Yo ho ho ho, an itinerant firefighter's life for me

I dreamed I had joined up with a group of itinerant volunteer firefighters in the greater Phoenix, Arizona area. Among them was Abby the goth forensics chick from NCIS. 

We spent most of our time staging at various locales and never fought any actual fires while I was with the troupe. We spent some time at a Salvation Army, a bus depot, and a laundromat as well as some parking lots and a grass field. I had to keep up with the group, as they hopscotched to different places, lugging their small amount of gear around in a cardboard box. 

Someone had stolen my insulated boots and I spent an inordinate amount of time trying to find them in the shoe section of the Salvation Army. I was ready to settle for some green waffle toe creepers, which I knew wouldn't cut it, because they lacked the proper insulation. 

Abs told me it was technically "isolation, not insulation," as thermal insulation wouldn't be sufficient to withstand the voltage of a downed power line.  Everyone had heard the stories about how that always turned out. Charred limbs, death, etc.  

I thought I was onto a pair that would work but they were way too small, a child's size. Another pair was way too big and belonged to another in the group. 

We also spent a lot of time eating, as groups of action oriented folk tend to do in their downtime. I grabbed a cardboard tray of yogurt that had six dividers in it, like you'd see for a cheap disposable drink caddy at a fast food joint. The yogurt was just plopped into the little dividers atop a layer of spaghetti sauce making an impromptu, unappetizing lasagna. 

I tried a bite or two and decided I'd probably go ahead and shovel a whole bunch of it down eventually. I dumped the tray into a 5 gallon bucket of the stuff and was eating and toting it around. It was not very satisfying, but we had to take what we could get. 

I lost track of the others for a bit when they moved from a grassy area with sprinklers just as the sprinklers came on. I walked through the sprinklers, shirtless, enjoying the warm Phoenix weather. I kept thinking about how different it was from where I was from, where it was rainy and cold at the moment. I found Abs again, in a laundromat, and busied myself sorting out some chopsticks. 

I remarked that I knew someone who lived in Phoenix, but the name was eluding me in the dream. I remember now that it was Mary Ann Talbot, someone I really don't know very well, actually. She's a friend of a friend on Facebook, twice removed. But it bugged me in the dream that the name wouldn't come to me, as I tried to explain to Abby the nature of Facebook's many layered friendship types. 

I awoke not too soon after, none the wiser, except for remembering my friend's friend's name. I think the others finally chipped in and got me some real boots but they never came into my possession. Alas.