Take it, Doctor Freud

OK, so I'm totally freakin' stressed about our Awards show on Monday.  (Zits.  Grey hairs.  The return of my eyelid twitch.  Standard physical manifestations of stress -- and this time I seem to be in for all at once rather than just one at a time.)

So I have a dream last night -- very vivid and memorable, which is unusual -- and rather than having anything to do with what I'm stressed over, I dream about my house.

Here's how it went down.  I drove home from work, pulled into the garage.  [Reality moment: I have a curving driveway to get into the garage (which faces sideways).]  Around the curve I saw a really bright light.  This was weird, as I don't have one there.  But, in my dream, I thought, "I need to change that to one of them CF bulbs."  As I pulled in, I noticed my front door looked great.  It was black.  [Reality says:  my front door is painted light brown.  My house is off white with light brown trim.  But the design is very stark.  The simplicity is almost suggestive of an Asian style.  In my dream, the front door was a black lacquer.]  There was even one of those Asian paper screens nearby.  It was like the paint and decor were working with, rather than against, the style of the house.

Went in the house, not really asking myself why the light in the driveway and the finish on the door had changed.

Next day, the gardener, Marco, shows up.  [Weird thing about this dream is:  it was my actual house and it was my actual gardener.]  Knocks on the door, asks, "Do you like it?"

I go outside and Marco proudly shows off his work -- he and his crew had:  (1) resurfaced my driveway; (2) widened the driveway by removing a bunch of grass and putting concrete down (that's where he'd put the new bright light); (3) removed even more grass a did a little rock garden thing; (4) built up a retaining wall which they'd decorated with [and this, honestly, I don't get at all] painted tiles featuring logos from superhero movies -- including one Marco was very proud of, which is apparently going to be the hot new movie this summer [wish I could remember who it was ... it was something like Captain Bad-Ass]; (5) replaced my garage door with a garage door that had a physical door in it, so you could walk in -- there was a space between the door and the rest of the garage door through which bees were getting in the garage; when I complained to Marco about it, he turned the door around, which didn't really solve the problem; (6) changed the color of my car -- but they hadn't repainted it, they'd wrapped it in another color -- looked like a really bad kludge.  I mean, the car was pretty much wrapped in tan paper held on with tan duct tape.

Marco was really pleased with all this work -- I liked most of it but the bee-letting-in garage door and the wrap-job on my car.  He said he and his guys did it as a gift for Christmas.  I was amazed by all the labor they'd put in and was trying to figure out how much money you "tip" someone for voluntarily resurfacing your driveway.  I think I settled on $500.

I decided to take my car down to the dealer to get its original color restored.  [My car is a Ford.  In my dream, I wanted to take it to a Saturn dealer.  My previous car was a Saturn.]  Partway to the dealer, I realized that my car was a Ford so why was I taking it to a Saturn dealer?  I realized Marco had wrapped it so that it looked like my previous car.  Partway down the hill, my brakes failed.  [It's not a Toyota.]  I pumped them a bit and eventually got them functioning, but decided to pull into a nearby gas station and call a tow truck.  While I was waiting, I started peeling away the wrapping on my car -- there were several layers of it -- the tan crappy paper seemed to hide a red car finish over a blue car finish.  [My car is actually blue.]  I was looking at all the different layers trying to figure it out -- and trying to figure out at what point my car would start looking like the Ford rather than the Saturn -- when I woke up.

OK, kids.  What's it all mean?