Dream: David's Aviary

Dream 20030117, 4:50 AM:

I’m in a car, going to some sort of event. There is one other person with me. We need to stop and pick up some third person; I know that she’s going to be at a store, and I don’t remember if she works there, or her friend owns the place. We drive along, and after looking at several similar buildings, I spot the store, which is down a little hill (the driveway goes downhill to the parking lot) – it’s very hilly, like Austin. The building is made of native stone in big kind of random chunks, and it has neon signs with the name, which is something like Mega Store. Inside, it’s full of all kinds of mineral specimens, crystals, etc. – it reminds me of Overtones. We find the lady that we’re supposed to pick up, and she is introducing us to her friends. I remember that we visit for a while, but don’t remember what we talk about. I do remember that we end up sitting kind of sprawled on a carpeted staircase, chatting. There are several people here, but I think that only one of them goes along with us when we finally leave.

We go out to David’s place, which is in the country. I remember sleeping in a sleeping bag, out under the stars, with a couple of other people – we are planning a stealthy project, and it has something to do with David and me, and we’re not sure which of the other people are on our side. I am awakened in the middle of the night by something digging into my ribs; it’s one of the other people, but now she’s turned into a sort of dragon-ish looking creature, and is threatening me, because she suspects that I’m up to something, although she doesn’t have any proof. I remember slipping up to the house to conspire with David, and going back and forth to where I’m sleeping.

Then, we’re building what looks like a plastic greenhouse, but I know it’s a special aviary to hold a bunch of exotic tropical birds. It’s huge, and it’s built of all these pre-made looking pieces of rounded and domed plastic; it’s very pretty from a distance, but close up, some of it looks kind of pre-fab. I don’t know how we’re building it, but it seems that we’re just materializing it out of thin air. It’s being built up against the side of a little white barn, and I know that the aviary is going to be able to travel from one dimension to another, magically; we’re talking about whether we’ll need to include the barn so that it will travel as well. I am talking to someone about the planning of the aviary, and how the plants will need to be laid out and spaced; it doesn’t seem very large once we start talking about putting in big plants, and I can see a schematic as if viewing it from above, with images of the plants popping in, and an image of a gardener zipping around placing them.

Now, we’re inside the aviary, which has grown significantly. It reminds me of the Horticulture Center’s conservatory somewhat, although all the walls are still rounded and bubble-like. The birds are in here, and I remember quietly cooing to one of them and gently lifting it up on my finger; it’s brilliant dark red, a kind of bird I don’t know. We look at a couple of other ones; I remember one like a little kingfisher that is dark blue; it’s perched on one of the wall vents. David and I are looking at the plants, and there is a little spot on one of the tables where several things are withered, and the mulch around the bases of the plants looks yellow and dried up like straw, while the rest is dark brown. We pull the straw away, and see that some of the irrigation isn’t working, and we mention that we need to fix that. The plants on the table look like African violets, and they’re in pots plugged into the mulch so that it looks kind of like a flower bed.