recurring dream #2

I'm having a new recurring dream. This one is a little different. 

  Xandra (my daughter) and I set out to discover new places. We take a random cruise that is a surprise destination. The cruise we end up on is a cruise around the southern most tip of South America. We go at the coldest time of year and can only go out for an hour when it is high noon. The whole area is like this:

We watch whales and other wildlife, and it gives me a sense of utter calm and peace. Most of the dream is just Xandra and I communing with nature and marveling at wildlife. The ice wall is 100 yards tall in my dream. My recurring dreams always happen right before it's time to wake up.

recurring dream #1

So I wanted to tell you about this odd recurring dream I'm having. 

In this dream I find my biological father, and I find out what tribe he is from. After that I connect with my tribe and they send me on a spirit journey. They bundle me up and put me in a canoe with a month of supplies. I slowly paddle my way North (I think I start off from the East Coast). I find myself close to the Aurora Borealis, and I lay back to rest and look at it. Suddenly a ship appears and a giant dog jumps off and starts towing me. I lay back and relax and a giant bubble like cocoon envelopes me and the dog starts plunging in the water down into the depths of the ocean to this area http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/silfra-fissure-iceland-dive-continents_us_56740903e4b014efe0d50a05

(I found this article after I had the dream).

We get to the bottom and the dog motions for me to follow it. We don't swim, we walk on the bottom of the ocean and I can breathe like a fish. He leads me to an area that is like a temple where my spirit guide awaits. My spirit guide is a walking tree. Like this:

She then starts to dance and chant around me as I sit and meditate. I feel totally at peace. Then the damn alarm wakes me up every time.

It is by far the coolest recurring dream I've ever had, I just wish I could figure out what it means.

Once upon a time...

Vietnamese people make this weird drink/dessert, and I have no idea what it's called maybe I should ask my mom hmmm....brb. She said it's called Xuống sáo hột mé. It's made with black Jello (you buy it in a can in the Asian store), these little seeds that look like poppy seeds (they puff up when you soak them in water), sugar, and banana flavoring.
When I was little I LOVED this dessert. I made it all the time. I was greedy and covetous about the weird stuff. I was so bad I kept a sandwich bag full of the seeds on me at all times. (So I was a little nutty!) Back in those days we didn't have Ziplock bags.
My dad used to travel for work every once in a while (top secret reasons, I'll need to kill you if I tell you why), and when he did my mom would have my brother & I sleep with her. One night, I wake up to my mom screaming that fleas have overtaken the house. She threw me off the bed, pushed my brother to the floor & starts whacking at the bed with pillows while screaming hysterically. Finally I wake up enough to realize what's happening. I grab her to show her the bag of seeds I was sleeping with, which of course spilled all over the bed because kids sleep like tornadoes.
I never got in trouble for it, I think it was because she was so relieved to realize it wasn't fleas.

Life sucks

So Thanksgiving went well until we got home. Our house was robbed, and someone stole our laptops. So happy holidays us!

When we came to America, my mom stopped speaking Vietnamese to me and my older brother. That said, we lost a lot of our heritage right there. Well, a lot of times we tried to entertain ourselves (video games, computers and cable hadn't been invented yet). Often times we would sit around and listen to our mom talk on the phone to her Vietnamese friends. We would pick up on one or two words that sounded entertaining and repeat them to annoy her.
One particularly dreary morning it was raining out and my mom was on the phone jabbering away. My brother and I were jumping on her bed and she says "mu'a" which sounds to us like "moo" or "muuuuuuh" so we pick up on that word and decide to start acting like cows while repeating the word over, and over, and over...you get the idea.
My mom starts laughing so hard she has tears running down her face. She hangs up on her friend and tells us, "your darn crazy kid! You have to be careful when you say thing in Vietnamese! You say mu'a (pronounced muhhh) that mean rain. You say mu^'a (pronounced muah), that mean throw up!"
Can you really believe she told two kids that? Of course we ran with that saying the word over and over, while we were pretending to throw up. About that time we got kicked out of her room.

Fun stuff

When we first came to America my mom knew nothing of Easter. My dad had her make hard boiled eggs to color. Ever watch that Peanuts special? Yeah, that was my mom. First she peeled them, then when he yelled, she poached them, then she colored them raw, then boiled.
Another time they were making bread, they didn't know the difference between fresh yeast and packaged yeast. They put a whole brick of yeast in the dough, and it looked like the blob took over the kitchen. So they added more flour, and it still blobbed. They ended up with 23 'loaves' of bread. Once removed from the oven though, they realized they were more like bricks. The dog wouldn't even use them for chew toys. They were too heavy for the garbage guy to pick up. We ended up using them as a retaining wall. lol

Things I've learned

Jedi is my latest addition to my family; he is a wonderful dog! A bit overweight (95 lbs), but ready for a ton of fun. Here are a few things I have learned after having little Min-Pins for so long then getting a big dog.
1. Koi ponds + golden retrievers = hilarious
2. Goldens have a tail. I forgot that and so did my kids until the coffee table got cleared in one swoop.
3. A golden can flip a chinchilla in one sniff.
4. Goldens do not like rabbit food, but do find rabbits entertaining.
5. Goldens are tall enough to flip my elbow while cooking dinner. So then they like green beans. 6. A Golden's tongue is stronger than a plastic bowl. They can follow a dish around a kitchen island with great agility.
7. When a Min-Pin won't shut up they know how to cover the Min-pin's mouth.
8. Did I mention they have tails?
9. You can not take a shower with the door open, unless you want to shower with a dog.
10. A golden that can fetch will melt a husband's heart.