I rarely discuss my dreams.  However, I found last night’s dreams to be quite interesting.  To set the scene for one of my dreams, my mother is an amazing lady in her 90’s, who lives quite independently outside of Austin on beautiful Lake LBJ.  Her faithful companion, since the death of my father, has been a delightful Pomeranian, named Riley.  One could say that Riley has definitely acquired  “the life of Riley” from living with my mother. They adore one another.  Riley is 14 years old and has numerous anomalies which make his life more difficult at this point, such as poor hearing, poor eyesight, allergies, violent coughing, and occasional listless behavior. However, with all of Riley’s old age problems, he still takes wonderful care of my mother.  Recently, my mother’s three children, including me, have been discussing how to best care for her if needed in the future, since all of us live quite a distance.  Of course, my mother has no desire to leave her home or her sweet Riley.  So, last night, I dreamed about my mother and I searching for a new puppy for my mother on a huge beach.  There were numerous people on the beach selling very odd-looking puppies of all ages and sizes.  Of course, no matter how many possible puppies I found for her, none of them could ever begin to replace her Riley.  A very appropriate dream, I think.

My second dream was quite interesting to me and one that I continue to reflect upon in my “spare time”.  If you have ever had a seemingly positive friend relationship explode on you, you might be able to relate to this dream.  The friend, in question, appeared at our door.  The conversation was quite cordial.  Apparently, we were standing on a second-story balcony, looking our over a huge forest and large grassy area.  Our family members and pets were down in the grassy area.  Suddenly, there was an explosive sound and a female lion came bounding out of the woods.  I was trying to warn my boys about the lion, and was very concerned about them.  Somehow, Brandon and Brett ended up donning hammers to defend themselves from the lion.  I was so worried about the boys, but also found myself eventually feeling sorry for the lion being “hammered” on the head.  I found myself feeling as though the lion had escaped from a zoo unexpectedly and had no intention of hurting anyone.  I remember being in quite the conundrum about the entire situation.  Similar feelings to those I have been feeling about the situation with “our friend”-precisely!