In the land of dreams

Lastnight I had the kind of dreams that make you sit down the next morning and say, "OK. What did I eat lastnight?"

You would not believe these nightmares. Attic rooms, sighing ghosts, hobgoblins! Slime oozing out of the bathroom ceiling! On retrospect I can see that I ripped the slime off from Dickens. In "Bleak House," when Mr. Krook spontaneously combusts, they can tell in the room underneath that something terrible was happening by this slime that oozes through the ceiling.

But still. Why am I having dreams like this? Everything in my life is going so well.

Number one, it seems those pale tomatoes are getting ripe on the kitchen counter. Perhaps yesterday I kvetched too soon.

And here is something else. I may have mentioned that Mr. Idaho is valuable to my book especially because he was the only person I have found who coaxed a few piano lessons out of Leonard Pennario? Well, Mr. Idaho will always be valuable to my book. But now we have found one other person who managed to get Pennario to give him a lesson.

Would you believe, it is New York City's Cardinal Edward Egan? Oh, excuse me, Edward Cardinal Egan. I like the medieval word order better.

Cardinal Egan appeared over the weekend on a big New York classical music radio show, in which guests talk about five pieces of music that are important to them. One piece he chose was Beethoven's "Pathetique" Sonata. He chose the piece in Pennario's honor! He told that to the host, Gilbert Kaplan. Kaplan is a superb interviewer, by the way. He asked great questions.

"Leonard had a marvelous personality, an ebullient, smiling, happy, enthusiastic personality," Cardinal Egan said about Pennario.

And this is a quote I love: "Very few people I know loved to perform as that man did."

I am going to request that Edward Cardinal Egan grant me an interview for my book. I do not think he will mind. He sounds as if he loves to talk about Leonard Pennario the way I do. Well, no one loves to talk about him the way I do. But he comes close.

Cardinal Egan sounds like a brilliant man who knows a lot about music. The music he mentions is the same music I would mention, that I love. The slow movement of the Schubert B flat Piano Trio. The final trio from Strauss' opera "Der Rosenkavalier." Try to find a few minutes to listen to these links. What sheer, unbelievable beauty. That is some of the music I love the most, too!

Have I been Cardinal Egan all these years and just never knew it?

I had better watch it with the surreal thoughts. Now I am back in dream territory! One more thing about my dreams lastnight.

I was calm, even cheerful as I dealt with all those ghosts and hobgoblins. I remember that. I was looking forward to morning because I hoped they would go away, but I was smiling at them and the situation stayed under control. That is an important detail. When you remember your dreams is always important to note how you are feeling and reacting.

All I can think is that means whatever is on my mind will turn out OK.

Either that, or it was something I ate.