Of course the cat raked me out of bed at 5:30 on a Saturday sleep-in morning when I was in the midst of a complicated dream involving a farmhouse, some mysterious visitors, and a vegetarian who suddenly started eating meat.

Now here I am, awake in the prosaic light of day, such as it is, unable to discover why that dream kitchen was so murky and ill-lit (are there no overhead lights in dreams?) or what we were going to do with all of those onions I was chopping up.

Well, at least my real-life coffee is hot.

This weekend I must do housework, and I must start Christmas-shopping, but otherwise who knows? Yesterday it warmed up, briefly, into the 40s, so Vita and I went for a quick bike ride until my ears got too cold. Today I might have to stick to walking.

I'm thinking of making chicken paprikash and dill dumplings for dinner. I'm thinking about what I ought to read once I finish The Ambassadors. I'm thinking about how Tom and I wandered down to the docks yesterday evening, after consuming a giant delicious Greek meal, and took a gander at a hulking container ship a-glow in the harbor. I'm thinking about the cheerful Uber driver named Mohammed whose car radio was blasting Bon Jovi's "Livin' on a Prayer" as he drove us home. I'm thinking about the Star Trek episode we watched after we got under the couch blanket: the one where Spock has a romance with Mariette Hartley in a sexy, red-lit Ice Age cave, and I'm like "Ew! I can't look!" because Mr. Spock kissing girls is just wrong.

Life is so funny and strange.