Funny Dream

I had the strangest dream last night--and it seems to be related to weight loss and body image so I will recount it here.

My whole extended family ( including people who have been gone over 40 years) and I were coming back from a funeral in Eastern Oklahoma. I don't know who had died, a distant cousin or somebody, a person who had lived well and long and was ready to go home, so we were more in a celebratory Irish Wake kind of mood than tears.

We were packed into great big old Buicks, the kind that are like cruise ships, the kind the well to do farmers in my hometown favored, and we never could afford. I guess there must have been a long line of them, but dreams don't have to make sense, so it seemed like all of use were packed into the same car, gliding down the road at 95 miles an hour, past fields heavy with tall cotton. The sky was blue as blue can be, and big cotton bowl clouds threatened thunderstorms and tornadoes in the afternoon.

It was hot as all get out, and we were packed in there like fat sardines, or more likely Vienna sausages in a can-- all those fleshy thighs and big, comfortable bottoms and stomachs; arms that danced when they talked, My great grandmothers and great, great Aunties in their farmer's wife shirtwaist dresses with no waist to speak of, wearing knee high stockings and big heavy black tie old lady oxfords that no one sees anymore. They were waving funeral parlor fans just as fast as they talked.

The men's best dress Western hats were parked on the back dash to keep them from getting crushed, but not one of them removed the suitcoats of their best wool 3 piece suits, because that wasn't polite. We were all sweating like horses, their stiff white starched collars wilting in the heat and dark stains showing through the wool of their underarms. The kadies has tucked lace edged handkerchiefs and Lord knows what else down their ample bosoms to keep the sweat from running down their stomachs, and someone smelled like camphor and asafoetida in a little bag to keep off the cold, even though it was well over a hundred.

The talk, oh the talk! How I miss that, the steady flow of Irish/Cherokee wit (and yes, those Indians are FUNNY, no matter how they show em on tv)
that could blister the hide off you one minute and have you laughing so hard you almost wet your pants the next. The swish of the fans, the droning voices, the tales connecting everyone with their roots, their people, where and what they come from, Every story a genaeology, in the way the old people kept track of the important things in this world.

Suddenly we were in a traffic stop or a roadblock, probably for speeding, though everybody who didn't drive a tractor or a mule in those days seemed to cruise at least 20 miles over the speed limit-- the plains and the desert where I come from have LONG distances to cover.

I realized I was sitting in front, and that I probably had 2-3 technically illegal weapons on my person-- my great grandaddy's home forged skinning knife for one, which I would dearly hate to lose. For some reason I was wearing high packer boots, the lace up western boots you wear riding in high timber and rough brush, if you are elk hunting or logging, Not the sort of thing you want near you on a hot summer day in Oklahoma.

I was being a smart alek to the baby cop who wanted me to take them off to check for weapons (This is definitely a post 911 dream-- cause my daddys big relvover always rode on the front dash where the sherrif and anybody else who wanted to look could see it, no body would have cared a hoot about my pocket knife.) Suddenly the movie stereotyped Southern Sheriff in mirror glasses came over to straighten me out. I batted my eyelashes at him and simpered, " Sherrif, I didn't aim to sass your deputy, but I was too embarrassed to tell him that I am just too fat to unlace these boots. My darling husband and my boy have to do that for me, because I can't even reach my knees, much less the bottom of my boots. I am on a diet, and I have lost 53 pounds, but I have a hundred and 50 more to lose". Well, he eyed me up and down and made me get out of the car and put my hands on the windows, like they do on tv. "Mamm, you are sure enough a liar" he said. "I don't believe you even expected me to believe that bull". He pointed somewhere below the waist, and in absolute horror, I realized that I was looking at my own big butt, but instead of the one I was expecting, there was my 16 year old behind-- in a pair of size nine bell bottom, hip hugger blue jeans. "Oh, no!" I am in a world of hurt!" Then I woke up laughing at myself.

Wierd huh? Definitely not worth blogging about I guess. I sure do miss my old farm people and their comfortable fat. Obviously I identify more with them no matter what shape I am in.
???
Going to keep trying to get back into a 20-- to heck with the size nines.