I had one thousand dreams last night. I guess that's an exaggeration, but there were a lot. I only remember bits here and there, not enough to properly describe.

Over the past few days, before I fell asleep last night, there were a number of things said that made me either smile or laugh out loud. Here are a few :

one.
Sam tapped me on the shoulder, and when I turned around, he said, "Do you know how much I love you?" Instead of getting prickly the way I usually do when Sam gets sentimental, I spread my arms wide and asked, "This much?" He laughed and said, "No, I love you much more than that!" I know what he was up to, but it doesn't matter, because I also know that he does love me. And the whole time the Egg was sitting beside me, looking away awkwardly and pretending not to hear.

two.
The man on television with the computerized lumber-cutting machine that just screamed "Danger!" (or would have if it had a voice that could be heard over the noise of the cutting blades) said, "This is the Golden Age of Timber Framing!" I could hear the capital letters in his voice. And, somehow, I felt lucky to be living during this age. (I have reason to believe that what I was watching might have been filmed during the late eighties, possibly the early nineties, but the age can't be over yet, can it?)

three.
My father is incapable of getting dressed to go out during winter without asking at least seventeen people at least seventeen times (I might be exaggerating again) whether or not they think he's dressed appropriately. The other day he described to me the jacket he was planning to wear and asked me if I thought he'd be warm enough. Something that I forgot to mention is that whenever he asks someone their opinion on what he's wearing, he immediately disagrees with it. "Are you kidding? I'll freeze in that coat!" It can be frustrating. So, when he asked me what I thought, I told him that there was nothing he could wear that would possibly be warm enough, and that he should just stay home, because the cold would certainly kill him. His response was, "I'm not afraid. I am a man who laughs at danger!"

four.
Jackpot read the following aloud to me from a card he had received. (The card was accompanied by a pie.) "Pie. It consumes us all, and then we consume it. I love the pie. We live the pie..." There was a little more, but I don't quite remember it. A girl he knows, but not very well, gave him the card and the pie (apple) after he remarked, in her presence and for reasons he can't remember, "I wish someone would bake me a pie sometime." A few days later there she was with the pie. Jackpot was understandably surprised, but assures me that he thanked her politely and sincerely. It feels a bit like a prayer. "I love the pie, we live the pie, through Christ, Our Lord, Amen."

And now I remember an interesting part of my dreams. Someone hired me to be a private detective by mailing me clues. I opened my mailbox and found them loose, not in an envelope. There were letters and newspaper clippings and photographs. There was a roll of exposed 110 film (I love 110 film) and money, in a variety of bills. The one I remember most clearly was a thirty-three dollar bill. I sort of wish there were such a thing. I got as far as figuring out who the person that I was supposed to be investigating was, and I tracked her down and was following her, but I don't remember anything after that. I think she was one of a set of twins that I knew in elementary school. Also, in another part of my dreams I was in a large crowd of people gathered in the park to watch the President's Physical Fitness Test being administered to a group of high school and college students, and the test involved a number of backflips...