SHUSHU/CHICKEN
I come to myself or awaken at the refrigerator. It’s night and the lights are out except for the little one inside the refrigerator. I have the door open and am crouching there in my red felt robe eating raw chicken. Had I been sleep walking or is this how the dream starts? Wendy comes up beside me. Standing I look over the door of the refrigerator through the window beyond I notice a man. He frightens me so I pop back down hidden from him by the refrigerator door. Wendy makes some menacing hand signal and he goes away.
I realize I got the phone message wrong. That instead of saying, “she’d visit soon with ShuShu” Colette had said that “Shushu would arrive soon” which had happened; hours ago the dog had shown up. She must have been hiding in Colette’s room. Did she pee all over the room? Now ShuShu and I are outside. She’s running around and I am throwing bits of chicken (cooked now) into the air.
Over by the lake a group of Chinese people sit on lawn chairs in the sunrise while others dig at vegetables. The menacing man is one of them; just an industrious soul up before me. It’s Wendy who points out that they are Chinese. She’s proud of them for rising so early.
I realize that I got the rest of the message wrong too. Colette hadn’t said she wasn’t coming. She just had to go home and get something so she had sent the dog on and is arriving now.

READING GROUP
At a reading group or a presentation with Lisa. We sit in the twilight at an outdoor table. The organization is bad. All those attending are restless. Moved to another table, this one under cover but still outside, they start handing out material about the books. We notice but don’t comment on how the items brought will not be helpful. Flyers instead of actual books.

I wander into a vodka shop. It is rather old and dusty with lots of wood with one bench covered with a worn tarp. The shop is off an Edwardian street like I’ve gone back in time. The vodka making apparatus is set on shelves. There is nobody about. The keeper has gone off. I spend some time being shocked at his absence---The store is open. Someone could steal something. I keep expecting him to return. I peek out the door and suddenly it is night and I notice 2 ominous figures at the end of the street. I duck back inside and fasten the little hook latch as an older man with a shaggy white beard attempts to gain entry.

My mom was late coming home. My father was completely unconcerned. Did he have a beard? were we living in that house on Catlin Ave. where the basement wrapped around to a creepy dead end? If it is Catlin then he spends really the entire dream in the basement with a group of boys cleaning it out or rearranging tools. But I am concerned about her. I figure out where she has gone and launch a plan to go find her. She arrives home very late at night and has had her uterus removed. She stands outside with her hands on her stomach. I know she has sacrificed herself for someone else. My father doesn't come out.