Car Trouble on the Way to the Coast

Sunday night/Monday morning

It is the last day of work at the company I work at (which I think is not the real company I currently work at, but somewhere else). The company is shutting down so we are all ending on that day. I work there with my friend S-, my female cousin K-, and my sister, among others. When the dream opens, the work day is already over and we are leaving the building into the underground parking garage. We decide to "celebrate" or get together after work on this last day by taking a trip together out to and up the coast. After some discussion, we decide to meet up at "Mo's", a chowderhouse, and we'll stay the night at a hotel at the beach, then continue up the coast. Mo's only has restaurants at 3 towns so we try to remember which one is the most direct route from where we are (it will still be over an hour drive). We settle on meeting at the Mo's at Hecata Head (there isn't really one there in the real world, to my knowledge). My friend S- leaves first, in a very beat up old car. I was thinking we might all ride together, but then we realize that would mean somebody would have to drive me back here to get my car, so that wouldn't be good. So as it ends up we all ride separately.

Everybody makes their way out of the parking garage, I have some issues extricating my car but eventually make it out, behind everybody else. Skipping ahead somehow I am in a town somewhere along the way, having not yet reached Hecata Head, when my car breaks down. That is, I park my car outside some building, possibly to get an item of grocery for my journey, and when I come back out I realize that the back tire has disintegrated. There's sort of a foam tire insert left but the outside is all peeled away, in fact it doesn't even look driveable although I suppose I've been driving on it for a little while. Plus, it's a Sunday (why I was working or why it is now no longer evening is not explained, although I haven't actually reached Mo's yet to meet up with the others, and I don't think the drive there was supposed to be overnight... but of course this isn't an issue in the dream).

I am frustrated and annoyed. Everything will be closed, of course. I walk around for a while trying to catch a glimpse of a likely shop, a Les Schwab or something. An older woman stops in a dark car and asks if I need help, and I tell her about the car issues and if she knows of a tire shop nearby. She thinks over possible options out loud, most of which are closed, and then after some hesitation agrees to give me a ride down the street to look for one. I hop in and we drive along, we pass a Les Schwab but of course it is closed. I consider that I might be able to buy a new tire at a general store (or for that matter, put on the spare) myself, but I am hesitant to do so becuase I'm no longer with my car, but with my old mazda pickup. This truck is absolutely terrible to retrieve the spare from, it has this weird long crank that has to be threaded through a hole in the bumper to loosen a chain holding the spare underneath... it's quite a chore and not something I am relishing. Plus for some reason I think I don't have a jack.

We pass a small convenience store with a phone booth, and I ask the lady to stop so I can look in the phone book. While I'm looking at the phone book, she realizes there's some kind of tire shop just next door to us, the sign is visible through the trees. We go over and it is in fact open. Now some tire places might come and bring a tire to you but this isn't one of them, so I go back and get my truck and drive it on whatever is left, very slowly up the street and to the shop (which is not far away). The lady goes on her way, I am grateful.

At the tire shop there is a small boy running around in the parking lot, I talk to him and he runs inside. I walk inside the shop, and there is a man with 3 or 4 little kids playing around, all probably 3-5 years old and under (they don't all look like they are related to him, I don't know if they are actually his or adopted). It appears to me that business is quite slow. I tell him my predicament and ask if I can have a replacement tire put on. He says sure! It should be done by tomorrow noon. What! I am quite taken aback and a little outraged, as it's quite clear that it's not busy and it does not seem to me that it should take this long to replace a tire. Plus I need it done today so I can continue on to the meeting place. I tell him this is ridiculous, and can't he do it today. He says he can get it done today for an acceleration fee, and when I inquire as to what it is, he doesn't want to give me an estimate, saying it will vary. Eventually he comes up with $500 dollars. I am furious as he's obviously just trying to make trouble. I say I can change the tire myself in significantly less time than that, and he (unperturbed) says go ahead. Then I tell him fine, I will just buy the tire and change it myself... how much for just the tire? It is $36 and some change. I am surprised at how comparatively cheap this is considering the amount of time he wants to take for changing it, and the acceleration fee he was going to charge, but I am agreeable to this price of course.

I am expecting him to just roll out a new tire, but instead he brings out two tire pieces and a whole lot of what can only be described as random trash. He starts stuffing the new tire halves with this, and affixing them together. This takes a little while. The kids run around and try to "help." I am not exactly thrilled with the rebuilt tire, but I don't say anything. I wonder if other refurbished tires I may have purchased in the past are made this way? How long will it hold up? But frankly I don't really care, I just want to get going, badly constructed as it may seem. Eventually he finishes building the new tire and goes back inside after I buy it. I ask one of the kids if I can borrow a jack and a wrench from the shop, but the kid says Dad doesn't let people borrow them becuase they might not bring them back. I go in and explain that I just want to borrow it to put the tire on, I'm not going to take it off the premises. He agrees and gives me a jack and wrench, and assigns one of the kids to go out and watch it (so I won't steal it). I change the tire and put the new one on, but then I wake up around this time.

Keeping Playing Alive

4/5/2008

Saturday Morning/Friday Night's Dream

This dream is very hazy and spotty, I don’t remember most of it. The gist of it was that I and my sister were two characters, a little boy and a little girl (and possibly some others). This was the main part of the dream. I was the little boy, my sister was the little girl, but the characters weren’t brother and sister. I don’t remember the details of what happened to us, although at one point I had to climb up through the window of a restaurant, a Burgermaster I think, and up the hill behind it over some greenery. The boy and girl had great affection for each other and they were trying to establish how they felt.

It later came out that my sister and I were playing a game (that we used to play in real life) where we came up with and controlled and narrated various characters. The girl and boy were new ones, not ones we’d played with before in real life. My sister and I were talking about them afterwards and she pulled out a legal tablet. She’d written down the names of various characters in this game, and a number that was assigned to them (this had something to do with a number that the little girl who was her could see in people). Next to each one she wrote an L. I asked her what that was, and she explained to me that whenever we played with a character, she wrote and L next to their name because that meant they were still alive.

This struck me as very nostalgic and sad because we didn’t play as much as we used to. I told her I was glad we were playing again, as we hadn’t done so for a long time, aside from this particular game (which had apparently been going on for a while). I felt really happy that we were playing again, and sad about those characters who didn’t get the “L” anymore and thus were not alive.

When I woke up I realized that we hadn’t really been playing that game since it was a dream, and it really HAD been a long time since we’d done so, and I felt sadder and missed it.

Many strange goings-on in a busy night

1/16/2008 - (Out of order, yep :P. I saved it on the wrong computer then forgot to post.)

Sad and looking for a place to stay

In the first part of the dream, I was coming from my parents’ house, but going to P- to stay with my aunt K-. I'm not sure why I couldn't stay at my own house, maybe I didn't live there yet. I didn't call in advance but ended up in downtown and wandered around trying to find a place to call. There was a library named Io Jima. I stood outside of it and called. My aunt was surprised that I was there, and I was embarrassed to explain that I needed to stay with her. It seems like maybe it was my house and she was just watching it for me while I was away, but hadn't expected me back so soon. I hadn't lived there before though, it was a brand new house for me that she was watching. We arranged for her to meet me downtown where I was. I went to a restaurant nearby and waited. There was a little boy there and I followed him around the building for some reason. I think my aunt picked me up and took me to the house, but then she was in the attic. There was a crawlspace there through a hole in the ceiling, but the cover that hid it was coming loose. It was like a door on a long strip of white leather, which was wearing out. I mentioned that I would get it repaired. We established a place for me to sleep up there, on a pallet near a big window, and I slept there. I seemed to be running away from something or had to stay there because of some kind of unpleasant situation that I was trying to get away from and had not had any place else to go.

The next day my siblings and cousins met me at the same restaurant downtown. It was an empty, old building all painted white, which didn't seem to be actually serving anything. Apparently this meeting indicated I needed to go back to my parents’ house.

When I got back I went over to Grandma’s for the weekend visit. We were all sitting around when my sister saw my mother coming back from a walk. She had my brother (young) with her and also some little kids including one in a backpack, which weren't hers but a friend's. I was surprised to see them. Someone commented that I had no sooner left than she'd replaced me with new kids. They came in and helped themselves to cookies and juice. I tried to smile at one of the little girls but she was solemn and suspicious of me. I saw my brother come in from the kitchen and spit on the floor. I got up and went into the kitchen and called him after, beckoning to him, and when he came I told him in a whisper that he needed to clean up the spit. He was chastened and moved to do so. My other aunt N- had already noticed it but he got to it. However, when I got back to the couch, my mother and the girls were sitting in my place and there was no room. I tried to sit but she didn't move, so I got up and went upstairs and sat sulkily by myself with my book, feeling excluded. I could hear my father talking downstairs about some woman who'd made great advances in her life, and it sounded like he was talking about me, and he described this book he'd read that was really good, called something beginning with P. Propet or Portent or something like that. The title was strange but a real word. He seemed to be sticking up for me, I thought, perhaps comparing me to the person in the book. My mother hadn't read the book and said he should have told her about it earlier. To which he said he had tried to get her to read it, and five times she had refused, tapping her finger on the book’s title, and said she “wouldn’t read a book with that damn title.”

Next dream:

South American "research"

I was in some country, I think in South America, there to study. There were two groups of young men there who were competing in some kind of coming-of-age ritual, although they were already close to my age. I was going to follow along with one of the groups for research. We trekked across the countryside. One of them was tall and close to my age, with pale skin and dark hair, handsome. The next was short and sort of fat, with curly long red hair and a long faded beard, looking sort of like a coworker. Another one was tall and darker, and the fourth I don't exactly remember but he was unattractive in some way. None was a leader; they all had to work together.

At one point they came to a river. They showed me one of the rules in their culture. They floated a small animal down the stream and the others watched from the opposite bank. But then they floated another animal that looked sort of like a dumpy green fruit-like frog, which turned its back on the watchers from the bank. Because of this, they yelled and threw things at it. I commented that the animal didn’t understand facing them or turning its back, but they explained that this was their tradition. Another one came by and faced them and they did nothing to it. Later the one that had turned its back floated in the water with a greasy stain coming from it, as if it were sick or dying. I am not sure if this was a way to identify dying animals (that they had seen it was sick beforehand) or if they had injured it. The entire scene with the floating animals I had seen before in another dream, but undeveloped as to its meaning and the surrounding story.

We got a move on then, one of them chastening the others for dallying there so long. We ran up hills, along narrow trails, etc. I ran to keep up, they were able to move faster than I. It was some kind of race against the other group. We camped for the night in a small tent with all of us. I wondered how we were going to spend the night like that, but the dream skipped over it so I never found out. In the morning I found myself waking with the handsome guy that I kind of liked still there, preparing to pack up. We talked and he ended up kissing me, and I got carried away by this and tried to go further. He protested that this would be a huge problem in the competition and get him and his group disqualified, but didn't resist very much. But immediately the other team member with the red beard popped in. He was totally shocked. I was embarrassed, and the other guy started moaning and praying and asking forgiveness for having done this. The other guy was angry and pointed out he'd put his whole group in jeopardy, but you could also see he was hurt that I'd picked that guy and not him or the others. We continued on and finished the race.

The two people on the council who awarded prizes picked their team to win despite the indiscretion, which apparently they were open about to the judges, but they fined the guy who had kissed me to 185,000 and possibly also a time in their jail. I was taken aback and felt very bad about my part in it, and thought the punishment harsh, but everyone was very relieved by it (apparently it could have been worth) and relieved that their group had passed.

Radioactive seepings downtown at work

Next: I am back in P-, possibly at work. I have been sent into another room to retrieve something. It has a big window across all one wall. I look out as I go there and see a big funnel cloud, but I can't tell if it’s a tornado or just a cloud shaped like that. In the room, I see the city landscape and I see a nuclear tower in the middle of it. It's normally quiet or not in used, but now it starts generating huge clouds of steam. People are in a closer room, watching, which I can also see through a glass wall into (I can see through the glass wall and the real window to see outside the building). As I'm watching wondering what is going on with the tower, is it going to explode? Some military people come in. some are already watching. They wear tan uniforms, and might not be military but work for the nuclear plant, but are somehow official. A short roundish woman in uniform asks me if I would like to come into the next room next to the window to get a better view (indicating there's no option about it). I go in with her and watch and ask some questions about it but don't learn much. After a bit I leave via going to the bathroom (as a kind of excuse to leave the room). But when I look at the toilet, instead of water, it's filling with blue stuff similar to toilet bowl cleaner, which is thick and sticky and everywhere. I try to wipe it off the seat but it comes back. It's somehow connected to the activity at the nuclear tower. I decide it won’t work and leave the bathroom and manage to get out of the room too, since now I want to leave instead of being stuck watching with the others. Then I wake up.

Thwarting a motel evildoer

Later the same day morning, I fall back to sleep and I have another dream where my husband and I are floating down a river in a canoe or other small boat. We stop and we want to spend the night at some kind of hotel. The place beside the river bank is like a miniature wooden house, with several parts, just barely big enough for a person to get inside and lay down. It’s like part of a fun park. We end up going in anyway. Somehow we have more space inside the house. There is a big guy in there too. I take a little boy, my brother or son, into the bathroom and go down the stairs. When I get down the stairs I get an awful feeling that something bad is happening upstairs and I race back up. I envision the big guy going into the bathroom after the little boy and trapping him in there. When I get up to the top I see he is not doing that but something else threatening, I don’t remember what. I somehow get up the banister, and manage to jump to the landing he is on, and stab him with a knife. I call to my husband and he comes and helps and we kill the guy. I only caught him because I had had that thought at the exact right moment to avert disaster. We run away out of the house after killing the guy.

Exciting Encounters

12/10/2007 - Sunday night's/this morning's dream
I went to stay for a visit at my parents' house. There was a house that was far up the hill in the woods which my aunt K- was selling as a duplex. She'd asked if I wanted to rent or buy one half of it, and I had agreed.

We hiked up the hill to look at the duplex. Others were trying to convince me not to go look at it becuase it wasn't ready, but I wanted to see it. The trail was lushly overgrown and very steep, but we came up to the house nestled in the trees. They also tried to prevent me from going into one of the bedrooms (either in the duplex or in my parent's house) where I planned to stay that night, but I went in anyway, there was nothing unusual there.

Then while I was unpacking my stuff and changing for dinner, my friend H- popped in! I hadn't seen her for a long time. I realized that she'd been there as a surprise and this was why they hadn't want me to go into the room, becuase they thought she was in there. We was very excited to see her, and we reunited happily and later went out and ate dinner with the rest of my family.

I was intending that my friend H- or my cousin would live in the other half of the duplex, but my parents let slip that my sister was planning to live there, possibly with my cousin. I was quite upset about my sister living in the other half along with me and tried to get them to stop her from doing so. She was unmoved and acted like it was my problem.

Later I went with my husband back to S. A. His hair was longer than usual, combed back and shiny, and he led me to where we were going to stay for the time being in a very fancy hotel. We walked past a grassy hill which he ran up and down, he was very full of energy and excited. There were lots of other people around, mostly women. We went into a restaurant, and as he walked through he made a hand signal (similar to the one indicating that you don't want anymore coffee) to the person at the drink bar (non-alcoholic) which meant to prepare two of his signature drink--he was evidently well known even though he hadn't been there for a while. People greeted and acknowledge him as he went through. I was wearing several overlapping bandannas, black and white, and the rest of my hair was down. As I entered the restaurant, with him, I was given a wide, rectangular, black piece of fabric which was meant to be draped over the back of my hair from the top of my head, and then pulled over my shoulders to the front, like a shawl. This appeared to be standard, other women were dressed the same way and were given the scarf as they entered. I put it on in the same way, and I thought I looked nice.

We didn't actually eat there in the dream, but then we were outside again on the steps going up to the hotel where we were staying. On the steps, my husband put his arms around me from the right side and pulled my collar open to the right and started kissing me enthusiastically. There were quite a few people, mostly women, standing around. I was a little embarrassed, although I liked it as well, and giggling nervously I tried to cover the exposure and his head with my hand, fairly ineffectually since my hand wasn't big enough. I could tell that the women, who were staring openly, were a little jealous. After a while he continued into the building with a flourish and one of the other women said to me as I followed that some people (like me) handle such things better than others. She sounded both disapproving and wishful. I continued in after him, walking through a fancy lobby, and he showed me the room where we were staying, and said he would have to leave for a bit. It was a large well-furnished and well-stocked suite next to a workout room, with windows into it. The interior walls of it and our suite, and the others nearby, were mostly made of transparent glass. At first I thought it was a bit odd that you could see into the gym from the rooms (and vice versa). Then I realized then that he'd picked the proximity to the gym for both his and my benefit for convenience in working out, and it was a good thing. He had several dvds in the room for me to amuse myself with until he came back, and he mentioned another movie that we should see, and I agreed that he should pick it up.

Taco Bell's Notorious Secret Passageway

9/14/2007 Last night's dream (Thursday night)

Stories and memories keep popping up about a taco bell in A- which had a secret passageway in it. It's unclear where the secret passageway went, or where in the store it's actually located (if it's still there), but everybody I run into in the dream keeps mentioning it (my uncle, friends, etc). I have been to the restaurant in question several times in the dream. I recall a series of memories connected to the story of the passageway, including my father telling me about it when I was young and in the restaurant, and starting to show me, but my mother stopping him. My uncle relating a tale about it. Someone I didn't particularly like tells the story, etc. It seems that everyone in the generation older than me has crawled through this passageway at least once.

After going through the series of memories and stories about it, I finally end up in the taco bell in question myself. Nobody will tell me where the passageway actually is, of course. I also wonder if the owner of the store, who surely must have noticed people going through it all the time, has blocked it off. I wander around a bit, wondering where it would be located, and see a storeroom with files in it. Some of the files are in boxes on the floor. As I watch, an employee comes in and moves one of the boxes of files to reveal a trapdoor in the middle of the floor. It's easy to see why it's difficult to hide, although the store apparently tries to do so. He goes through into the floor.

I think about how, at other times, this room serves as the front office for my mother... the trapdoor is never evident because it's always covered by a large rug.

Somehow I go through the door or come from the other side and end up witnessing several people using the door. Actually, I think at this point I stop being me, because they can't see me there (or I start being someone else in their group). Anyway, two or three guys crawl down through the trapdoor. They hand things down through the trapdoor, which opens into some sort of garage/storage room underneath the restaurant, which is open to the outside. All of them are relatively young, in their 20's maybe... the leader is a heavyset fair guy, pleasant enough. I wonder why nobody comes because they are making a lot of noise throwing things down, including heavy things like office chairs. Suddenly, two police appear through the hole and others come in surrounding them.

In addition to the leader guy, there are one or two other guys, friends of his, and his wife and son, who is maybe 10. He is ashamed of being caught and they are all captured, his wife and son upset about how they will live now. Overall my feeling for them is of sympathy. However, the police who captured them have nothing but contempt and also go on about how dangerous this is. One of them shows me how dangerous and stupid the guy was in the way he drove up. He shows me a line of trucks, 4 or 5, which they parked outside to haul the goods away. Safety violations! says the cop. None of the cars have headlamps, apparently so they can sneak away in the dark (although it's not actually dark yet). The headlights just popped off like plastic ones on plastic trucks, and are sitting in a pile, ready to be popped back on when necessary. In addition, the leader/father's truck has a very dangerous fuel source, the cop shows me. There is some kind of tank in the back with tubes coming out of it, which is a fuel cell. It's powered by some kind of liquid (I don't remember what now... vinegar maybe?) over a huge pile of pennies inside the tank. This causes some kind of chemical reaction and powers the truck or gives it a huge power boost. The cop gets in the truck to demonstrate and it drives forward wildly, far too fast, narrowly avoiding crashing into a nearby roof support. He points out to me how he could have been killed. I think he's being a bit foolish.

Shortly afterward I am back inside the restaurant with my family. They are talking about the robbery, and picking out food items from a small internal grocery store within the restaurant. It sells things like vegetable and dry packets of reheatable food, and those Japanese candies in brightly decorated wrappers. My mother keeps asking me if I like, or would finish eating/take home, various items of food if she bought them, including a packet of green beans. Most of the offers I reject. I sort through a large box of dry food packets from some foreign country, trying to pick some out. I am still feeling sorry for the family of thieves who were caught.

I am unaware of any real secret passageway in a Taco Bell, and my mother's office doesn't double as one...I'm actually not even sure in the dream which town it was in, but it began with A.

Old flame sparks

Last night's dream: Monday Night 9/3/2007
I ran into R-, a guy that I used to have a huge crush on in community college, 11 years ago. I'm not sure if he started working where I work, or I just ran into him nearby, but somehow we ended up arranging a lunch date. In the dream world, there was a very fancy restaurant on some high-up floor across the street from my work. We met there, I was very nervous and he very polite and basically just as I remembered him. We examined our menus for a long time and about the only thing I wanted to order that was available was lamb. There was a 2 or 3 page brochure-like spread explaining how their lambs were selected, with little cartoon pictures, the effect of which would presumably be making someone feel guilty for eating the lamb. I did not feel guilty, but I wondered what he would think if I ordered that, having the same menu and all. We made chit chat and he ordered silently by pointing to something on the menu. I ordered the lamb after all, and from something the waiter said I realized that he, too, had ordered the lamb, and we smiled, sharing the joke about the menu.

Then, my aunt N- showed up out of nowhere! She was being very annoying and nosy and wanting to know who he was (without saying so) and would not go away. Finally I was almost rude and she could no longer pretend not to know that she wasn't wanted there, as I wanted to have a private date, and she moved away (later I found she had only moved to a table around the corner). Then I discovered that her sister (no kin of mine) was there too, at a table near to us! I was extremely annoyed by these intrusions, but we continued on, talking quietly. I think the restaurant was French, because French songs from my youth (Allouette, etc) were playing and we talked about them, or else they just came up in conversation. I was very fluttery and smitten all over again and nervous, and he very gracious. Our elaborate lunch arrived and went on for quite some time (probably longer than my lunch hour allowed) before I woke up. The whole dream was very intense, but I don't remember feeling I was cheating or thinking about my husband, if he even existed in the dream world at that time.

In the waking world, nothing ever came of the crush except angst for me and discovering my obsessive personality, jealousy, stalking tendencies, etc. I also never indicated my feelings to him as I was excruciatingly shy at the time and also petrified of him finding out the age difference between us. It seems likely that his apparent attempts to avoid me may have been a result of eventually figuring this out on his own, in retrospect. I never saw him outside of school, and haven't seen him at all since he graduated from there, a year before I did.

Sleeping in my dreams in a mixed-up time

Sunday Night's Dream: (9/2/2007)
In the first part, I was on a outing of some kind by car with my grandma and possibly aunt (on my mother's side). We were in Seattle or someplace similar. They decided to stop by a place called Gringimmer's (or something that sounded similar) and were really excited about it. It was a sort of funland and restaurant, rather like an adult Chuck-E-Cheese. We arrived in the parking lot, there was an enormous iconic sign which everyone recognized (except me, but I felt I should) with the name in blue on white block letters. We got in by swinging on colored ropes, from rope to rope high over a large open amphitheater filled with those round colored balls you play in, which we eventually dropped into. Then we climbed out onto a balcony where lunch was served.

In the second part, I was returning to my apartment, driving my old Mazda pickup. I was going to move to a 2-bedroom apartment from a 1-bedroom in the same building, because my grandfather (also on my mother's side) was coming to live with me, as he needed to be taken care of. My sister rode down with me but then went somewhere else. She was still attending college but was on a break. The apartment complex that I lived in was the kind like a large hotel with exterior walkways around the outside in front of the doors, and I was on the second floor. I went inside to move all my stuff... I was now by myself and apparently I lived alone. After putting all my stuff in the elevator, I rode down to the bottom floor (possibly to get my grandpa, but he was not there), but I accidentally got off the elevator and left my stuff inside. It went back up to some other floor. The apartment building did not look that tall from the outside, but it apparently had several floors. I had to keep pressing the elevator button multiple times before my stuff came back... it seems several elevators operated within the same shaft, and it was a matter of luck if I got my stuff to come back before somebody else found it on another floor and took it. Eventually it came back, and I rode back up with it and moved it into the other apartment.

Either before or after this segment (or at the same time, the time order was all irregular), but still sometime in the middle of the day, I went to a class nearby in a similar building. I was still taking college classes part time. In the class the teacher got mad at one of the students because he had brought a sleeping bag and pillow to class. The teacher then said all of us could bring our sleeping bags and pillows, and we did so and filled up the room with them, relaxing and snoozing. I had mine handy and in fact I felt extremely sleepy and fell back into the poofiness and slept for a short time, falling asleep and waking within the same dream. Afterwards when the other students were clearing out, the teacher came to talk to me. He seemed concerned that I was so tired and that I had a sleeping bag with me. I explained that I kept it in my truck so I could go sleep in the vehicle between classes, because I got so exhausted. He seemed worried, but didn't know me well enough to say much more. I continued out of the class and went back to my apartment.

By this time it was very late, and I was feeling lonely and hungry.. I went out walking across the parking lot in the dark, looking for a restaurant or grocery store that was still open. I didn't have very much money, only a few dollars left in my checking account.

I ended up going to a small coffee shop, where I ordered my standard drink. The people here did not know me, as if I were new to the area, although I wasn't. They seemed mildly suspicious. While the barista made my drink, I looked through the other food items in the shop, trying to find something I could afford. There were cartons of ice cream but they were 10 dollars. There were a variety of unappetizing looking muffins and pastries, but the cheapest was 7 dollars. I decided I was not going to be able to buy any food. When I got my drink, the barista asked if I was familiar with some brand name (that apparently went with an energy drink they always sold in this store). I was not and she seemed rather offended (I don't remember the name anymore, but it had a read and white label with two words and I saw it on something in the store after she asked me about it). I wandered out into the dark with my coffee, still feeling hungry and alone.

This dream seems to have taken place in a mixture of time between past and future that never existed in the waking world... my husband is gone in the dream, but it's like he left, perhaps permanently, and used to be there... but my grandparents who died before I even met him are alive. The car I am driving is two vehicles ago, but I myself am my present-day self. The real-time references are to the move and lack of money in the account at that particular point in time. I'm kind of somber throughout and increasingly lonely and isolated feeling towards the end.

2nd cousin and a strange night on the town

I fell asleep reading at 5 something in the evening and woke up at 9 when the phone rang.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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.