I fell asleep reading at 5 something in the evening and woke up at 9 when the phone rang.
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In the first part of the dream, which is less clear, I was going to meet my second cousin (in real life), H. In the dream, I recalled meeting her twice before and playing with her, once when I was about 8 and once slightly later. In real life I can actually only remember the second time. She was about my age and therefore it was most appropriate, I had thought as a child, that she be friends with me instead of my cousins. I knew she had a horse, named Comet. I was excited to see her again in the dream, but very anxious because I was afraid that she would not remember me. It is often this way with people I knew only slightly but who I remembered well, seemingly significant figures in my life when I was merely a passing face among many in theirs. There were many preparations along with other members of my family to meet the cousin, and we were in a green place, in town I think. I don't remember if it actually got to the point of meeting her in the dream, but I think not.
In the second part, which was much more detailed, I am in Port- near my work, but it is different than Port- in reality, much more like a small town. This is the first time I think I have dreamed about living in this city since moving here... it sometimes takes a few months for "dream time" to catch up with "real time" elements in my life. I am going to see a play or movie later at a small theater, which one of my former coworkers, R, (who I don't even particularly like), is also going to. We talk briefly about how maybe we will see each other there and if each other is going to stop at a cafe to have something to eat first, with me feigning interest but hoping I will not run into her. It is a late night showing, it will start after 9 p.m. It seems that several other people from work are also planning to go. This may be why I'm involved in it in the first place. My husband is around, but I don't know if he is actually going to it (I don't remember him ending up there later). My sister and brother are here, and we are at a house, perhaps mine, although it is not familiar. I decide to go to a cafe a few blocks away to get something to eat. I also need to pick up the tickets in advance for the movie. Since I don't want to walk over to the cafe and get something to eat by myself, I enlist my brother to go with me, which he does extremely reluctantly. We walk to this small cafe which is a knight's move away from the house we are in, block-wise, and I order some kind of chocolate-moussey-cakey kind of dessert. While we are waiting to leave there, I remember suddenly that I need to pick up the tickets, and off we go to the theater to pick them up. I didn't get to eat the dessert, and I think we are intending to come back for it but we forget and go home again.
We are waiting until it's time to meet my mother and Aunt K at the restaurant, and suddenly two people are at the door demanding to be let in, police. I am not properly dressed to answer the door so we are all frantic. My sister refuses to get the door either; I push my brother forward and he finally goes and opens it while I struggle into additional clothes. My husband has just arrived and is wants to know what is going on with these people. As it turns out, apparently I left the cafe without paying for the dessert, and they have actually come to my house to collect the money. I tell my flustered husband that I need to return to the cafe to pay and go off dragging my brother along again. When I come back my husband takes me in the car to go to the restaurant. All of this happens in a fairly small radius of blocks. We pass a small organic halal grocery store, which I apparently knew about but my husband didn't (I didn't tell him about it for some reason). He exclaims over how it is close to my work, and I say yes this is great, I can walk over and get a sandwich or something easily. The people working out in front at some fruit stand extension of the store call back and forth to my husband, but now I can't remember what they were saying. We continue to the restaurant and I think my husband says he doesn't want me going to that grocery store.
We meet my mother at the restaurant. It is very old-fashioned and ornate, with lots of brass decoration, red velvet, and lace. I leave them at the table and go into the bathroom, which is connected to a curtained waiting room. The bathroom has an enormous sink, but no toilet, although there is a large chamber pot sitting on the edge of the sink, apparently for decorative purposes. I contemplate using this and pouring it into the sink but eventually decide not to. In leaving, I go out the other end of the room and notice a mirror which reflects down the hall to where our table is. I am pleased to see that my aunt has joined my mother and husband at the table. Then, when I walk back to the table (in the other direction) I realize that something is very off... The table I saw when I looked out the other end of the bathroom would have been located kitty-corner from where our table actually is (but it's definitely the same table). I exclaim over this to my mother and we talk about the apparent physics-defying properties of this restaurant.
After the restaurant, we go to the play/movie. There is a big star, I think a basketball star called Jamal or Jamar or something in the audience tonight, and so the place is absolutely packed with people hoping to get close to him. It's a fairly small theater in terms of how many sets of seats there are, though.
Before you get to the seats, there is this screen you can walk over set into the floor, and if you look down through it you can see the star's car parked below in the underground garage. The car is very fancy. I note that when I came in here earlier to buy tickets, the screen was taut and easy to walk across, but now, presumably because of excited fans standing/jumping on it, the panels of the screen are very saggy and it is more like walking across sections of an old screen door or a trampoline. The others in my party opt not to try walking on it for this reason.
When we get to our seats I discover my mother has reserved seats in the front row right next to the celebrity sports guy for herself and me, with the seats for my sister and brother slightly offset behind us. I am VERY excited about this. Let me just say that in real life this would be extremely bizarre, because I have no interest in sports or celebrities, and I have no idea who any of these people are anyway, let alone wanting to sit next to one. Anyhow, it dawns on me while my mother is talking about how excited she was that she had been able to adjust the seating arrangements to move me up to the front row (originally I guess we were all sitting together), that this is for my birthday (which in real life I don't celebrate). The movie, special seating arrangements, dinner at the fancy restaurant are all to make me feel special and appreciated (which I hadn't realized or the occasion for them, or that it was about me). It was akin to a real-life moment when I was four and my mother made muffins to celebrate me finishing my reading book. Until she told me what the muffins were for, I was completely clueless to the fact that they were for a celebration, or indeed, that there was anything to celebrate.
In the dream, we never actually get to the movie, I am just super psyched about being next to the big star, and everybody around me is jealous and commenting on it (he is not actually sitting there at the moment). I have no idea how my mother had the leverage to get these seats. About this time though, I wake up to a phone call.
