Just feed the dog.

I was house-sitting for some good friends of our families back home in Portola Valley.  Everything had gone well for the few weeks that I was living at their large, nice house.  But the whole time I was there, I was really busy.   Sometimes I'd forget to feed their dog.  I always thought that the last time I fed it was pretty recently, and that I'd just catch up feed it right before they got home from vacation.  When they got home the dog was barely alive.  It was a super skinny waif of an animal that they had to feed with a baby bottle to bring back to health.  They were really disappointed in me, and I couldn't believe that I had let it get to that point.  Then we were golfing in the sun in their back yard.  It was on top of a canyon, and we were just smashing golf balls down into the canyon, having a longest drive contest.  Some professional basketball or football player was there too, but I can't remember who it was.  We were trying to hit as close to some campers as possible without hitting them.

Family BBQ and Race

There was a Moiseff - Trudelle dual family BBQ that had been planned for months and was taking place at the Priory.  Part of the days events included a race.  There were probably about 50 people involved, so more than just our two families.  The race was a total of 10 miles, but was not just a straight running race.  After the first half mile or so there was a competitive eating component to it.  I got to that part, and my task was to eat one box of chocolates and chug a beer before I could continue.  I felt fortunate that I only had to eat chocolates.  It was a lot easier than some other people's.  I kept trying to leave without finishing my beer and chocolates.  Some judges were there and would make me go back until I finished.  After another quarter mile, there was a long line of racers for the rope-swing component of the race.  I showed up to that part in about 20th place, and was irritated with myself for feeling so out of shape.  I also felt like this part of the race was pointless, since people were just standing in line, negating their previous efforts.

I started swinging on the rope swing, which started out pretty tame, just over a grassy hill.  Before long, I was swinging very high in the air, inside a huge auditorium, that was more like an airplane hanger.  I was up near the top of it, swinging in huge circles high above the floor as I held on with just my hands to the rope.  Nobody seemed to notice or care.  As the rope wrapped more and more around the pole in the middle, I got scared that i'd just slam into the pole at the end.  I was going faster and faster.  Somehow I landed on the floor and was unhurt. 

Then I was biking through Portola Valley with my friend Nick (from the first part of the dream).  As we rode past what is currently the retirement community, it had been converted to a church.  The church was on private land, so you couldn't see it that well.  It had a lot of ceramic statues on the grounds.  A little further on, where there is currently a big open field, and the Windy Hill open space preserve, was a ton of ugly industry.  Piles of dirt and cement lay around in gray rain.  Dump trucks drove around to quarries.  In the background, a lyric "city of the damned" from the background vocals in green day's american idiot musical kept playing as we biked through.

Then we went to a 49ers vs SD Chargers game.  It was raining a little, but warm.

Bees and Whirlpools

I was at my parent's house in Portola Valley.  Miles was older than he is now, maybe 18 months.  He went outside and walked under the trampoline in the back yard.  My cousin's kids and their friends were jumping on the trampoline, so I told them to stop so that they wouldn't hit him.  All of them stopped right away except for my cousin's daughter, who was purposefully not stopping.   I had to sternly tell her again to stop so that Miles wouldn't get hit.  Then I felt bad for cracking down on her.

Next, I started getting stung by bees that lived in the walnut tree by my parent's back yard.  Every time I went outside, I'd end up getting stung.  The bee would get bigger and bigger every time.  I stopped going outside after awhile.   A lot of people gathered on the baseball field behind my parents house to witness a phenomenon.  At first I thought it was the bee thing, but it turns out, there were whirlpools that would appear and then disappear.  Each one was bigger than the next one.  The last one I remember was so big that most of the infield was covered with water.  I was out there, and looked back to where all of the water was draining to.  It was flowing to under the porch of my parents house, where there was a big pit.  We could see clearly into it because the porch was cut away and there were lights shining down into it.  The pit had a character that lived in it that I'd describe as a sinister / borderline evil King Triton.  It appeared that he was the lord of these massive whirlpools.