While we are all focused on the transition between Joe Biden, the candidate, to Kamala Harris, the candidate, and appalled (for a change) at the gracious statement issued by the Trump campaign, we all need to spend a little time focusing on something else. I seemed to have realized this last night, while I was asleep, because I remember five separate dreams (probably out of a significantly larger number) that had nothing to do with politics.

Here goes:

(1) I was attending a concert in a large room (not a fancy concert hall). There was a piano and some other instrument, a man and woman playing. It was a special concert with music by a relatively unknown composer. The music seemed rather ordinary and I was getting restless, when all of a sudden I saw three people (who turned out to be EMTs) running up the aisle toward the back of the room where someone was having a medical emergency (I couldn’t see exactly what was happening, though I tried).

One of the paramedics then came down the aisle towards the front, saying loudly to everyone: “sorry about this; sorry we had to turn on the lights”. Meanwhile, the music went on, but people started to leave out a side door. I stayed. The music never stopped.

(2) I received a draft notice from the army. I knew there was a crisis and that they were calling up as many people as they could, but I thought that at 81, they would leave me alone. But, no, I was being drafted, and the notice said that I had to report in a few days, that I would be in for 18 months, and that I was going to be headquartered in Alaska. I didn’t know what I would be doing, but whatever it was, I was sure it would be more than I could handle and that I would not live through my period of service.

(3) Edie and I were in a car. It was dark outside; I was driving. In front of us (not in the middle of the road) was a monument of some sort. It was like a short Washington Monument with a very ornate top. Edie asked me what it was. I told her that it’s the Washington Monument. She said it wasn’t (and of course it wasn’t). On closer look, I realized it wasn’t the Washington Monument, but I had already made my position clear. “Yes, it is”, I said.

(4) I was at a nursery admiring a large flowering plant. Somehow, I decided that the plant was a “yellis”, or something like that, so I went inside and asked to see their yellises. A very helpful woman took me out back, and showed me some very unappealing plants in pots and said “here they are”. I told her these all looked like indoor plants. Yes, she said, they are yellises. I went back out front and looked at the flowering plant and decided it would look good in my front yard. Suddenly, I was in my front yard. I had the plant. I tried to figure out where to put it. It looked no good anywhere. “This is why they have landscapers” I thought. By the way, the front yard looked nothing like our real front yard; more like the yard of the house I grew up in in St. Louis.

(5) I was in a nondescript room with a lot of people. Not sure what we were doing, but we weren’t strangers. We were part of some sort of group. I sat on the floor near the door. An animal crawled in through the front door. It looked like a manatee, but it had a few colorful red spots, and it walked on land. I wasn’t surprised to see it, because it was always hanging around (I knew that). As it walked (not really walked, but moved) by me, I petted it on its back and said, “Good to see you, Raskin”.

That’s it. Back to our regularly scheduled presidential election.