Well, that was weird and exciting...and upsetting. But mostly just weird.

My friend E____ was staying with me at my place by Lake Isabella, which I have to assume would’ve been Gracie and Bill’s old property. She had made a new friend and was making plans to host him for a sleepover/dinner. She was stressing and fretting about the details of this dinner and talking to me about it. I was trying to be the supportive friend, but it was testing my limits.

I was feeling quite a bit of jealousy, as it appeared that he would soon be taking my place in her life. My nerdy nemesis was played by actor Jeff Hiller, and he outclassed me in every area that mattered: sensitivity, charm, intelligence, quirky sense of humor and adventurousness. He had it all. I was a damp dishrag next to this paragon of beta male dorkishness.

 “I’ve never hosted anyone for dinner before, so that’s why I’m stressed,” she said.

“No,” I said, “I remember you made spaghetti dinner for him just last week.”

I tried to tell her that I understood, although I really didn’t feel very understanding, just jealous and hurt. I reached out to give her a hug, and she shank back from me. I got a cold, clammy feeling, like I had just committed an unpardonable act. I tried to repair the damage by changing my tack and offering to help her with her plans.

Soon we were on a long walk in the dry, dusty valley that is Lake Isabella. It was pretty much the same as I remember it, flat and sparsely populated with lots of undeveloped properties checker-boarding the town perimeter. 

"You wanna see something that makes me happy?" she asked.

She pulled the Mucros Irish flat cap that I'd given her for her birthday out of her oversize bookbag and put it on her head. Smiling, she said, "This makes me happy!"

We got to a crossroad, and I suggested we take a shortcut, but this didn’t appear to work into her plans. We talked about logistics, and how to get back home in time for her dinner date. At this point, I woke up, still feeling a bit unpleasant about the matter.

It was early enough in the morning that I was able to fall back asleep. I wanted to try to get back into the dream to correct it somehow. I wasn’t able to find the same location, however, my friend E____ did reappear. 

We were in a neighborhood near a house where she had grown up as a child. It looked similar to Glendale, the Glendale that I remember from the 70s, although it may have been any number of older Southern California tract neighborhoods.

As we walked along the sleepy, tree lined avenues, we noticed a small red airplane, flying very low into the neighborhood. It looked to be about the size of a crop duster, and it was flying low enough to do the job, nearly nicking the power lines as it approached. Clearly, this was below the level of permissible flight. 

It kept descending, and for a moment, it seemed to be headed straight toward us. We watched in amazement as the plane whooshed by us, blowing our hair back (well, hers anyway) before flying directly into a house. Rather than crashing and exploding, however, it bounced harmlessly off the siding and became the size of a small drone, maybe 5 foot long at the most.

We were going to drop her car off at the dealership to get serviced, and she needed a ride, but for some reason we both were walking, and there was no car, so I don’t know how that was all going to work. But no mind, it was a dream and stranger things have happened.

As we approach the service department, she began acting strangely. She affected a different personality or I should say, she amplified the bubbly, effervescent aspect of her personality to a manic level. She approached random strangers, grabbing their shoulders and shouting nonsensical comments in their faces, all of which began to cause a bit of a stir. 

“Are you OK?” I asked. “You are behaving a bit oddly.” (And by oddly, I meant even by E____standards.) 

She replied with a non-sequitur and continued her rant to a quickly gathering crowd. Cell phones and cameras came out to record the viral event: the kooky lady and her befuddled friend who seemed to be trying to rein her in without much success.

Suddenly, she began to sprint down the block, weaving in and out of pedestrian traffic, eventually stopping to hide behind a small alcove in an alley. She was lying flat on the ground, making herself as thin as a piece of paper, so as not to be seen. I got the impression that she was doing some kind of performance art, and she was not happy with the fact that I was not going along with it. 

The dream ended there, and I was left with a kind of a weird mix of excitement, disappointment and a little of the fading jealousy from the previous dream.