Last night, I had a dream that I was pregnant. In the dream, I wasn't just pregnant, I was in labor, water breaking, contracting, screaming agony labor. I was at the orthodontist's office (don't ask me why that was the setting) when it happened and then it quickly flashed to me as a new mother with this baby that, even though I have tons of experience with babies, I had NO idea what to do with. I didn't know how to feed it (it because I don't remember if it was a boy or a girl) or how to take care of it. I remember asking my mom who was there, "What do I do?" -- "Feed it," she said. "Feed it what??" I cried. In the dream, I didn't know what to feed my own newborn baby. Then, in what I can only assume was a flash-forward of the same dream, I'm back at the same orthodontist's office, pregnant for the second time, when my water breaks again. I remember saying in the dream to the receptionist, "EVERY TIME I COME HERE, MY WATER BREAKS! I AM NEVER COMING BACK HERE AGAIN!!" -- Quick flash to my parents' house where I waddle to their room and open the door to find them watching TV and say "I think it's time to push." They spring into action, even my dad, who doesn't spring... at all... ever. I remember crying and being afraid to push because of how much it was going to hurt. That is basically the end of the dream.
What is always so striking to me about these dreams when I have them is how vividly I feel every kick, every contraction, every pressure and every pain... I obviously do not have the real life experience to know if what I'm feeling in my dreams is anything akin to what real labor feels like, but somehow between everything I've seen, heard and read about labor and giving birth, my brain takes all that information and takes it out on my body in a seemingly very real way. I wake up in physical pain, like I can still feel every sensation from my dream. I remember shifting my body in my sleep to accomodate needing to push a baby out in my dream. What the hell is that?
What these dreams usually mean is that I feel pressure or stress in my life. The first time I ever had a pregnancy dream, I was a counselor at Camp Chase and in the dream, I had a big pregnant belly and my main concern was that I would lose my job because I couldn't carry the lunch crate with this big belly in the way. Why wasn't I concerned about the fact that I was a) 17 and pregnant, or b) about to pop? The dream has popped up in different forms and scenes over the years and every time, it shakes me to my core. Most often, I feel the real world stress and then comes the dream. This time, the dream came first. I wasn't aware that I felt pressure or stress until I woke up this morning and remembered that dream. My brain is weird.
Wednesday, September 7, 2011
Sunday, September 4, 2011
Sox for Life
If you scroll back to December, there's an entry where I announce the decision that I made that I was going to go to one Red Sox game a month for the duration of the season. Even at the time, as determined as I was to make it happen, somewhere in the back of my head, I had doubts. With my mom's help and 6 different game partners, I ended my run last night and now I'm a little bit sad... but praying for some kind of miracle where playoff tickets appear at my doorstep. What a great season it's been, for the Red Sox as a team, yes, but also for me.
April 16
I asked J.Rho to go with me to game 1, on Saturday, April 16th. Going into that game, the Red Sox were 2-10. It was their worst start to a season in about a hundred years and that day, I wasn't thinking so much about the long-term implications of such an abysmal start. Instead, I was being selfish and thinking, "just win for me. PLEASE win because I'm here." -- What we didn't know when we got there was that it was Fan Appreciation Day (which I interpreted as "Please don't be mad, fans, even though we SUCK right now.") and they lined the field with velvet ropes and allowed fans to form a line around the field to meet players before the game. I didn't meet any players but I did do something I never thought I'd ever be able to do - set foot on the field. They won that game... and since that game, they have the best record in the majors. I like to believe it's because of me.
June 21
My cousin, Laura, lives in Milton, which is just outside Boston and since we're both teachers, I knew we'd have approximately the same vacation time. Laura got us bleacher seats and this game was just a part of the awesome weekend I spent with her. We also went to the aquarium, made a fantastic homemade pizza and homemade cookies and took a drive around a really pretty coastal town. We made a lot of fun of the police officer who sat on centerfield wall, with his back to the game, and ate ice cream and drank soda and flirted with the too-old-to-be-as-drunk-as-they-were ladies to our left. This was also the first time I went to the Bleacher Bar, which is an awesome literal-whole-in-the-wall bar that is actually built in the centerfield wall. There's a garage down that you can look out at field level and see the game from there. It was an awesome place that I never knew existed. The Red Sox lost this game but it didn't take away from how awesome the experience was. It was also the first time I'd ever sat in the bleachers and the different view of Fenway Park that I had sitting out there was fantastic.
July 9
Rachel and I went to this Saturday game with a little bit of a different goal in mind. The game was at 4 and we wanted to do a Fenway Bar Crawl before the game started so we took the T in about 3 hours early with plans to visit as many bars as we could before the game started. We started at Cask 'N Flagon, where some guys called random names at us to see if we would answer, "SUSAN!!! Susan?" - nope, sorry, you're not even close. We had a spinach and artichoke appetizer and a couple of "Youk Juices" (a really yummy pineapple mixed drink) before going to Game On, where we had one beer and then left because it was SO crowded. For our last stop, I took her to Bleacher Bar so she could see what I saw. The garage door was open so the view to the field was even better than it was the first time I went there. Our seats were incredible and even with John Lackey pitching, the Red Sox won!
August 26
I hadn't seen Allie since the beginning of last summer and though we talk from time to time, I was really longing for some quality visit time with one of my favorite college friends. She lives in South Boston so I decided to be brave and drive myself into the city that scares the crap out of me to drive through. I got us standing room tickets on the third base side, my only standing room experience of the season. Those standing room tickets are fantastic because even though you're standing, your view is generally pretty good and most of the time, later in the game, you can slide into some unoccupied seats if you keep your eyes open. It was fantastic to hang out with Allie for a night and catch up and also squeeze in a surprise visit with Mary, who happened to be right around the corner! Around the 6th inning, we started trolling for empties and found a pair of seats 10 rows back from the visitors' dugout and parked ourselves there for the remainder of the game. While we were sitting in our look-how-lucky-we-are seats, something amazing happened! In between innings, on our feet and absentmindedly dancing to whatever music was playing and chatting with each other, a lady in front of us got our attention and pointed to outfield. JUMBOTRON!! The reaction of someone who catches themselves on the jumbotron is always the same. You're looking at the screen to see what dummy who isn't paying attention gets on there, and then it's YOU and you recognize yourself and then you wave and point and try to find which camera is on you. It was awesome. The Red Sox lost this game miserably but there were way more upsides than downers.
Sept. 3
One of the great things about the "one game a month" provision is that that doesn't exclude those games being only a week apart. After having been at Fenway the week before, I went back just last night for my 6th game of the season with Heather! Heather and I have been doing a lot together lately, going to concerts and going on hikes, that when Alex told me he didn't want to go to a game on his birthday like I'd originally planned, it was easy to find a replacement. Heather had never been to a game before so we figured no time like the present! The Red Sox had gotten walloped, 10-0, the night before so I was hoping they'd return the favor with a vengeance for us the next day. And did they ever! Thanks to an 8-run bottom of the 4th, the game was well in hand when people started to leave around the 7th inning. It takes quite a long time to score that many runs so the game was about 3 hours old when people figured they had it and it was okay to leave. That left whole rows empty so we relocated to better seats. In the bottom of the 8th, another Fenway first. A guy, barefoot, dirty and probably drunk, dropped himself down the left field wall (although I didn't see exactly from where) and ran from the 3rd base line almost all the way to the Red Sox bullpen before he was football-tackled by a security guard, instantly handcuffed and led off the field. I had never seen that before! The Red Sox won this almost-four-hour game handily and it was a great end to a fantastic-game-going season for me! I'm probably going to have to do this every year from now on. :)
April 16
I asked J.Rho to go with me to game 1, on Saturday, April 16th. Going into that game, the Red Sox were 2-10. It was their worst start to a season in about a hundred years and that day, I wasn't thinking so much about the long-term implications of such an abysmal start. Instead, I was being selfish and thinking, "just win for me. PLEASE win because I'm here." -- What we didn't know when we got there was that it was Fan Appreciation Day (which I interpreted as "Please don't be mad, fans, even though we SUCK right now.") and they lined the field with velvet ropes and allowed fans to form a line around the field to meet players before the game. I didn't meet any players but I did do something I never thought I'd ever be able to do - set foot on the field. They won that game... and since that game, they have the best record in the majors. I like to believe it's because of me.
May 7
My mom's birthday is May 7 and I needed a May game to go to. It just so happened that the Red Sox were on a homestand Mother's Day weekend and I asked her if a game on her birthday was something she'd be interested in and was happy to find she really wanted to go. To her credit, she weathered a two-hour rain delay, that turned a day game into a night game and resulted in another Red Sox win! We were lucky that our seats were under the cover of the roof so we didn't get rained on. Mom decided to go for a walk during the rain delay in on the concourse and came back about 5 minutes later because she said the concourse was so full of people that she couldn't walk. This was also my first time seeing a thunderstorm at Fenway, which was a pretty spectacular sight. 
My cousin, Laura, lives in Milton, which is just outside Boston and since we're both teachers, I knew we'd have approximately the same vacation time. Laura got us bleacher seats and this game was just a part of the awesome weekend I spent with her. We also went to the aquarium, made a fantastic homemade pizza and homemade cookies and took a drive around a really pretty coastal town. We made a lot of fun of the police officer who sat on centerfield wall, with his back to the game, and ate ice cream and drank soda and flirted with the too-old-to-be-as-drunk-as-they-were ladies to our left. This was also the first time I went to the Bleacher Bar, which is an awesome literal-whole-in-the-wall bar that is actually built in the centerfield wall. There's a garage down that you can look out at field level and see the game from there. It was an awesome place that I never knew existed. The Red Sox lost this game but it didn't take away from how awesome the experience was. It was also the first time I'd ever sat in the bleachers and the different view of Fenway Park that I had sitting out there was fantastic.
Rachel and I went to this Saturday game with a little bit of a different goal in mind. The game was at 4 and we wanted to do a Fenway Bar Crawl before the game started so we took the T in about 3 hours early with plans to visit as many bars as we could before the game started. We started at Cask 'N Flagon, where some guys called random names at us to see if we would answer, "SUSAN!!! Susan?" - nope, sorry, you're not even close. We had a spinach and artichoke appetizer and a couple of "Youk Juices" (a really yummy pineapple mixed drink) before going to Game On, where we had one beer and then left because it was SO crowded. For our last stop, I took her to Bleacher Bar so she could see what I saw. The garage door was open so the view to the field was even better than it was the first time I went there. Our seats were incredible and even with John Lackey pitching, the Red Sox won!
August 26
I hadn't seen Allie since the beginning of last summer and though we talk from time to time, I was really longing for some quality visit time with one of my favorite college friends. She lives in South Boston so I decided to be brave and drive myself into the city that scares the crap out of me to drive through. I got us standing room tickets on the third base side, my only standing room experience of the season. Those standing room tickets are fantastic because even though you're standing, your view is generally pretty good and most of the time, later in the game, you can slide into some unoccupied seats if you keep your eyes open. It was fantastic to hang out with Allie for a night and catch up and also squeeze in a surprise visit with Mary, who happened to be right around the corner! Around the 6th inning, we started trolling for empties and found a pair of seats 10 rows back from the visitors' dugout and parked ourselves there for the remainder of the game. While we were sitting in our look-how-lucky-we-are seats, something amazing happened! In between innings, on our feet and absentmindedly dancing to whatever music was playing and chatting with each other, a lady in front of us got our attention and pointed to outfield. JUMBOTRON!! The reaction of someone who catches themselves on the jumbotron is always the same. You're looking at the screen to see what dummy who isn't paying attention gets on there, and then it's YOU and you recognize yourself and then you wave and point and try to find which camera is on you. It was awesome. The Red Sox lost this game miserably but there were way more upsides than downers.
Sept. 3
One of the great things about the "one game a month" provision is that that doesn't exclude those games being only a week apart. After having been at Fenway the week before, I went back just last night for my 6th game of the season with Heather! Heather and I have been doing a lot together lately, going to concerts and going on hikes, that when Alex told me he didn't want to go to a game on his birthday like I'd originally planned, it was easy to find a replacement. Heather had never been to a game before so we figured no time like the present! The Red Sox had gotten walloped, 10-0, the night before so I was hoping they'd return the favor with a vengeance for us the next day. And did they ever! Thanks to an 8-run bottom of the 4th, the game was well in hand when people started to leave around the 7th inning. It takes quite a long time to score that many runs so the game was about 3 hours old when people figured they had it and it was okay to leave. That left whole rows empty so we relocated to better seats. In the bottom of the 8th, another Fenway first. A guy, barefoot, dirty and probably drunk, dropped himself down the left field wall (although I didn't see exactly from where) and ran from the 3rd base line almost all the way to the Red Sox bullpen before he was football-tackled by a security guard, instantly handcuffed and led off the field. I had never seen that before! The Red Sox won this almost-four-hour game handily and it was a great end to a fantastic-game-going season for me! I'm probably going to have to do this every year from now on. :)
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