Work at the coast and a flooded park

At one point I was in this large circular building near the beach, with many open rooms and offices. I was wandering around talking with one of my coworkers, L-. We found a vase on another coworker's desk (not one who exists in the waking world, and at her prompting, I took it to wash it in the sink (knowing we shouldn't do this, but planning to return it before he found out... I'm not sure what the point was in taking it). It turned out the bottom had one of those cardboard pads on it, dyed blue, so when it got wet it started leaching dye. Another (also non-existent in the waking world) coworker came up while we were washing it in the sink and commented on it and how the owner had brought it back from somewhere. He was enthusiastic about it.

I tried to absorb the dye with paper towels and then went to put it back without the guy noticing, but he was already back at his desk. He was dressed in an orange and yellow striped button-up shirt and tie, with several-inches-long straight brown hair. Maybe in his forties, nobody I know in the waking life. He was somewhat surprised when we returned to discover we had his vase. We offered some lame excuse about wanting to put flowers in it or something, (he was dismayed that it was missing but didn't seem to know what to say) and I put it on the table with a folded paper towel underneath to prevent any blue die from leaching, hoping he would not notice that it was damaged. Then the guy who'd seen us washing it at the sink came by and talked jovially about the story of the vase, noting that it had cost the owner 153 dollars (at which I was somewhat shocked, since it was an ugly, squat, square pebbly green-glass vase with a cheap cardboard base, plus I could have totally wrecked it). Later L- and I wandered through other parts of the building, talking between us, but I don't remember all that we did. We were talking about age at one point (she is slightly younger than me but probably does not know that I am that young, she was talking about various pranks or comments people have made to her on account of being the youngest), and generally making friends.

In a later segment of the dream, I was returning from that building to somewhere else, and I drove up a wooded hill not that far from the coast, with plenty of standard trees, salal, and mist. I was going to stop at this park, I think I had to do something there. But when I got to the entrance, I discovered that it was flooded. There were several people just preparing to go in, they had an duffel bag with energy bars and water bottles and stuff, some of them had bikes. I had decided I was going to have to wade through part of the water. It had something to do with the fact that R- (one of the family dogs, who is no longer alive in the waking world) had just given birth to a new litter of puppies in the park on the other side of the flood. I picked over the granola bars to take one with me (I guess they were freely available), and prepared to go through the knee high water.

Death of an Orange Tree and a Mocker Reappears (to mock the Death of the Orange Tree?)

Tuesday Night, 8/21

I'm getting ready to go to a Taekwon-do demo somewhere a ways away, which requires driving. I'm actually planning to work out and participate, and am trying to get my old suit together and ready to go. I'm kind of frustrated about something having to do with getting the suit ready (or perhaps the impending demo), and then out of nowhere, B-, shows up.

He's huge when he first appears, maybe 14 feet tall. I see him from a distance standing beside a tree. He shrinks up to his normal, still tall, size as I get closer. I try to act friendly and happy to see him at first, but quickly he starts to grate on my nerves. He distracts me from getting ready to go and I lose track of what I'm doing (time is short before I have to get in the car to leave).

He somehow draws my attention to the fact that my orange tree has been cut down. He is somewhat amused about this, as he acts about all things, and I pretty much lose all pretense of pretending I was ever not annoyed by him. We are in the chicken yard looking at the cut tree. It was planted along the fence, and somehow got cut down when my father drove the tractor discing a thin link along the inside of the fence. The path of torn up ground made by the disc is only about a foot wide, although this does not seem odd at the time. I am very upset about the death of the tree, which I had nurtured for 10 to 15 years, but mostly this is directed at B-, who is being annoying about it, and not at my father who cut it by accident. I count the rings on the large tree trunk which is the size of a dinner plate. Each ring is over an inch wide.

B- also makes reference to his "wife," which might have been hypothetical, and it causes me to stop and look at him suspiciously (he's gay). He follows up with something joking like, "or maybe I should say husband." It leaves me wondering if he is no longer gay? Or what the heck is going on?

In the waking world, I have an orange tree, but it's in a pot and safe, although not spectacularly healthy. It is the same age as in the dream, but the stem is smaller around than my wrist. The level of upset if something happened to it is probably quite like in the waking world. Although when I was moving away, he said we should "get together" sometime here, B- has never followed through on this plan, for which I am grateful. In the waking world I was recently working on a TKD site for someone, but I end up inserted back into TKD in my dreams with surprising frequency, considering how long it's been since I've attended a class.

Conflicting Play Dates & Prior Engagements

Last night's dream: Thursday night 8/16

I am arranging to go to a play on Saturday night in P- with my Aunt. We are all visiting at my grandma's house.

Then, somehow I run into one of my coworker's, Ju-, while I am out and about somewhere that looks kind of like a Costco warehouse. He also asks me to go to a play on Saturday night. This one is some sort of interactive play which is similar to the Creative Anachronism or Renaissance Faire things, where the play-goers will actually dress up in period clothes and participate. He is really excited about it, and I also start to look forward to it (thinking it would be kind of neat, weird, but okay because he is okay with it being weird) and finally agree to go. Then I remember about the play with my Aunt, and am worrying about what I am going to tell her... do I break off the engagement with my coworker, or with my aunt?

I am debating this, back at my Grandma's house, when my sister comes along and reminds me that I have a play to go to with HER on Saturday night, which we arranged weeks ago! I realized that this arrangement trumps the others and tell my aunt that I'd already had the one set up with my sister. My aunt and I will go another time. I still haven't told my coworker and am not looking forward to this (or trying to find him again... I think I actually end up going to it looking for him just to tell him that I won't be able to come).

In the waking world I have NO play on this Saturday night, for what it's worth. Although I do have a regularly scheduled one every couple of months with another relative not in the dream.

Mysterious Glowing Rocks, Age Control

Tuesday Night, 8/14
Something is going on up on the new logging road, at the end of the road. Signs are put up indicating that there is going to be some kind of explosion tonight as they try to unearth some kind of large rock (with the idea that people will go to watch the excavation). We toy with the idea of going to it, but end up not. As evening falls, word gets out that something strange has been discovered. It is a large sandstone rock but it has transparent parts, and inside is a glowing green cavity. The area is now restricted. Everybody speculates about it. My father mentions that he ran into some police in the woods earlier as they were wandering around sectioning off the area. They had Geiger counters to test for radioactivity (he cannot remember what these are called, I supply the word. Then the family starts discussing how it is actually pronounced... "jijer, jiger, giger, gijer").

Later I am thinking about that hollow rock they found and playing with an inflatable globe. The air keeps going out, but there is a patch over the north pole which can be positioned to prevent the air from going out so fast. I fiddle with this for some time, deflating, inflating, and putting the patch over the hole.

I am back in my apartment. My brother is there. He is very young, and running around playing with a squirtgun. In the dream I am aware that he is not really that young, and that I should update his activities (and appearance) to be more appropriate to his real age, perhaps lounging on the couch and doodling. I envision this, but, in the end, I keep him the same age. Although I am aware this is not reality, and also aware that I can influence it, I don't think I was aware that I was actually dreaming. It was pretty strange.

He has been playing with the computer and listening to music as well, and he has some kind of video game. It is not playstation or gameboy but something else which begins with P. I tell him he can use the computer on the guest account that my husband recently set up (about the only thing that's also true in the waking world), or play video games with the playstation, if he wants to, but he opts not to do so right now, and runs around playing. The dream fades back and forth between this house and my parents' house with the radioactive rock activities, switching scenes.

There's another later chapter to this dream, but I can't remember it.

Escaping With Secret Identity

Sunday night 8/12
It's all very vague, but I've been captured and trapped somewhere in a fenced compound in the hills somewhere. My family is there as well at the beginning, but later it's only me that had been captured. I walk out through an area that looks like K- field, before the trees were planted, and expands into a logging area. On the way, I am chased through our woods by people trying to catch me, I escape jumping/falling over logs and down gullies. Eventually I meet up with some guy who helps me escape. He seems to think I am from a foreign country, lost here, and I encourage this to the extent that I don't speak or say anything to indicate that I understand English. By going with him, I am able to get away under my pursuer's noses. I Understand that he thinks he is also going to keep me and marry me, but I don't say anything to give myself away. The plan is to go along with it and then slip away when I am clear of the danger area. We make it out, and he drives up a road to where he lives which I realize is the same road my parents live on. It will be easy to slip away...

Apocalypse and a Paralyzed Dog which is My Fault

Dream from Saturday night (8/11)
It is the end of the world, the apocalypse is starting. One of the effects of this is the internet going down. There is a group of 100 or so people who are planning how they will survive it, a handpicked team. They have a way to keep a small network with their blogs and stuff going through the apocalypse. I am part of this team, but not by choice. It seems to have to do with my work affiliation. I am outspoken at the meeting expressing my contempt of their idea and asking why they get to single themselves out as being special enough to survive, what about the rest of the world? If just going off individual merit, my parents and family members are far more qualified, and not because they are related to me. I think the elite group should not exclude the rest of the world.

In between, I am on a trip somewhere with my family and husband. We are in a deserty region near the coast. I see the family dog, C-, being bitten on the face by a gila monster. Except, it doesn't really look like a gila monster, it is all green and swims in the water. But it is quite large, and it's bite is deadly poisonous. I feel guilty because I don't say anything immediately when I notice it, and then it finally lets go of his face and swims away (his whole head was pretty much in it's mouth) and I know that it's going to be fatal. Nobody else seems terribly concerned, until it becomes evident that his body is paralyzed (from the neck down, for some reason). We head back home. We end up in the city of P-, buildings are collapsing, or blown out and empty. We are searching for a veterinarian, but everybody is closed due to the apocalypse. We finally end up going back to the town where my parents live, where we locate a vet and leave C- there to be cared for, going back to my parent's house.

At my parents house, my father discusses with my husband how we should head back to our home. One proposal is for my husband to take the truck, and my father to take the tractor, with me riding on the back, and go into town. At the time I don't realize it, but later I think my father knew that the dog was going to die at the Vet's and would need to be retrieved. Later, I am standing on the covered porch at my parents house as darkness falls. I can actually feel the darkness closing in around me, it is velvety soft and warm. I go inside to the living room, my parents are sitting on the couch and chair. I ask them if they have heard anything about C-, or something like that. They do not say anything at all. We stand there looking at each other, me with the growing realization that this must mean he has died, but nobody says anything.

We are still standing there when my husband comes in the door and I wake up, without the question being answered.

Mixed Messages

In the last part of the dream, I am in the office in our main cubicle room. I inadvertently call one of my coworkers (Ju-) repeatedly from my cell phone to his. I keep accidentally hitting his name in the phone. Then, I send a lengthy text message explaining that it was an accident, all embarrassed. Going by the cubes and talking to another coworker, I discover that he's not actually at his desk (and so hasn't gotten all the calls and messages yet), he returns afterwards. The whole thing is rather embarrassing.

Banana Bread Last-Day-At-Work Tradition

I can only remember a very small part. I baked banana bread and brought it to work, but I only brought two slices. One of the slices I put in the lunchroom next to the coffee maker and other appliances. (I think I was going to eat the other slice for lunch). As I put it down, I recalled the tradition that people bring in banana bread on their last day of work, and noted that I was fulfilling it, by coincidence (apparently it was my last day of work).

Note: so far as I know, no such tradition exists in my workplace in the waking world, and I have no reason to think I will be quitting soon or get fired.