Dream: Portable Radio in the Rain

I'm at home, but in a smaller, separate structure from the main part of the house, like a one bedroom cabin in the woods.  It's raining heavily.

I'm looking out the back window absentmindedly.  I see the unmistakeable silhouette of a portable radio that's sitting on the ground.  I'm dismayed because I know that the radio will be ruined soon if it's not brought inside.  It might already be ruined.

I talk to my wife on the intercom.  She's in the main part of the house, so the intercom is the only way I can reach her from here.  I ask her if we have a portable radio because if we do, it's outside in the rain and needs to be brought inside.  She doesn't know anything about it and is unconcerned.  I was hoping she'd just go and get it, but that's not going to happen.

So I get up from my repose and go outside with just my regular clothes and rain boots on.  By now the rain has tapered off to just a very light sprinkle, and I can feel no soaking rain.  But I can feel the soft ground pulling at my boots each time I lift my foot to take a step.

I reach the radio, which is beside a tiny but swelling stream.  I find that the radio is still on and operating, even though the power button is dim and the sound is very low and distorted as if the battery has run down to almost nothing.  I pick it up, pulling it out of the two inches of ground it had settled into.  I notice that the radio is facing away from my house, so I walk in the direction that it's facing, which is downhill, hoping to find its owners.

It is rocky and wooded.  There is no clear path, and I doubt whether I can go far and whether I can make it back.  There is a steep decent.  I'll need both hands free in order to get down without falling.  Then I see another way on an outcropping of solid rock.  The slope down is steep.  There's no way I want to walk down.  It's wet, narrow and steep.  So I sit down at the top and work my way down like a two year old uses his bottom to go down a flight of stairs.

I manage very well.  But now I'm at the halfway point, and the grade steepens even more.  There's no way I can maintain control of my descent, so I lean back and allow myself to slide down the rest of the way.  I finally reach the bottom without harm, and I'm relieved.  I look around and see a tall narrow brown house with a few cars parked around it about 100 yards away.  I easily walk toward it.

I'm standing at the front door of the house looking for a doorbell or a spot on the door to knock on.  But I notice a dark tortoise shell cat in the open kitchen window to the right of the door.  Beyond the cat I see the mom at the kitchen sink that's situated at another window on the right side of the house.  There's no need to knock -- the cat has heralded my arrival like dog, so I simply wait for the woman to dry her hands and come to let me in.  Instead, she signals for me to come in, so I let myself in.

As I walk in I hold up the radio and explain how I found it and that it still works.  The woman is Hispanic and has two children.  She is friendly and neither very well off nor poor, and I feel comfortable with her.  The cat is walking between my legs and clawing and biting at my feet, ankles and calves as any good watch cat should do.  Then I see her (the cat) grab a thin board in her teeth and drag it around.  The thin board is about eight inches by 36 inches and is designed to close off a gap between a cabinet and a closet.  The board has a D-shaped cutout in it that's about the size of a banana.  The cat sleeps in that gap at night, and the board is used to contain her.