I dreamed that Rice Owls men's football had made it to a bowl game, and I was going with the MOB. I was also one of six women chosen to perform in the pre-game extravaganza. Rice would be playing Texas Tech University in Inverniola, and the theme of the pre-game show was "Six Flags Over Texas". I would be dressed to represent the Mexican flag, in an embroidered white peasant blouse and a broad red skirt trimmed with bright multi-colored ribbons.
The other five women and I were floated down into the arena in a huge, six-sided floating lantern sort of contraption. Each side was hung with banners signifying each of the six flags. The banners split down the middle like curtains, and the lower ends tapered into points. The lantern drifted down slowly along guy wires, then hovered above the stadium. As we each clutched the gap in the banners to hold them shut around the lantern, the whole thing began to spin, and the bottoms of the banners flared out. I saw video of it later; it looked really cool.
We sank toward our target on the field. There was a little depression in the ground for each of us to catch our feet in, which would anchor the lantern. I ended up being the key point, and we almost didn't land on center because my legs and feet were only just barely long enough to catch and hold in my anchor point. But we landed all right, and within our time limits, and then we all danced out onto the field.
Rice won the bowl game, but it was close. This meant we advanced to a playoff game, but this year something amazing happened. It was the first year that female teams were allowed into the same bowl and playoff system, and, through some really improbably statistical fluke, the Rice men's team ended up going to the Aloha Bowl in Hawai'i, to play against the Rice women's team!
I didn't get to go to that game, and I didn't have the right cable channel to watch at home. So I found a big Dave and Busters sort of complex that also had a fitness center with lots of televisions. We got them to change one of the TVs to the game and we watched as... THE RICE WOMEN WON!!! And then I woke up.
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