Dr. Bootstraps would be so proud

I mean, she DID tell me starting my day at four in the morning is healthy and civilized. I wonder what she would have thought of the dreams I just had.

Dream the first: I am asleep in the (I dream that I am sleeping all the time - go with it) server room of Someplace. I know it's the server room because it's hot and there are lights flashing and everything is very computery. Up walks my mother. She stands there for a moment and the puts my credit cards down behind my head. They are all cut in half. Then she says, "I had to do it." Suddenly, we are in an elementary school bathroom. I express my indignation that she would feel she had the right to do that. I tell her, "People just don't die and then come back and cut up the credits cards of their 37 year old daughters." She says, "If you are me, you do."

Thanks for stopping by, mom.

Drream the second: I get into a taxi and discover that the cashier at the liquor store is driving. I pull out a twenty and he says "I just want you to know that if you pay with a $20, there is a surcharge of $20." I say, "ok, then let me out." He says, "Well, that's not necessary. I'll just take you a few more blocks here." He drives me across 2nd Avenue and suddenly, I am at a Burger King in South Carolina. I know this because people are smoking and no one smokes in restaurants unless it's a tobacco state. I am pretty sure it's still legal there.

I had no idea I wanted to go to South Carolina by way a free taxi. Well yes, of course I did.

Dream the third: The parking lot of that Burger King has a boat in it. Suddenly my dad and I are on the upper deck. We are lining up doors against the railings and inpecting them - but I don't know for what. We keep inspecting and changing the order. My dad is talking about his hair. I tell him maybe he should just go for a total hair rebellion. (Where have I heard that before?) Then he says, "I am not going to be alive long enough for it to count." I say "Well, how do you feel now?" He says, as he lifts yet another door through the passageway, "Honestly, I feel like the weeds are starting to sink." I express something like regret. He says, "I regret that I won't be here. The world is a magical place with you in it." And then we move the doors around some more.

Yesterday, I bought my dad a birthday card and Fedexed it to him. I waited because I wasn't sure if he'd be alive but also because picking out a birthday card for someone's last birthday is a disturbing experience. There are no good birthday cards on the market for dying people. I rejected one featuring drawings of gifts that said, "Make this one count!" I rejected another that had fireworks on the front and said, "Celebrate your birthday!" The one I picked had a drawing of a crocodile eating birthday cake. The inside simply says "Have another piece of cake."

My dad turns 67 today. I am sure it does not need saying that I'd like that number to be 97. But whatever I just said it anyway.

Happy birthday, Dad.