And then, I woke up
I had an odd and unusually detailed dream last night, and I want to get it down before I forget it...
My family and I were running a vacation resort in Florida, the kind you might see in a Bogart film. I was giving music lessons to the visitors' children. On this particular occasion, I was giving a group beginning piano lesson to a grade-school aged brother and sister, and also to a handsome thirty-something fellow who looked like he'd walked out of a romantic comedy of the Cary Grant era. He'd asked to sit in, and I didn't see any reason to say no.
As the lesson progressed, the children were coming along nicely, but the handsome fellow, who I'll call Phil, did everything perfectly the first time. Pretty soon Phil started making suggestions to the children, and before long he was explaining everything to them, much more thoroughly than I'd usually do with beginners of any age, and yet he did it in such a way that the children grasped everything he said. He himself was playing with flawless technique, and I was sure he'd done this before. "You're a piano teacher," I accused him.
"No," he said, with a twinkle in his eye, "this is the first time I've ever played." And he seemed so guileless and innocent that I believed him. The children continued practicing, and Phil and I sat on the couch and talked. That twinkle was irresistible, and I wondered if I sensed some sparkage going on. I thought perhaps I did.
At that point, some other chaps who were friends of Phil's and also staying at the resort came back in, carrying croquet mallets (they'd been out playing). They informed Phil that they were leaving, and he said he'd be right along. I asked him if he couldn't stay. "I can't," said he. "I'm an angel."
Oh, joy. Falling for an angel--that always works out well.
Still, I told Phil's friends that I wanted him to stay. They weren't pleased. They had to go back to work, and Phil had to come, too. Not that they were in any hurry to get back themselves; they complained that God was no fun--he wouldn't let them smoke or eat. But they weren't about to let Phil have any fun when they couldn't. But apparently they had to give me a chance at keeping him (like playing chess with Death, I guess?), so if some of the nieflings and I could beat them at croquet, Phil could stay. Phil had to play on their team, and he had to try his hardest to win, else if my side won, it wouldn't count. The nieflings and I grabbed our croquet mallets, determined to do our best.
However, the angels were all hot and sticky from playing croquet in the sweltering afternoon, and if they were playing for the honor of angels, they had to look their best; they all had to have showers first, even Phil. So off they went to shower. There was only one shower, and they had to take it in turns. So, as Phil showered, I crept into the bathroom... [At this point, cut briefly to 'God', who turns out to be a very short, very fat, mustachioed fellow, smoking a cigar and sending underlings out for Italian food. Apparently his philosophy was 'Do as I say, not as I do'.] ...and with bibliohippo's assistance, swapped his clothes for some nearly identical ones that just happened to be available. I did this to each angel in turn. I wondered why I was doing this, until I examined Phil's socks and realized that his and his friends' angelic powers came entirely from their clothing (mainly their socks). We might just have a chance at winning this croquet game, after all.
It was about here that I woke up.
At some point, there was a rather Whovian subplot where I played cards against a couple of cosmic 'aunties' with planets as prizes, because I'd somehow offended Avon** (perhaps by spending all his money on CDs that were about to become obsolete[?]) and I wanted to give him a planet as an apology, but that part's a bit vague.
**And no, I don't know where he came from; he was helping my family run the resort. I said the dream was detailed, not that it made sense.
Anyway, that's what I did last night. What did y'all do?