Q: I'm sprucing up our guest room for a friend and her husband visiting us from Japan. Any creative or budget-conscious ideas for bringing life and warmth to a guest bedroom and bathroom (both rooms are pretty small) are welcome.
When I was an infant, my parents often found me sitting straight up in my crib, eyes wide open yet clearly asleep, screaming about a fly that was trying to attack me (yeah, the insect terror has been a lifelong thing). These so-called "night terrors" lasted a couple of years, and then went away for awhile, only to return with blinding force when I hit about 15...and started opening my eyes in the middle of the night only to see a man/monster/enormous spider/whatever in my room, advancing towards me. Sometimes I remembered the dreams, and sometimes I fell straight back to sleep without every fully waking, only learning about the episode in the morning from someone who had heard me or had tried to wake me up.
They sound more or less like normal nightmares, I know, but here's the difference: when they happen, my eyes are wide open. I am seeing the room around me, but I am also seeing the intruder (or whatever I'm dreaming about) clear as day...so it really feels more like a hallucination. I end up sitting straight up in bed screaming at the top of my lungs, and whoever's in closest proximity - usually Kendrick, obviously (sorry, honey) - has to shake me until I wake up for real and the vision disappears.
Weird, no? And probably pretty miserable for the person being awoken by a shrieking bedmate.
Homemade pickles are obviously freaking delicious, and are (perhaps less obviously) super, super simple to make. There are tons of different ways to make 'em, but most involve canning equipment that I don't own, so I stick to making "Refrigerator Pickles", which require nothing more complicated that a pot, a knife, and some Mason jars.
What a long, wonderful, wander-y weekend this was.
Last night my free-association led me to the conclusion that I wanted pasta with a sweet tomato sauce, asparagus, and ricotta. So I made it. It was fantastic.
