Science fiction, fantasy, mystery and what-not
“What do you want for dinner?” I asked.
My wife whipped her head around and glared at me. “I am going to kill you. Every day you come in here and ask that. Did you look to see what we have?”
“How ’bout we order Chinese food?”
Her eyes widened. “What about your sodium?”
I shrugged. “I’m not worried. My wife is going to kill me. I’m playing the short game.”
It was a fascinating dream for me. When I awoke from it, I thought, I’d been watching a television show or movie. With a bit of surprise, I then realized I’d been in the dream, along with my wife and two children, which were my offspring. But I was both involved by watching as a minor character and sort of injected into some scenes.
My wife and children and I were tourists processing through some station. Aliens were there; sort of Klingon-like, in light grey blue uniforms with a jacket which has a deep red collar and a matching red shirt under it.
While traveling, all of us are stopped by these others who basically want to enslave us. It’s a troubling scene. I’m passive with my wife, not sure what will happen to us verses the others because we’re human and are supposed to have a different status. Nonetheless, we’re detained with the rest.
There’s then a scene where our captor and one of the captives go back and forth about what’s go be done in this cave where we’re being held. I realize that they’re having a disagreement over a matter of reference and perspective.
The captor keeps saying, ‘to your right’, and the other keeps saying, ‘that doesn’t make sense’. I then try to clarify that the captor is talking about the direction from the way he’s facing, while the captive is facing the opposite direction.
I end up getting up and pointing this out on a diagram they have posted on an easel.
We then ‘watch’ as captives are taken to another place to mine stuff. I don’t know what they’re mining. They make a show of it. I then suddenly realize that they’re secretly mining knowledge.
When the captive of before decides they’d learned enough, he reveals that he has a weapon. Shaped like an obelisk – really, just like a foot tall reproduction of the Washington monument, but shiny, silver-gold – the captive holds it up. Pressing a button, he sends a signal.
Suddenly, all these other dead, sleeping, and collapsed aliens awaken and rise. Each of them are equipped with a like obelisk. Using these, they overpower their captors.
As my wife and I watch, we realize that the revolution has begun.
Dream end.
I was running for exercise. As I did, I became aware of my body’s sounds. A novel concept emerge.
I curtailed the run and went home. Sitting down, I typed up the first twenty pages, about 2500 words, then went for water and to clean up and change clothes. While I was doing those things, I realized a potential ending and saw more scenes.
I added the book to my To Be Written document.
Just the way it goes, sometimes, you know?
My wife and I were staying in a white apartment building, in a spacious ground-floor unit.
Located on flat land, seven stories tall, the building was part of a busy area, full of energetic people and planning. Part of this was about the traffic going on with the broad street in front of the house. Other changes involved landscaping.
I had a sort of control where I could receive and send information. As I passed information on, someone in charge approached and asked how I was doing that. I showed them my control, a black rectangle similar to a television remote control. I demonstrated how I pointed it at things, pressed a button, and learned from doing that. I could then point it to someone, press a button, and share that information with that person.
In response to questions, I clarified that, yes, I could do simultaneous information collection and broadcast it to multiple people at the same time. But I also showed him that the remote was old and damaged; several buttons were weak or loose. I sometimes had to hold them in longer before the desired effects took place.
I hinted that I would really appreciate a new one, and they implied they might be able to help.
In another part of my dream, I had five cats. All were cats who previously lived with me and passed away. They were just hanging around the apartment, being cats.
Then a strange cat entered the front door. Resembling a small gray lion, it came in and then paused when it saw our cats.
One of our cats ran right up and attacked it. Our cat and the lion cat wrestled for a few seconds and then our cat pulled away and stretched. “Oh, he’s only playing,” we realized.
We then watched as the other cats interacted. One of our cats attacked one of the others, throwing them down. But then all the fighting stopped and the cats just settled down and washed.
It was then time for my wife and I to leave to go somewhere. As we left our apartment, I saw that the building’s rear landscaping was torn up. All the grass and plants had been removed.
That surprised me and my wife. We talked about it and then another approached and assured us that these plans had been in place for a long time. My wife and I chatted further, admitting, we must have missed the notice.
Dream end
Ashland, Oregon — April 9, 2026.
Springish today. After an evening of solid rain, clouds maintain a presence and sunshine is muted. 54 F is our temperature now, with the chance of more rain and a high in the mid 60s. Right now, if you walk out and the clouds are merged, it’s chilly. But when sunshine is freed, you feel the heat.
Late blogging/writing start. We ran errands this morning, looking for plants to fill gaps. Then, since we were out and around grocery stores, quick runs to pick up a few items.
There’s also been heavy texting with my sister about Mom. Mom asks when sister is selling Mom’s house and also talks about plans to move in there, leaving us wondering, what? D Day, when Mom said she is moving out of the assisted living facility, arrives soon. Everyone advises her not to, but she’s adamant about her intentions, even if she lacks plans.
Is the Iran War cease fire holding? The news cycle runs fast these days and I haven’t been at my computer for hours. All manner of disasters, attacks, and accusations may have happened in the four hours since I was last on the ‘puter.
Bad news is emerging out of the US Postal Service. They’re suspending FERS contributions due to a cash flow problem. But this stuff has been going on for a while. Rural areas have been suffering as the USPS closed rural post offices and satellite operations. Meanwhile, as the cost of a first-class stamp keeps rising. Now, thanks to Trump’s Iran War, the cost to ship things such as the mail are also rising.
This all puts more stress on our economic system and the most vulnerable of our society. Consider how many elderly and rural people depend on the postal service to receive medication and bills. They’re the ones who were most negatively impacted by several aspects of Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill and are the ones who will suffer most under his proposed 2027 budget.
It’ll be interesting to see how our political leaders respond. Polarized, Congress has been gridlocked and even routine budget seems like titanic challenges. Can a Trump -led government rise to the level of thinking and cooperation needed to address this problem or will we wait until it’s a crisis.
Today’s news and environment encouraged The Neurons to play “Living in the Past”. This Jethro Tull came out in 1969. It’s all about waiting to live in a more peaceful, relaxed time, so you can see how it plays in this period.
Hope you have a relaxed day, filled with peace and grace, and if not that, that you emerge safe and unscathed.
Cheers
Ashland, Oregon — Tuesday, April 7, 2026.
54 F right now under light clouds skirmishing with blue skies, we’re anticipating a high of 75 F.
It’s a whirlwind morning. Sis is picking up her car from its body shop repairs AND taking Mom to the doctors at the same time. It’s a high-wire act.
Meanwhile, sis has been assisting Mom and is now suggesting maybe Mom should live alone, maybe with help from Visiting Angels.
More critically, Trump is escalating his rhetoric against Iran. After practically vanishing for a few days, he emerged to bless the people of Iran while threatening to kill them. So sane. So smart.
How seriously do we take Trump and this threat — and what can we do. His whole approach to the war he started with Iran has been one of his patented crazy weaves.
Mock Paper Scissors brought us the highlights about Trump and what he’s said about his war. “We’ve won, we’re close to winning, it’s over, close to over, here’s a deadline — and another — and another — and another.” It’s like dealing with a drunk relative when you’re trying to tell them it’s not safe for them to drive.
Trump is loving it in the spotlight. Judging from their silence, Republicans seem to like it as well. They’re saying, “Yes, threatening to destroy another nation, basically for existing. That’s exactly what we Christians voted for in 2024.”
What is interesting as well is that Trump was losing ground with Evangelicals — until he attacked Iran. Now he’s gaining ground with them again. I cringe to think how happy they would be if he actually nuked Iran.
What was that Trump said about no more wars? What was that about being a unifier and peace president?
What was that Trump said about lowering prices? That was before he decided to start bombing Iran, which raised prices for air travel, food, and anything related to gas and oil.
What was that Trump said about bombing Iran in 2025 and obliterating their nuclear program?
We still wait for the full release of the Epstein files, too. How many times has that been promised?
Today’s music came from the thought I had upon reading several Trump posts, “Something has you going tonight.” I thought that because his crazy level seemed to be higher. Was he hopped up on sugar or off some secret meds they’re given him, or enduring a UTI?
Eavesdropping on me, The Neurons pulled that line out of an April Wine song, “I Like to Rock”. That began playing in my morning mental music stream. Then I had to sit back and think, what is that song?
My mind refused to cooperate, holding my thinking for ransom until I gave them coffee and a chocolate biscotti. Then they finally identified the song and band.
Hope peace and grace come our way, and lands on Trump without getting blown out of the sky, and helps him see reason. Fingers crossed, right, that he doesn’t escalate us into WWIII.
Cheers
Our Internet connection was down this weekend. Started Saturday and dragged through Sunday.
We use Ashland Home Net. Owned by the city, we want to support our city. The service has been reliable. Like everything, though, there can sometimes be outages.
The net went down Saturday afternoon. We gave it time to come back up. Didn’t. So — reboot system. Still no connectivity.
I called our service provider and left a message. It’s a small organization and they don’t have someone in the office at night and on weekends. But they check their messages and get back to you.
They did get back to us on Sunday. We were out. I had my cell phone with me. “Private number” it said. I ignored it. Later, I listened to the message, which was Ashland Home Net telling me that they couldn’t find a record of our account.
*grumble grumble*
When we were home after our Easter festivities with friends, I pulled our records to call Ashland Home Net and give them our account number. The folder had notes from previous issues and fixes. This included one from 2023: “Netgear router inadvertently reset (button on side — beware).” I had the Netgear instruction pamphlet attached to the folder.
Aha.
I pulled out the pamphlet, followed the instructions, and got us back online.
I also called Ashland Home Net and gave them our account number, just to close that loop. And they called back, apologized for not being able to find us, baffled by that side of it, confirming that we were online again and weren’t experiencing any more interruptus.
Normal online life resumed.
I follow and enjoy Ron, who writes imaginative and frequently humorous poetry.
Today, he had a great piece, “I’m with Elmo”. Its origins go back to Poets and Stories. They offered a challenge: take one of five famous quotes about April, and use it as inspiration.
Here is my piece, “Thirteen”.
Michael Seidel, writer 