In My Secret Bargain

Friday, Aug 4

Dream:

I was following a young girl in white to a secret garden, which was located below my folk's swimming pool, and across Heather Drive.

I'm not sure how the garden was secret, as it was screened on only one side by a fence of broad, grey weathered planks.   But the girl in white was stealthily walking down the hill (which may have been more wooded than it is in real life) and I could tell she was hoping that I'd miss seeing the secret garden.

I didn't, and had just entered it when (I think it was my sister) appeared on my folk's lower deck and said, "I think he's around here somewhere."   It sounded like there were several people with her.

I hid behind the fence, but I was still pretty visible.  The girl in white and I had a wordless exchange of glances that went something like, (her) "great, now they're going to find the garden," and (me) "don't worry, I'll distract them."

By this time, Julie and (I'll say) a 30-something businessman were walking along "the lower forty" below the deck.  I waited until they were turned away from me, and then I stepped onto Heather Drive.    Julie turned around, saw me in the middle of the street and said, "There you are; where did you come from?"

"Here I am!" I said, lapsing into a Zorro Quote.

I'm not sure where Julie went for the rest of the dream; Sarah and Gretchen, my former land-ladies, appeared around a corner.  "Oh good," Sarah said.  "We'd like you to meet Mr. Suit." (I've forgotten his real name, and in waking, this is obviously the Bad Businessman character who pops up in my dreams.)

Sarah and Gretchen wanted some land work done which involved a kind of chemical treatment--I'm not recalling if it was for my folk's land, their land, or Mark's and my property.   I was leery about spraying stuff all over, and I had some concerns that Cicero and Smokey would be poisoned.

"So."  I turned to Mr Suit.  "Do you use an herbicide or a pesticide for this treatment."  

Mr. Suit gave a condescending, "oh look, isn't that cute, the stupid hippy has read something on the 'net and is trying to ask an intelligent question" jargon-filled non-answer.   I asked again a few more times with similar results.

I lost my temper, said something along the lines of Mr. Suit was either dodging my questions or didn't know how his product worked and that his company should send a representative who knew what they were doing.  I think the dream-scape changed, and we were now in a college campus theatre.

Mr. Suit stormed away, angrily muttering about wasted time.

My former landladies were livid.  Sarah read me the riot act:  "Do you know how hard we had to work to get him to agree to come out here?"   They agreed that Mr. Suit had been rude and given non-answers, but apparently, I had derailed a complex arrangement of jobs that had to be done.

"I'm sorry," I said.  "This has been my day for challenging people who don't give me straight answers."  The dream went on... and when I woke up, I realized that I'd been dreaming about non-answers at least twice.