I hope that you all had a lovely Thanksgiving holiday, because I know that we did. It was only later that it turned dark and cold and windy. Later that night, I had a strange dream, full of shades from the previous evening. It went something like this:

“Yes folks, we have both kinds of music, country and western.” My friend and in-law, Stormy Kromer came over for the holiday. Put another log on the fire. He and all my utter in-laws had set down for our Thanksgiving dinner when we heard a really big crunching sound outside the door. Cook me up some bacon and some beans. We sprang to the doorway to see what was the matter. How’s that for mixed metaphors? And go out to the car and change the tyre. When what to my wondering eyes should appear, but a gigantic spaceship and eight tiny aliens. Wash my socks and sew my old blue jeans. Stormy reached for his Winchester, a pump-action shot-gun and loaded up six rounds of deer slug. Come on, baby, you can fill my pipe. I asked if I could help and Stormy offered me a chipmunk gun, but no bullets. And then go fetch my slippers. Stormy fired, blazing away. Bang! Bang! Bang! And boil me up another pot of tea. About this time a police car showed up. Then put another log on the fire, babe. We tried to point out the aliens and their spaceship, but they weren’t very interested. And come and tell me why you’re leaving me. Apparently, an unlicensed interstellar vehicle is OK, even if it is wide enough to be triple parked. [The lyrics quoted in this post were written by Tompall Glaser and performed by the Outlaws.] We tried to escape from these Outlaw space aliens, into a bookstore, but the store’s proprietors told us that this Starbucks was not a real Starbucks, so please just move along. Stormy Kromer and I were getting ready to U-scan our brains, when I woke-up from this crazy dream. Even so, the radio announcer repeated to me, “Yes folks, we have both kinds of music, country and western.”

Afterwards, it was dark, very dark, and I could hear the wind blowing hard outside. Even lying under the covers, the bedroom felt colder than normal. The power was out. Anne’s folks were moving her mom’s plants in from the greenhouse that was already down to forty-one degrees. Most of America was gearing up to celebrate Black Friday, instead, we were all set for blackout Friday. Save the plants! What about Grandma? Shouldn’t we rescue her instead? No, they’re her plants. Anyway, the power eventually returned, no one froze to death and no plants of note were lost either.