Science fiction, fantasy, mystery and what-not
I had a dream which I can’t quite remember.
It involved a chrome sports car. The fragments I remember include a young me looking at the car. The car was very low and slick, chromium, more like a toy from Mattel’s Hot Wheels collection than a ‘real’ car.
In some scenes, I was designing it. Other times, I was making yet I also remember it being given to me, and I remember getting ready to drive it.
Throughout this, the background is dark, like a starless, moonless night.
I dreamed I was at a sister’s house with other family members, getting ready to go somewhere. I never actually saw anyone but knew this and frequently spoke with them, but just in passing comments.
I knew my sister had decided to start a new business. I saw these large, clear plastic trays, made for transferring fluids, were dirty, so I stopped and cleaned them all, to help her out.
They were all in my sister’s car, waiting for me, a maroon vehicle. I then downloaded two computer things to her car: business planning software for her, and directions to my uncle’s house for me.
When I got in the car, my sister said, “There are two downloaded items.” I explained what they were.
She was driving. I got on the phone with my uncle for directions. I knew how to get there; I just needed the final address. (This uncle is deceased in real life.)
He gruffly asked me if I had pen and pencil. I didn’t but felt that wasn’t needed, and would just depend on my memory.
My sister dropped me off at a facility where I was to graduate. Others who were to graduate were also arriving, in groups. Most were younger. I got in line alone. Watching the operation, I realized that they graduated us in small groups in a building and not on stage.
As I reached the door and stopped, waiting to enter, I noticed the man behind me was trying to push me forward. I turned around and told him not to do that. He, a bearded white guy with wavy blonde hair and blue eyes, backed off.
I went into the room when called forward. I again had to wait. I noticed that they were providing mysteries to the people ahead of me. They were expected to solve them using math. I began trying to shift my focus to do better.
We went left, and then right, lining up. When I was second in line, a man helping with giving out the diplomas came to me to identify me. After he did, he explained that I was graduating at a higher level than the others, and things were a little different for me. He moved me to one side to wait.
After a little bit, he brought over a white sheet of paper and told me to hold onto it. I examined it and gathered that it was a summary of my achievements and records, but it was written in a small font and was often different foreign languages so it didn’t make much sense to me. There were also symbols, like the ‘eye on the pyramid’ used on US money.
Dream end
The DIY cycle continues. This week, I bought and replaced a burned-out bulb in my wife’s car, replaced window blinds, and exchanged some bathroom faucet cartridges.
The blinds were for the guest room and are part of our modernization process. The window is 72 inches wide. We had wooden plantation blinds in there. While visiting Mom last year, we saw zebra blinds. Deciding that we liked them, we bought them online. They were frankly a very easy swap over. I did need different mounting brackets but that ‘weren’t no thang’. Whole thing of moving the bed to reach the window, taking down the old stuff, putting up the new, and cleaning up afterward took about 45 minutes. The results are very pleasing.
Changing the damn bulb for the car, though, was accompanied by a lot of GRRRRs and swearing. The bulb was in my wife’s 2003 Ford Focus driver side headlight. It’s a tight space, cleverly engineered, but TIGHT, and required a lot of working via just the feel of my fingers. Removing the old one took about forty-five minutes and ten thousand swear words. Most started with F. Putting the new one in required another fifteen.
The thing is, the bulb is held by a spring door, if you will, which must be pinched and swung aside to get it out. Man, that thing refused to obey my bidding.
But it’s done.
As for the Kohler faucet cartridges…
This is a regular thing. We have three bathroom sinks with these cartridges with two per sink. They seem to need to be replaced about every four to five years. It’s exasperating but easy. I only needed to do one cartridge, one sink on this round. Five minutes, in and out.
Now I’m waiting to see, what’s next?
Something always emerges in DIY world.
This is a playing around piece. Over on Linda G. Hill’s blog via Laura’s WTFAIOA site, we’re all invited to write a non-edited stream of consciousness thing prompted by ‘distance’. So here we are. It was fun.
The distance doesn’t start or end, it’s just there with a space between us as we flash down the road, close and far apart as ever, going again to a place we were before hoping it’s the same place even while we seek something different. We travel the same distance when we talk about her mother and my mom and people we’ve known and what was done when. The drive ends as it began with a sense of wonder what’s going on and an expectation that somehow, this changes things. Sometimes it does but mostly, we are here again, pacing the distance, measuring it for curtains, prowling it at night.
My wife and I were our current age and traveling in her 2003 Gray Focus. I was driving.
We stopped somewhere to eat. It looked like a good choice but after we began looking around more, it turned out to be a mess. Tables were set up as if they were in a fine dining room but it was outdoors, on uneven fields of uncut grass. Many other people were just like us, trying to figure out WTH was going on.
My wife was very hungry and said, “Screw this, I’m just getting some food.” Then she stalked through the grass, where the food was in silver serving bowls among the clumps of grass. Finding some food, she took it to a table.
I was trying to tell her, “Wait, I don’t think that’s what we’re supposed to do.”
A harried young male waiter hustled to her, asking for her order. She replied, “I’m eating this.”
The waiter turned to me and asked, “What are you ordering?”
I was bewildered. “I don’t know what’s available. Where’s the menu?”
But as I looked around, I saw another family doing as my wife did. Noticing scrambled eggs in a bowl on the ground and a red plate, I picked them up and said, “I’m having this.”
The waiter looked both dejected and smug. Writing something on a pad, he left.
Eating some of our food but not happen with it, my wife and I returned to her car. It was cold outside by then, so I started the car to warm us up. I noticed ice inside the car and told her, “Look how cold it got.” Then I opened windows to let the ice out and continued running the engine to warm the car and clear the windows.
The dream ended on a view of us in her little gray car, waiting for the windows to clear.
I paced the room, waiting for word about my wife’s 2003 Ford Focus. The car was recently stopping on its own, unsafe and inconvenient.
I resisted thinking it was a battery at first. The car cranked up and fired without any issues but then died.
My wife didn’t think it was a battery. “It starts up. Nothing dims, and it doesn’t have that weak, sluggish sound when it starts.”
I agreed in principle. I checked the battery, confirming, no loose wires or cables, intact and clean. A date on the battery’s side, 05 20, surprised me.
Telling my spouse about it, I added, “I didn’t think the battery was that old.”
We reminisced about buying it. Delivering Food & Friends alone because the COVID pandemic was underway, her car died enroute. She called me to rescue her, which I gleefully did to escape the house.
I reminded her, recent ‘high-discharge’ batteries don’t show the same dying battery symptoms we grew up seeing. Then I recalled, it was cold when the car died on her a couple times this week. Cold affects how much energy batteries can deliver.
I decided, checking the battery was where to begin. An appointment at Les Schwab, a mile away, was made for 10 AM this morning.
I started the Focus without any issue; it died five seconds later. I started it again. Death came five seconds later.
Three times was a charm, but I worried about the car dying as I drove to the appointment.
The Les Schwab tech confirmed, bad battery. “One cell is completely dead,” he said.
That fit, to me. A couple hundred dollars later, we believe we have the problem solved.
Whether the problem is truly solved won’t be clear until the car has been driven normally a few times. I have high confidence it’s fixed, though.
But — knock on wood.
Just in case.
Today is Thursday, January 22, 2026.
Ashland continues a weather pattern of cold nights, warming days, blue skies, and air stagnation. Blue skies came, went, and returned yesterday. Like yesterday, today’s highs will register over 50.
I’m happy to report that Alexa, online, and my system closely agree that it’s cold this morning. Alexa calls it 31, my system tells me it’s 27 F, and Ashland’s temperature online says, 32. Rejoice!
It looks warmer out there, an illusion of golden sunshine on majestic but naked oak branches lit against sky blue. Stepping out, as Papi will tell you, is a different matter. He did his business and hurried back in to work through breakfast.
Mom and sis each report adjustments have been made, and acceptance of their new relationship is growing. Each still complains about the other but in gentler terms, with more compliments for one another sprinkled in. Hope remains alive that Mom living at sis’s house will eventually thrive.
Sis says they’re preparing for a big winter storm in Pittsburgh, up to twelves inches of snow. She stocked up on baked goods to prepare.
It’s always interesting how things change and stay the same. Weather is one, Mom and sis are another. Trump is a third.
Trump wants Greenland ‘for the United States’, threatening eight allies with tariffs. Global markets responded with fast drops based on worries about a trade war. Whether that impacted Trump’s thinking, he withdrew the tariff threats on those eight nations.
We wait to see what Trump will do next. He promised to cap credit card interest rates by January 20. Didn’t happen.
“We’re going to issue a dividend to our middle-income people and lower-income people, about $2,000,” Trump told the press Nov. 10. “And we’re going to use the remaining tariffs to lower our debt.”
Nobody has received that check. Trump didn’t remember making that promise when people asked about it.
And, let’s not overlook the Trump phone. Promised in 2025, there were rumors of about 600,000 pre-orders. None have been reported as received or delivered.
I’ve heard whispers from some that maybe a tipping point was reached with Trump. I’m not sure that’s so and won’t let myself get optimistic about it.
Thinking about what they’d seen, The Neurons brought up Green Day and their song, “Waiting”.
Now, time to chug coffee and head out to the repair shop to deliver my wife’s vehicle and await their verdict. The car sometimes completely dies without warning. It’s over 20 years old but in good shape, so we have our fingers crossed that something quick and easy will be found. Taking a book with me, in case it’s a long wait.
I hope positive energy fills your day and good things come your way, today and every day. Cheers
Jerry Seinfeld and George Costanza are two characters from “Seinfeld”, a television series which was originally broadcast last century. Jerry Seinfeld played himself as a comedian living in New York, alongside Jason Alexander as his best friend, George Costanza.
I ran into Jerry in a dream. Jerry and I were talking when George came up. Jerry said to me, “Hey, we’re going to a comedy festival. Should be fun. Want to come?”
I agreed. After brief discussion, we decided I would ride with Jerry in his car, and George would drive himself, due to commitments after the festival.
Jerry and I set off on a straight road toward a sunset. Looking back, I confirmed George was following. Turning back, I watched the road in silence. Jerry, behind the wheel, was absorbed with his phone. We were coming toward a tree-line section and another vehicle was closing fast when I realized we were drifting across the centerline.
I said, “Jerry, the road,” but in a calm voice.
Without saying anything, Jerry set his phone aside and took the wheel, moving us to the right side.
We arrived at the open festival and met up with George. Jerry led us to our seats in an open-roof amphitheater. I settled in and watched acts, and then concocted my own and delivered a monologue up where I stood. To my surprise, it was broadcast a few minutes later to much laughter and applause.
The show ended. People began moving toward other activities. I realized that I’d lost track of Jerry and George and began walking around, both looking for them, and taking in sights.
Coming across a large pond set in rocks with fountains spraying into the air, I went into the water, in part for fun but also to escape the crowds. When I came back out, I realized that I’d been wearing sunglasses. I searched my pockets in case I’d absently taken them off but decided that I must have lost them in the water. Beginning to retrace my steps, I shrugged it off with the realization, the loss didn’t matter because this was only a dream.
Dream end.
Well, I dreamed my wife was driving the car. I was in the back seat of this dark green sedan beast. Weird, I was standing while my wife was sitting, sawing at the giant steering wheel. But my head was at her level. Oddly, the steering wheel was on the right, counter to the usual U.S. practice of having the wheel on the left side.
A gorgeous woman with a low top and cleavage displayed was on the seat behind me, wholly exciting me with her presence, trying to entice me to join her. I’m like, “That’s nuts!” My wife is driving us to either shopping or school. Note from the real-life side, my wife only drives me when my physical condition warrants it.
We stop. I climb out from the back seat. I ask my wife, “Where are we?” It seems familiar, like a beach we’ve visited but no beach is in sight. Instead, white pieces are all over the place.
I pick a few white pieces up with some WTF-self quizzing. They seem bigger than they were. At first, I thought them to be building blocks like the kind children use. Instead, these are as large as shoe boxes, but they’re light. Hardly weigh anything at all.
They’re all over the place, like wreckage. I can’t imagine what happened to cause it. Hurricane? Tornado? Both are feasible but what were the pieces part of and where were they before? I’m looking around, trying to place that.
A whim drives me to collect pieces. After doing that, I realize they can be put together and stacked as a wall. Amused, I do this for a bit. Finding and gathering more pieces, I put together corners, doorways, windows without much effort. I’ve been working a while in bright sunshine, a warm breeze coming along as a visitor. I was sweating and then realized I didn’t see my wife or the car. A little thinking about that progressed but I returned to my building effort. I wondered as I did if this thing I was building was strong enough to stand, and wondered, why am I even doing this? It seemed crazy.
Two other crazy aspects emerged as I worked. The building changed, becoming a real place. I was at once sure that I’d built it but also certain that I’d never done all the things I was seeing. Second, the day seemed to be progressing enormously slowly. I took some time to contemplate where the sun was, trying to think back to where it’d been when I began, but I couldn’t come up with any answer.
That’s where the dream ended.
Sunset was turning the day into a purple cloud darkness. I was getting into a large, shiny black SUV. My wife was with me, and some others, but they’re unknown. As the mechanics of starting the vehicle and guiding it out of a parking lot to a road was finished, I realized that something was on the vehicle’s front end. That something progressed fast from ‘something’ to a full-grown cougar. With that registering, I stopped the car and told the rest what I saw, then stepped out of the vehicle to cautiously approach the animal. Alive, it clung to the front with its claws. I told it, “Shoo.” To my amazement, the cougar departed its space, trotting away from me, amusing, mysterious, bewildering.
Returning to the vehicle, I drove for some time. Arriving somewhere during daytime, my wife and I left the vehicle to shop in some little stores. Not particularly interested in shopping, I found a cushioned bench where I sat. Feeling drowsy, I laid down to nap. I awoke after some unknown time because a small stripped tabby cat was curled up against me and purring in my ear. Fully awake, I put and scratched the sweet, loving animal. It trotted off, tail high, after a short time.
My wife came and I told her what happened. She was marginally interested, annoying me. We went out and found ourselves on the top tier of a large sports arena. Some football game was underway. I gathered this was a college or university. Skirting the game, my wife and I went down to register for classes. When I walked into the administration building, a large cougar leaped into my arms and held onto me. I was so astonished and a little wary but the animal wasn’t threatening. After some seconds of holding the cougar as it held me, a female administrator came by and told the animal to leave me alone, which it did, trotting off down a hall, disappearing through an open door.
After talking about classes, my wife and I, accompanied by a female friend, went out to walk some trails that crossed the campus. These took us into some small, rocky mountains. The day grew hot under a bright sun. My wife decided to sit and rest. I went on a bit. Looking back, I saw that she’d fallen asleep so I laid down to nap. I took off my pants, leaving me in a shirt and underwear, but covered myself with a light blanket. The friend came up. She teased and flirted with me, suggesting she wanted to join me. While I rejected her, I also wanted her, and found the entire encounter intensely erotic.
Michael Seidel, writer 