Cooking Borscht

Spaghetti and salad at Lodge, a soda, a bowl of cereal at home and a glass of water.

I forget the first 90% of this dream. A big, long journey, it feels.

Josh and I, after the travails, end up at Regina & Cornelius' house. We're in their spacious, old, high-ceilinged kitchen, which has white walls and orange linoleum floor. We have groceries. Regina arrives and begins insisting that she is going to have borscht, and that for once she deserves to have it made properly for her. She wants the onions CHOPPED. There is a big pile of green onions on the cutting board. I have no idea how to make borscht, but apparently she wants these CHOPPED, so I get to it. There is a big cleaver, but it is depressingly dull, and it's tending to smoosh and tear, rather than cleanly cleaving through. It's very frustrating.

Homeless guys stealin' our stuff at the Flogging Molly show

Spinach sammies and homemade yam chips, water. Later, a bowl of cereal.

I'm at a restaurant with friends and family. On the way in, for some reason, I got in the trunk of my car and stash the red wood handled knife in a little space up in a corner where no one would find it. While we're eating dinner, I look out the window and I see some guys rummaging in our car, and others, pilfering. I'm in no hurry, but after a moment I alert my buddy (is it Josh? that doesn't seem right), grab my flight, and we take off running out of the restaurant.

We move quickly up on the guys. They catch wind of us and take off running. I chase one, my buddy chases the other. They're homeless guys. I'm chasing John the Baptist and my friend is chasing Rat Man's Friend. I think my guy is going to outrun me, but at the last minute, as we fly though a slightly uppity neighborhood, he gives, stops, turns around, tosses his roll or pack in my direction. It ker-chunks on the ground. I grab it and unroll it on the street. It's a big piece of khaki canvas, looks military, and has lots of little loops and pockets. It unrolls to be about 6 feet by 4 feet. It's full of knives, stuff, and surprisingly it's also full of small works of art on paper. I recognize some drawings that have been turned into lithographs by local artists, and I think I recognize some pieces I own, myself.

After, we head back and hang out waiting for the Flogging Molly concert. I'm surprised to find out that the scabby circus kids we've been sitting next to in the bar are the band. It's not how I remember them, but hey. They take off into the club to start their set. I want to get a drink first, and I can hear them playing. I get in a line, but then it's the wrong line, and then into another line. It's confusing, I'm frustrated.

Dream 2: Burying friends

Hot dogs with horsey mustard & relish, pasta salad, water.

This dream actually preceded the IV dream during the night, but no matter.

Some of the Brothers are in this apartment, virtually devoid of any furniture. In one bedroom there is a computer on a desk, but otherwise it's white walls and brown carpet. We're there to do our duty. Nothing particularly weird about it, rather matter of fact. Benny lies down and dies in the doorway between the room and the hall, and it's up to us to take care of his body. Lance steps over him, grabs his feet, I'm left to lift him by the shoulders. He's not the first, he won't be the last. It's what we're here to do.

Dream 1: I'm back at IV

Hot dogs with horsey mustard & relish, pasta salad, water

I've gotten shifts at Il Vicino, and I'm so, so excited! The restaurant is different, a different layout, there's a little room back behind, and a raised platform along the side, the bar is low and curves around this way and that. And I don't know anybody, but damn it I know what I'm doing and I'm so very glad that I'm back to work there. The dream gets in kind of a feedback loop, so I don't get to actually serve anybody really, though I talk to a couple of tables. My enthusiasm is getting away from me, and dour college girls think I'm odd.

No more dreaming

The petty theft dream here is the first dream I've recorded in a long time, because I don't remember my dreams anymore. Hopefully that will change. Ever since the chaos that preceded me losing my job back in February, my dreams have been blocked up, not coming through, not lodging themselves in my memory any more. I think that as I get more situated and back to normal, that will change. Still so much is up in the air at the moment, but chaos doesn't last forever.

I know that I've had several dreams about being a Freemason, but still, no details are readily available. Of course...that has a certain poignance, no?

Late for my my pickup, accidentally stealing

Who knows.

I'm just off the plane and JJ is supposed to pick me up. I wander around waiting for him, and it's down on Harvard (so-called "Bricklight Dist"), rather than around the airport. He will be a bit yet, so I take a look around. There are lots of new stores along there, stores I've never seen before. I wander into a framing business, set into one of those narrow, deep storefronts. It is structured so there are alcoves along the walls, with counter islands down the center. Each alcove is lined with bins, overflowing with parts and bits. The bins are al wood, painted a lightly greenish off-white.

There are signs everywhere, saying that the parts they are selling are only available to customers who have ordered framing with those parts, because why would they sell stuff to someone not getting their framing done there? Personally, I find this to be a stupid business philosophy, but hey, whatever. I'm fiddling around, and I have my hands in a bin of valve stems when I realize that I've lost track of time, and Josh is probably out there driving around cursing me. I scurry out to the street to make myself visible, but he's nowhere in sight. I'm nearly certain that I've missed him, and a sheepish dread overtakes me. I also realize that I have one of those valve stems in my hand, I accidentally ran out with it. Damn!

I get a hold of Stephanie and she picks me up, and we start looking for Josh. We drive all over, back toward the airport, along Harvard, up this way and down that. Eventually, we do find him. He's annoyed, but hey, sorry. I tell them that I need to take this valve stem back to the store. We go to the store, and the stem has turned into a large steel machine part, with a double-bar bolted to swinging solid steel weights or giant pins. I go to the counter, explain to the two women and one man there what I did, how dumb I feel about it. They are a strangely "wholesome" seeming group of people, very Anne Taylor meets Sears dress-up. No one really speaks to me, but one woman smiles knowingly and takes the steel implement from me, begins hitching green rope through loops and holes, as if preparing it to do whatever it might be supposed to do. She hands it back to me and rings up $10.00.

I have no intention of buying it, I tell her. I brought it back because it was the right thing to do, and I'm sorry. But I'm not buying it. This is going nowhere. Holier than thou and full of shit, they stand there smugly. I start to shout, I explain to them that their store is ridiculous, their philosophy stupid. I scream that I've been in framing for a decade, and I know everybody, including the people at the museum across the way, and I will make sure that absolutely no one takes advantage of their services. I slam the steel thing down onto the counter, and actually it cracks through and impresses itself into the plys of the wood. Josh and Stephanie have made their way back now, hearing my altercation, and we hustle out of there fast.