I dreamed that a praying mantis, head the size of a football, watched me through the window.  Behind him, a grasshopper sat on the deck rail.  Not a sweet little deary, but one the size of a yardstick.  I turned away, shuddering, and my breath froze at a similar-sized grasshopper sitting on the wall beside the kitchen bar.  How had he gotten there?

He stared at me with his funny grasshopper smile and I knew he was going to jump, and bite.

I freaked and called my husband, counting the seconds until he came in.  Taking a deep breath, he lunged with his two hands stretched like a mantis and grabbed the thing around its body, struggling to keep it from kicking and biting him.  Fortunately, grasshopper heads aren’t attached to swivel-necks.  My husband kicked open the patio door and threw the monster off the deck.  Superhero.  That’s right.

As I peered for openings the beast could have entered through, the mantis watched me through the window.

My husband took me scuba diving in Hawaii to escape the giant bugs.  It wasn’t beautiful or enjoyable.  I knew fish would brush me on the legs and I’d get tangled in jellyfish tentacles.  As my husband reassured me, a killer whale–dear Shamu–poked her smooth snout under my hands.  She swam with us for three whole days, and with the enormous predator at my side, my worries floated away with the currents.

First off, I didn’t know I was such a scaredy cat.  I’m the one who rescues spiders and feeds sicko superworms to the lizard.

Secondly, I didn’t realize I look up to my husband that much.  (Or killer whales.)  I hope he’s pleased.

Third, the influences to the dream are clear:

the mantises and grasshoppers in our garden
the kids’ desires to feed grasshoppers to Spike (a carpenter ant already attached its jaw to his, imagine what a grasshopper would do)
talks with my husband of going to Hawaii
Sunshine’s adoration of all things killer whale

Add in my late-night Google search on parasites and creepy deep-sea fish, and memories of touching scales with my feet in summer lake swims, unable to see what I touched, and you have the shudder factor.

I love how the mind pieces together stories out of what it is given.  This combination could have played out completely differently.  It gives me faith that there will always be a bizarre story in my brain, no matter how many I write.  And that life will always be interesting with a skewed perspective.