I was looking through the neighborhood for a house where I could start my “Doggie Daycare Business.”  I saw my neighbor, Tamara, who had said she just got a dog (a handsome black puppy) and is taking care of the rest of the litter for the people who adopted them (all black, real cute, dogs).  I felt jealous.  I thought, “That would have been a perfect way to start my business.  Didn’t she know I was going to do that?  No, I guess I didn’t tell her yet.”  I saw a couple more houses, looked through them and figured out what could be done with each one… but wasn’t sure I liked any of them that well.  They were all kind-of small, dark, dingy, trashy looking.

Then I was back home.  I went downstairs to look again at my own house to see if I couldn’t convert a room… or add on a room, where I could start my dog-care business.  I went into a room I hadn’t been in, in a long time, maybe never.  I mean, I kind-of knew it was there but had forgotten it was there.  At some point I realized I was in my late Uncle Willie's old house.  (Apparently I bought his house and we lived there.)  I opened a door of one of the rooms and looked through an opening into another room, like a mechanic’s garage, HUGE.  “This would work.  Kind-of dark, no windows, but it would work.”  It had an antique tractor in it and a racecar or boat or something.  I had a feeling he (Uncle Willie) or his son, Cain, would be coming to move that stuff out of there soon.

 I walked into a room next to that one. It was similar, a basement-type block foundation, but it had a window or door or something on the street-side.  I looked out and saw that a race car had, in the past, gone off the road and embedded itself into the outside of the block foundation… you could only see the back half of the car.  I explained to the person with me (my husband?) that it looked like the car ran off the road (there was a road that ran along the side of the building) and embedded itself into the side of the building.  I thought it was odd that the front half of the car was not protruding into the inside of the room.  The car did not go all the way through the wall… where was it?  We left that room. 

I kept opening more doors to more rooms, and they got better all the time.  One room was full of antiques… I supposed they belonged to Uncle Willie and Cousin Cain?… antique headboards, two pianos and one player-piano (my other Uncle's?), dining room chairs, a loveseat made out of “country” kitchen chairs that was particularly high off the ground.. long legs (odd, I thought)… all this stuff would have to be moved out of the room for me to use the use it for dog daycare… unless I found a better one.  I wondered, “Why was all that stuff there?  Why didn’t Cain move it out of the room?  It was neat stuff… but who would want it?  That’s what happens when you save stuff because it’s ‘nice stuff’… it just hangs around.”

I found a PERFECT room with windows and an office attached (ALL WHITE) that I could use for the dog day care.  The office had a big glass window that you could see into the other room…. kind-of like a “control room” or something.  A kitchen adjoined the office and I was amazed that I never knew it existed.  The kitchen was BIG…two stoves!  I thought, “Gee, my Dad could live down here and have his own apartment and everything!”  I felt guilty for not knowing it was there.  Part of me did not want to tell him about it because I might want to use it myself.   Then Dad came in and I blurted out… “Look!  You could have your own apartment down here if you wanted.”  I saw my husband behind him and said to Jim, …”Look!  Two stoves… we could have Thanksgiving down here”.  Jim didn’t like that idea.

I continued looking and there was room, after room, after room.  There was a white bathroom with a shower.  You had to go up a couple of steps to the shower (neat!).  The room was bright with windows… a NICE bathroom.   I think Jim was inspecting the shower… he came down the steps behind me as I turned to leave the room.  AS I was leaving the shower room, I saw Jim’s wedding ring on the floor near the doorway.  It was very big and obvious.  He doesn’t wear his ring, how did it get there?  Then I noticed that I had left earrings in both of my shoes.  2 earrings in each shoe, equaling 2 pairs.  Jim commented on the earrings in the shoes. 

Eventually, my late Mother and my sister, Sue,  were looking at the rooms with me.  But I got ahead of them and found myself separated from them.  I kept walking through hallways, some had low ceilings, almost like a tunnel… like walking through a very old basement with escape tunnels… some were like you would find in a big old house… so many rooms, I couldn’t get my bearings and started feeling anxious about not finding my way back.   I wondered where Mom & Sue were.   

I was looking at a room that looked like a children’s day care.  The carpeting went up the wall partway and there was a built-in bench around the perimeter of the room.  It was a happy sort-of room, childish.  A cute little girl appeared (native of the Caribbean Islands where we vacationed recently).  She seemed happy but was the only child in there.  “Where am I?” I thought. “ I think I went beyond my house and this is a real (people) Day Care.”  

 I went further… I entered this very BIG room, but the word ‘room’ doesn’t really describe it… kind-of like the bargin basement at a big department store, or the basement of a church… it was dark… like my vision was darkened… and there were clerks behind a long table/counter.  “I think I’m lost” I said.  They knew I was anxious just by looking at me.  They didn’t say it, but I knew they had seen my mother and sister.  They knew that my mother and sister were worried about me.  I told them “You know when you have those dreams about ‘the house of your dreams’… well, this is it.  But it seems I went beyond my house… I don’t know where I am.”  They just looked at me.  I tried to explain it to a customer in a wheelchair that was in line, but she just looked up at me with her eyes real wide and her face right up close to mine.  “She’s deaf,” the girl behind the counter said.  I felt flustered, turned around and started heading in the opposite direction.  I kept going.   I thought to use my cell phone but remembered that I didn’t have it on me because, after all, I was in my own house! 

The more I walked the further I was away from where I needed to be.  I walked into a fancy store with high ceilings and dark curtains.  It was very modern, everything gray… all the people were young and had clothes on that were very stylish.  Their hair was very stylish, sort-of punk-ish.  They seemed college-age, yuppie types.   When they accidentally looked at me, I knew they felt like I didn’t fit in with them and that they really didn’t want me there.  I saw myself, as though I had stepped out of my body for a minute and looked at me.  I had on a denim jacket, jeans, clunky shoe-boots, and long brown hair that was disheveled.  I had an ‘I don’t’ care what you think’ attitude.  I liked myself.    I did, however, feel awkward in there and just wanted to leave.  I left the store and was in a large lobby-type hallway.  There was an Exit door on the left.  I decided to take a look outside to see where I was.  Maybe I accidentally took a path under the street (through the house, of course) and would need to just cross the street to get back to my own part of the house.   When I opened the door and looked out, I didn’t recognize anything.  In fact there was a RIVER just outside the door… there’s no way I could cross it to get beyond and back home.  Then my dream changed… like I was seeing a vision – IN the dream, it was beyond and above the river… I saw a green-grass covered hill and running towards me was a white pit bull dog.. a happy dog.. MY dog.  I felt so much JOY!  (I am weeping as I type this)   I woke up.