My ears have been bothering me for a few days. I have been taking a decongestant to try to help clear them out. (I don't have a cold or anything like that, but something is definitely up with the ears.)

Last night I had the strangest dream. Something about Michael Jordan (the basketball player) who was then Rice, who was taking pictures, and somehow I left the kids alone in the house while they were sleeping to go with Rice somewhere... and then I spent the rest of the dream trying to get back to them.

I rode down the interstate really, really fast without a car, I ran through the mall (which definitely wasn't our mall, but a bigger mall), trying to escape someone who was trying to catch me. Something about the movie theater and an employee trying to help me. He took me outside of the theater and the mall and there was this small, silver ship that landed. Sort of like the size of a motorcycle. The lid raised and inside was Oscar the Grouch. I got inside and he tried to fly me home, but something happened (I don't remember what) and I ended up running in a hospital that really needed someone to come in and de-clutter. The nurses would write something down in a chart and then would throw the pen on the ground. I found Oscar again and he flew me to the lake that's across the street from the house where I grew up. My kids were evidently in the house. Oscar wasn't thoughtful enough to drop me off at the near side of the lake or even the house. No, he dropped me off at the far side.

There were a bunch of women, including my mother, swimming in the lake. A couple of sisters were arguing over something, and one corrected the other's grammar, and my mother got involved. She and the correcting sister got into a discussion about some sort of thirty-day grammar program. Of course, the rules they were citing made no sense.

I flew over the lake, and watched the women swim. I was worried about the kids. It was eleven-twenty and they'd obviously woken up a long time before. Would they have stayed in the house? Would they have left? Would they have gone to a neighbors? Would they be scared to death? Or would they be eating cereal out of a box and watching a movie?

I will never know -- LD cried and woke me up. My left ear was killing me.

My left ear is still killing me, and my right one isn't far behind. So much for decongestants. I've got to find a way to get to the doctor.

All I can think about is little Stevie King and his visits to the otiologist. I think it's the slight fever and weird night with Oscar talking, but I really hope the doc doesn't cut a hole in my ear...