Dream: Dinner with Marie Barone

Dream 20020617 9:30 AM:

Dinner with Marie Barone

I’m out at dinner with a woman that I know is my lover’s mother, but she reminds me a lot of Marie Barone (a TV character, from “Everybody Loves Raymond.”) It’s not Chris’s mom. She pays for dinner, and then we leave. We have dinner again at a different place; this time, we are so caught up in our conversation that neither one of us remembers if the check has come; she asks if I’ve taken care of it, and I think that she’s paid it, but then I find the check, and her credit receipt for $200 – then, I realize that she has gotten extra cash back so she’ll have cash on hand, and the dinner and tip was only $94 of that. I don’t have enough money to treat for dinner, but I have enough to pay for half, so I get into my wallet, get out $50 in cash, and hand that to her. The restaurant staff are re-setting our table as we are sitting there… like getting clean plates and things. I think for a minute that they are have mistakenly assumed that we’ve just sat down, but then when I explain to the waiter, he says that he knows, and they’re just getting ready for the next sitting. I feel like it’s very rude. I am explaining to Marie that I can eat Italian food at places that are traditional, because Italians have a lot of celiacs – il mordo celiaco.

Then we go outside, to get into the car to leave. I see Julie and Jim here – I go up and hug them, and then have a moment of panic, because I can’t think of Chris’s name, or his mom’s – all that pops into my head is, “This is Ray’s mom, Marie Barone.” There is another guy, looks slightly Asian, who is hugging Jim and Julie too. I introduce Jim and Julie to Marie, and she introduces herself; that’s what I was hoping for, because I can’t remember her real name. The Asian guy introduces himself as Eugene. We visit for just a few minutes.

Then, we all go back inside – but this is a totally different place. The restaurant we were in before was more like an Olive Garden; this one is more like a Denny’s. I’m with a group of people, but it seems like some of the faces are different than the people I was with in the dream just a few minutes ago. We’re at a half-booth; one of those that has a bench along the wall, but then chairs along the aisle side of the table. I think the bench is orange; the sense is that there’s a lot of orange color in the place. We’re talking, and then I see a guy try to open the window from the outside; he gets it partway up, but not far enough to get in. I think that he’s just trying to open the window to talk to somebody inside that he knows, but then I see that he’s carrying a gun.

At that moment, several men, also carrying guns, come in through the front door. They are carrying assault rifles and such; seems excessive to use to rob a Denny’s. I immediately get down on the floor, next to the wall – everybody else puts their hands up, but doesn’t get down. I think it felt like what I was supposed to do. Some of the men look Mexican; sometimes they seem more Arabic or Greek. The men tell everyone to start giving up their money and valuables – I realize that the only thing of mine that they’d want is cash. I get out my wallet, and start fishing out bills; there is a twenty, and a five – at one point, I see a forty dollar bill, but then it turns to a fifty. I pull out the bills, and hand them to one of the men with the rifles. I ask him if I can keep either the five or the twenty, though, because I have no gas in my car. He shrugs and gives me back the five. It seems like I have to go thorugh the process of sorting out my money twice. They don’t want credit cards or the wallet or anything.

Then, I look at a friend of ours who was sitting on the wall side. She’s a big woman, and holding her two kids close to her sides – it reminds me of a funny TV commercial where a big woman presses her kids’ faces into her breasts. Then I flash to a different view of the scene, and it seems like she’s breast-feeding, but these are kids way too old for that; they look like eight or ten. She’s lying back, and I can’t see her shirt or anything, but the kids are in front of her. She screams something – I don’t remember the words, she seems frustrated. It is something like “Get me out of here.” Then, we are back in the restaurant, and the whole place is empty except for me and her and the kids, and I realize that everyone has left, and it’s time to go.