I can remember three dreams from last night/ this morning, all of them having some connection to my family. Which makes sense, considering I spent the weekend in Florida due to the unveiling of my father’s grave marker.

In the first dream, I was driving along in my Jeep at high speed, trying to keep up with a pterodactyl that was flying alongside me. For some reason, I was attempting to place a colander on its head like a hat. I kept almost getting it, but after multiple tries, the thing grabbed it in its mouth and dropped it to the ground. The whole time this was going on, my mother was continually telling me I was doing it wrong.

In the second dream, I was in some sort of Biggest Loser-like reality show, which now that I’m awake I can’t really understand, since in real life I’m in no shape to be eligible for such show. But in the dream it made sense. I noticed one of the other contestants carrying a wad of cash, and I realized she was taking bets from the other participants as to which of us would be tossed off the show that week. I called her on it, said she shouldn’t be doing it, that she should be thrown off the show, that I was going public with the info. As a result, I was visited by the guy in charge of the show, who in the dream was being played by a rather menacing … Harvey Keitel. He wanted to know why I’d want to make trouble for his show, and I explained why I was so offended, which included me telling him that perhaps I was sensitized to the issue because of having grown up with my grandfather the bookie (about whom many stories were told during my real life post-cemetery weekend). I woke while making my case, so the dream never arrived at any conclusion.

In the final dream before waking, I had been asked for some reason to appear in a play at a school for young kids. I was to perform as the Hunter in “Little Red Riding Hood.” The Wolf was going to be played by Robert DeNiro. The dream mostly took place in my home as I was choosing what clothes to wear for the performance. My mom asked me where the play was going to be performed, and I began to tell her, but when I realized she wanted to sneak into the school without an invitation, I stopped in middle of reciting the address.

It seems that though I’m home in West Virginia, my subconscious is still back in Florida.