I was split about what I was calling this dream because of its varying facets. WTH.

I was a teenager. I’d biked back to visit an area where I previously lived, to see the friends still living there.

But my friend wasn’t home. Platinum blonde and white, with hair and clothing styles lifted from the 1960s, aunts and older female family friends were there and told me, “Make yourself at home.” I was in the kitchen with them and felt uncomfortable because it wasn’t my place. They scoffed away those protests while they stayed busy chatting and doing things.

The large, bright kitchen was fresh, airy, and uber-modern. Hidden doors and cupboards were everywhere. The refrigerator opened and unfolded like a transformer toy and held an amazing amount of food. My astonishment rabbited higher with every revelation.

One aunt was looking for cheese. Announcing, “I can’t find it, I have to go to the store for it,” I replied, “Wait, no, I know where it’s at.” I showed her some unfolding refrigerator section that she didn’t know about where the cheese was tucked away.

After that, I walked around the home’s bottom level. My friend’s mother returned home at that point. Short and fair, blue-eyed, with pink lipstick and white gold hair cut like Marlo Thomas in “That Girl”, she told me that I was welcome to stay as long as I like. I demurred but walked around because the house fascinated me. The living room had two large, comfortably furnished conversation pits, but the back of the living room had two natural reflecting pools surrounded by cliff walls. I saw my friend’s Mom take her bikini top off and sit back, relaxing and meditating, but looked away, not wanting to impose on her.

Going on through the house, I found a large green lawn adjacent to the living room. No walls separated them. Another front door led into that area from the outside. Two front doors! I was quite impressed and thought, every house should have two front doors. It made sense.

I had my bike now, and pushed it toward the house’s back, where I encountered the ocean. Yes, there was a large beach, reminiscent of central California, inside their house, or the house wasn’t closed in on that end. I couldn’t decide which it was as I enjoyed the crashing waves and different bird varieties.

My friend still hadn’t returned. I decided to head home. I pushed my bike back up into the living room. Seeing his mother, still topless by the reflecting pool, I called out to her, “I’m going home now. Thanks for everything.”

She came to me, putting a tee shirt on as she did, and asked questions about my planned route home. Announcing she was going that way, she said that she’d ride with me, and pulled her bike out. She was doing some shopping that way.

We rode our bikes along a rutted narrow dirt road filled with potholes and talked. She asked me why I liked her. I told her because she was intelligent, clever, charming, and beautiful. I raved a bit about her house, which I thought was amazing. She was distant in reply; I realized she wasn’t paying attention but was focused on riding her bike.

We arrived at a little market where she wanted to stop to buy bubble gum. Small wicker buckets at angles on wooden platforms abounded in a cramped, small stall. She told me to pick out some gum for myself and then said, “Oh, I need to get tongue for the dogs.”

“Tongue?”

She was holding up several packages. “Oh, yes, they love it.”

I was bewildered. “But isn’t that bubble gum?” Then I thought, who would make tongue-flavored bubble gum? I must have misunderstood.

That’s where it ended.