dream 2

The husband and I, in a last minute decision, were going to dinner with some old friends and we had to hurry, so I tossed on some jeans, a shirt, and my coat, and the four of us got in the car.

We had to stop by my folks’ house and hubby went up to get something. Then I realized I could go in and get something better to wear real quick, so I got out of the car, headed up to the house, met the husband coming back down, who asked if I needed the keys whereupon I said no. When I got up on the porch I realized I did need the keys, but then saw the 2” x 3” keybox and was relieved. the keybox was located in the edge of the aluminum screen door. But then I remembered I didn’t know the code anymore and, in despair, thought great! So I put in g-r-8 and it unlocked to reveal a 10” by 4” 2-compartment box with gloves and earmuffs on the bottom and several stacks of money and keys on the top.

So I took the keys, unlocked the door, put the keys back, shut the keybox, and went inside. The parents had made some changes to the house, but I tried not to notice since they were going to proudly show me everything later. I made my way back to my old bedroom and started quickly looking through my old closet. I saw a denim jacket, a pretty polished cotton, navy-blue, business-style flowered jacket (with hood), several blouses, and miscellaneous other stuff. I finally tried on the polished cotton jacket, which was just lovely, and looked in the mirror. I was shocked to see that I had on low-cut jeans with ugly flowers on them and a sleeveless baby-doll untucked blouse, and all of it clashed horribly with the beautiful jacket. I was dismayed and turned to go back and find something better when I noticed the kitchen light was still on. (?!)

I went in and tried to turn off the light, but the switch wouldn’t work. I pushed hard on it and it finally went down and the lights went off, but as I turned away the switch went back up and the lights came back on. I tried several times to get them off but nothing worked so I was resigned to them being on and went back to the closet.

I hung the pretty jacket up and looked frantically for the denim jacket but couldn’t find it. Then I heard voices and thought oh no: burglars but couldn’t worry about them right now. My cell phone rang and it was hubby reminding me we needed to go and I said I knew it and that I would be right out.

Still searching through the clothes, I finally recognized it wasn’t burglars but my family, and my mom came into the bedroom. She was taller and quieter than I remembered and I gave her a hug and asked her if she had a pair of jeans I could wear, but she didn’t have much to say so I turned back to continue searching. Then dad came in and I gave him a hug and asked how he was. He said that he was grieving for himself because he had found out he had terminal cancer. I thought the grieving was a healthy thing to do but felt bad about it, and politely listened as he started explaining that the government building he had worked in for 14 years was found to be defective somehow -- some underground threat, like radon or something -- and as he corrected, reworded, and interrupted himself in an effort to get the story exactly right (which i vaguely recalled reading about in the paper), I felt more and more agitated since i needed to get back to finding the right clothes so I could get out of there and get back to the car for our dinner engagement.

Then I awoke.