1 -

I had an interesting dream that I forgot before I had a chance to write it down. I was reaching for the paper when the baby started screaming and the dream fled. All I remember is this tray of pieces of angel food cake on doilies. And it wasn't just slices - they were shaped like spikes, tapered to a narrow point and four sided, and were frosted with coconut, I think.

2 -

I'm at my college for a reunion. John and I have walked through the library that also now encompasses an art museum and art museum gift shop. We walk past the gift shop back by the music department and out. We get into some sort of vehicle - a trolley maybe though it's not running on rails. At first, the ride through the woods is normal, pretty. It's sunny and relatively warm. The dirt road starts to curve to the left. We start to hear a clacking noise and we see a bunch of people on a walking tour run through the woods panicking - I notice one woman in particular; she's wearing a coral colored t-shirt and an overshirt - Chicos kind of stuff made out of that stretch matte jersey. The clacking sounds gets louder and I see the giant crab/spider things chasing the women through the woods. They are probably 2 feet from toe to toe in diameter; their undersides are cream and their tops are mottled brown. The clacking comes from their front claws snapping open and closed.

Whoever is driving speeds up. The women are screaming "Don't let them get you!" to us as they run. I hear the metal wheel of the vehicle catch one of the things underneath and it crunches loudly.The upper part of the windows of the vehicle are open, they're double hung like trolley windows. We're trying to close them though the creatures don't seem to have noticed us yet.

The vehicle can go much faster than the women can though and we make it back up to the music department before the things get to us. As we walk through the building, deciding what to do next and letting our nerves calm down, two women walk past, half carrying the woman in coral between them. She looks drunk almost and her face is twisted maniacally. She says to us as they pass us "You don't have to run" and she laughs in a really scary way.

Somehow I know that she's going to turn into a whole bunch more of those things and that the place will be even more infested. I know we need to get away. We run into a guy who is going to take a group on a "tour" which is really an escape from the creatures (who are sentient). We all mount horses and ride for a little while, then we have to rollerblade down this pebbled path down a steep hill. S0mehow I know I can do this. John chooses to walk but I rollerblade (though I don't beat him down the hill by much). Now, all we have to do is walk through the swampy water and we'll get to the hill on the other side and back to the dorm where we'll be ok.

As we're trudging through the waist high water, one woman screams that she feels something on her legs. Someone else screams "they're here too" and people start running madly for the far side. John and I and the organizers of the escape run too even though we think they might be mistaken as to what brushed their legs. John slips and almost drowns in the bog in the confusion. I manage to get him up and we make it to the far side. The shore is rocky and it seems like this body of water is one of the great lakes. The hill stretches up - a fairly steep climb but not too steep to mow and it's a vast expanse of well-cultivated lawn with grey stone gothic buildings at the top.

~~~

The building that houses the library/art museum/art museum gift shop/music department doesn't exist in the waking world but I know I've dreamed about it before - it's beautiful, all deep warm wood panelling, beautiful leaded glass. Then the gift shop is built into a wide corridor (added long after original construction). It's (as a result) long and narrow and encased in sheet glass floor to ceiling. You wouldn't think the juxtaposition of beaux arts and modern would work but it does. I also remember dreaming about the crab/spider things before but I don't believe it was the same dream. They remind me of organic versions of the replicators from Stargate.