gator dreams

I dreamed last night that I and a few others were riding inside an alligator. This was after we had been kicked out of the gym where we had been trying to rehearse, after having been kicked out of the rehearsal rooms where we had been trying to rehearse. After being kicked out twice and traveling in the alligator, we finally found a restaurant with an upstairs room where we went up and ordered biscuits and tea as an excuse to be there and moved the furniture around so that we could rehearse in the restaurant. My friend August was somehow the restaurateur, and was quite cheerful about having a crowd that only ordered biscuits and tea.

This is too much like real life.

All except the alligator part. In my dream, the alligator was black and smooth skinned. I kept thinking it was a Cyclops alligator, but truly it did have two eyes. And it moved pretty fast for having a theater troupe inside it.

I am always confused about the difference between alligators and crocodiles.

I asked my dad about it. He said they are different species. WELL DUH. Thanks, not so helpful.

(Oh, by the way, since "I am always confused..." we are back in real life... which makes sense, in a way).

So, for my own edification, here is the difference. Alligators and crocodiles are both members of the family Crocodylidae.

What I *didn't* know is that there are two more species: the caimans and the gharial.

This is the American alligator. It has a rounded snout.

The crocodile tends to have a pointier snout and it has lower jaw teeth that are visible even when its mouth is closed.

This is a Black Caiman, an endangered species.

This is a gharial. If you are on the Ganges River in India, and a log opens its mouth to reveal teeth, it is probably a gharial.