Dream of Doom and an Old People's Survey

Last night I had a dream where an echoing voice said: "If you're going to die at age fifty-four, how are you going to change your life now?"

"What?!" I cried in my dream, "Why then, I've only got twenty years left!"

I could get all worried(like I did in the dream)and wonder if it was somehow a prophetic dream of doom, but on the same night I also dreamed:

a) that someone offered me a free African safari trip with the caveat that I had to leave my camera at home and I was both tempted and tormented by the thought of it. No camera!? What would I do without it?

b) that I was a street child in medieval China who travelled with a tame tiger and was adopted by a freaky circus with a scheming ringmaster

c)that it was my job to keep a pack of tricky black wolves from entering a school and there were all these automatic-opening glass doors on every side which made the task impossible..I'd shoo one or two wolves out one door, bodycheck another at the second door, and blimey! ANOTHER couple would sneak in ANOTHER door.

I just don't see the likelihood of a prophetic dream fitting into the parameters of that batch of dreams. It was somewhere in the middle of them. I like to think if I was going to have a portentous vision, it wouldn't feel so blurry after I snooze a bit more.

But, lying in bed in that fifteen minutes between the first alarm going off in the morning and the second, the dream about dying in twenty years was the one I mulled over. Was it a dream about getting old? About mortality? About what I've done in the past? About the uncertainty of the future?

The whole dreaming about my age of death rattled me just a little despite my mullings on dream symbolism. But the dream voice DID say if I died at that age, and so was probably speaking rhetorically. Yeah, that's it. Whew.

Think I'll go read some blogs now.

Anyway, over tea this morning I found a meme over at Dragonfly24's blog that ponders those kindof things (like wills and cholesterol and kegger parties) that older people apparently get surveyed on by these kind of internet quizzes:

"Old People" Survey

1. Do you have a college degree? Yes, I have an Associate of Arts degree. It's made my wall look very pretty with its shiny gold seal and handsome wood frame. Um, I'm trying to think what else I can use it for...
2. What was the amount of your last electric bill? I haven't the foggiest but I'm hoping it's fairly small. I'm a big fan of candles, and it makes no sense to turn on the heat when I leave the patio door open all the time. I like the freezing cold autumn wind on my nose as long as I can huddle under warm blankets. Mind you, when I do start turning on the heat, I practically live sitting on top of the radiator.
3. Do you have life insurance? Naw, I don't need it.
4. How many hours per week do you work? Thirty-five. Unless doing dishes and laundry counts, because I've really been trying to keep the house clean and those hours should count for something.
5. Favorite place to attend Happy Hour? In the bathtub with a glass of wine and a book--that's the happiest way to spend any given hour.
6. How many miles is your commute to work each day (one way)? Five minutes or less. I might as well walk.
7. What time do you get up every morning for work? Six-thirty is the time the alarm goes off and I wake up Jeff. Then I reset it for another fifteen minutes which is when I try to remember all the dreams I just had before they disappear *poof*. My morning never feels quite right if I don't reset the alarm.
8. What is your definition of sleeping in late? Ten o'clock is deliciously hedonistic.
9. Do you check your cholesterol on a yearly basis? Nope.
10. How large was your first cellular phone? Ya know, I've never owned a cell phone. I've never particularly liked them.This will probably come back to haunt me some time when I'm stranded out in the boonies somewhere.
11. Does your employer provide good health insurance? No. We are rather lacking in the benefits department at my workplace. Don't get me started.
13. Did you use the internet to write a research paper? The Internet simply didn't exist in any easy-to-use form during my highschool years, but I did write one kickass paper for my astronomy course in college that had me spending a lot of time on the NASA website doing research. Go on. Ask me anything about the possibility of finding water on Jupiter's moon, Europa.
14. Have you attended a High school reunion? I attended my tenth reunion six years back. It didn't change my life, but it was nice talking with friends I'd lost touch with. Oh...and it's deeply satisfying to see people you really disliked get ugly. Hmmm...how shallow of me. Oh well.
15. How many jobs have you held in your professional career? I'm a preschool teacher and on October 6th I'll have worked at the same place for ten years. I'm a lifer apparently. I had a couple of very short-term jobs as substitute teachers before that but I don't really count them.
16. Have you ever been fired or laid off from a job? I once worked at a video store (many ages ago) where the guy wanted to fire me, but he didn't have a good reason so he cut my hours and cut my hours until I was practically forced to quit. He said it was because I typed too slowly on the keyboard. Completely untrue! I was a NINJA on the keyboard! Maybe he knew I secretly laughed at him because of his Batman complex---well, if you saw his car and his leather pants and his ego combined you'd know what I mean.
17. What is your favorite drink? I always drink a chai tea latte before getting on an airplane because then if I crash on takeoff I'll have had my delicious chai before dying. But on a daily basis, I really love Vanilla Earl Grey tea with lots of cream. Mmmm.
18. What is the most expensive bottle of wine that you have in your residence? It's homemade, but the love of people who give you yummy homemade wine is priceless.
19. Have you been divorced? No.
20. How old were you when you stopped getting ID'd for Alcohol? I'm still pathetically grateful when it still happens ever so occasionally at age 34.
21. Favorite casino? Honestly I've never wanted to be inside one; the only gambling I've ever done involved betting on the ponies or scratch and win tickets. I stood on the steps of the casino in Monte Carlo, France and contemplated going in (that alone was twenty euros), but I couldn't even afford coffee and ice-cream in that town. If you want to feel poor, go to Monte Carlo when you're on a itty bitty travelling budget.
22. Are you happier now than you were in high school? Blissfully more so. Do you get better karma for suffering in high school?
23. Did you ever have Hypercolor shirts? Does this mean tie-dyed? If so, my Grad shirt was swirling pink, blue and white tie-dye. Can you imagine? Ewwww. I also remember shirts that changed colour when you sweated in them. I never owned one--it was a mercifully brief trend.
24. Do you remember when Michael Jackson was black and attracted to older people? Yes, and I remember my friend wearing a little Michael Jackson button with no sense of irony. I liked the video for "Thriller" too.
25. Do you remember when MTV actually played music videos? They don't anymore? What do they do instead? How can I know these things if I don't get extral channels?
26. Have you had a will made? We were going to do this last year before we went camping in Africa. You know, in case we got run over by a rhinocerous or a lion ate us or something. The software for making our wills still sits by the computer, a little more dusty than a year ago.
27. What music was in your cd / cassette player when you were 16? It was definitely a cassette player--CD's were some new-fangled thing or possibly not even there yet---I had a thing for Bon Jovi,Enya, and Austrian band Falco of Rock Me Amadeus fame. I was *cough cough* one of the cool kids as you can see.
28. Favorite fancy / upscale restaurant? I loved The Old House, a very nice place in a local heritage home---roaring fireplace and candles and antique stuff on the walls. Now I hear they've "updated" and gone for a more modern look. Gahhhh! why would they mess with perfection? I'm scared to go see.
29. How long has it been since you attended a kegger? I can't rightly say I've ever been to a proper one--any invites?