BOB...THEN, NOW, FOREVAH

Saw my old boyfriend, Bob, in my dreams the other night...

No, Irma, not Bob Grace.

Bob Redford.

OK, so Bob R. was never my boyfriend...not really....but every now and then, back in the day, I would dream that Robert Redford and I were such good pals, were so close, that he asked me to call him Bob.

Or, maybe he didn't ask me....maybe, due to my delusions of grandeur, I just started calling him Bob to infer our special, best-buds relationship...whatever...

My point -- and I do have one -- is that ever since I fell in love with Bob in "The Way We Were" (ironically, the first movie I saw with my real old high school beau Bob Grace), he's always been my favorite hunky movie star...

And my favorite movie star he remains, even now, even when Bob -- dare I say it -- is growing a bit long in the tooth.

I actually caught myself about to swoon during the previews of Bob's latest movie, "Lions For Lambs" when I went to see that tear-jerker "August Rush".

And apparently, it was seeing my old, albiet, imaginary, flame in that preview that caused my psyche to conjure up his blondie-boy image in my dreams just the other night...it was if we'd never been apart. It was "Bob, this" and "Bob, that" and we were just chatting away and solving the problems of the world, and he was giving me that adorable Bob Redford grin..

Heavy sigh...

Mark my words, the day Bob dies I will be donned in sack cloth and ashes, and there will be great wailing and sobbing and gnashing of teeth...I will declare a week of mourning...I will glue myself to the DVD player and watch nothing but Bob's greatest movies -- and of course, they are all great...

(I still remember when John Denver died in that horrible plane crash several years back...I dragged out all my old JD albums and cranked up the ol' stereo and sobbed my way through "Sunshine On My Shoulders" and (of course) "Annie's Song" for days...)

Anyway...in this oft' off-balance, topsy-turvy, pell-mell world, it's comforting to know that no matter what else changes, no matter what rug is pulled out from under me, Bob Redford and I still and always will have that special connection...

LOL.

I think I may have been a stalker in another life...