A dream I had, a little while back:

My mother in law was recuperating from surgery. For what, I didn't know. But she'd chosen to recuperate from surgery in a theme hotel in southeast Portland, Oregon.

What the theme of the hotel was, I wasn't sure, and I'm not sure they were, either. The hotel itself was an old Victorian building, practically an Addams-Family-style mansion, but it had seen better days. The halls were dingy and dark. The wallpaper and carpets were grubby. The walls kind of leaned in, like the hotel was thinking of entering its German Expressionist phase. It looked like it hadn't been cleaned in years.

My mother in law was upset with the place, not because it was so run-down and ominous, but because the brochures she'd gotten that sold her on the place promised the entertainment of Harvey Korman, and all they had was some crappy, grainy, black-and-white bootlegged VHS tapes of some of his comedy routines. This was an unacceptable bait-and-switch, she felt.

To make matters stranger, the staff of the hotel—this was all part of the theme, whatever it was—were dressed as Vegas showgirls, but they were all mannish pre-op transsexuals. The service, aside from the grubbiness of the hotel, seemed to be fine, and the staff was attentive and professional. The feathered headdresses and the spangly brassieres were a little strange, but that wasn't the issue. The issue was the inadequacy of the Harvey Korman videotapes.

Despite her need to recuperate, my mother in law wanted to leave, to find someplace that didn't lie about the on-site entertainment. But one of our relatives there was John Ritter—he was not a direct relative, but was someone's brother in law—liked the place enormously, and didn't want to leave.

I have no idea what this dream meant, or whether it's relevant that both Korman and Ritter are no longer with us. I just report it because it seemed memorable enough to share.