  Another strange dream, not about death but an earthquake. PART 1: A giant quake, 9.5 or 10, hits San Diego (basically impossible), and we feel it strongly here in Eureka, 700 miles away (beyond impossible). SD and LA are basically destroyed, with nearly 100,000 dead and over 5 million injuries - a catastrophic but probably unreasonable number. Anyway, the whole family is here having dinner, and I feel like I am going to black out, but the shaking starts. A very strong rolling shake, then a pause of several seconds, then not as strong, the shuddering, sharp shaking (typical quake here, but the timing was all wrong).
In the neighborhood (the street was the same, but all the houses and people were different), a 12 to 13-yr old girl is watching her 9 siblings while the parents are at dinner. She is scared and hysterical, so Anne goes to help her out. Fast-forward to the next morning, and we are at some sort of ceremony that is part candlelight vigil, until the jazz band starts up with Buddy Rich and Duke Ellington music. Anne is mad at me for some reason, so she goes upstairs in this meeting hall and starts working on a computer (this is apparently her job).
My real-life boss Leo is her boss, gives her some encouragement, then looks at me, wondering what the hell I am doing wasting time? I said "I don't think I work here,", and he says "OK, you don't now! " The rest of the day, I am trying to find TV coverage of the disaster, but no stations seem to have anything. They show video from a clogged sewer manhole being pumped behind the NBC studios in Burbank, and Anne's mom says "Oh yeah, we used to live in the hills right behind there. " I am wondering if I am crazy, and ask if there actually was an earthquake, or if I was just dreaming. Everyone says Oh yeah, we all felt it, you were right here. I said "why is there no coverage on TV, if this big a disaster happens?
" Nobody answers me, just looking at each other ... PART 2: ... then suddenly I wake up (in the dream I wake up; in reality I am still dreaming). I am saying to Anne "boy that was some weird dream, about this huge earthquake,", and she says "that was real, remember, we all felt it! " So I head for work, totally confused, to my job as a bank teller in the mall. As I am headed toward the bank, Donald Trump, coiffed with different but still hideous hair, stops me in the mall about 3 doors down from the bank. He holds out his Visa Check Card (TM) and says "Hi, I'm Donald Trump, you know, with the Visa Check Card (TM) commercials. " I said, "yeah, we met in New York a few weeks ago. " He said "I need to close out this Visa Check Card (TM) and open a new Cirrus credit card. " [aside: Cirrus card, are you freaking kidding me? That was an ATM card from about 10 or 15 years ago, and I don't know if they even still exist.
Not only that, but why Donald Trump, and why had I met him in NY? ] So we go into the First Interstate Bank (which in reality was swallowed by Wells Fargo about 10 years ago), I sit down behind my desk, and I am absolutely clueless about how to do this. I call the manager, who turns out to be Chevy Chase. He says "just push the buttons on this keypad," pointing to a 30-year-old device with a greed LED readout. I punch in some numbers, and the screen says "CALL PETE AT 1-800-...", whatever the number was. Chevy looks at me, I look at him, we both look at The Donald, and he finally says "Well, call Pete!
" I do so, and Pete is either stoned or has just woke up. I tell him the machine said to call him, and he says "Is it a Visa Check Card (TM)? " Yes. "OK, here are the numbers," and he rattles off a 18-digit number, seeming from random or from memory.
I try not to imagine who or where this guy is as I confirm the numbers and hang up. Chevy looks at my numbers and says "This can't be right, you have fractions, 6/11, 18/7, let me see this," end makes some seemingly random changes. Finally I said "so where is the credit card? ", and Chevy looks blank for a second, looks at Trump, then says "oh yeah, that could be a problem. " He sticks a receipt in to the ancient machine, it prints some numbers, and he hands the paper to The Donald, who walks away. ... and I actually wake up slowly, stuck in that nether region between dreamland and reality. I ask Anne if there was an earthquake, and she says "no, maybe it was just you farting. " OK, I'm back to reality now. 
