Grandma's Michelin Star Lunch

Grandma's Michelin Star Lunch

It was late-ish afternoon, in what definitely felt like somewhere in India, but a house I can't recognize. I was sitting alone at a dining table, on a stool. It was an open-plan style room, with the kitchen to my left and the living room to my right. Grandma (nana Ivy) was pottering about in the kitchen, preparing a meal. She walked over to the dining table, and set down a small stainless steel plate. It had 3 things on it, and the weird thing was that every thing on the plate was half a portion. As grandma set the plate down in front of me, she told me these are my appetisers. She went back to preparing the rest of the meal, and I was about to start eating my lunch. I was curious about the beef cutlet, specifically half the cutlet that was on my plate. It was my absolute favourite thing to eat and I was a little disappointed that I was only served half.

I thought to myself, maybe I shouldn't be expecting so much, after all grandma is old and cooking such an elaborate meal must be very tiring for her, so I shouldn't actually expect more. And these were just the appetizers, so there's obviously more on its way! I also noticed that dad was helping in the kitchen, quite silently and inconspicuously in fact, just putting things away without speaking. I wondered why I was eating alone. I ate the half cutlet and really enjoyed it - it was every bit as good as I remember from years ago when I was a little kid. But then, grandma interrupted me and told me, I'm going to have to put up with something unconventional as dessert was ready and unfortunately it can't be kept until the end of my lunch as she had timed it wrong and it wouldn't stay as intended for much longer.

At that point mom sat at the dining table beside me, and grandma brought both of us a plate each. small stainless steel plates with dessert on them. dessert was a weird 3 layered thing in the middle of the plate - grandma described it as she set it down. the bottom layer was sweet potato, the middle layer was some white foam thing that was made of a couple of fruit, and the top was a green paste made of some other fruit.

my first reaction was that sweet potato would be a very interesting addition to a dessert and I had absolutely no idea how it would work with the other two kinda dessert-y stuff.

my next thought was, grandma didn't serve me half a cutlet because because she's tired or old or anything. she's making a fine dining, Michelin-style lunch for me!

and that's when I woke up.

Rushing to the doctor

I was walking with dad. we had just stepped on to the road from the small gate of Alfa. dad was taking me to our family doctor - Dr Vora. I'm not sure what exactly was wrong, but I certainly didn't feel right. Strangely though, we walked left instead of right - the longer way to the doctor! after maybe half a minute, I asked dad why we were walking the wrong way, the longer way. I also glanced at my watch and noticed it was 10:15pm. I thought we were too late - doesn't Dr Vora close his clinic at 9:30pm? Dad said no, he's actually in his clinic till 10:30pm - he switches off the bright lights, draws the curtains and reads by candlelight for an hour every day, so we still had 15 minutes. But then dad started jogging. I told dad to stop, as he had a heart condition and shouldn't be jogging at his age and with his heart condition! He told me I needed the exercise. I told him I would jog to the clinic and he could walk and catch up with me there. I jogged a bit but was soon very breathless and was forced to walk - in fact I was so breathless that I had to walk quite slowly. By the time I was going around the corner to arrive at the clinic, dad caught up with me. The door of the clinic was shut and th windows were dark, as I expected.

Dad knocked on the door and a nurse opened it. The room was dark inside, and the nurse held a lamp, its glass smoky and its light quite dim - only bright enough to see her face and follow her into the room. She said the doctor would be out of his private room in a minute to see me.

She hadn't shut the door, and the street lights lit the room to some extent, when someone appeared at the door and said hello. It was uncle Cossy!

He said he saw us entering the clinic and recognized us as he was walking to Alfa from the bus stop.

I asked him how come he decided to come visit us unannounced, and he said it was a last-minute thing, he had to come to Borivali to purchase a charger as his phone's charger had stopped working - in fact that's why he couldn't inform us either.

At that moment the nurse returned to the room and told us that she was leaving, but I should wait there for the doctor as he was just wrapping up and would see me and lock up the clinic.

and that's when I woke up.

Grandma drying the washing

We were in Belfast - on the first floor of my home. I was standing in the passage, and Desiree was standing next to me. At the other end of the passage, grandma was taking clothes out of the washing machine and putting them on the clothes horse. Uncle Dirk stepped out from the room (the door was behind me) and started talking about how the natural lighting of the passage was excellent at this time of the day with the utility room door open (that's where the washing machine is). I told him that it's a shame as the bedroom itself gets light at an angle while the utility room gets more direct light. He suggested replacing the utility room windows with a fogged bathroom style window to diffuse the light, and leave the door open or even eliminate the partition between the utility room and the passage. I looked at the utility room window and was surprised to see Mackayla sitting on the ledge!

and that's when I woke up.

ps: I actually had more dreams, but I was so overwhelmed I only tried to remember these 3. the first thing I did when I finally got out of bed was count the number of alive vs dead people - it actually felt like I had more dead people in my dreams than alive!