The dream had been going along a while, but here's what I remember:
Various Fragments:
I was waiting at the point of a harbor, watching tourists pull in on their boats. I think there was a lake or river-side cafe involved.
There were "interesting" people and I was following them around making little notes for character sketches for my writing. There was a discussion of some sort around a large, rectangular, wooden table.
I was at a hostel or lodge of some sort, lots of rough-hewn wood (which in waking I'm going to attribute to a discussion with Mark about Yellowstone).
There was a dream about parking. I had parked my car in a weird angle because someone else had parked their largish truck lengthwise across two spots.
The dream imagery I recall the best: I was watching a well lit raised, proscenium stage. The walls were white. A group of about ten couples were on the stage, they were dressed in night gowns and pajamas and bathrobes. At stage right a group of women in tableau held back another woman, who reached beyond them with outstretched hands, a plate or shallow bowl in her hands. They were standing still, as if they were in a kind of ballet. A small knot of women stood watching the center stage. Lots of diaphanous, grey and white robes hung from outstretched arms or flowed over still bodies.
All the men stood in a line, or maybe a shallow V, parallel to the stage. In the center was a 30-something man. There may have been low tables or modular counters on wheels or something. They were all in bathrobes (and in waking life, I'm thinking everyone looked like a 30-something extra from the 90's sit-com, Frasier, which we've been watching). The man at the center, assisted by the other men in the line, was baking some sort of small cake or muffin. There were lots of bowls and stirring motions from the baking chorus.
My viewpoint kept popping around from omniscient to audience member watching the performance. Once the muffin was finished, it was presented to the woman (who I'm thinking was the man's new wife) who took the pastry in her outstretched hands, and as all of the women who had been holding her back watched, she took a bite and proclaimed, "perfect." (which may have been pronounced "poi-feckt").
Somehow, I found myself on the stage; I got a hold of a muffin, which I then crumbled through a course screen or grater. The crumbs fell into a shallow white bowl, and I shoved a handful of into my mouth and said "perfect."
The newlywed wife was annoyed that I was poking fun at her. The dream gets a little out of sequence here, but the husband and wife and I were sitting at a kind of up-scale Shari's booth when a producer/host appeared, camera-men in tow, and starting asking me how I came up with the ingenious idea of de-constructing a muffin.
"Well," I said, "it makes a great crumble, and you can use it as a layer in a breakfast fruit bowl."
