Selling the Family Business

This dream was unusual.
My family in this dream
wasn't my family in real life.
In this dream,
all of these people were unknown to me real life.

My father was a tubby Greek gentleman.
And I had three brothers.
(In the awake world I have two brothers.)

We had a family business
that was going under.
I'm not sure what it was,
but I think it had something to do
with pet supplies or pet food.

I worked in the family business,
but I also had a job outside of the business.
So,
I didn't depend on this for my income.

An offer came from a large company
to buy the family business.
Except for one of my brothers,
no one in the family wanted to accept the offer.

I think my brother only saw the dollar signs.
He really wasn't too concerned
with what was best for everyone.
He just knew that he would receive
a significant chunk of change
if the business were sold.

I had another brother
was running for City Council.
He didn't want to sell
because he was using the family name.
He really had no business running for office.
He just wanted the fame of being in local politics.
Selling the business
wouldn't be good for his political name,
or so he thought.

Another brother didn't really want to sell.
But also realized that some sort of comment
needed to be made to the public.
The press had gotten wind of the offer
and started to follow us everywhere,
asking if we were going to sell.
He made some comments to the press like,
"we're examining all options,"
"we're taking all things into consideration."
He didn't really say anything.

A secretary who worked for us
always avoided the subject of children.
We never knew why.
Another of our workers found some candy
stuffed in the cushions in the couch in her office.
Only he realized that it wasn't candy at all.
It was drugs.
He said this is how the drug pushers
sell to children.
He wraps it up as candy
and then the kids get hooked.
The secretary burst into tears.
Amidst her weeping
she told us that that is how she lost her child.
Her son had died after a drug overdose
taking what he thought was candy.

At that point my father realized
that we had to sell the family business.
It would give everyone a new start.
It would bring jobs to the area
(something my brother running for office
could use in his political pitch).
And it would just give us more time
to be family,
not just business partners.

And I don't know what this means,
but my father wore white throughout this dream.
Sort of like that white suite Col Sanders wears. . .

So,
What does this all mean?
What's up with that white suite?
What does a family business symbolize?
Who were these people who in real life aren't my people?
And what of this child that died?

The Shrink in Canada

I dreamt
that I had been going to visit
a shrink.
For whatever reason,
I had stopped my sessions for awhile.

I felt like I needed to check in with him
so I decided to give him a call
and set up an appointment.

I couldn't find his business card anywhere.
I looked in the yellow pages.
I looked online.
No listing.

So,
I decided to just over there
and make an appointment
with the receptionist.

When I got there,
he had a group in session.
They were just taking a break.
He greeted me
but said he couldn't see me at that moment.
I told him that I knew that.
I just wanted to make an appointment
and couldn't find his phone number.

I made the appointment
then I left.

But then,
I suddenly became aware
that I couldn't remember where I parked.
The sidewalk became narrow.
Actually,
there were two rows of sidewalks.

And then I realized that I was on a bridge.
There were no handrails,
nothing to keep me from falling over
into the water.

The sidewalk I was walking on
suddenly became slanted.
I slipped and was just barely hanging on.
I did manage to get up
and started walking on the other sidewalk
as that was closer to the building.

And then I realized that I was in Canada.
I finally remembered where I parked.
But I couldn't remember how
to back to the U.S.

I wasn't really feeling scared at all.
More like challenged,
a sense of trying something new.