We’re hauling things out of a big A-frame attic space. There is an array of fancy old fashioned pistols handed out one by one, big ones, little ones, ornate and primitive ones. And then there is a gigantic dog. I wonder how it has survived up there. It is a great big wooly thing, like an Old English Sheepdog but bigger and of no breed known on earth. Everyone else is alarmed, but I pooh pooh their caution, coo sweet words to it, and reach out to pat it. It chomps down on my hand, which doesn’t hurt exactly but scares me, and I realize I’ve made a grave mistake.
There is an Indian family visiting, and we’re having a celebratory meal, all of us distributed over two floors of the house, the young ones downstairs and the elders upstairs. Downstairs I’m struggling to prop up a computer on the squashy surface of the bed so that two of us can sit side by side before it. There are overlarge speakers and too many monitors, and I start disassembling things. I go upstairs where all the aunties are sitting with slices of pie to clear away the empty dishes. They’re telling me in great detail how to arrange the garbage cans in the driveway to accommodate so much extra refuse.