Ultralight Modular Planes (Alien World)

I dreamed I was a settler on a new world. The world was simultaneously smaller than the earth, so less gravity, and the atmospheric pressure was about three times earth's. An interesting combination in that it allowed for the carrying capacity of ultralight style aircraft to be quite substantial, or for sport aircraft to be very small. It also meant that one had to be careful breathing outside, as the carbon dioxide levels were low, and the oxygen levels were very high. Most of us wore a re-breather sort of thing that fed some of our own exhalations back into the intake stream. The air was so thick that even little kids sounded like Darth Vader. Our homes were built on the edges of our covered farms so that the carbon dioxide we produced would go into the air for the crops. It was a sort of joke that we were burning diamonds to allow our crops to grow. (The world had lots of carbon, but it was all locked up deep underground as graphite and diamond, so, yes, we sort of did burn diamonds.)

I was flying a modular ultralight cargo aircraft of my own design. There were several of them around, and they could join together in a larger structure, either wing to wing, or wing to tail. The resulting shape either added motive efficiency, or lift efficiency. One of the neat things about the air frames was the docking collars on the wings, they allowed all of the data sensors and control signals to be be shared with all of the craft, allowing the coordinated turning of the entire structure.

The wings also had a neat feature in that they were flexible in a way that allowed the airfoil shape to be slender (less drag) at lower altitudes, but become more "normal" shaped when climbing up higher in the atmosphere. The aircraft itself had helium in the wing cells, so the air frame was almost neutrally buoyant at lower altitudes (of course with the pilot module, engines and cargo frames, that was a mere technicality.) There was a launch assistant for the aircraft at ground level, I had painted mine up to look like a giant hand. Onlookers would see a giant hand launching what looked like a balsa wood model (my plane was painted to look like one of the first glider kits I'd ever put together as a kid.)

The cockpit of the aircraft was essentially a small aircraft, allowing the pilot to eject, and then glide or fly back to safety. Pilots of the cargo frames would launch and join formations, leaving their cargo with me to make the slow low altitude crossing, and they would fly on ahead to the receiving field where they would be re-united with a larger air frame. The shuttling pilots would sometimes make four flights or more for every one us long haul pilots made.

My job was actually pretty easy, as the navigation was fully automated. The engine and pilot modules were a blast to fly manually. Most of us didn't bother to spend the money for the automation of the pilot pod, since the bigger cargo air frame had plenty of automation, and airfield beacons were easy to follow. It was a pretty cool system. The planet was clearly smaller than earth, as the horizon's curve was noticeable from a few hundred feet up. The odd thing about the planet was the way the water and erosion worked. It was a much smoother world than the earth, and the thicker atmosphere was great for keeping the small sun's heat evenly distributed around the little globe. There wasn't much in the way of seasons, and about thirty percent of the time it rained lightly, usually just a few hours before dawn. (The rain was trippy, as it was slower than earth rain, but somehow felt thicker. Hard to explain.)

In the dream I was headed back home with a pyramid of six cargo frames, and looking forward to taking a turn around my city in my pedal-powered auto-gyro. (Made possible by the aforementioned combination of lower gravity and thicker atmosphere.) I was almost home when another pilot hailed me and asked to join up, it took several minutes to get the clearance and then, even before the systems had synchronized, he punched out of his cargo frame, darting back the way he'd came. The frame he'd attached next to mine was all white, but with long grey streaks across it. It had seen some better days. Almost immediately it began to trigger various structural and control anomalies. I cut it loose and brought it under the six then flew it into position to be towed behind, where I could cut it loose without damaging the other frames if needed. It was a risky move, seeing as how it was having control issues on its own. And at one point I thought I was going to have to abandon the pyramid to autopilot and manually dock the errant cargo frame. Once I got it slotted in, I was able to shut off its engines and leave its controls just neutral. I would have to manually compensate for it, but it wasn't anything I hadn't practiced hundreds of times. I was a little annoyed that no one had warned me before taking it on, so I strongly urged the receiving station to take it off line for repairs. While I was doing that I started to hear deep chirping noises. I realized they were coming from the gimpy air frame. It made me remember the legends of the rare flying lifeforms that had lived here before the terraforming efforts. Usually, they were part of a sort of modern ghost story, and were used to explain why airships (efficient even if slow) and collections of air frames occasionally vanished without trace. I suspected most of those were either fire, or just plain made up. We were never out of touch with ground control, if there were lots of disappearances, you'd think we'd just be able to look them up.

Olympic Flyers, Musical, Mutants

Three distinct dream events last night.

In the first, I was in KPFM watching a new team Olympic sport, Synchronized Triple Jump, Swim, and Gymnastics Tumbling, which we didn't get to see before the dream ended. My friends and I had a center booth along the wall separating the upper and lower level, we had a great view of the main TV screen. We were following the progress of a double's team from China and the USA. Each had lost their partners just before the competition started, and the Olympic committee agreed to allow them to compete at partners, if their countries agreed. Since neither of them were the favorites in their previous teams, both countries coaches agreed. The had caught the imagination of the entire crowd, however, when they took a chance during the synchronized swim competition.They turned in a beautiful performance that included a one minute section near the beginning of them each going through their previous routine, modified slightly so that it became more and more in synchronization until they finished in nearly perfect synchronization. They stunned the crowd by coming in the top five (and would have been the top three if not for the marks of the Russian Judge...classic bit of history there.) At that time there were still two more events to go. The station we were watching replayed the swim event at least three times while the Triple Jump competitors were running through their paces. It was in the picture in picture box next to the performances of the other Teams as they went through the synchronized hop, skip and jump of the triple jump. There wasn't as much artistic interpretation in this event, but the pairs got an artistic mark, as well as a straight score for their distance rankings. I wasn't sure exactly how balanced that was, but no one expected a world record women's triple jump record out of these athletes. They should have. The mixed team arrived and both had chosen to wear their hair down. The Chinese athlete had trimmed her formerly long hair to match her partner's length, and they had plaited a strand between them. The walked in with their inside arms entwined, and this meant that they had to perform the triple jump by running in mirror image form. (Admittedly some of the previous teams had also done that.)

They ran, they hopped, skipped and jumped, but their jump saw them windmilling their legs in tandem, almost as if they were tied together for a three-legged race, and they just didn't come down. Literally, they kept moving all the way into the observing crowd, who parted for them, and beyond, across the track, and into the most expensive seats in the stadium, where they made it almost to the back row. The crowd sat stunned. One man with long hair and a kilt stood up in the back row and applauded. Every in our group thought it was our friend MS, but I pointed out that this fellow was much shorter and rounder than MS. (MS was there, though.) It took a couple of moments, but the rest of the crowd, including everyone in the restaurant joined in. As the camera panned around the crowd, we spotted our friend and his wife in the second tier seats with other NG employees.

I was coming out of the dream, because the break with the laws of physics was a bit too much, but we soon got a text from MS saying he'd witnessed a miracle and we should turn on the Olympics. The dream dissolved before any of us could respond, though.

_____

In the second dream of the night, I was at a musical performance, wish I could say now what it was about. I was watching the show for the third or fourth time, as a friend of mine was in the show, and I'd managed to make friends with several of the other cast members as well. There was a lot of audience participation throughout the show, and during the intermission the players chose an audience member to come up and sing a song at the beginning of the second act. The person chosen was a little nervous, but she did a great job. After the show, the pianist stayed behind to allow anyone to come up on stage and sing songs from the show. I really enjoyed this after-show, as there are a lot of talented singers out there. I was also waiting for my friend, as I was her ride to dinner with some of the cast and then home afterward. When she came out she insisted that I go up and sing with her. I tried to warn her about my voice (which is a-tonal) but she and her show-mates insisted, so I did. I asked for the mike with the auto-tune (which they didn't have) and that made everyone laugh, but after I sang they decided that might not be a bad idea. My friend said she loved me anyway, she did so in a way that made it clear that wasn't in a "just good friends" way. I was pondering the implications when I awoke.

_____

The third dream was more of a roiling mass of partially clothed madness, it was some sort of overly stuffed pool party and the guests all had multiple extra limbs, protuberances and depressions. I was the only non-mutant looking person there, so some wondered why I had been invited. (Indeed, I did, too, at first.) The party started to go into a decidedly clothing optional direction, which I'm not so sure was a good thing, given how we all were apportioned. It was at that point that I discovered that I was a mutant, too. My legs looked like they had two knees each, and they bent the wrong way back when I crouched. (Short thighs and long feet.)

Convoluted

The explanation started, "I was replacing the water-stained kitchen sink, just because I can't stand to look at it any more...." My anger was not so much that it was MY kitchen sink they were tearing out, without my permission, but that the person had not even come close to removing all the bits and pieces of the destroyed garbage disposal, or the water logged stuff that was stored under the sink. They hadn't even thought to turn off the water main when they discovered that the old shut off valves weren't fully shutting off.

I went out to shut off the water and when I stepped into the garage, I was suddenly not in my house any more. Now I was just furious, because I know that my improvised plumber wouldn't think to see why the water didn't shut off, and might go off to buy a new sink, though they seemed to expect me to do that, so probably not even that much. I looked around and stepped out into the alleyway between the house I just stepped out of and the neighbor's garage. I could touch both buildings with my outstretched arms. I decided to go back in, just to see if I would be back in my own house. Nope, the door was locked behind me. I pulled out my phone to see if I could figure out where I was. It wasn't in English. I could make out some of the words, as they had Latin roots, but wasn't sure what language my phone was in. I went into the settings, English wasn't even a choice. I didn't have a network connection, but that didn't come close to explaining why the phone was unreadable.

In the street, all the vehicles were three wheeled coupes that whined by with a light electric buzz. The people were speaking English, but only some of the signs looked like English to me. I was so obviously confused that I ended up being gently delivered to a local hospital. I'd apparently had a stroke that affected my memory and my reading, but not my speech and hearing. It also seemed to have affected the universe I inhabited. That's when it got strange. The doctor completely agreed with me. It seems my whole body MRI showed that I had a lot of organs in me that they just flat out didn't know what they were. I looked at them and told him the names of everything I recognized (Which was more than I thought.) He showed me what "normal" people had inside, and I was pretty sure they were some sort of androids, as most humans I know don't have nuclear power banks.

Then there was finding my home on this world's equivalent of Google Earth, and taking me there, and the place was abandoned, but the driveway looked well kept, and the hedge and Junipers were not completely unruly. There was a grassy meadow, like I'd always wanted, in place of the front yard. The inside, however was a shambles. Critters had gotten in through the pet door and everything was just piles of shredded dirt covered ruin. "Well, it looks like you have lots to do, so we'll just leave you here." And they did. The whole neighborhood looked pretty much like it normally does, except, no cars on the streets, no sound of people, just the occasional whirring noise which I couldn't locate. I managed to find my rake (The handle too dried up, it had shrunken out of the socket and the head separated the first time I tried to rake a pile of old books towards the door. The shovel was in much better condition, but I had no idea where I was going to shovel all the stuff, so settled for just getting it out of the house into the garbage cans. I didn't even know if there was still garbage service. The drapes in the living room crumbled to dust when I went to open them, I had to scrape grime off the window to see outside. My backyard looked like a combination of MC Escher and James Hubbell, but with obviously alien light sources in the sculpture. (I absolutely can't tell how I knew the lights were alien, I just did.)

There were also cats, but not my cats, though they didn't seem to mind. I started to wonder what I was going to eat, or if there was anything even to drink. I did find some of my cups had survived, though filthy, and oddly, the granite sink, laying on top of the ruins of the counters where the particle board had turned to mush. There was a thin stream of water running out from beneath it, through and under the debris, and then out through the garage along the west edge where it had cut a small channel, then pooled behind the stacks of ceramic tile and left over pavers, where it overflowed a low spot before being absorbed by the rather lush side yard. The fence was long rotted away, but the steel fence pole was still there, rusted and tilted. From the front you couldn't see the flowing brick and glass structure with its alien lights.

This was one of those dreams that had so many tiny details that I can't even begin to describe how rich the atmosphere was with the dank decayed smell of the house and how it mixed with the freshly chlorinated city water. The eerie silence and the low electric buzzing. (Like my electric clock, I'm guessing.) and even the cats and birds were almost silent. The reddish brown sunlight of the town I appeared in versus the fresh light of my own neighborhood, apparently abandoned, but somehow still maintained. (Much of the plantings were wildly overgrown, but all of the hedges were trimmed even with the walkways and driveways, and there was no debris in the street. Even my garage door was perfectly intact looking from the front.

Diablo IIID, All Downhill

My first dream (that I can remember) started with me waking up to the "You've died" sound in my headphones. I had nodded off while playing the new Diablo IIID game and my hardcore barbarian/ninja (class mixing was now a thing, apparently) had just been killed. Except what I was seeing wasn't the normal death screen, the center was periodically lightening and opening up and I could hear the chanting of my character's name, "Imhotep, Imhotep, Imhotep, wake up, wake up, breathe, time is running out..."

Sure enough, there was a timer down in the life orb, ticking down from 13 seconds. I reached for the controls, struggling to see what was happening to the red misty "death haze" it didn't look good, I was surrounded and the beasts were still milling about hammering on my ancients, who were going to return to their afterlife in just a few seconds. I didn't remember summoning them, but figured I must be wearing an item that did that, and saved me. I looked at the timer bars on my skills, there was only really one chance, jump over the ravine I'd parked myself at, because it looked like a safe place to take a breather. I just had to survive long enough to get my heroic leap charged up then I should be able to jump away.

The timer hit zero, just after the Ancients vanished. My health rocketed up to 50%, then immediately began falling. I tried to move out of the bad stuff, but I was immediately hemmed in. I switched over to an area of effect melee attack, just for the life steal, it helped, but not enough. The jump skill button lit, and I flicked my cursor over to the shelf on the other side of the ravine, hoping against hope that the rift was jumpable, and not the actual edge of the map.

I jumped out of the mass of attackers, and sailed across the ravine. I gulped down a healing potion and moved as far away from the milling mass as I could. Several of them broke off and flew across the gap, chasing me. At least now it was only four on one and not twelve on one. I discovered that there was a cliff face half a screen away from the ravine, and that was the edge of the map. There was, also a group of about thirty mobs, not elite, fortunately, but so many that I was going to find myself unable to move again if I wasn't careful. I looked at the timer on my Ancients, and realized that if I jumped into the middle of the mobs, I could probably fight long enough for them to act as sort of a meat shield, assuming the flying beasts had to land to attack me, which they did. A few hits and I was down a third of my life. I jumped away into the middle of the regular mobs, and the elite critters bunched up outside the edge of the mobs, apparently not able to launch and land in the midst of the mobs like I could. Lucky break for me. I switched over to single target attacking, only using the AOE when my health dropped down to fifty percent or so. Every time I used the AOE, a ring of mobs would die, and the dangerous ones would grow closer. I felt like I actually had a chance to make it.

All Downhill

This morning's dream (after getting up at the first hint of light to rattle the cats' food around in their bowls) I was more a silent incorporeal observer, though the woman did seem aware of my presence as she was talking to me much of the time. She was dressed for adventure, heavy pants and shirt, lots of pockets, a thin pack on her back and a pair of shoulder satchels, though I'm pretty sure one of them was essentially a purse, just adventure grade. She was also wearing a pith helmet, covered in the same heavy material. Her long dark brown hair was tied back and mostly trapped under her pack. She had a survival knife, which she was using to stop herself from sliding too far.

We were apparently lost.

We had spotted flowing water at the bottom of a steep slope, and rather than follow the edge of the slope, and looking for an easier way down, the woman had decided that she wanted to refill her canteens, and get cleaned up now. So, she immediately began climbing down the slope. I tried to keep her from anything that was really cliff-like, but since I was incorporeal, I really couldn't know how slippery some of the soil was, nor how sturdy the vines were that she was using to climb down. At a couple of points she used a rope looped through a root to lower herself twenty feet or so, then would pull the rope loose and coil it back up in the big pocket on the side of her pack. When we got within about sixty feet of the water, I flew out to see what it looked like.

There was steam coming off of it in places, and there were some pretty big crocodiles lounging down stream. Nothing near the steam vents, though. I tried to get the information to the woman, but couldn't actually communicate to her, so was forced to fly close and then away towards the safer choice whenever she moved towards the crocodiles. She moved her climb to come out at the edge of the water across from a fumarole. She did stop and look, as I placed myself at the edge of the shore and bounced up and down, and she slipped back into the brush quietly when she saw the crocodiles. There were lots of little animal skeletons there, but no sign that the big crocodiles came this close to the hot water. She moved upstream a bit and the water was actually cold, downstream, the water had an odd smell and was nearly boiling (we could see it boiling further out in several placed in the middle of the stream.) She decided to fill her canteens and take a bath in the cold water. She waded in fully clothed, unfortunately. I did notice a lot of dirt came off of her and out of her clothing. I circled around and up the slopes on either side of the stream. There didn't seem to be, with the sixty foot radius I could travel, to be a very clear path out of here, and following the stream down past the crocodiles didn't look like a very good option. I didn't find any signs of the crocodiles upstream as far as I could see.

Cleaning Out the Garage

I dreamed I was clearing out my garage and came across an old fish tank. I thought that it might be nice to have a fish tank or terrarium again. The white gravel at the bottom of the fish tank was covered in a layer of beige dust that had been there so long it looked more like a coating of dirt. There were the dried husks of spiders and their prey all along the edges of the gravel, but oddly, no cobwebs. I looked in the filter, there were the dried remains of several guppies. I was incredibly mad at myself - how could I have completely forgotten about them? Why had I left them in that tiny space to die? I had absolutely no memory of doing that. I thought all our fish were in the big tank when we sold it! I obviously am not responsible enough to have another fish tank.

When I woke I crossed off the idea of clearing out the garage today. I think I will wait until after the driveway is replaced.

Road Tripping in the New Car

I dreamed that I traded in my Insight for an all electric vehicle, a sleek, four seat, deep cargo well all wheel drive vehicle. It was a dark metallic maroon color. Since I wasn't going to always be on the grid when I stopped, and I was planning on travelling all the way to Colorado to meet someone, I packed not only everything I would need to wear for the trip, but an extra battery pack and solar cell banks, and an air bed. I had a little Honda generator so I could recharge overnight if there were no charging stations or hotels. My plan was to only drive each day until the batteries were half depleted each. The generator was mounted in a little exterior alcove so I could run the thing and charge either battery as I was driving. The solar panels on the roof didn't really power anything more than the phone and radio. There was a little five gallon tank that would run the generator for a little over nine hours. I carried a spare gas tank just in case. It was a pretty cute little set up. I stopped to visit a couple of my former student/gamer friends and their new baby. (Wasn't really a baby any more in the dream.) D and R both looked like they were healthy and happy. The baby was zooming around crashing into things. I was glad they hadn't come to my very un-childproofed house. We played a couple of hands of Scarabs and Side Scroller, just so I could get their feedback. I left them a prototype deck of scarabs, because the baby seemed to like the illustrations, and giggled lots while sorting them out by color or shape. Before I left, we drank a toast to our fallen gamer friend. I then went on my way, headed to Colorado, but I don't remember any more of that trip.

Later on I drove up to my sister's. It had been raining a lot, so the batteries of the rover were both pretty much depleted and I'd only made it because I'd been running the generator the last several hours taking turns topping off whatever battery I'd just used to climb the latest grade, the batteries weren't really designed to be deep discharged multiple times per day, so this trip was an experiment to see if I could make an eleven hour drive in less than two days. By the time I got to the base of her hill. She was there waiting for me anyway. She showed me where to park (next to her little purple car on a little raised gravel bed) and said the road was washed out so we'd have to hike the half mile up the hill. I topped off my little generator and started it up, locking the access door. I hadn't really planned for this trip very well, so I only had a small bag of stuff, not even a full change of clothing, as I'd only intended to stay a day or so. We hiked up the gravel road and came to the place where the road was washed out. There were a couple of shallow stands of stone, only a few inches below the surface of the water that was now part of a lake rather than their lower pasture. My sister was barefoot, and she hiked up her skirt and waded in. The water was only a few inches deep. I only had the one pair of shoes (my blue Nike runners, and I didn't want to get them wet, so I took off my shoes and socks and followed her across. While I was in the middle of the crossing it started to rain. So much for keeping my shoes dry. One of the stoned rocked down a few inches as I reached the edge and I ended up soaking the bottom of my pants, even though I'd rolled them up. I managed to keep my balance and jumped across to another stone slab, it also shifted precariously under my weight. then to an asphalt slab, which started to crumble when I landed on it. I scrambled a bit and then was up on the gravel road bed, what was left of it. I used my socks to dry off my feet as best I could and then stepped into my shoes. I couldn't walk on the gravel road like my sister, my feet just aren't that tough any more. I greeted J when we got to the house. He had pulled out some clothes for me, as I was soaked by the time we got there.

Jim insisted that I stay a couple more days than I'd planned, because he wanted me to witness my sister and him renewing their vows. I pointed out that the clothes we just put in the dryer were the only ones I had, as my visit had been sort of a whim. He said he would loan me a suit, as he thought he had one that might fit. "Besides, if the rain keeps up, you might not be able to get out for a couple of days." We geeked out a bit over my new electric vehicle. Which I had essentially turned back into a hybrid. (Calculating it now, I see I was getting just shy of eighty miles per gallon, not counting that both batteries were fully charged on house current, of course, so way less than that.)

Mixed Fields and a Previously Dreamed

The Mixed Fields dream started out in a meadow, butterflies were flitting around, cicadas were singing, and the sun was playing dodge-cloud in a warm late-afternoon sky. I could smell the different grass flowers, and was waiting for the moment when the hay-fever would strike. As I walked through the meadow, trying, as much as possible, to stay on the tiny little game trails so I didn't collapse some poor critters' burrows, the phone dinged.

A friend (a short brown-haired woman, who I don't think I actually know, a mix of J and N perhaps) had sent me a meeting request. I accepted and made my way back across the meadow and down the hill where I came to the address where she wanted me to meet. It was a church, and my friend SS was inside, presiding over a very informal sounding mass. I listened for a little bit, mostly looking for the person who'd asked me to meet them. I head a commotion outside so went to see what was going on, as I was sure that was my friend...and her very large dogs. She was having trouble holding on to the pups, and one of them broke away, racing directly into the church. The other, determined to make things just as interesting, dragged my friend off around the back of the church. I ducked into the side door, hoping to be able to head the dog off at the pass. The dog reached the front of the church just as I entered through the side doors. The reaction of the congregation frightened the dog, who barked and growled. I crossed the church and opened up the door, calling the pup's name. He spotted the open door, and without stopping to acknowledge me, he raced out only stopping long enough to sniff the ground before heading off after my friend and the other doggy doggy companion. I stopped at my car before joining the chase. I don't know why I was hoping to find a leash in there, because it was just like it is now, chess set, re-usable bags, extra jacket, Pirateer, first aide kit, roll of paper towels and some microfiber squares. I grabbed the cargo net off the top and the squares before heading out across the small cemetery to where I heard barking.

Instead of rejoining my friend and the one dog she managed to still have some control over. The dog was sitting about fifteen feed away, encouraging the other dog to make a break for it. My friend was arguing with a groundsman about the dogs being creatures of god and not devil's spawn. At the moment I was more inclined to agree with the groundsman, who made a move towards the free dog, terrified, the big animal jumped the four foot stone wall, and I could hear him yelp and crash through brush on the other side. There as a steep slope, covered in low bush that led down into a stone wash. The dog was limping and running, scrabbling on the soft wet stone and so I carefully climbed over the wall at a spot where I could land, then slid down the hill. The going was easier for me, so I managed to catch up with the dog, who just collapsed into a whimpering ball. I hooked two hooks of the cargo net to his collar, then covered his eyes and ears with the microfiber squares. I hugged him until his breathing slowed down. He didn't seem to be bleeding anywhere, but his feet were red and some of his toe nails were pretty ragged looking. I couldn't get him to stand up, so ended up picking him up, he must have weighed about seventy five to eighty pounds. I wasn't sure I was going to be able to get him to the side of the wash and up over the stone wall once I got there, so looked down the wash. I spotted a road crossing, and the hill was shallower there, and only about a six foot climb. I figured I could make it that far and put him down on top of one of the culverts. I shouted up at my friend to get her car and meet me on the bridge, then I started walking.


Just before waking I was remembering another dream I had recently (and neglected to write when it was fresh.) In the dream I was visited by two ravens, who by their actions made it clear that they wanted me to follow them. We walked up the street and over into a construction area, there I found a discarded hammer, with a design of a cloud and lightning stamped on the face.

While telling L about the dream, I figured out where the elements had come from. I had been re-reading Two Lumps, and the kittens in one story arc were named after Odin's ravens. That same day, I was repairing some of the drawers from the bed frame (which I'm thinking I may turn into a couple of couches for the living room.) I couldn't find my hammer, finally I remembered that I'd put it where I could get to it easily when I was ready to tackle prying out the rest of the carpet tack strips in the master bedroom closet. Eventually I discovered I'd spilled a pile of donation clothing over it.

Driving Miss S.

I dreamed I was driving a recreation of my old 1969 Plymouth Satellite. I was taking J around town (or towns because our trip included LaJolla, Vista and San Diego's Old Town) because she needed to run some errands, and she could no longer drive and didn't trust the self driving cars. I didn't mind so much, except she kept reminding me that I was just her driver and shouldn't expect anything more. (I really have to have a chat with my brain about the "rubbing it in" habit it has.)

We arrived at our last stop, to pick up some refrigerated groceries just before taking J home for the night, when we "ran into" her boyfriend. I distinctly got the impression our meeting was anything but accidental. J decided to let him finish driving her around. We started to unload my car into his. With every armload of stuff, he became visibly more agitated. Petty, vindictive soul that I am, I found that quite amusing. It rapidly became clear that there was no way all her stuff would fit in his much smaller car. J asked me to drop off the stuff that wouldn't fit, "just slip it into the garage." She handed me her garage door opener. Telling me to put it in the can under the swan on the front porch. Since J had been telling me about her plans to sell the house and move out, it did seem odd to be stockpiling more stuff that would have to soon be sold or donated if she really was going to downsize. I could tell her boyfriend was thinking much the same thing, and it wasn't making him happy.

Weird details from the dream. Cecil (my old car) was back to being beige, but the interior was very modern looking maroon and grey with a dark green burl dashboard and interior details. The power train had been swapped out for an all electric drive, and it was, in fact, a self driving car. (I pretty much only parked the vehicle and took over when we were window shopping and needed to stop somewhere not on the original itinerary, or if I didn't know the address.) J seemed to be okay with the self-driving aspect as long as I was in the driver's seat.