument Canyon trail in Colorado National Monument. With bus schedules dictating our day ... and a return trip to the "bus barn" after leaving the school, to trade buses as something was broken and the first bus could not make the trip up into the Monument.... we had a mere 3 1/2 hours to make the entire trek . . . a process I lovingly call the "death march". It turned out to be a great day, though... the kids were all troopers and I think most if not all of them had some fun! Here are a few being eaten by FROG ROCK! LOL!

 


Yesterday I grabbed a friend who was with me when we missed a cache.... ended up on a trail way above the desired location... so, looking down on it some weeks ago, we pledged to return.... Turned out to be "Mike the Headless Chicken" Days in Fruita so the area was alive... and there was a "Hike for Mike" event going on in the very same area we were headed for. We discovered that the Mike this event was dedicated to was a fellow science teacher that died while on a field trip with students - hiking to Delicate Arch a couple of years ago. The proceeds will be used to help fund the extension of our riverfront trail - hopefully from one end of the valley to the other someday! After we went and retrieved the cache... I dug in my pocket and found enough to sponsor myself in the hike... seemed like a fitting memorial and a good cause! Today I called another friend (don't want to burn out hiking buddies!).. and off we went to walk down a streambed strewn with petroglyphs (technically pictographs, I believe)... headed to the Colorado River. A little over 2 miles each way.. and such a beautiful day! The cactus are just starting to bloom. So nice

She found the first stage of this multi-cache!



The Indian Paintbrush is in bloom- this is one of the largest clumps I have ever seen!
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Above.... look deep under the overhang to see the pictographs
and the claret cup cacti are just beginning to open up... my favorite!


Prickly pear cactus blossoms and yucca blooms in background

More pictographs...

No picture of the final adventure... there was another geocache just across the road when we got back to the parking area... so I headed over to grab it. Finding it under the juniper tree was no problem.. a large cookie tin covered with rocks. I moved the camo and reached for the can when the bright pattern of yellow and black caught my eye from under the can. Three coils of a snake, about and inch in diameter, were visible - it never moved, but I was frozen in my tracks... pretty sure I wasn't brave enough to continue retrieving ... and then replacing the can. But a bit hesitant to replace the camo, also. Finally I decided it was happy where it was and would allow me to push the rocks up around the can. I'll save signing THAT log for another day!

I was just sitting here (NOT writing my paper, of course, why do that?), eating some soup and thinking, when a car alarm went off outside my building, and I realized that those things are so ineffective nowadays.  Nobody reacts to them anymore.  And everyones' sound alike, so no one goes to check if it's their car or not.  Anyway, my thoughts wandered to The Viper.  Does anyone else remember 'The Viper'?  It was this dumb early/mid-90s commercial for a car protection service.  You would activate the system as you left, and then if someone tried to break into your car, some hologram or other image of a snake would appear, in an attempt to scare the would-be burglar off.

Hello!

Who would believe there was a snake in the car!?!?  A plane, sure ;), but not in a personal sedan, no.  It just doesn't sound plausible, does it?  Nobody would ACTUALLY have a snake in their car to use as a scare tactic.  I mean, if they actually did it, made it seem like they had this hissing, spitting viper in their car, and then their viper was real...wouldn't that put them in grave danger, too, because hey...they're driving around with a live, uncaged snake in their car?

Anyone?

Remember when you wear Green  today regardless of your culture back ground,  you are celebrating a Man who decimated and killed thousands of ppl for having faith in a different path then he did.

 

You are promoting the celebration of  Religious Genocide and Terrostic Attacks done on many of today's ppl's ancestors.  No different then the Religious Terrorists of the Middle East for killing those who have faith or think differently then they do.

 

Hope your proud of yourselves!

 

Me and Mine will be celebrating our Ancestors by wearing various Snake jewlery, shirts, ink, and other items to show that our Ancestors are NOT forgotten and that they did NOT die in vain. 

 

 

Hey, did I forget to tell you I ate a fried scorpion the other day? Well, I did and it tasted like a potato chip. I was having dinner with my students and, although I was totally freaked out (I grew up in a house full of little non-deadly scorpions and I fear and loathe them.), their encouragement bolstered my nerves. I popped it in and... seriously, like a potato chip.

Anyway, that wasn't supposed to be the point of this post. I wanted to talk about a movie I just watched, Two Brothers (called Two Tigers in Chinese). If you haven't seen it, it should be available on DVD. Watch it. Do you remember the movie The Bear? I remember seeing that movie in the theater. It was incredibly moving. Two hours of the life of a bear - "bear-ly" any human acting. (haha). Still, the emotions and motives of the bear were clearly visible and anyone who did not empathize with that giant beast and little cubs probably needs to watch it again. Two Brothers is like that. The tigers are actors, too. I don't want to give too much plot away, but when they meet again after all that time and recognize each other - I bawled!!

The movie was filmed around Angkor Wat in Cambodia. In fact, the temples of the Wat complex feature prominently. The temples and landscape are stunning, and other than the obvious addition of  extra plants and vines inside the temples, that is how they look. (Add in a few hundred package tourists posing in front of everything!) Warning, watching this movie will make you want to visit. And why not? South-east Asia is fast becoming my favorite place and I'd love to go back to Cambodia. We might be in Vietnam soon...

And what are the snakes I refer to in the title?  In the opening scene of the movie, a close up is made of a particularly vile looking snake. Seeing that snake instantly catapulted me back to Monteverde, Costa Rica. Years ago, the DH and I took a weekend trip to the cloud forest and jungles there. (Extremely beautiful, supposed to be full of amazing wildlife. Unfortunately, we clomped through the jungle a bit too loudly and saw nothing! In fact, the highlight of the trip was when we both fell asleep, in the shade of a tree, waiting for the bus back to San Jose, and woke up an hour later only to find the sun had moved slightly and the right sides of our faces had turned bright red!)

One of the features of Monteverde is a small serpentarium - a reptile house with examples of all the slimy, creepy fauna that inhabit the nearby jungle. We spent a good hour or two going through, looking at all the snakes, spiders and lizards. When we reached the Fir de Lance, one of the deadliest snakes in Costa Rica, we couldn't see the snake. We kept looking and looking, with our faces right up against the glass. Oh well, we thought, he is pretty hidden in that tree branch. That is when we realized that not only was there no padlock on the cage, like many of the other cages, but the whole locking mechanism was wide open.

I cannot confirm that the Fir de Lance was on the loose...nor could I deny it. Once this realization dawned on us, we got the hell out of there. Looks like I am not the only one. When searching google for the name of the snake, I found this: scroll down to the picture of the boulders and read.

Serpentarium in Monteverde - I'd think twice. Cuddly, feel-good movie about two tiger cubs in Cambodia - a better choice!