Science fiction, fantasy, mystery and what-not
He saw a window sticker on a car’s back window. It originally said Southern Oregon University. Some letters were lost, rendering it as uthern Oregon University. Now he couldn’t stop wondering about uthern Oregon, wondering, where was it? What was it like?
Someday, he vowed, he would find uthern Oregon and the university. The journey might require some drugs.
Completely stolen from a Facebook page, Vince the Flag Guy, but I couldn’t resist spreading this far and wide.
Going across a dark, almost dystopian urban landscape, I came across Dad. He was hustling around, his normal mode, with that odd, splayed-leg walk of his. Seeing me, he said, “Here, come help me.” He was pointing and directing. “We need to paint this place. Get that brush and paint over there.” He pointed to a red brick wall.
At that point, I realized that most of the place was already painted red. “You’re painting everything red.”
“Yes,” he answered, taking up a roller and resuming.
“Why?”
“It needs to be red.”
I saw that besides the buildings being red, so were the pavement, grass, trees, and roads. Even the sky and clouds were red. “How did you do that?”
“Hurry,” he answered, “we need to get everything painted red.”
Although I didn’t understand and disagreed, I began painting. As I did, I found red rubies surrounding me. I picked them up with huge astonishment, admiring the cut gems, and called out to Dad, “Look what I found.”
“I know,” he replied without pausing his work. “Take what you want. They’re yours.”
Dream end.
A woman was enjoying a latter with another woman another at a nearby table. I heard her say, “One time my son ended a text with TTYL, and all I could come up with for what it meant was ‘Ta Ta You Loser’.”
Yeah, cracked me up.
We’re such individuals. Not just from one another but from what we were when we were younger.
I used to be aghast that someone didn’t like chocolate. Or ‘don’t care for sweets’. Dad is one of those.
I could understand why people didn’t like coffee, beer, or alcohol generally, between flavors and effects. Now I see, as I age, how my taste buds and preferences have morphed through my decades. I still enjoy chocolate, beer, coffee, etc., but things taste sweeter or saltier to me.
Life. Takes so long to learn and understand, and then things change.
He was hot. She was, she said, “Freezing.”
This wasn’t new.
But her fingers were white and waxy, like bloodless white candles. Their appearance stunned him into silence. She said they ached.
He merely sweated. So it was not the same thing. For her, it was pain. For him, it was comfort.
Telephone charging. That’s what gave me my answer. Of course, I wouldn’t have been there if I’d not taken shortcuts. But I like shortcuts.
Our net connection went dark last Friday night. After rebooting, I figured, ah, something wrong with the local provider. When it was out the next morning, I reported it to see what they said. The tired sounding female on the other end said, “No one else is reporting any problem in your area.” She followed up with basic questions. What lights do you have? Are all the connections tight? After my answers, she said, “We’ll need to escalate.” Like, that was all she had. “You’re get a call between now and Monday morning.”
The cable modem was showing the ethernet was up and the power was on, but nothing being received or sent to the provider, even after reports. T’ain’t a flicker. I checked my notes. Cable modems normally last five years. This one was five years old. Time for a new one.
Basic research was conducted about what worked with the provider’s network and what didn’t, and if there would be anything to look for to match it with my router. A few reviews were read on the phone, then we went shopping. I bought a simple Arris SB6 series which wasn’t too pricy and was said to fit my network. We plugged it in and got lights for everything, so it was the cable modem, but couldn’t connect to the network. I knew from past experience it was because the provider had to activate it on their end.
Monday morning, I called it in and they brought it up. All was well. Until…
When I returned from my coffee writing session, my wife darkly informed me that our net is not fixed. “It keeps going out.”
I tracked that. Yes, it was going out every six to ten minutes, rebooting, then coming back online. Connections were checked. All was good. WTF?
I noodled it over for several hours. Plugged in new cables. No change. Did research. Nobody had anything else. But the cable connection didn’t make sense to me anyway. Looked like the modem was going off, then we were losing the connection. Then it rebooted. Could be an attack but doubtful.
Then it hit. Power. Microvolts and amps.
Like in the phone chargers and Fitbits.
We’ve learned that not all chargers work with the trackers and phones. Minute differences cause problems. That could be the case now with the cable modem. At least, I needed to check and eliminate it.
The cable modem’s power is embedded in a very sophisticated system that I set up thirteen years ago. Color coded and everything. Hard as hell to reach. So when I bought the new cable modem, I used the old power line and supply. Now, I dug out the proper line, disconnected it and plugged in the new one. Everything booted up properly. The cable modem stayed on and the connection remained solid.
I put everything back together. Lesson learned, again. Beware of shortcuts.
I’m a someday believer
A fluid self-deceiver
An optimist convinced I’m making it ahead
Probably be the way
Until that final day
When they solemnly announce I’m dead
But what will I find
Beyond that life and death line
Remains to be found I’ve said
Because I’m a someday believer
Thinking there might be more to conceive or
Even know beyond the book of dead
Spring is flirting with summer. It’s 60 now, but isn’t expected to be as warm as yesterday’s 83 F. Temperatures this week will be dropping. Rain is expected this week. It’s the last day of April, 2023 – 4/30/23 – and Sunday. Sunrise was between letting Papi out and letting him back in, sometime around six AM. Sunrise will come later, when it starts getting dark. Days like these are known as sprummer.
Fire south of us near Merlin, Oregon, in Hog Creek County Park, keeps the air from being fresh and clear. I was looking forward to the windows delivering cool healthy night air. Smoke from the fire kept that from us. Don’t know what caused the fire. News is delivered in drops, skating among titillating tidbits to keep us watching. “A race from another planet landed in the downtown area. But first, do you know what bees and spiders have in common? These stories and more, along with weather and local sports, after the commercial break.” By then, I’m long gone.
The news isn’t local, BTW, except in the sense that we’re part of southern Oregon, adjacent to northern California, an hour or two from the coast, a few hours from the capitol. That’s the stretch of our local news. Our local paper is gone; so is the larger one that served the area described. Our local coverage is due to be more truncated soon with the Sinclair Broadcasting affiliate being cut to one local news staffer. News from the nation and region will instead be delivered, unless that one person comes up with something big. See, we don’t have enough nation and region; the cable news channels can’t do it, no. Nor can all the websites and national newspapers. No, there must be another.
I later learned after the news posturing ended, the cause of the Hog Creek area fire is under investigation.
We still lack net at home. In our semi-smart home, this means we also lack all but basic over-the-air television, and our home phone line is down. So is our weather source, Alexa. We mock her but we depend upon her. I’m at the coffee shop now, gone there early to surf before writing.
In many ways, being netless is like the good old days. What shall we do to occupy ourselves, we ask after cleaning. Clean more is suggested. Snide remarks and laughter come back. Read except, I’m short of reading material on hand. Guess I’ll hit the library today. I’ll also cut more grass, pull more weeds, trim more bushes, etc. Meanwhile, the situation caused The Neurons to dump The Stokes and “Someday” into the morning mental music stream.
It makes sense for once. We talk about the good ol’ days but they vary by age group. Saturday morning cartoons and breakfast cereal for one generation was going to the market in the wagon for another, driving to church for others, or fasting and praying. The good ol’ days are solid as slushy ice.
Been drinking my coffee. Time to punch on. Stay pos whatever happens to you, as best you can, if you can. I know, sometimes we just sink and there’s nothing we can do to stop ourselves.
Here’s the music. Cheers
Michael Seidel, writer 