I had a rather odd dream last night. It involved a spider that I think came from a previous dream. Either that, or the spider in the dream was a spider from my past (in the dream). At any rate, at some point I found and raised a young spider. By “raised” I guess I mean I didn’t kill it, and instead put it someplace where it would be safe (which was in some sort of a big crocheted hat type thing). I may even have fed it, but I’m not quite sure as, in the dream, I had forgotten all about it until one day I was sitting on a couch or something with somebody else (and the big crocheted thing) when I noticed several very large hairy moving legs inside.

My dream self was apparently not as manly as my real self, as he (or I) kind of screamed like a little girl and exclaimed “holy shit, it’s still alive!” Or id didn’t die, or something like that. Anyhow, this little baby spider was now huge, and as it emerged from its lair I realized it was the size of a small dog. Being humans (not to mention Americans), we immediately tried to kill it, but it’s unclear whether or not we were successful. Set-up for a dream sequel, no doubt.

So, flash-forward to, well, to the next thing I remember, and we found a puppy in the house. I should also mention that we (not really sure who “we” were, other than me) had lots of dogs in this dream. Like, way more than the three I have now. And possibly cats, too, as I recall saying that the giant spider was large enough to kill a cat, though I don’t recall actually seeing any cats (or stepping in anything cat-related).

Anyhow, we found this very cute little puppy, and it was immediately clear to us (for some reason I’m not certain of – perhaps because we didn’t have any recently knocked-up girl doggies around, but also due to a “family resemblance” type of thing) that this puppy was the spawn of the recently evicted (if not exterminated) spider. Not quite sure of the logistics on that one, since, as far as I know, spiders lay eggs. But anyway, it was a dream-certainty that the otherwise normal-looking puppy came from the spider.

About the last thing I recall was somebody – not sure if he was resident in the house, or a “specialist” we’d called in, though I believe he was British, which may or may not be due to the fact that I watched two BBC-type shows before I went to bed last night – who was apparently an arachnologist explaining to us that sometimes spiders have young that are poisonous and act as bait to kill predators. Since we weren’t planning on eating the puppy, that didn’t seem to be a problem.

Then I woke up.

So if you happen to be an expert in Oneirology, let me know what that one means.

Otherwise, it’s back to the grind today. Not to work, per se, but to a four-day training class on how to optimize Oracle. Oh, don’t let the title fool you – it’s not as exciting as it sounds, though it has the potential to be really useful. It also has the potential to be four days of mind-numbingly boring hell. It all really depends on the instructor and the other kids in the class (all of whom I know, and most of whom – with a couple of exceptions – are not the kinds of people that I’d choose to be locked in a room with for four days).

The worst part is, it’s right around the corner from where I work so it’s not like I get the benefit of being someplace closer to home (or at least in a different direction). I took a three-day thing a few years back that was at Cornell, which is not only a pleasant ride, but I got mileage (which at 100 miles round trip per day to sit in my car and listen to tunes for a couple of hours was easy money).

Oh well, they’re paying something like $1,200 per person for this class, so I guess I’d better get ready to go get their money’s worth. Besides, I think I was the one who suggested this shit in the first place.