Tag: cars

Dream Fulfillment

When I was young, I imagined great careers for myself, glamorous and exciting vocations, like rock star or racing driver. Didn’t come close to either of those, but fulfilled one of them in last night’s dream.

Yes, I was a racing driver, an unknown in Formula 1. Being unknown bothered me not. I was just happy to be there. I was with another rookie driver. Short, he was from somewhere in South America. This was the season’s second race. He’d won the first race. I wasn’t in the first race, but the media was mobbing us because we were rookies, especially him, winning that first race, and his F1 debut.

The time for the current race arrived. There wasn’t any qualifying for reasons I don’t know, and I was starting from the back. (I think this was just a dream contrivance as a metaphor for how I view myself and my life sometimes.)

Then, just like that, I was surging through the field, was at the front and gone. My wife was in the pits, watching, and was mega-impressed. (Yes, I was given that view.)

“Where’s the other guy?” I wondered about my fellow rookie while the race was still going on. That question permitted me to view a screen in my car that showed the car’s relative positions, a setting that you can sometimes select in video racing games.

There was my car, in light blue, number one, and well ahead of the pack. The other rookie, in red, was fifth from last. I was exuberant for myself, and sympathetic for him.

I won, of course, amazing all. My wife’s excitement seemed to equal my own. If only life could be more like my dreams….

0

A NASCAR Dream

It was peculiar.

My Dad, wife, and other family members – none of them ever seen, but heard in the wings of the dream stage – and I were watching a NASCAR race. It was one of the big banked tracks, like Charlotte, Michigan, or Daytona. I lean toward the last as the site. The cars were in roaring packs. It was the race’s mid-stage. Fans know this means the drivers were racing for position, but were mostly finessing the situation and vehicle to make a run at the end. Stock are mostly high-speed endurance races with a final ten-lap shoot-out, especially with the modern tendencies for the cars to wreck on the last, desperate laps. That stops the race and frequently leads to a green-white-checker situation.

I’d driven in with family in a white Chrysler Sebring convertible, with a beige leather interior. The car was parked right there.

Watching the race wasn’t the same as in reality. While watching on a huge screen, I (and everyone else) could virtually walk among the cars as they raced around the track. NASCAR encouraged this technology as a way for fans to get closer. Further, you could design a new paint scheme for the cars as they raced. The drivers and team could then review your scheme while the race was on, and adopt it for the car, again, while the race was on.

That’s what I was doing during the race. ‘My’ driver was a female (and not Danica Patrick). She’d was leading for most of the race, but there was a wreck. She was eliminated, and the race was red-flagged for track clean-up.

My family wanted to leave. The race wasn’t going on, and the one we cheered was no longer in it; why stay? I was working on that paint scheme, though, and didn’t want to quit. I finally surrendered to their heckling. Then Dad wanted me to move the Sebring up. Although we weren’t in a garage, there was a closed garage door. Using a remote control, I moved the car forward, but resisted getting it too close to the garage door. Dad insisted, move it further forward. Irritated, I did, stopping the car with the nose right against the garage door. I then complained to him about it.

That’s all there was. I found interesting symbolism to move after I awoke: a white car, my father as an authority figure, and a female driver, in the lead. All of those seemed like elements of myself. After mulling it over for a while, I took it to mean exciting times were coming (the race) during which I would be pushed to the limit (the car against the garage door) but that it would be fine (my father), and that while I had control, I wouldn’t be in full control.

As if I’m ever in full control, right?

 

0

Driving

Have you ever been behind a car with a driver who inexplicably speeds up and slows down, and sometimes drift onto the shoulder or over the line, and wonder, what’s going on with them?

Yeah, me, neither.

0

Triangle Cars in A Dream

Two dreams remain with me from last night. In one, people were buying cars shaped like triangles. In the other, I was a new commander take over my position.

In the car dream, I was with my cousin, Steve. I haven’t seen him in decades. I was thinking about buying a new car. Steve decided he was going to buy one, two. Another fellow was also buying a car.

Steve ended up buying a new Pontiac Trans Am. Black, or charcoal gray, it was shaped like a equilateral triangle. If it was a door stop, it would have been too stout. I didn’t know about triangular cars. This was news to me. There weren’t any wheels. Not as tall as me, I couldn’t see how people could fit into it, nor how it would work.

While Steve bought his car, another person bought an Audi triangular car. The two cars looked remarkably similar. A salesman approached, asking if I wanted to buy a car with wheels. “Why would I do that, when these were available?” I asked back.

I wanted to drive my cousin’s car, to see what it was like. After a little debate, he agreed. We opened doors, got inside, and we took off. Man, I’m telling you, triangular cars are amazing. Driving it was effortless. They accelerate like a rocket but hold the road like a Formula One racer, but they do not actually ride on the road, but a few feet above the surface. We were a little snug inside but the technology was amazing. The experience left me grinning with pleasure.

In the other dream, I was a new commander. It was my first day. I was in a huge briefing room, waiting for others to arrive. My dark blue uniform was crisp and creased. I wore shiny black and red shoes and had decided to roll up my pants cuff to form a larger cuff and show some ankle.

Proud, ready, and confident, I stood at ease awaiting the others’ arrival. The Commander-in-Chief had arrived to oversee the transition of command and was attending my first briefing. When the double doors opened, I stood at attention and saluted him, and then awaited as the others filed in. They did, taking their seats, chatting about me, impressed by my deportment. After the sat, I did as well. I was a little bothered about my cuffs at that point, ruing the decision to roll them up. We sat and waited.

Nothing happened.

After some period of waiting, I grew aware of another set of doors to my right. I opened them and found a conference room full of seated women. As soon as they saw me, one began giving a report on their finances. Another one interrupted, arguing about allocating expenses to another cost center. I don’t remember any of those details.

Neither dream ended with clear understanding. I liked the elements of triangular cars in the first dream and how effortless and pleasurable driving them were, and the black and red shoes in the second, and being in command. Those cars were amazing, even though I have no idea how we managed to fit inside them. Driving them was cool as hell, like a dream come true.

They were confusing dreams, but strike me as optimistic and uplifting. What about you? Have any intriguing dreams recently?

 

2-TR7-ad

2

Cynical Me

“Anyone driving slower than you is an idiot, and anyone driving faster is a maniac.”

George Carlin had it right. I stew behind other drivers, awaiting the day when they will be in a self-driving car, leaving me to self-righteously and serenely pilot my car around the roads the proper way.

I have categories for “them,” the other drivers that irritate me. Probably at the top of my list are bizarro drivers, employing a secret logic for their decisions. “School zone with a speed limit of twenty? I’ll go thirty-three. Residential area with a speed limit of twenty-five? I’ll go thirty-three. Country road where the speed limit increases to thirty-five? I better slow down to twenty-eight.”

WTF? I canna fathom their thinking. I’ve written it before and will do so again, their brains are wired backwards. Further proof of this is how they treat yield and stop signs with the exact opposite behavior directed by the sign, and the law behind the sign. It’s a yield sign, so they’ll stop. It’s a stop sign, so they’ll roll through. When “their lane” is ending, they don’t make an effort to signal, move over, merge and integrate, oh, no, that would be too logical. They just keep going straight, hanging onto their lane until others are forced to give way and let them in.

Arrrrrrr!

Let’s not even consider what the hell happens in traffic circles and parking lots. Both of them are like driving in the Thunder Dome. Add rain to the mix….

What is it with rain that it seems to make so many drivers frantic and more erratic? It’s as though the rain causes them to think, “Which out, it’s raining,” and their backward wired brains trigger the opposite of safe behavior. “It’s raining, let’s speed, and not use turn signals, and drive down the road straddling the dividing lines, because we want to be safe.”

Madness, I tell you, frigging madness. Add in some distraction, and OMG. The distraction need not be much. Construction in progress and police cars with flashing lights going off to one side, I can understand, but why are you slowing down to look at people walking dogs? Have you never seen people and dogs before? Are you looking for missing people or missing dogs? Are you not familiar with creatures walking?

This bizarro behavior afflicts cyclists, too. More than half of the cyclists that I encounter around our little town are on the sidewalks. All those great bike lines and bike paths? They seem to treat them like they’re lava zones that will kill them if they enter.

No, I don’t understand. But then, everyone else is an idiot or a maniac. I’m the only sane nut on the roads.

0

Dreams of Saving Babies

Oddly, I enjoyed two variations of the same dream last night.

Each began with me driving a car. In the first, a man, who I think was Latino, began shouting and waving. Looking back, I saw a baby stroller with a child in it racing down the highway toward me. Changing speed and course, I dropped back until the stroller caught up with me, matched speed, and snagged the stroller handle through the window. After bringing us both to a stop, I put my hazard lights on and began waving at the oncoming traffic in warning while I awaited the parents(s).

In the next part of the dream, I saved a child again. This time, I was walking with friends through a plaza, when a child fell out of a window. Seeing what was happening, I managed to catch the child and return her unharmed to her mother. I then remarked to my friends, “That’s the second child I saved today.” They tried convincing me it was a dream as I told them, “No, it was real.”

Then, as the second feature on this dream night, I was walking through a department store. I was wearing brown leather sandals, but somehow misplaced them. Most of the rest of the dream was about looking for the sandals, explaining to others that I’d lost them and what they looked like, and looking at other sandals to see if they might be mine.

I then returned to saving babies. Again, I was driving. A child in an unattended stroller rolled toward traffic. Seeing it, I maneuvered my car to protect the stroller from other cars and then herd it to a stop. Then, I was walking with friends through a plaza when I saw a child about to plummet over the edge of walkway. Racing over, I caught her before she fell. After returning the child to her grateful mother, I told my friends, “That’s the fourth child I’ve saved today.” As they protested that I’d dreamed it, I realized it was true; I’d twice dreamed I’d saved two children.

And then, I awoke.

2

I Want to Ask

I know it’s silly. I shouldn’t care about these things. But –

I can’t stop myself. I must ask.

I’m driving home. A car is in front of me. We pass the speed limit sign: 40 MPH. The driver ahead of me, now going about thirty-five, slows down to around twenty-seven. We then follow the road around a curve and up a hill where we encounter a new speed limit sign: 25 MPH.

The driver speeds up to thirty-five.

So I want to ask the driver, what’s in your head? Do you know you’re doing this? Are your actions of doing the reverse directed part of a secret organization Or do you have something mis-wired?

I almost followed the driver, a white male who looked about fifty, when he turned into the store parking lot to ask him, but I was already running late.

Have others encountered this in their areas? Does anyone know why this happens?

Help me. Please.

6

The Curmudgeon’s Stream

My age is showing. As opinions and expectations calcify with age, I complain and whine about the changes, irritated with myself for doing it but unable to stem the tide. Writing about them might help ameliorate their frequency.

  • Why the hell do smoke alarm batteries chirp and squeal at night to tell us we need to replace the battery? We need a smart detector that does not awake us at dark AM to tell us the batteries need replaced. I’m fortunate that I had a new one on hand and could immediately hunt down the offending detector and mollify the device.
  • Reminder: stop by the store and buy a nine volt battery to have on hand. Just in case.
  • Does anyone curb their wheels any longer? My information guesstimate puts the percentage of those curbing their wheels at less than ten percent. The observation and math process is simple, basically the product of scanning a line of ten cars and noting that none or one is curbed. Most have pulled over to one side and are rarely within two feet of the curb. It’s like they just pulled to one side, stopped, and left, and are not ‘parked’. That really annoys the curmudgeon.
  • Sling TV irks the curmudgeon. I pay the most for it, twenty dollars a month. It’s by far the most expensive of my streaming subscriptions. Yet, its controls and layouts smack me as the worse, and it’s the one most likely to freeze and fail to stream. When I press the button to do something on Sling, I count to ten while waiting for it to respond. That doesn’t happen with Fandango, Netflix, Hulu or Amazon, and didn’t happen with HBO or Showtime. The second worse behind Sling is Acorn, but its reaction time is half of Sling’s. Sling easily wins the ‘worst of’ award.
  • BBC America on Sling is really strange. It’s all about Star Trek. Seriously.
  • Snow has found us again in southern Oregon. A winter storm warning has been issued. It’s a fly on my nose kind of problem for me. I worry about the homeless and poor. Churches have formed an alliance to provide shelter on cold nights. Shelter is just a fraction of the problem. Food, hygiene, health, employment…sigh. Some I meet seem violently, defiantly insane. Others are struggling against poor decisions or fates’ whims. So many roam the streets, sit on benches and huddle beside buildings, and we keep asking, “What can we do? What can we do?”
  • Why can’t our cats get along? Meep and Boo both seem territorial and leery of each other, like the other is the instigator, and they’re only protecting themselves. Tucker is another matter, a cat bred by the stars to fight. He doesn’t posture; he stalks, ambushes and attacks. It’s exhausting dealing with separating and segregating them. The situation does not seem to be improving.
  • I’m pleased that our neighbors adopted Princess. A young gray and white cat, Princess began keeping on eye out for me. Whenever I left the house, she raced to me and begged for food. This, I was told, was because of her experiences as a kitten. I didn’t see her for most of the winter and wondered about her status. But when it warmed and dried, here she was again, alive and healthy, begging for food.
  • Our neighbors have now adopted Princess. They had a dog and cat when we moved in ten years ago. Each died. They replaced the cat, and when a car hit and killed him within six months, they swore, enough. And even though I’m a curmudgeon, I understand. Enduring the emotional loss is daunting. But I’m pleased that they decided Princess should move in with them, and that Princess’ original people agreed.
  • Princess certainly seemed happy. On the day I was told of her new arrangement, Princess was sitting in the neighbor’s yard a short distance from the neighbor. Princess didn’t race to me this day. After a few minutes, she wandered over for a visit but didn’t beg to eat. And when the neighbor retreated to her house, Princess headed in there with her. Seems like a good match, which pleases the curmudgeon.
0

Ragged Dream

Leaving a business conference. Get in my car to drive away. My wife is with me and my car is a silver sports car. I start driving down the road when I notice someone not in their lane off my right rear quarter panel. Concerned they’ll hit me, I accelerate and move to the left. The road is rough and bumpy, with many cracks and potholes, but eventually, with some drama, I get clear of the other car, a large silver SUV.

We come upon a little truck stop. We’re to pause there to meet up with others. They’re already there, including several friends from my life. We purchase food and coffee. Some of my co-workers are there. We gather around a guy who’s explaining what we need to do to collect expenses and be reimbursed. A co-worker asks for an expense slip. I realize I need the same and request it. I’m also given some additional travel money. Pleased, I go off to join my friends.

I’m ready to hit the road; they’re not. I try to complete paperwork but realize a few things are missing so I can’t complete it. Then I worry about my car from something I see through the truck stop window. I go out and check on the car and find it’s fine. Back inside, I hang around a cashier counter, idling at racks of food, map and magazines, waiting for my friends. They come out. “Ready to go?” I ask.

“No, not yet, just a little while longer,” one female friend answers. “I want another cup of coffee.”

“Ten minutes?” I reply.

“No, twenty.”

I accept that but I’m not happy. Returning to the counter, I press a button on a small device and discover I’ve inadvertently purchased three lottery tickers. The smarmy, greasy, toothless cashier demands payment, and I fork over ten dollars. Inexplicably, I return to the device. I think I’m doing something else and hit the button to buy lottery tickets again. I’m so exasperated. The same cashier demands payment, and I do it. And then, I hit the same button one more time.

This time, I can’t find the money to pay him. I thought I had more money. The cashier crows, “Then I’m just going to have to take these lottery tickets back. No money, no tickets. That’s how it’s played.”

His attitude annoys me but I’m more annoyed that I don’t have the money I thought I did. And people around me now think I don’t have money, and that bothers me. Going through my wads of papers I’m holding, though, I uncovered a fifty dollar bill. “There,” I say, trying to show it to others. “I do have money.”

The end.

0

Blog at WordPress.com.

Up ↑