Black dogs and Reubens

I dreamt that as I was walking home -- to my current home, in Taiwan -- black dogs from my past started to follow me, one by one, until by the time I arrived at the front door, every black dog I had ever known was there -- but only the black ones. They were all very much smaller than in real life, about the size of guinea pigs, though I saw nothing strange in this during the dream.

Among those present was the first dog I ever owned as a child in America, a black Lab-Pointer mix whose name had been determined for her by the white zigzag mark running down her chest. She was dancing all around, wagging her entire body in a transport of delight, and my first thought was to find my cell phone and call my wife. "Wait till she hears that Lightning has come back!" (In the real world, of course, my wife never knew Lightning, who died many years before we met.)

Later my wife was there, too, standing with me in front of the house, and I pointed out to her the one dog I didn't recognize, a curly-haired female something like a Labradoodle. "That's Fournier!" she said. "That's the new dog!" -- and though that means nothing to me in real life, in the dream I accepted it as a sufficient explanation.

"Shall we bring them all into the house?" I said. "But I'm afraid they'll poop."

⁂

Later I dreamt that I saw several variations on the same Internet meme:

Something like this

This made perfect sense to me. A priest had, as it says, tried and failed to housebreak a dog, and when he died the new priest wanted to cover up this embarrassing failure by saying that his predecessor had actually succeeded. But, being unwilling to commit so brazen a lie to writing, he compromised by writing "1/8" -- meaning that the old priest had been one-eighth successful in housebreaking the dog (i.e., it still pooped in the house seven-eighths of the time). Haha, priests, amirite?

⁂

Later still I was at a very large house party where everyone was milling about. I saw somebody eating a sandwich and suddenly decided that I wanted a Reuben -- corned beef, Swiss cheese, sauerkraut, and Russian dressing on rye -- but didn't know where to find one or even the ingredients to make one. I wanted to ask someone at the party, but I didn't really know anyone.

Then finally I saw someone I knew -- one of my old linguistics professors from my college days, a Dr. Levine. I was about to walk up to him and ask if he knew a kosher-style deli in the area, but then I suddenly got cold feet. "He's going to think I'm asking him because he's Jewish," I thought, "not because he's the only person I know. And a Reuben's not even kosher anyway; it's like asking a Chinese guy where I can buy fortune cookies." So I just gave him a nod and a smile and walked away.

Then I suddenly thought, "Wait. I have a big nose. I have an Eastern European name. He probably assumes I'm Jewish. It won't be offensive at all!" But it was too late; he had disappeared into the crowd.