I dreamed I walked into an auditorium, and Andy M. Stewart was just ending his performance — ending, as in the encores and everything were over. He was performing with someone who wasn’t Gerry O’Beirne. I wanted to talk to him but wisely he disappeared. He had a full beard and was “grizzled and grey.”

So naturally I got on stage and talked about Chicago’s ethnic traditions and sang Polish, Italian, and other songs. I somehow ended up in an alley, which was not used in the traditional way alleys are (I think I was claiming that alleys in Chicago aren’t?), then, realising the stores seemed different, and that the alley was awfully green — more like a wooded path — I wandered up it and within a short distance found it ended in a verdant cliff.

And then I heard a tinkling noise that woke me up and realised the cat had brought me his snowman toy.