A Husky Far From Home: This is Toby.

Monday, August 13, 2007

This is Toby.

I arrived in Pullman Saturday evening, and what a great welcome! Bill, Claire and I left Seattle around 11am and after a quick stop in Spokane to pick up a bed, we headed out to Pullman and arrived at about 5:30/6. My host family greeted us at the door, with a wonderful meal already prepared!

The host family I have been blessed with is amazing. They are Alex, Mae, and Toby, the 5 month old pictured here. So far I've really just gotten used to my new room, unpacked a few things, and seen the church. I've gotten around town just a little, and went to go get ... sit down now ... my cougar card. Yeah, I have to put it in my wallet, it's a little painful, but it makes riding the bus free, and you know how much I appreciate free things.

So I'm attempting the transit-tion (get it? transit transition? ahhh, yeah the puns did not stay in Seattle) tomorrow, and we'll see if I get lost or not. I'm betting on not, but there are a lot of hills around here, and I don't exactly know which is which. On Sunday one of our students asked me where my host family lives, and I replied with an uncomfortable 'I ... don't ... know ...'

So that's it for now, I'm getting more of an idea of what my days and weeks will look like, but I probably won't really know what they'll be like until they happen, so I'll probably post another update next week after our first INN. Thanks for your prayers, and once again, I'm really REALLY excited. Plus I had Ferdinand's ice cream today, and let's face it, so far Pullman is delicious.

2 comments:

Elizabeth said...: Be careful... they are cougars!!!; August 15, 2007 at 1:57 PM
I'm Ashley said...: Great to hear you still have your puns; you wouldn't be you if you didn't have them. Miss ya!; August 17, 2007 at 2:58 PM

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I dreamed a dream ...

This is ridiculous. I have the weirdest dreams, and mostly just lately they've gotten weirder. Ranging from being Harry Potter in a Gwen Stefani music video, to helping Rori Gilmore hunt down vampires, I think it might be time to keep track of them ...

4/20
I dreamed Princeton got a hold of me and told me they were making me vice president of some main student organization there ... it was all very flattering and important stuff, even though I felt I had no idea what I was getting myself into. And then I was already in the moving process, and our dorms were literally hobbit holes in the sides of hills. Don't get me wrong, those are pretty fantastic, but hobbit holes? At Princeton?

4/10
So my house is really a part of a large mansion, and we have decided to hold a great formal dance - everyone from the INN is coming, and I think it's the day of so everyone is kind of rushing around getting all the last minute preparations ready. I come home carrying a LOT of stuff, and as I head into the house I realize that there is an elevator where our actual office is, and since I need to get to the fourth floor, I start going for it. As I pass Mae, I ask her why she never told me about the elevator before, and she said (rather truly) something to the effect of, 'you never like taking elevators when there are stairs readily available/accessible.' So I proceed to the elevator, which is more of a warehouse elevator, and I end up having to share it with another lady from our church who's packed 4 shopping carts onto it, along with a lot of red lead paint ... this is a culmination of so many things ...

4/8
I was at some music practice in the church, playing guitar with a college aged choir, and I hear one of those high pitched noises, you know the ones you get in one ear and you try to shake your ear a bit to get rid of it - kind of like the high pitched noise the tv makes when it's on but muted. Anyway, I start thinking it's coming from one of the strings in my guitar, but it isn't, and we realize that it's coming from the piano. So we go to look into the piano, and suddenly the piano is now a separate room that we have to walk into. Each piano key is actually linked to multiple bags of bells (approx. 5 bells per bag) which are all hanging in rows from the ceiling. So we start searching the bads to find the bell that is making this noise. Side note - the bells don't look so much like bells as they look like old school microphones and kazoos, but they all sound like bells ... We find the bag that holds THE bell, and in the same bag is this other bell that when you ring it, it cuts out all noise ... very eerie. So I take the bag of bells with me and walk into town (I have no idea what town, I just know I'm supposed to get rid of the bell bag). As I'm walking along, I see this man up ahead who is half man and half bear (werewolf style). I duck into the nearest shop which happens to be a bakery, of the style of the 13th century or something. I see a friend of mine and they say to me, 'you know why that man's a bear-man? it's because of that bell!' and so I realize I have to destroy it! So I throw it into the oven in the bakery, and when I go back outside the man has turned back into a man.

2/26
I am addicted to avocados. I literally dreamed about them last night. In my dream I was on some sort of retreat with some friends, and there was a little grocery mart we stopped by, and bought 3 avocados. We were going to eat them, but put them on a counter in the kitchen, and next thing we know they are gone! I finally find some of my other friends in another room saying they NEED the avocados to help them get better - some sort of health/medicine recipe which stated that avocados have some sort of special healing natural ingredient in them (I wouldn't be surprised, they're so DELICIOUS!!). So I finally convince them they can keep the ones they took (they'd already skinned them, and I prefer to eat them out of the skins) if they agreed to by us new ones to replace them. So they agreed, but when we went back to the store, they were sold OUT!! I know, when did this dream turn into a nightmare!?! Then I woke up.

1/9
Wow. So my friends and I have discovered a way to get into literature ... literally. We have figured out that in pieces of artwork representing novels/fiction we are able to jump into them and become part of the story. We can't change anything, but we become side characters that witness the things that happen. BUT we THEN find out that under the right circumstances (like, when there's lightning) we can jump in and substitute a character - they end up in our world and we end up in theirs. And then we CAN change the fate of the book. So we get to it - a certain book we have read, we figure has a terrible ending so we orchestrate when and how to change the story so that it ends better. But it's all secretive because we have to work around curfews because apparently I've reverted back into high school. Hey, this could make a pretty sweet movie.

1/7
I'm getting picked up from Tully's by my dad in the good ol' Garfield Mini-van. I think I may have stolen a cup, but it's one of those mugs you get at retreat centers, and Tully's doesn't really have those even for purchase, so I'm gonna go ahead and say I didn't steal it. Anyway, he picks me up, we drive off in the direction of capital hill (it's all snowy too) and as we're heading up some hilly parts, I ask him, 'where are we going' and he replies 'oh, you'll see' and all of a sudden, we taken off into flight. The mini-van flies. We are free wheelin' through the clouds and off into the blue. It was fantastic.

12/27
All I remember was that I was on a mission trip with some people I didn't know, and we were on our way home, talking about how God had been so powerful in placing us on this trip. But one of the guys was mentioning how he used to be a dog and ended up coming on the trip, and everyone oooh'd and awweee'd at how God had orchestrated the whole thing, and then I just had to ask, 'How did you sign up for the trip if you were a dog?' because he had literally been a golden retriever. Well, let's just say the question was a moment killer. Apparently no one else was as curious as I.

12/9
Wow. So I dreamed that in my past I sold marijuana and never got caught for it. But then after I had turned my life around the police started coming after me, and my family and I decided it would be better if I ran. So they bought me a car - a really old buick or something, which I had to pick up at a Safeway. So I was on my way out of the parking lot and I had to slam on my breaks at some point and since they were less responsive than I was used so I ended up slamming into 2 cars instead. Finally I'm on my way (after instant car repair? and no insurance questions?) and headed out of town which is somewhere in the middle of Iowa. I think I had another dream in which I was on one of those ridiculous reality dating show. The whole time thinking 'I can't believe I'm on one of those ridiculous reality dating shows.'

11/11
So I'm in a grocery store, something like a Fred Meyer, lined up with the rest of the marching band. I come out to start a bit of drum majoring to lead the band in '76 Trombones Led the Big Parade ...' from the Music Man, and as we weave our ways through the aisles it also becomes a scavenger hunt for my sister. We are now rushing around in hot pursuit, but she has disguised herself with strange clothes. She does speak though, and I recognize her and find her. Then she and I shop for a bit but decide we'd rather take a walk to Fremont and so we do. I think I miss my sister.

11/8
Okay, it's been awhile, mostly because I haven't been remembering large chunks lately. But huzzah! I'm in a shopping mall, and I've decided to take my purse and bags and place them next to a wall in some main hallway with my thought process being 'I hope no one steals my stuff...' only to have that answered by a guy coming up and snatching my purse. So I start running after him, and I think to myself, 'man, I canNOT run in HEELS!' so I proceed to remove my red stiletto heels I'm wearing (I know, what?!?) and chase him down. I'm pretty fast, so I catch him in the parking lot and start beating him with my shoes. Then he takes a stiletto to the face, and it pretty much lodges inside his face. Like all the way in. And then we're really just standing there and he's like 'dang it!' and I'm like, 'well, that's what you get for stealing my purse.' And I take my purse back and walk away.

10/17
So, I'm robbing something. I can't remember if it's a bank, but seeing as the getaway vehicle was something close to a semi truck, we could have been stealing something huge. I'm with a bunch of people I don't know, and a few that I do, and we're sitting in the Semi on our way out, and I turn to a friend and say something to the effect of, "You know, I'm speaking at the INN next week, I really shouldn't be doing this. I mean, I'm going to be talking about obedience and I don't think this is at all what God had in mind ..."
--- can you believe that? a moment of reality within my subconscious. Good grief. And I really am speaking at the INN next week, you can be in prayer. Thanks!

10/11
1. First, I had a dream about the BEST used bookstore I have ever experienced. Makes sense it was in a dream. Seriously, I got this giant Beatrix Potter compilation of stories book for like, $1. Sweet.
2. I don't remember how we got to this point, but I and a few friends were back home, were in charge of a few very large versions of Pocupines we had on leashes (they were very sweet, just difficult to pet ...). We were tooling around town looking for something, and ended up back at my house. And then it got very 'Back To The Future' - we each had our place on a part of a miniature train set, and we had to speed up to a point on my front lawn that was lit up by sparklers so that we could jump into the future, porcupines in tow ... yeah, I have no clue ...

10/6
I dreamed I had tickets to go see Rent, the musical, live. In Bremerton of all places. Dreams are weird. Anyway, my whole family was also going but we didn't have enough room in one car (did my family expand? I thought they were shrinking ...) but it was okay because I was going to travel with a friend. But said 'friend' called me and said they couldn't make it to the show, but AFTER my family had already left - WHAT?!? I just remember it getting closer and closer to showtime and I had no way of getting across the water. AGONY.

9/28
First, if you've read my 9/30 post, you'll see this was partially due to A Thousand Splendid Suns. But it also was because of the movie Because I Said So because it had a lot of weddings in it. My dream was I was getting married - but it was arranged. Didn't know the guy, he was also already a father, and the dream felt kind of real. I just remember getting used to the marriage idea, trying to get to know who this guy is and who his family is, etc. It was strange, but wasn't scary, and was kind of an interesting challenge.

9/23
I took a nap, and dreamed that Toby could speak. Like, full sentences. Here's how it went - I sat down on the couch next to Alex and Toby, and Toby starts mumbling baby-like stuff, and then I realize he's talking. I say, 'did he just say candy?' and he had said 'I would really like a piece of candy' only it was mumbly. But then I said to him, do you know english? and his eyes got wide and he smirked, and then I asked him his name and he shyly replied 'Toby'. That's pretty advanced for 6mo. When I woke up I was kind of suspicious but I'm pretty sure he can't talk ... yet ...

9/18
Dream #1: Kate Maxwell has decided to move from Seattle to Minnisota, and plans to travel there on horseback, since she owns a horse (no i don't think she really does), and plans on camping places along the way. I and several friends meet her at the end of her journey to find riding on something more similar to a donkey, and she's been mugged, so she's broke. :(
Dream #2: I and several friends are rushing around looking for cobwebs so that we can coat ourselves in a sticky exterior in order to better catch the villains we are after. And no, I don't think my subconcious has very good ideas for catching villains.

A Husky Far From Home

Monday, August 13, 2007

This is Toby.

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