My dreams are so wonderful and vivid, and before I woke up this morning I dreamt about a young lion.  I checked out the meaning of lions in dreams, and one site suggests “the appearance of a lion in a dream may signal that new power or passion my awaken within you.”

It’s funny, as one of the topics I want to explore for my January newsletter is passion, or the lack thereof in many people.  To have passion about something can move mountains, as witnessed by people like Martin Luther King Jr.  As you well know, I’ve never really lacked in this area.

Of course it’s wearing, as witnessed by those who had to live through the early days of the fruitcake business about which I was aflame.  Then there’ve been the convictions a bee hive will save the planet, a xeriscape garden’s the only moral way to go and my letters to the editor decrying development on Agriculture Land Reserve land.

This past week I’ve experienced the usual highs and lows of all of our lives.  One of the dear women from elementary school who I’ll be meeting in May for our big 60th birthday celebration let me know her younger sister died.  Then my friend Petra e mailed to say their dog Buddy became extremely ill and was euthanized.

On the positive side I had the great pleasure of being visited by people I’ve known all of my life.  Eve and Angie (formerly Baillie) are the daughers of my mom’s deceased best friend, Liz.  Eve spent a couple of nights and Angie spent one and it was tremendous fun.

Nicky asked me how I knew them and I explained.  I said to him it’s like the Lynch’s girls and you remaining in touch all of your lives; or Alison’s boys who’ve known Nicky and Luke since they were all small.  It’s not necessarily that these people are friends, they become almost like cousins.

Angie has three adult kids and I like the way she never refers to them by name, only as The Big Girl, The Little Girl and The Boy.  Isn’t that adorable?  At one point I said I’m sorry to have to ask but I forgot their names and she had to remind me.

Remember how happy I was to get Netflix plus through that box I was able to see the last 8 episodes of Breaking Bad, thanks to Nicky’s stealth on the Internet.  However after the visitors had gone, I saw down and was ready for another episode of Nip/Tuck only to find the box dead.

I mean dead as in nothing happened whatsoever when I pointed the flipper at it.  Changed the batteries in the flipper, and still nothing, so called Nicky.  He checked it and declared the box pooched, so drove to Future Shop for a new box.

He installed it and went downstairs.  After an hour or so the screen went black and then a loud whining sound started coming out of the speakers.  I asked Nicky to check it, and at first he was blase but when he heard the noise, he was like, “Holy F”

It was fixed, but not before he declared the sound was very, very rare and hence quite interesting.