Tag: cars

Friday’s Theme Music

Mood: caustic

Today is Friday, August 25, 2023, in Ashlandia, where the smoke is thick and the air is cool.

Had to take my car in and drop it off. 1. Great to have a break in routines and tedium. 2. Hated to have a break in my routines. 3. It felt early out there.

In the car shop were posters showing different aspects of cars and repairs — electrical, starter system, suspension, brakes, etc. I stood in front of them remembering fixing those things are different cars during my life. Not a love of doing it for me; I’m not mechanically minded. Too poor to pay someone to do it. But that honed that whole idea in me, fix me it myself. Modern cars are much different. And I have more money. Plus, the lack of facilities — the military provided us workshops and facilities to fix our cars — means I take my cars and drop them off for others to tend them. There aren’t any points and plugs to changed, no rotor. I only check fluids and air pressures in this generation of my life. It’s one of many things which have changed, and are still changing.

Had some chuckles over Donald Trump’s height and weight claims when he was booked in: 6’3 and 215 pounds. One person noted, that’s almost the same height and weight as Cincinnati Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow, and very close to other quarterbacks, such Tom Brady. Patrick Mahones, KC Chiefs QB, is an inch shorter but ten pounds heavier than DJT. Somehow, the weight looks very different on Trump. Must be the football padding and uniform…right? Right. What a vain, vain man and liar DJT shows himself to be. Make me hurt for his supporters who unflinchingly support and believe him — many claim. I wonder.

From that, it was an easy route for The Neurons to dial up a Three Dog Night song called “Liar” from 1971 and slot it into the morning mental music stream (Trademark surprising). No more to say about it. Most of the chorus is the group loudly singing, “Liar!”

For the record, it’s smoky out there, around here. 70 F now, we’ll clip the hear in the low nineties today. Stay pos and be cool. Hand me my coffee. Here we go. Cheers

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A Second

My wife tells me again and again that she is thankful that I’m a ‘good’ driver, that I pay close attention and have fast reflexes. Had to use those again today.

I came down the hilly street and entered the intersection, a straight path. A third into the intersection, and the traffic light went yellow. Shrug; I was already in the intersection. But the young man in the blue Focus turning left going the opposite way decided that he absolutely needed to make that light and rushed into a left hand turn in front of me.

“Holy Jesus,” The Neurons shouted inside my mind. I didn’t answer because I was already telling my right foot to leave the gas pedal to stomp the brake pedal. Full lockup, traction control and anti-braking activating. Wasn’t going fast, so it was a hard, abrupt stop in the middle of the intersection. Fortunately, nobody was near in either direction, saw what was happening, and were slowing.

Two things. As events transpired, I saw the other driver, a young white man with short dark hair — early twenties? — flinch, raise his arm to protect himself against the crash he thought was about to happen, and lean away. Left turn completed, but in the other direction’s vacant left-hand turn lane, he stopped, hands on his wheel. I imagine that he was shaking, realizing how close he’d come to fucking up his day.

Mildly ruffled, I rhetorically addressed him in my car, “What were you thinking,” and drove on. But I recognize, if anything had distracted me in the second before I slammed the brakes, we could have had a much different outcome.

What a difference a second can make.

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A Car Dream

Despite a nightly barrage of dreams, it’s been a while since I shared one here.

Today’s offering began as my wife and I were driving on a highway. I was at the wheel. Looking ahead, I saw a car coming and knew an accident was about to happen. So, as it began, I turned to avoid it and announced, “Accident.” Cars collided and spun. I went around them and had managed to get us through. My wife told me, “Way to go. It’s a good thing you saw that.” Her tone told me how impressed she was.

Just then, a car came up, slewed around the other wreckage, and hit us in the rear. It wasn’t heavy, and the car didn’t seem greatly damaged, but we were on our way somewhere so I said, “Come on. We’re going to go get a new car.”

I went to a car lot. They sat me down in a room, purportedly to complete a survey. An attractive young woman was seated close to me. Almost immediately, she began flirting with me. I felt she was there to entice me into spending more money than I’d planned to buy more car than I wanted. So while I joked with her, I wasn’t letting her comments steer me. In the end, I told them my selection from what was offered. They glumly completed the transaction, and off I went.

After I left, I discovered I’d purchased a BMW. It was a small, sporty model. I picked up my wife, and she was pleased. Only after driving for a while did we realize that it was white, a color neither of us liked on a car. I chastised myself for not looking at the color before I bought it.

We went to a house, which turned out to be a modular home. I drove the car inside and down the halls. My wife came to the car window and told me we had to go but a RL friend arrived and asked for a ride. She was checking out the car, and complimented us on the purchase. In order for the other two to go, I needed to back the car down the halls and out the front door. I did that. Clouds were darkening the day. The friend commented, “I think rain is coming.”

I agreed with her. They entered the car. As I began driving, the sky turned black and a downpour struck. Lightning flashed and thunder boomed. I drove down the highway into the rain.

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The Roger Moore Dream

I was given a DVD. “Review this. It’s your life.”

I don’t know who spoke to me. I took the disc and put it in a player and sat in a chair, feet on ottoman, remote in my hand. Surprise number one: I looked like a young Roger Moore.

Watching the video of a young child doing things outside in bright sunshine, I felt doubt. This isn’t my life, is it? Doubts increased when a blonde white woman in a red dress showed up. That’s not me. She was driving a red Lamborghini Urraco. Dream me drove a gray Urraco. She couldn’t be me, could she? My doubts began diminishing as a watched her driving around, walking around, attending classes, talking to people, all snippets, all while she wore various red dresses.

Another woman, Campbell, came on screen. Also white, brunette, she drove a white Urraco. White cars are not my preference, so it couldn’t be me, but she weirdly resembled me — she could be Roger Moore’s sister. Like the other, I witnessed her doing various activies always dressed in white but not always a dress. All of it was weirdly familiar, as if another person had been plugged into my life. These were dream memories, not RL memories.

Then I appeared in a dark gray Lamborghini Urraco, the car dream me drove. Okay, that is me, I was confident. But how could all of these be me when two are female? It has to be more about us than the cars. But the memories being shown were familiar. While I watched, I thought, the car represents my body. Why different colors, then? To present different aspects of myself? Sounded feasible but needed more research.

Stopping the video, I moved over to my desk and laptop, and searched for colors in dreams. A man came to the office door and said, “You need to finish the review. We have good things planned for you but you need to know yourself before we can go forward.”

I replied, “That sounds very new age-y.”

The man was short, white, black hat, black suit. “Finish your review. Get on it.”

I felt impelled to do as he said and rose, moving around the desk to continue.

Dream end.

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Sunday’s Theme Music

It’s a beautiful December morning outside the window. Snow graces the ground and plants. Clouds promise more clouds. 32 F out there but a comfy 68 in here, thanks to the heating industry. All that would be great, but this is March 26, 2023, and we’re beginning another week of spring. Someone pass the message on to the weather deities, please.

Although the Mt. Ashland ski resort is pleased, the rest of us are more perplexed than happy. Snow was not in our end of March plans. Leading the list of the dissatisfied are the cats. The in/out game is in play each morning and afternoon. Fortunately, yesterday, after the morning’s snow, sunshine bulled through the cloud cover, delivered us from the snow, and shared some shine, pushing temps to the mid-forties. The weather conductors tell us the same will be the case today. Despite the wintry scene, we will have over twelve hours of daylight, and that’s a good thing.

Today, I have “Metal Guru” by T. Rex from 1972 bubbling in the morning mental music stream. I first heard it on some late-night music show on AM radio while driving my 1965 Mercury Comet home from my girlfriend’s house. The car was a hand-me-down from the period’s stepmother, a forest-green sedan with a solid 289 V8. My girlfriend lived out in the country on twenty-some acres with no neighbors within shouting range. I lived back in a small town, Daniels, 10 miles away, about twenty minutes by the Comet late at night. I found the lyrics and its nuances mesmerizing and picked them up, singing to my girlfriend. She didn’t know what the hell I was going on about but she was used to that. I was considered a bit out there. Despite that, she married me, and we’re still together, a half century later.

I haven’t thought of this song in years. Nor have I heard it. The Neurons dusted it off after the cats and I were talking about their breakfast preferences. For some reason, The Neurons thought this intersection of action and conversation should be noted with the lyrics, “Metal guru, is it you?” Except I was singing, “Little kitty cat, is it you?” Then the rest flowed in and I realized, oh, yeah. T. Rex.

Ah, sunshine is exploding in through the eastern windows. Looks like spring is returning. Winter is melting away…again. Stay positive. Hope you have a lovely day underway whatever you’re doing out your way. I’ve just kickstarted my heart with some coffee. Breakfast awaits. Here’s the tune.

Cheers

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Saturday’s Wandering Thought

He was thinking about buying an electric vehicle, so he was reading reviews. One car manufacturer proclaimed that their cars can be recharged at any EVgo station. He researched EVgo. They have charging stations in 34 states in the U.S. Going to their website, he searched for their recharging stations in his area. None found.

Back to the drawing board.

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Traveling Alone Dream

My wife and I had been traveling together but stopping to stay in a town, I went off on my own to visit with friends.

Now I was returning at dawn. I was staggering with exhaustion, having been up all night driving and walking.

I was a little lost. Things looked somewhat familiar but each turn had me pause to frown and figure out where to go.

At last I was in a little blue car. I came out a parking lot and began turning right. A huge red pickup truck went by, just missing me. A second came by and almost hit with both of us swerving at the same time. Both of those vehicles had been on the wrong side of the road. Quick as that, as I’m cursing the other drivers, I remember, this is a one-way street, and it goes that-away. I snap the wheel around to go in the right way, grateful there weren’t more cars coming because that could have been disastrous. Parking behind the two trucks, who simply pulled off, I walk up to apologize to the drivers. The second truck’s driver is a large elderly man, a white fellow with short silver hair, wearing a light blue short-sleeved flannel shirt. He’s walking up to the red truck. Its windows are all blacked out. I can’t see its driver.

I shrug off apologizing. I’ve reached the hotel where my wife and I are staying. I traverse a little alley and enter the rear of an aircraft to cut through to the hotel. People have spread mattresses and blankets across the aisles, and they’re sleeping. There’s also a huge Great Dane sleeping under one blanket. It wakes, sees me, and gets up and moves out of my way. The sleeping people and another little dog, small and white, awaken and see me, and laugh at the situation. I carefully get up on the mattresses and pick my way to the other end of the plane, out and into the lobby.

It’s a light blue lobby, with a coffee shop to one side. A middle-aged dark-haired woman with short black hair and brown hair greets me. I’m exhausted. I ask for coffee and then go to use the restroom. In there, I see myself in the mirror. My hair is dark brown, full and thick, matching my beard and mustache. I look like a wildman who just returned from living in the jungle. I’m wearing pale blue shorts. They’re not mine. I check my pockets for my wallet; it’s there. Finding a brush, I style my hair, beard, and mustache. That instantly transforms me into a really good-looking guy.

Okay, back out at the counter, light blue Formica, I find a glass mug. It has thin brown fluid in it, which might be weak tea, along with ice and a lemon. I sip some as a woman comes up. I realize it must be hers and apologize for drinking her drink but figure, I’ll continue, since I started. I ask for coffee to add to it.

Leaving there, I head for my room. It’s either 126 or 124. I can’t remember and chastise myself for not asking at the desk. The rooms are like little cottages but they’re stacked side by side.

I pull a key out of my pocket. It’s a bizarre skeleton key. I have no idea what it’ll fit, but it’s not a room key. It has a square, almost baroque wire design, with a short skinny portion for the lock. WTH? I have no idea where it came from so I return it to my pocket and then continue to look for the room where we’re staying.

Dream end.

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A Writing Dream

It’s a disheveled dream, with a complicated cast and strange twists. I start out in a parking lot, a young man. My wife drives up in her gray Honda Civic, the one driven in yesteryears. I tell her to park and to make sure she locks the car. I point out a parking slot and she drives away.

Others are met. I tell them I’m waiting for my wife to park, but I’ll see them inside. I’m by my car of yesteryear, my first RX-7, a light blue vehicle that we bought brand new. My wife comes up. I ask her to park the RX-7 for me and tell her where. As she gets into the car, closes the door and drives away, I walk off toward a building. I pass her car; she’s left the door open. I’m dismayed, asking myself, what’s wrong with her? Her seatbelt is hanging out of the door, so I theorize that its position prevented her from closing the door and she didn’t notice. I fix all that, and then head on to building, a multi-story, long, white modern edifice with black windows, one of those places seen in business parks across the U.S. As I walk the loaded parking lot, I see my parked Mazda. Its door is open. What is wrong with my wife that she’s left doors open and unlocked in two cars?

In the building, I enter an apartment. Mom is there, along with her boyfriend, Frank. She waves hello to me. I find my wife in the kitchen preparing food and tell her that she left the doors open and unlocked on both cars. She mutters something defensive back. I answer, “That’d be fine if it was one car, but it was two. You have a problem.” I walk off.

Someone comes by to give me the book I’m working on. It’s a big, clumsy book, totally unfamiliar. When I open it, I discover nonsensical words and phrases written in a large, sloppy style using crayons. I recognize that it’s Frank’s book. I protest, “This isn’t my book. Where is my book?”

I go through the house to find my book. As I search, I find sandwiches overfilled with meat, cheese, and lettuce. No one else is there so I wonder aloud but to myself, “What’s with all of these sandwiches.” I continue going through, looking for the book, confounded, picking up a sandwich and eating it as I go. I begin noticing piles of coins on end tables, coffee tables, window sills, and the floor. Someone else is walking through the room. I turn and ask, “What’s with all these coins?” They reply, “I don’t know, you left them there.”

“I left them?” I ask back, but I’m alone. I realize that I’ve eaten my sandwich. It’s gone but there are plenty more. There’s also many more piles of money that I didn’t see before. They’re everywhere, growing taller and wider, filling with silver coins.

Dream end.

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Rendezfloof

Rendezfloof (floofinition) – An agreed upon meeting place at a specified time between or with animals.

In use: “The meal rendezfloofs were not at the food bowls. No, they preferred to meet her when she selected a can or bag, and then shepherd her to the actual eating site, telling each other that they were providing security that she needed because she was carrying rare and precious stuff: their food.”

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854 Cars Dream

One of the weirder dreams experienced last week stayed with me. This was from last Wednesday.

I’d entered a large building on some business. I was in a hurry and a little annoyed when someone hailed me. The young man in a suit confirmed my identity, increasing my annoyance, and then said, “I wanted to ensure that you knew your cars were here.”

People hurried around us. “What cars?” I asked. Given with great impatience, I waited for the answer so that I could explain that I’d flown in. It also seemed odd that he said ‘cars’ instead of ‘car’. On the other hand, maybe someone had provided me a rental.

“Your cars,” the young man replied, as if that explained anything.

I told him that explained nothing.

He looked at me like trees were growing out the sides of my head. “Your cars,” he responded and then spit out with haste, “Your cars were shipped here.” He spoke like he didn’t believe that I didn’t know this. “You have eight hundred and fifty-four cars.”

I repeated that number back to him. It was a ridiculous number. When he confirmed it, my mind looked for explanations and figured, oh, he means model cars or Matchbox cars or toy cars, something like that. Smiling, I asked, “Where are they?” I’d see them and then I would pursue understanding of how I’d come to have eight hundred and fifty-four cars. Someone was behind this, doing it as a joke. “Can you take me to them?”

Joy lit the young man’s expression. “Yes, sir, right this way, sir.”

We were in one of those convention centers attached to hotels, or the other way around, and had to cross a wide space. We entered a garage filled with cars and stopped. I waited.

“There are your cars,” the young guy said.

“Where?”

“There.”

I knew the guy meant all those cars in that garage. My vision roamed. Chevies. Ferraris. Fords. Mazdas. Mercedes. Jaguars. Porsches. A Jeep.

The guy asked, “Is everything alright, sir?”

I explained that I was surprised. I didn’t think these cars were mine. I thought there was a mistake. The other kept insisting, these are your cars, you are the right person and explained that they’d gone through great lengths to verify who I was. “Who did that? Who is they?” I naturally asked. No coherent answer was given.

The young man and I walked among the rows of cars. I verified, eight hundred and fifty-four. He confirmed that and then went on, cataloging the cars’ abilities, amusing me. He said, “You have fast cars and very fast cars, new cars, and old cars.” He was pointing at cars as he spoke and I was turning, gawking at the collection, stunned beyond further thought. Many famous and rare models were present. I eyed pretty green Mustangs that I was sure were in movies, silver Ferraris, and red Ferraris, blue Porsches, and a yellow Jeep. A low and wide Lamborghini and a stately, dark Rolls Royce. Old cars, new cars. All were in great shape.

The dream ended with me standing in the garage wondering, where did I get all of these cars and what was I going to do with them?

Reading this after capturing it all doesn’t give insight into how rapidly this unfolded. The dream was a torrent. I guess that’s the mind, rationalizing explanations of the scenes and images, trying to develop something cogent, and failing. Cheers

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