Last night i dreamt about Marie Osmond, the Bling Queen of Country-Pop and Doll Designer Extraordinaire.

Which is weird in itself, seeing as how i am truly NOT a Marie fan – being more of an 80’s “buttrock” kinda girl and not an 80’s (70’s?) “airbrushed-pop-look-at-how-sparkly-i-am!!”  kinda girl but nevertheless, Marie made an appearance in my dreams last night.

Or rather, she made an appearance in a sleepy southern California pastoral town last night, which seems to exist only in my imagination.

Let me back up here…

i live in California, and definitely NOT in a sleepy, pastoral village. But i know those exist. At least i dream they do.  In this dream, i was watching tv, (duh – What ELSE would i be doing in my dreams?) and this idyllic, sunny small dairy community called Bright Vale, nestled in a valley of green, rolling pastures in southern California, had made national news.

They had just experienced their first snowfall.

Now, Bright Vale doesn’t really exist. It’s totally fictional – obviously made up to entertain my sleeping brain which i guess is kinda into science and climatology. But not actual facts. Or, more likely, because geography is hard. Even in my dreams.

(Looking up “Bright Vale, CA” really quick. Nope. Geography still eludes me.)

But it SOUNDS like a nice place, and obviously my obliging brain was really into it because most of the dream was spent watching footage of a landscape that was almost Holland-like in its green rolling hills, weather-aged, well-built large barns, and one-lane paved roads leading to crisp white farm houses with wild yellow daffodils growing in the front yards.

(At least this is what i THINK it looks like in Holland. i don’t actually know. Other than a few pics i’ve seen on the internets, i have NO idea what Holland really looks like. I’ve never been and never met anyone from there. It could be covered in ice. Like Greenland. “GREEN”-land? Newsflash! It isn’t green! It’s ICE! i looked it up! C’mon geographists! Geography is already hard – now you’re just being mean…)

There were even windmills. The quiet, old-fashioned kind – short, wide, somewhat cone-shaped structures made of large stones stacked together with the big wooden blades that gently and steadily turned in the breeze. Not the tall, modern, pointy-scary things you can see from 50 miles away that look like they were made by aliens and make this totally freaky humming/buzzing noise and interfere with bird migratory patterns.

No. Not those. More like these.

In my quiet and peaceful dream, the camera panned slowly across the quiet farming community and i could see snowflakes gently drifting to the ground and creating a thin skiff of white across the green fields.

It was achingly beautiful.

And then the camera showed us a profile of Marie Osmand’s face, in full air-brushed makeup, bedazzled with diamonds and framed in a fur-lined parka hood, looking out at the falling snow through the window of her limousine as it drove slowly down the one-laned street of Bright Vale, CA.

The news story was that the people of Bright Vale had all decided one evening at a community town hall meeting down at the grange that they wanted to get on the map. i guess that, in this case,  “map” is slang for getting some publicity and recognition because Bright Vale was already on the map. In my dream. Not for reals. We’ve already established that. (Checking again…nope)

But this small farming community wanted to get on the proverbial “map” and be noticed. They wanted to shine and sparkle for everyone to see. And this, they decided, required that they bring in a star. But not just any star. A diamond-level star. A star the likes of freaking MARIE “I Was Born This Sparkly” OSMOND.  Because THAT’S who one thinks of when one thinks of peaceful, green-grass rolling hills, milk cows and tiny farming communities where everyone knows your name.

But Bright Vale loved themselves some Marie Osmond. They were die-hard fans of the diamond-studded Bling Queen and wanted desperately to convince her to come to their quiet town and do a show. So they pulled together all their resources and started making themselves known. They called the newspapers and the big-town tv news shows trying to get some attention. They told all their friends to get on social media and beg Marie to come to Bright Vale. They put up pictures of Marie all over town and blasted Instagram and Twitter with the images. (It IS California after all. Even sleepy farming communities have Instagram.)

They did ALL the things and…

It worked.

Marie heard the call and she CAME.

And not only did she come to do a one-night concert for a teeny tiny wooden-windmill town, she came on the night of the town’s first recorded snow fall EVER.

Marie Osmond is totally magical.

And climate change is totally real, because in the perfectly posed news shot, Marie is looking out the window at the never-before-seen snow falling softly in sunny Bright Vale as her limousine slowly pulls through a line of shivering farming families, caught up in the rapture that is “Marie”, crying in happiness and frantically waving lit sparklers at their Pop Queen. And as she arrived at the large remodeled metal barn/concert venue, the snowflakes back-lit by the setting sun glistened as they fell amongst the glittering sparklers.

Like diamonds.

All that bling.

It was beautiful.

And it was over, because just then a loudspeaker blared, cutting through the gathered crowd, screaming, “YOU HAVE TO PEE!!! NOW!!!” and i was jolted awake with the very real realization that if i didn’t get up and run to the bathroom at this VERY MOMENT, we were going to have a lot of laundry to do today.

Goodbye Marie and the happy people of Bright Vale! i hope the show was everything you dreamed it would be. i hope getting Marie “This Snow Glitters Just Like Me!” Osmond put you on whatever map it is you wanted to be put on.

And if it does, i hope you never tear up your daffodils to widen your streets or swap out your wood-and-stone windmills for bird-killing-angry-alien ones. i hope you always have your happy cows and your Hobbit-shire vibe. i hope you keep your big smiles and your innocent love of glittery pop queens. i hope you stay real.

In my dreams. Because you’re not REALLY real. As in real maps. We already established this.

But keep the sparklers lit, because one of these nights? i’m going to come visit you again.

PS. i actually went on the internet and searched for Bright Vale, CA – hoping it was a real place. It isn’t. But Bright Valley, CA is. And it appears their musical god is Nickelback. The Kings of the Buttrock. Check it out here. It’s worth it.

PPS. i’d like to think that the farmers of Bright Vale took selfies with Marie so i looked up “farmer selfies” and it turns out that farmer selfies, called ‘felfies’, are totally a thing and this delightful brogue won first place in the Irish Farmers Journal’s, 2013 “Selfie on the Farm” competition.

For reals. You can read about it here.

i am not capable of making this up.