I was home. Mom returned home/came to visit. Dan and Keira too? Dad? It was night time and I was hungry and Mom wasn't ready for sleep. We went down into Ballard. It was Viking Fest, so Ballard Ave was lined with booths. It was so late though, the festivities were winding down and everyone was closing up. We started at the far end of the Ave, taking note that all the shops were closed and dark.
When we got to 20th, Monster was open and we peeked in, lured by the bright lights and colorful displays. We really wanted to visit the market though, so we continued on. We got to a booth and I saw a girl turned away from us, closing up shop. She looked familiar, but before I could say her full name, she turned around and said, "Yeah, I thought I saw you coming!" I was Chavon and she was adorable as ever. I sat in her booth and chatted while she closed up. She was holding a kitten - it was Monster, and Boudika at the same time. He was very mellow, as I've heard he's been these days. She asked if I wanted to hold him and I said yes. He curled right up in my lap and I enjoyed his softness for a while. Then we decided we had to keep walking. We bid Chavon adieu and continued.
We next came to a booth that was selling Chicken Pot Pies. I wanted to bring one home for dinner, so I asked to purchase one. The woman gave me a fresh cooked pie that didn't look as good as the Take n' Bake, but I bought it anyway. Then a man came up and bought the take-home one. It looked way better, so I asked for one of those instead. She got it for me, packaged it with the other one and charged his card for it. When she handed me his card and slip to sign, I debated the ethics and then decided it was a small karmic price to pay.
Moving along, I was carrying Keira in a cat carrier. She decided she wanted to read instead of walk, so I carried her along, over some strange terrain - a pile of logs in the middle of the road. We came across a woman walking some dogs and Keira wanted to pet them but I was hesitant to let her out of the carrier - I didn't know how to get her back in.
At the end of the Ave, I came across a booth I'd never seen before and never expected at one of these outdoor markets. It was a booth of tribal arts, including hand-made jewelry, art, and tribal (stick n' poke) tattooing. The booth was closed but I was too curious, so I snuck in and poked around. I found a box that was the kit used by the artist. It had a chunk of charcoal that he would grind, sumi-e style, to make the pigment. Then he had some small sharpened bone tools, and a whole lot of designs. I was thrilled and wanted to show Mom, so I brought the box with me and tried to find her. She was upstairs, which happened to be home. I went up to show her but she was tired and distracted. It was quite late and it dawned on me that I needed to get this box back to the booth before the artist returned in the morning and would need to use it. I realized I wouldn't be able to sleep until the box was safely returned.
Then suddenly, it was day again and the market was hopping. The upstairs area that we were in reminded me of a cross between the mall on Broadway, where the Buddha is, and the shopping center at Pike Place, where Tenzing Momo is. The structure was old and unstable and I could feel the weight of all the people up there. It made the whole story teeter, as if on a single point of contact with the ground. The whole structure felt like it was doomed for collapse at any moment. I tried to argue this with mom but she would have none of it. Before I could get downstairs safely, the floor pitched so severely that I lost balance and got dumped off the side, hitting the floor below with a pathetic whimper, right in front of the tattoo booth. Some people looked for a moment, then went about their business. I felt humiliated.
I carefully approached the tribal arts booth. I was scared to approach, but then I figured I just had to be honest. I walked up to a guy who was tattooing and produced the box. As it turned out, it belonged to the guy who was getting tattooed. He looked just like Leo Zulueta. He seemed surprised but not angry. He told me where to set it and as I tried to offer explanation, he told me we could talk about it later. Suddenly, I was the center of attention and scrutiny. All the guys in the booth wanted to see my tattoos and ask what they symbolized and who did them. I told them what I could, but I held back from telling them that I'm an artist too. I wanted to remain humble. I told them I'd return when they weren't so busy and decided that I had something else I needed to return to another vendor. I had a memory of taking something from another booth, but I couldn't figure out if it was something that happened earlier in the dream, or just a fragmented dream memory.
I tried to go upstairs again, but it was quite a journey. There were all sorts of people in my way. There was a couple, trying to order fast-food over a loudspeaker in the middle of the stairwell. There was a psychic, working with a client, off of one of the landings on the way up. I slipped past them all and made it to the top floor, which was both my home (living room only) and my Mom's place of work/art gallery. There were lots of people up there and again the floor was really unstable. I grabbed the item I needed to return - a telescope - and marveled that I'd had the balls to take it in the first place. I readied to go back downstairs, but the floor was out of control. This time I felt the entire structure tip and the whole thing went crashing down to the street below, smashing glass and vendor's booths on the way. This time, I was completely pissed off. 1) Because I'd warned my Mom about it and she'd brushed me off. 2) Because I was humiliated in front of the tattoo artists again. Mom was trying to talk with me and explain and I wanted nothing to do with her so I just yelled at her and left.
Eventually, I came to the booth where the telescope had come from. There was a lot of crap on the table - flea market style. I didn't feel as bad, since I realized that the vendor probably didn't even notice it missing. But then a guy in the crowd piped up and said he was there to pick up the stuff he'd payed for already - two telescopes included. There was one on the table, but I was trying to make it to him before the hawker told him that the other telescope was gone. I guess I made it and gave it to him, cause next thing I knew, I was standing in the middle of the street, no telescope in sight, trying to figure out what to do next.
A hawker from a nearby booth came up to me and started talking to me about the art of Billy Morris. I nodded and said that I was familiar with it. There was a pair of tall guys standing off to the side and I recognized one of them. I knew it was Billy, but he was really old. The hawker led me to a table where I took a look at some third-rate glass art that was vaguely reminiscent of Billy's usual work. There was a lot of other cool stuff on the table as well. I was mesmerized by an unusual chunk of labradorite that had step-cut pattern in it, to maximize the surface area of the dusty orange flash. I knew I didn't have any money though, so I wandered away.
The tall man followed me and pulled me aside, having overheard that I was familiar with his work. He asked how I knew him and I said, "My name is Lola, but when you knew me, I was Lauren. I was about 11 years old back then." "Yes," he responded, flowering with memory, "You're Dorothy's daughter." We had a moment of recognition, then he bid farewell, with a request to say hello to my Mom for him. I ended up back at the table that had his glass on it. There were many other items that had feathers, butterfly wings, and precious stones. I couldn't step away from it all. On the other side of the booth, I found an arm cuff made of leather, metal, and an exotic array of rainbow feathers - Macaw, etc... I was in love and lamented being poor. Then I remembered that Dan's Dad had given me money for Christmas. I stepped away from the table to look for the money. When I returned to the table, the feather cuff was nowhere in sight. Nor was the labradorite. Panicked, I asked the hawker and he eyed a customer who was busy putting all the coolest stuff in a paper grocery bag. I asked if he had seen it and they both shared a hearty laugh at my expense. I explained that I was going to buy those items and that I was just grabbing my money. He was completely unsympathetic and offered no response but a snide smile. I woke up after that feeling frustrated and with fragile emotions. I had to remind myself that even if I'd obtained the items in the dream, I wouldn't have been able to bring them through to the waking world.
Viking Fest Market Adventures...
