1. Last Night's Strange Dream

I'm standing in front of a building, chatting with a girlfriend. We're both wearing our down vests. My Jeep is parked directly in front of me, and there's a yellow parking ticket on the windshield.

"Damn," I say, turning to my friend, "I didn't realize that I couldn't park there."

My friend is no longer my friend, however, but has transmogrified into an Unidentified Male Companion. (Seriously. That's how he's close-captioned in the dream. Unidentified Male Companion.)

I notice that we are standing directly in front of a Stop sign, and there's a rather adorable mouse, clinging precariously to the top of the sign. A fat gray mouse with big eyes and clever feet.

"Is that a titmouse?" I ask the Unidentified Male Companion. "No, wait. A titmouse is a bird. So, wait . . . what I really mean is, is that a dormouse? And what's it doing up there?"

The Unidentified Male Companion shrugs.

"I mean, don't you think that's odd?" I press on. "Very Dante Gabriel Rosetti, you know? Perhaps we should be drinking laudanum, or something, or at the very least, exhuming our exes." (I am, it seems, apparently capable of churning out excruciatingly dorky badinage even in my dreams.)

That's when the dormouse lets out an indignant shriek and leaps onto the face of the Unidentified Male Companion, and proceeds to viciously bite him in the face. I'm absolutely horrified, and have to cover my eyes. (Apparently, I'm more of a Delicate Flower in my dreams than I am in real life.)

Someone appears to intervene, and the dormouse is removed, and when the kafuffle subsides, I apologize to the Unidentified Male Companion. "Sorry I wasn't more help," I tell him. "Dormouse carnage makes me queasy. Did someone help you out?"

"No," the Unidentified Male Companion says rather crossly. "But he did manage to get it all on film."

That's when I notice that there's a circle of onlookers, all recording the dormouse attack on either their cell phones or with hand-held video cameras. One of the onlookers volunteers to play it back for me, and when I look at the playback on the tiny LCD screen, instead of seeing the dormouse attack, I see myself with my friend in the vest from earlier in the dream. We are diffidently sashaying in front of a red, velvet curtain, a la Twin Peaks.

"I can't believe that I don't feel more upset about this," I tell the onlooker, as I watch myself. "Normally I can't stand to have my picture taken."

(Dear Internets: Feel free to leave interpretations in comment box, if it amuses you to do so.)

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2. Strange New Morning Ritual Involving The Bean

AH: [Sleepily and confusedly.] Wha . . .? WTF? What are you doing?

The Bean: [Rigorously grooming AH's belly button.] I'm giving your belly button a bath.

AH: Well, don't. That's just weird.

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3. Strange Days

Um . . . yeah. I think that's about all that I have to say about that.

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4. Stranger Things Have Happened

Tomorrow there will be dancing. And decadence. Hooray for dancing and decadence!

And I thought it was bad when Lotus took up the hobby of gnawing on my big toe! The belly button thing is definitely weird. *grin*

Hooray for dancing and decadence!

Hooray indeed, Anne! And yes, the belly button thing is really very, very odd.