Dreams 9/15 & More

 

9/15

  Give me a day off, and the dreams return in swarms. Who needs dreams when you work in a cave? I had four small dreams that I awoke from this morning during the hours that I’ve been up and operating. Now it is after nine-thirty, I have my coffee and am watching a bluejay at the griffin cement birdbath inherited from an old local mansion around the bend. In the first dream I was working my first day in a small casino snack bar. I was wondering if I’d be able to keep the job due to my pansy ass Irish hands. Speaking of ‘witch, I am awaiting the results of my DNA test. Why don’t I dream about that? 

  Anyway, dream two got better. It was definitely one of my more amusing political dreams starring Donald Trump who came to Crystal Cave. He was wearing his blue silk suit which shone in the sun. I think he saluted me, maybe, on his way up the hill, more, Sieg Heil than anything. I told him that he got us into war with the Middle East, that gas prices were outrageous, and congratulations on being the first Jew president. I bowed graciously, “Salame, Salame, Bologna, Bologna”. Then I woke up. I’m sure, I dreamed this because the kids call the boulder, Jack Frost, at Crystal Cave, Donald Trump, and there is a resemblance. I say The Donald is just as big and hardheaded, but he has more hot air. A classy dame on one of my tours told me not to let Trump know about Jack Frost else he will come and take him. 

  I don’t remember the entirety of the third dream which starred a young couple dressed in red and white tight pleather space suits with matching boots, so they looked like comic book characters. The woman had mousey blonde hair like Sondra Locke. The two of them had snuck onto a spacecraft with plans of sabotage only to be captured and separated. These are the parts that I’ve forgotten, but the end, before I woke, is very clear. The young man was being dragged into a round metal portal or hatch which opened on command by two burly fellows wearing baggy red plastic suits which covered their faces, more Haz-Mat than anything. The woman was on the ground also being dragged in the opposite direction by two other guards that I can’t recall. Her mascara had run down her face, so she had been crying and looked like a raccoon. She had a red plastic pipe gun that she shot directly at a metal patch on some contraption that her husband had, like a pack. Suddenly the three of them, guards, whose hoods had blown off revealing their huge, red, Cthulhu, squid heads, and the husband, were all sucked through the portal. The word was out, cast, televised by an anchorman: Afghanistan had been struck by a nuclear weapon.

  Arthur was in my final dream, he had a haircut. He was in the backyard, pooping.

✨✨✨

Arthur had yet another big day yesterday when we returned to Crystal Cave. The first time he got to play mini golf, run through the teepee, and had ice cream from Ryan. Last week he ran the nature trail and met Kenzie. We had more ice cream, we shared. Yesterday I took him in the cave in a backpack that Mummy had gotten me for Shiner. Last Shiner was in it was at 7/11. A little girl behind me in line had reached out to him and like a shark caught in a garbage disposal, Shiner freaked out which startled everybody, especially the clerk who did not know that I had a little dog strapped on my back. Good times! Arthur was perfect, having met Mike and Terry before entering the cave. We had the whole cave to ourselves, so Arthur got Mummy's entire guided tour. He never flinched, not even during lights out. He was better than the children. He was better than the adults. I had to take him back to PetSmart, this time, as our girl, Michelle, was working, and we haven't seen her since Easter. Funny, but MOMA was there too. I just know the viper green Challenger we parked behind due to the shade is his and that he's a snake person. They think dog people are loud. I don't think he recognized me as I forgot to take off my sunglasses so didn't run. Arthur insisted we shop for his brother, so we got Frankie a Halloween cat tunnel like Tara Ernest and Bobby Fredrick had in their cellars when we were kids. How I loved those things, and knew that Frankie would too. Ron set it up leading to his gingerbread house that Arthur upsets like a cyclone. Frankie stayed in his jack-o-lantern tunnel most of the night until I retired with The God of the Woods, having finished Circle of Days. Looks like writing is back to hiatus too, but I'm up to page 140 something in Dana's Dreams Four Lots More, although Dana's Dreams Three Revenge of the Dream Hog seems to be lost to the ethers. Maybe I'll try Kobu. Ron got the only copy in hardback for his birthday. TTYL, I mostly have chores to catch up with today...

Dana's Dreams

Dana's Dreams Two

Ghost Stories & Poetry

  Selected Poems has more watercolors and The Apple Orchard, (Robert Townsend, American Revolution). Ghost Stories has a new chapter, Crystal Cave. The Barnes & Noble editions are so much swankier than Amazon's. They are both small glossy covered hardbacks, and the pages are fine. I'm so impressed, I can't wait for Christmas, (Dana's Dolls and Fanging with Claude). I had to change the cover of Fanging with Claude to Crystal Cave's Totem Pole because she is breathtaking and my favorite speleothem. I have a couple of days off and am going to try to set-up O, My Ra! The stupid intendant and Cousin Pasty, (Jeff Goldblum's Wizard of Oz and Universal's Monster High Mummy), so want to play. Arthur is at my feet and has been promised Crystal Cave's nature trail that I haven't walked since with Ron in April, but I first walked it with my brother years ago. Good Times... TTYL... ✨

Ghost Stories       

Selected Poems      

All Books  

O, My Ra!

Dreams 8/13

 

 8/13

  Dan and I were in the souvenir shop at the inn looking at a DOLLS magazine. A Schoenhut boy that I had seen at the Nazareth auction, refinished with a new wool wig and blue sailor suit, was on the cover. I told him that I knew the doll. 

  The following dream took place at a really posh hotel with many storeys, twists, and turns. Mummy and Carl were there from the start. I checked into my room on the Trafalgar floor, or at least, I think, that’s what it was called. Mummy and Carl were on the same floor. There were old-fashioned, long, mahogany painted lockers outside my room, and I put all of my money in a small white envelope inside. I chatted with Mummy before meeting my neighbor, Mike’s girlfriend, and two daughters. The woman was tall and big, and they all had long blonde hair and blue eyes as big as saucers. We were walking along, chit chatting, and stepped out onto a breezeway. A fat greasy white man with messy brown hair and rimmed glasses stopped the blonde and gave her a squeeze; she seemed distressed. At this point Carl caught up with me, and we reentered the grand hotel with gleaming carved dark wood bannisters and colorful art deco style. I realized that I hadn’t locked my locker, so we attempted to rush back to our floor only to realize that we were incredibly lost and had no idea where we were or how to get back. We entered a golden lit room with a mound of souvenirs tagged for sale, stacked like a layer cake. There were old-fashioned dolls dressed in gingham, cotton and felt worked quilted squares with doll faces, plush stuffed JAWS ghost sharks, enormous Raggedy Ann puzzles, and lots more. The vintage valentine with a little blonde girl dressed in a white snowsuit and riding a red rocket reminded me that I had forgotten that it was Valentine’s Day, and I wondered about it. Carl asked what my favorite thing in the pile was, and I told him that I liked the quilted doll squares, and he agreed. Two little girls, maybe three, but very small for their age, whizzed past us. I stopped the brunette and asked her if she knew how to get back to the Trafalgar floor, and she told us that she did. However, she chased the other up a dark wood spiral staircase like a couple of rabbits and left us scrambling behind trying to keep up. 

Dana's Dreams

Dana's Dreams Two

Dolls & Dreams 8/11

 

8/11

  My first dream took place in a big old school where I was working. There was a craft fair, and a woman had a table of crafts and a round basket on the floor overflowing with stuffed primitives. I had a gray rabbit in my hand and sorted through the basket finding more rabbits. An older woman behind me took three rabbits. I found another, black rabbit, with very long arms and short legs. There was a bee who had a $62 price tag on his head. There was a furry gingerbread man with a pattern stuck on his tacky backside. Removing the pattern that featured a small girl on the cover, the ginger man’s backside was covered with gingerbread scratch and sniff stickers. He was $20, and I held on to him. I found a large Holly Hobbie type of doll with a blue and red gingham gown and bonnet. Her face was soft sculpted sort of like a Cabbage Patch Kid only linen, not stockinette. Her eyes were halfway closed. She was $64. I took them both to the vendor who was busy with another customer. I waited, then put them back. I was walking down the hall where a little boy with brown hair was turning somersaults. His dad, a colleague of mine, grabbed him up, calling him sweetheart. 

  The second dream seemed like an extension of the first. Ron and I drove out to a doll show on a snowy night. The show also took place in an old school. At first, we thought that it had been cancelled, because it was dark, and there weren’t many people around. Ron was straggling, and I left him behind. I came across a family. Their boy, a preteen, said that he had gone down the hall looking for his old room, but it was vacant. The floor was dirt. I did see a big cardboard box of old dolls but didn’t want any of them.

Dana's Dreams

Dana's Dreams Two

Bettas & More

 

Dreams 8/2

  Ding dong, the dreaming’s back! The dreaming, dreaming, dreaming’s back! Ding dong, the dreaming’s back again! I think it is because I’m down from five days a week to three for summer. I’m having a good time. I’ll likely be back to five days a week come fall. 

  I drank a chocolate milkshake in my first dream, it was filling. It gave me the energy for the second. 

  My dreams have been taking place at markets and fairs, and this was no different, it was a holiday fair. It began with a round table covered with a red tablecloth. I was selling comic books. A little girl with a sandy bobbed haircut was interested in one with a red back cover; she called it her favorite. Then I was taking down beautiful sprays of fir wreaths from the wall and commenting on how Mummy would love them. There was a little quince stuffed ornament. I was shocked to turn over the red stamped price tag to discover that it was $29.95. I hung it by the counter. My ex was there. Also, the fat dream woman, that he had kissed which broke us up, was with her husband. As far as I know they don’t exist. There were big stuffed colorful scarecrows, man and wife, in a cardboard box on the ground outside, beneath a tent. Alex was busy organizing a train of little kids, all dressed up for Christmas, they rode tricycles, wagons, and the like. He called me over to help. I woke up with the same little girl from the start. She asked me to sign her favorite comic, the “one with the pillow”. I thought it was gone, but it was still there.

 Dana's Dreams

Dana's Dreams Two

  I wasted another couple of hours trying to resurrect Dana's Dreams Three Revenge of The Dream Hog. I'm about to give up but not quite. 

Crystalline Abundance

 

Dana's Dreams Two on NOOK

Read on NOOK

 

Dana's Dreams

Read Now on NOOK

 

Selected Poems at Barnes & Noble

Hardcover New Release

Selected Poems contains "The Apple Orchard" and more watercolors than the past paperback. Looks like Barnes & Noble has a ten book limit, so The Three Witches Magic Shoppe Adventures in Doll Land, Dana's Dreams, The Taties, & Hoagie will be published elsewhere, perhaps Kobo & Apple Books. The same goes for paperbacks and eBooks. In the meantime, these ten hardcovers & fab paper doll books are now available at Barnes & Noble: 

The Art of Dana Lee

Selected Poems by Dana Lee

Ghost Stories by Dana Lee

Minie' Ball

Dana's Dolls

Fun with DARK SHADOWS

Fanging with Claude

DOC

Hot Blood

Fabulous Fellini Paper Dolls

 

Ghost Stories Available at Barnes & Noble

Hardcover New Release

Ghost Stories has a couple new chapters: Gettysburg & Crystal Cave. 

 

Dana's Dolls Available at Barnes & Noble

Hardcover New Release

 

Minie' Ball Available at Barnes & Noble

Hardback at Barnes & Noble

 

Dreams 5/26

 

5/26

  Happy Birthday in Heaven, Daddy! What an amazing night to be a dreamer! I think that the first dream took place in Germany, but I’m not certain, it was Dream Land, after all. It starred two young white men with dark curls, one much taller than the other. The taller one traded a gun for a fishing rod; he had a stash of handguns. I touched one of their heads and told them that I loved them. Then, they both were kidnapped for science. I was working with a young woman trying to find them. I found a table of toddlers who had been vaccinated. They all had one horribly mutilated leg. I could not find the young men though. 

  The second dream was awesome, probably the best. I’m pretty sure that it took place in Austria during the late nineteenth century. It starred a ginger vampiress wearing a teal silk gown. She was gorgeous. I put a large piece of tissue paper into a white porcelain bathtub full of hot water. It dissolved and fizzed. The vampiress became round and soft like a ball with a head. She was still dressed and talking, but her gown had changed colors, gold and rust. There was a tall, slender, fancy, white plastic doll house, taller than me, empty, and loaded with glass, so transparent. I was running through a shop with a young blonde woman and wanted to go back and fetch a wooden doll pen topped with a doll wearing a gray woolen coat and cap. Back in the vampire’s palace we found some dead boys. There was another room full of antique stuffed animals, all kinds. There was another wooden puzzle pen of the vampiress, complete with the ginger curls and turquoise gown. I pulled it apart. 

  The third dream was out of this world and took place at a swanky establishment where Ron and I were attending a late doll show and auction. After the show, before the auction started, I was trying to get my green trimmed, knee length, houndstooth coat off of an old redheaded woman who was wearing it. I wanted it back because it had some cotton balls stuffed in the pockets. When I got it, I realized that the cotton balls were pink. The woman opened her carpet bag and revealed a bag full of them, all colors, plus a couple of knitting needles. They were not cotton balls, but wool. I told her, never mind, that she could keep the coat. Now, there was a young man with dark hair wearing a suit, who I conned the old women into presenting the auction. He wasn’t happy about it, and I did not care. I knew that he liked me and set him up. I told him that I could not help it, that I had been up all night. I was walking out into the night going for the parking lot, looking for Ron. A young white man in a red jacket was shooting at me with a pistol and nearly hit me. Why I confronted him, who knows. I had a hold of him, and he was talking about my bra, how he could feel the strap. I joked that it was no big deal. He confessed that he liked me and didn’t really know why he wanted to shoot me. I was now back inside the building with Ron, and there was a huge flea market set up. A man had four miniature poodles with poodle cuts on leashes. I was petting a white and gray one when I noticed a cardboard sign with red lettering that said that Charles Schwab was for sale. I told the man about Arthur, and he asked me if he was brown. I told him that he was white and brown. He asked if he was brindle, and I answered, no. Then I walked down to a table on the far right where Paulina was sitting with another woman, selling antique trinkets. I was telling her about Rachel coming from a family of ten, and how her mother just had another baby.

Dana's Dreams coming soon to Barnes & Noble, an omnibus of 600+ pages

Fun with DARK SHADOWS

Get them at Barnes & Noble

 

Fabulous Fellini Paper Dolls

Get Them at Barnes & Noble

 

More & More Magical

   Another perfect day, this morning Doug, who hired me, said that he wanted the souvenir shop to shine like the top of the Chrysler building. Of course, I was the only one to catch the allusion to Annie. Lucky, I had Daddy Warbucks, Albert Finney is a favorite, on my first tour. I was able to get the witches an Inner Witch cauldron love candle complete with a rose quartz love cat, Rosey. Maybe I should've gotten the money candle, but I'll have to get that one for Blue Witch because I love the way this one smells with jasmine, sandalwood, and ylang ylang. Plus, it's a real reusable cauldron perfect for future doll magic. I also got a handmade pipe, the Peruvian ocarina, that matches my Gelfling Halloween costume. I can wear it around my neck. Mummy brought me a Kokopelli stained glass windchime that hangs in the dining room from her trip out west. Then I stopped at the awesome greenhouse by the cave and picked up a gorgeous chenille hanging basket for the front porch. I haven't gotten one of those since I worked at Meder's. I still had money for a soft pretzel. I think that Fabulous Fellini Paper Dolls will be my next publication at Barnes & Noble as they're ready to roll. I deleted my Amazon account, and the witches will be HEXING them, for sure. Sorry I missed Suesday. We stopped off at Shiner's obelisk and Island Pizza for the first time, good pizza! 🍕 Thanks Mummy, Grandma, and Daddy Warbucks! ✨💖✨

Mehitable Visits Crystal Cave

   Mehitable had a wonderful time at Crystal Cave. She got to meet Devon who plays bass. Mehitable was made by a violin maker. Devon told me that Meadowood Music is a fabulous place. We can have a complete quartet once we find a violinist and violist. I'm sure they'll come along. I'm going to have to make a little book full of all of Mehitable's exploits. Right now I'm working on fixing up The Three Witches Magic Shoppe Adventures in Doll Land for Barnes & Noble. 

Ghost Stories: Crystal Cave

  I love my new job at Crystal Cave and have another chapter to add to Ghost Stories by Dana Lee that should be available soon. It began with a dream. I dreamed that my best friend, Theresa, and I were having supper in the cave, and she said, "See you tomorrow", the night before my first day. Then I saw a Scooby Doo looking ghost during my first "lights out", when the lights go out in the cave. It looked like a Halloween sheet ghost without eyes, shimmering electric green as Danu, my Glo catfish. It began at the stairs up to the Totem Pole, (who I call a deva), and moved towards me down the hall. It lasted the entire "lights out" while I tried to blink it away. I did not see it again, but a week later I was alone in the cave sweeping. At the very same spot where the ghost had appeared, at the foot of the stairs up to the Totem Pole, I caught the faint whiff of a good cigar. The smell grew and walked with me so much that I began chatting with it. I never knew such a friendly ghost, so welcoming. It followed me all the way to the mouth of the cave. Another week passed before I made the connection and named the ghost. I'm quite sure that it is Samuel Kohler, who bought the cave in 1872 for five-thousand dollars, protecting it from vandals. When he passed away his son David broke into the cave and stole a calcite speleothem from Prairie Dog Island that is on his grave in Kutztown Cemetery. It must pin him to the cave. 

  I was covering for miniature golf reading Poldark when the maintenance man, Mike, came to cut the grass. He said that there is a white lady ghost, and that the guy that hired me saw a ghost in the rest room of the restaurant that I'm going to work in. He thought that it was a real person and was waiting for him while he closed, but there wasn't anybody there. The owner told me that the inn is haunted. The tenant said that his kitchen cupboards just opened. He said that he's heard horses in the restaurant that used to be a barn. The girls have told me everything from the seats in the theater moving to noises in the restaurant and the rest room doors of the souvenir shop opening and closing. 

  The cave bathroom is haunted. The first time I just saw something black, very solid, perhaps the hem of a skirt, beneath the stall, when nobody was there. The second time it was loaded with sprickets. Sprickets are unique to the cave, half spider, half cricket. They don't chirp or bite. They are big, have very long legs, and are stripey brown and black. They have extraordinarily long antennae too. We think that they eat algae, which is good for the cave as the algae corrodes the soft limestone. They hang out in the eighteenth hole box at mini golf too. Their closest known relatives are found in Australia with 97% the same DNA. I passed the first stall and saw a young white woman with wet hair covering her face sitting on the toilet. She was wearing pants and a long-sleeved top. I wondered why somebody would have the stall open and looked back, but there wasn't anybody there. A spricket followed me up to the theater, tickling my neck.     
 

The Art of Dana Lee Available at Barnes & Noble

Get The Art of Dana Lee in Hardback