Today is November 6, 2012.  It’s election day.  I could write about the responsibility and privilege of being an American.  I could ask you to please head for the polls and vote with your heart and your head.  I could talk (again) about how grateful I will be to have this race finished.

But I won’t.  Instead I’ll tell you about my dream filled night.  I don’t think I’m anxious about voting in this election, but something sure was going on because I was awake for good portions of every hour.  And in between were long and detailed dreams.  I’ll give you an example of  three.

I was taking care of the business of a friend of mine who was off on vacation.  I have known Nancy for a long time and she has never been a Realtor, but it seems that she was in my dream.  I was entering data for her onto her webpage from pages of paper she had stored in a small wooden box. There was all sorts of information about model homes in a new development the details of which needed to be input.  Near the bottom of the box I found an invoice for commissions owed by Nancy to someone of $1.4M for permission to sell these homes.  And it said that she was responsible for the completion of millions of dollars worth of real estate that was only partially developed.  There were also 3 items in the very bottom of the box that looked like stuffed grape leaves but apparently were cigars to be enjoyed after the sale of a home.  There were supposed to be 5, according to the paperwork, but there were only 3.  That didn’t bother me as Nancy didn’t like cigars anyway.  I was more than a little bothered by the fact she owed $1.4 million to someone and I wondered if I had somehow committed her to this deal by entering the data on her website.  I immediately began to take information back off her site, hoping that the ‘once on the internet, always on the internet’ was not true.

Later in the night I was in some sort of RV.  We were moving very fast down a big river, looking out from behind a windshield that was obscured by mud.  But it might not have been a river, because occasionally I saw bits of a street curb flashing by.   Dad was driving.  Mom was there too, as were my current neighbors from across the street, Larry and his wife.  I don’t believe Mom or Dad ever met them…but there we all were, the five of us, screaming down a dirty river of water.  I was sleepy (no wonder, I hadn’t had a wink of sleep so far this night!) and took a nap.  When I woke Mom was driving and we were on a road.  I didn’t understand how that happened, but she told me this was one of those RVs that could be a boat OR a car.  Right.

And very early this morning, just before Katie-girl woke me at 5:30, I was dreaming that I was in a computer lab with lots of people.  My supervisor was  training us to use a program where we could simulate storms.  Specifically tornadoes.  We could build little model tornadoes and see how they ran through little model neighborhoods, and what damage they did.  I built one that took the roof right off a small house that is just up the road.  And then I built a monster tornado that dug a brand new giant lake that covered most of some  Midwestern state.  My supervisor got really mad at me because “I had used up all my program resources on that storm.”

Then Katie woke me up.  I was so confused!  I don’t know what’s going on in my head..but it sure was busy last night.  Now it’s time to go vote, and I’m glad I have my decisions already figured out.  And I’m glad it was all a dream, because it would be hard to concentrate with millions of dollars of unfinished real estate, floating RVs and  a super storm all running around in my head.

But just think.   Think of the people on the east coast who really do have much of this to deal with.  In real life.  Now go vote.

And be thankful that you can.

Last night I had the enviable opportunity to listen to the Ann Arbor Symphony present a Latin inspired performance.  You should envy me; it was delightful.  Such energy!  Such emotion!  Such music!

They began the program with Don Juan, Op. 20, composed in 1888 by Richard Strauss. It tells the story of  a man looking for perfection in a woman.  Along the way it seems, perhaps more than once, that he has found perfect love.  But in the end he becomes disillusioned and disgusted with himself.  He allows the brother of one of his lady loves to kill him in a duel.   The music is beautiful, lyrical and lush…and in the last moments frenetic as the duel ends abruptly.  The piece closes softly with the end of Don Juan’s lusty life.

The Symphony then introduced Marco Sartor, the evening’s soloist, who plays guitar unlike anything I have ever heard.  Mr. Sartor is finishing up his PhD at Yale and we were so fortunate that he took a break to come to Ann Arbor to play.   At the lecture before the concert he said that the guitar could by played with different techniques, producing sound ranging from nasal to “as round as the tones from a flute.”   During the performance of two pieces, Concerto in D Major composed by Antonio Vivaldi in 1740, and Fantasia for a Gentleman composed by Joaquin Rodrigo in 1954, he showed us that range of sound and more.  He is an amazing artist.  Often I thought another instrument in the orchestra was playing, belatedly realizing it was the guitar.

Most unfamiliar to many of us, the Symphony played Huapango,  by Jose Pablo Moncayo.  This piece premiered in 1941.  Don’t be put off by the soft start, listen at least to minute 5 and I think you’ll be hooked.   It’s the kind of piece that requires concentration from members of the orchestra.  The kind of piece my director would be telling us not to listen for an instinctive entry but to “do the math and count!”  This one would be fun to play, and at the end you could see almost every member of the group grinning.  And all around me after the thundering applause died away I heard people say:  “That was fun!” and “I’ve never heard that before, wasn’t it exciting!”

The evening ended on a dramatic note with the playing of Bolero, composed by Maurice Ravel in 1928.  You’ve all heard this piece in movies.  I wondered if I would be envisioning Bo Derek running on the beach with her hair in cornrows.  For the record I did not think of her once during this performance.  The snare drum, placed in the center of the orchestra kept up the relentless pace, beginning softly accompianed by the flute, and growing increasingly intense as different soloists elegantly played the theme, each a bit louder and more intensely then the one before.  I began to feel sorry for the cellos and violas  who were plucking the same 3 notes over and over for what seemed hundreds of measures.  But finally they and the violins were drawn into the fray and the whole piece ended on a jubilant and intense note.  We all gasped, even though we knew how it would end.

This was one of those evenings where you just had to smile, from beginning to end.  What a gift this organization gives to their community.  What a priceless gift.

I haven’t stopped smiling yet.