Black and White Birthday, with Zombie

I was out looking at critters in a pet store, and there were several of my friends with me. We left without me buying anything, as I was concerned about the pool in the back yard (the fish were taking over) and the zombie in the basement. I really didn't have room for pets, and hoped against hope that they weren't thinking of getting me a new pet, as I was having trouble keeping up with the koi in the garden pool. The house wasn't ready for a party either, every horizontal surface was filled up with Lego based game prototypes that needed to be broken down and stored away. After photographing them, I figured, I checked my phone, over 8Gb of memory left, so no problem there. I slipped out of the store and headed home ahead of the crowd, they said they were going to stop somewhere for lunch. I cleared out all the Lego constructs surrounding the pool so that my birthday friends could use the pool area if they wanted. I kept dropping pieces off of the contructs into the pool. I tried fishing out the Lego pieces I'd dropped - a bunch of 1x1 round and cone-shaped bricks in long antennae-like chains, mostly yellow and light blue. (Everything else in the dream seemed to be black and white, mostly.) The fish (Beautiful black spots on white koi) in the pool kept hitting the chains of bricks, knocking them even further apart. After dropping an entire space shuttle model and watching it carreen down the stairs into the basement, bouncing and knocking bits off as it tumbled from step to step. I decided to head down there and deal with the basement zombie so that my guests would have some place to gather. The zombie, wearing a black and white checked clown outfit, would stop attacking if someone agreed to play a card game with him. It was a collectable cardgame sort of thing, and he had the two decks already made up. As long as thew game was in progress, the zombie wouldn't bother anyone. If you lost your game against the zombie, he would eat you, of course. I started the game, then left to finish cleaning up the dropped Legos. As I was taking the Legos back upstairs to my room, I was a little worried about leaving the game table after my turn, but figured the zombie would just have to wait. I heard the house manager saying my guests were arriving and they offered to usher them into my room - which I knew was way to small for everyone. I explained the issue, and as I came back from dumping a few pounds of Legos in various states of contruction, or destruction, into my room, I realized I wasn't even going to have room for me in there. I could only barely make out the fact that I had a black an white checked bedspread and pillow shams. The zebra patterned rug on the floor was barely visible between the desk, printer stand, office chair, file cabinets, book cases, piles of Lego and paper models and my bed. I sighed, wondering how it had gotten all so crowded. I shouted down to the house manager to ask my guests to wait in the frontroom until I could get the fish out of the pond and the Zombie settled. I was a bit worried about the zombie, as I was pretty sure he cheated. I found a couple of decks I'd made up myself many years ago and decided to bring them down. Maybe we could get him to play a four-hand game and that way he couldn't cheat by rearranging my deck. A part of my brain realized that the Zombie had picked the cards for the second player'd deck, so probably didn't even need to rearrange the draw pile. Heading back down the stairs, I discovered that my friends had brought me two black and white kittens from the pet store, they were adorable, and friendly. Also, a black and white puppy (looked like an English Bulldog, too cute) two guinea pigs (also black and white in their little white cage with a black exercise wheel) and a small very musical voiced black and white bird. I protested that I not only didn't have enough room for all of them, but I had no kitty litter, training pads, cat, dog, rodent or bird food for them either. They didn't seem to care about that, and started taking the cages downstairs into the basement. I hoped the zombie was fully engrossed in our game and wouldn't be a problem. The uncaged critters stayed in the front room, playing on the black futon. The little black and white bird fluttered up to my shoulder and sang a cute little song in my ear as I went down to face the zombie, and all of my guests, not sure which I was more frightened of at that point.

All Singing and Dancing, Science Fiction, Future-Fantasy, Seven Escape-Room Extravaganza!

Starting with a sliding ice puzzle and winding its song and dance routine way through; star crossed romance, rescues, tentacled maidens, mafia weddings with choreographed bridal deflowering, lost purses, exes showing off their reconstructive breast surgeries, and, in general no foot, hand or chest pains. What an exhilerating and eshausting morning.

Working on a Game in My Sleep

I dreamed that I had just gotten a set of plastic pawns, men and women in business suits. They were for a game which I was playtesting with a couple of close friends. There was a board, laid out with abstract representations of several areas. Each color team had several pawns: two tall (Partners) two medium (Detectives/Experts?) and six short (Interns/Paralegals). The purpose of the game was to exonerate your defendant, or validate your plaintiff. The cases were in the form of cards, which were double-sided and the game's mechanisms, how you used your pawns, determined in the "Courtroom" which side of the card was placed face up in the Jury Box. The other mechanisms were based on hand-size mechanics, with the Partners being able to fill their brief case and carry a portfolio (Some cards could be in one or the other or both.) The medium pawns could carry one of either a briefcase or an evidence box. The small pawns could carry either a folder, or an evidence box.

Playing the game itself was a little murky in the dream as the dream focused mostly on the miniatures and how cool and detailed the sculpture was. I was very happy with the shipment, and only wished it had not taken two months to arrive, as there were backers chomping at the bit to get a hold of them. I already had the boards and first eight card decks for release. S was there when the pawns arrived and was eager for me to take photographs of them so he could use them as art in the online version of the game he'd programmed and I'd made available for my earliest supporters.

L said she thought the backers would be delighted when their games arrived, as the pawns were certainly worth the wait.

Stormy Moving Day

I dreamed I was moving into a new home on a low hillside overlooking the ocean. The unpacking was a little chaotic as J and her family were there helping, as well as L and a couple of other folks including my brother and his wife. We were unpacking one of my parent's dressers when we discovered that it didn't sit very even. I opened up the top and we discovered an entire sewing machine cabinet, disassembled, stored under the top shelf. It was something my brother had inherited, but we'd not found it at the time.

Of course we took a break to assemble it and my brother decided that he wanted it. We had to disassemble it so we could ship it to Virginia. J was in a little bit of a mood as the kids were wildly running around discovering all the neat features of the house. Her son, however, thought it was because this was our fourth anniversary. I tried to point out to him that we hadn't been dating in almost two years, so that seemed unlikely (and it was the Sunday, not Friday before Thanksgiving, so there were still a few days left even if that were the problem.) All the while we were working, the light kept growing dimmer until I looked out over the bay and saw huge cloud wall, churning gray and green and full of lightning. A waterspout headed right for our little beach. I yelled at the people outside to hurry and get into the house. When they asked why I pointed out to the waterspout, and that got them moving. Several strangers also ran towards the house, then looked confused about what to do then, as they were sort of trapped against our sea wall. My brother and I helped them up over the wall and shooed them into the house. I was being pelted with water and small fishes as I ran into the house and pulled the french doors shut behind me.

"There's a box of towels in the back bathroom, bring them all."

The group of people from the beach were all trying not to drip on the carpet, so were all huddled in the six by nine tile space right in front of the doors. This room had indoor/outdoor carpet, though, and was meant to be more of an enclosed patio than a regular room, so I told them to spread out, "the carpet washes out." I remembered that it had plenty of sand in it when I bought the place, so wasn't worried about it.

The water spout lifted and vanished as it made its way overhead. The house was well built (very dome like) and it didn't even shudder, though lightning was flashing and you could hear the thunder so loud some of the people were holding their hands over their ears. The kids were helping me pick up the little wriggling fish and put them in a small bucket. I opened the door and ran out to the edge of the sea wall, a wave reached up to just a few inches below the wall, so I was able to scoop up a half bucket, it would be enough to save at least some of the fish. At least there weren't any more falling from the sky, just normal rain at that point. J's grandkids joined the beach kids in catching the fish and putting them in the bucket.

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.)

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.)

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.

Empty and Clean, Full and ...

In the first dream I remember the bedroom tear down had reached the stage of having everything out of the master bedroom. Only the dirty carpet remained, and soon enough, the carpet cleaners had it shining (well, figuratively.) I liked the roominess of it so much I didn't want to even put my mattress back in the room. I was thinking how pleasant and serene the open space was, and wondered if there was a good way to do that with the rest of the house.

In the second dream, I was in a house full of very soft, plushy people and furniture of every sort. The furniture was mostly large (six foot or more) rectangular and round lounges, all of which were large enough to be used as beds. Soon I found out why. It was (unknown to me, but not my date, apparently) a swinger's party. To say the people were plushy might have been an understatement; my date and myself were the thinnest people there. (I'm over two hundred pounds, and my date wasn't much lighter.) I didn't know something could be erotic and terrifying at the same time.

Then I was awakened by my cats, who wanted to tell me to get to cover because the landscaper was being attacked by the neighbor's dog. Said bulldog (not the brightest bulb in the string) lost to the leaf blower and ran off down the street. Then the other neighbors little terrier got out, then a bird decided to move in under my car in the garage while I had the door open. It has been a weird animal day. The cats are still hiding in the linen cabinet.

Sleeping in: A Chance to Dream

I love these long breaks, I don't have to wake up at the crack of oh-dark-thirty and be on the freeway before first light. I can, instead, feed the kitties and go back to bed. I have my best dreams during second bed time. I dreamed about sleeping in, and dreaming. The bedroom got cold, so the dreams had the usual histrionic version of that - stranded out on the ice in Little Red, trying to get the little engine to make enough heat, but because I left the car in econ mode, the engine wouldn't come on enough. Eventually I got the message, woke up and put an extra blanket on. My brain has to make up these little dramatic interludes instead of just saying "wake up and get another blanket."

Next I was in KPFM, only they'd added a bar on the upper deck, removing a layer of small tables. My friends were already there and had saved me a seat next to a woman I hadn't met before she was part of a larger group of new folks to our little social group. The seating was a bit close so our shoulders overlapped. I turned towards her a little to make more room, and she immediately snuggled up against my fat belly. She smelled a little bit like baking soda, familiar, and not unpleasant. I was enjoying the warmth and her conversation. A definite Star Wars fan, interested in having a Star Wars role-playing get together when she discovered that I was a game master. (Truly a nerd's dream girl.) She was trying to convince her friends to commit to a date when there was a loud rumble from her tummy, echoed immediately by my own.

I made a comment about the "hungry chorus in B-fat," poking my belly. She, however, appeared to be mortified, she straightened up and moved out of contact with me. There was the tell tale smell of diarrhea, mixed with baking soda. I could tell she was profoundly uncomfortable, so moved myself out of her way. She was blushing furiously and excused her-self. She leaned in and made whispered comment about getting old, and cheese and grease, then with a quick "so sorry, I knew this was a bad idea," she headed towards the bathroom, pausing long enough to pick up her over-sized purse. She had tears in her eyes and I knew that, unless someone talked her out of it, she would bolt after she cleaned up. I got the attention of one of her girl friends, and she agreed to try to get her to come back to the bar, but told me "she'll probably hole up for weeks." I took a sheet out of my notebook and wrote my phone number on it. "Please ask her to call me, I'd love to continue our conversation."

She seemed surprised, then pleased and relieved that I wasn't disturbed by her friend's problem. Both women returned, the tall blonde friend and my short dinner companion, whose curly brown hair, I now noticed, had purple highlights. She tried to take her friend's seat, but the much larger blonde just eased her right on by and pulled out the stool next to me. She sat, clutching her large bag in her lap. She wouldn't look at me, though.

That's when I woke up and realized that Giles was back, and he smelled like cat litter. (The cat litter has baking soda in it.)

Warehouse Home

I dreamed J and I had moved into the city. We were living on the second and third floor of a converted warehouse building. Inside the bottom floor, were two locked areas, one with N's old furniture and one with J's antique collection (at least, the stuff that wasn't being used in our home.) N came to visit on a day that we were having a huge party, she wanted to get some of her stuff out of storage. After deciding what things she was going to take and what she wanted tossed, we made our way back into the home. There was a stained glass door between the sitting room and the formal dining room, off one end of the dining room was another sitting room, this one with stairs up to the more private parts of the house, and two doors to the kitchen and a long front facing set of old offices now converted into various library and sitting rooms. There were stairs at the end (a spiral staircase) that went up to the loft area. We ended up chatting in the loft room, overlooking the road and the deli/butcher shop across the street. The butcher was just stepping out of his shop, so I called out to him. Turns out he was from Chicago and was an old friend of N's. He didn't recognize her at first (she'd let her hair go completely white and the usual wrinkle based age differences.)

Wild Pool Party

Lots of splashing and laughing, the smell of burgers on the grill, mustard and onions. Walking on the bottom of the pool with one of the kids on my shoulders to help keep me from floating away. When I got too deep the child swam away and I floated up to the surface, where everyone but me seemed to have some sort of super-soaker spraying in random directions.

Someone shouted out "Make it rain," and everyone started shooting strait up into the air. Music was blasting out of the boom box and every one in the pool was giggling as the water fell back on our heads.

Sunburned, wet, and very happy.

Second String

I was with a group of people, all of us in our twenties. (It was nice to feel young again.) One of the women of the group had run around sticking a string in everyone's hands. "So who's going with me?" she shouted and tugged on the string, which broke and all the people let go of their part of the string. The other end of her short remaining bit fell to the floor. Most of the group looked at her like she was nuts. She looked like she was about to cry. I bent over and picked up the other end of the piece she was holding.

"I'll go."

Cycling

Last nights's dreams all had a similar theme. I was pedaling my butt off all night long. In the first dream I was at the beach. No exactly on a bicycle, and not exactly on a unicycle. The device had two wheels, but they were side by side, unless I opened up the device, and then on was to the front of the other, sort of. The frame of the thing was about twelve feet long, it wobbled like a teeter totter, and I had to continually lean it so that folks could duck under it or step over it.

In a later dream I was riding up the street and then around a corner, where I found myself at the end of a parade, since I was on a real unicycle this time, the crowd just thought I was part of the parade, the police went along and let me through their moving barricade, which allowed me to catch up to the actual parade. I managed to pedal up next to the mayor's car and then when I had the chance I ducked down a side street to finish my trip to the store.

In my final dream this morning, I was pumping water from the bottom of the house up to the roof where it was going into a storage tank that flowed back down through a series of water wheel powered turbines. It only generated a few watts, but it was enough to light up the house at night and recharge the cell phones. Everyone was supposed to take turns running the generator, or pumping water up into the tower. In practice, however, I seemed to be the only one who hopped on to the exercise bike and actually did any pumping. I thought it was particularly unfair, as I had also built, and maintained the windmill that powered the pumps/generators most of the time. One of my neighbors asked why anyone would bother pumping the water up there. I told him that sometimes people might want light and a shower when the wind wasn't blowing.

A Quiet Remote Place

I dreamed that a group of my friends and I traveled up into the mountains as far as we could by car, and then, when the road was at an end, packed our clothing, bedding, food, water, and tools into bags and satchels and a couple of wheelbarrows. We hiked up over a pass that was only just barely a pass, several times having to pick up the blue and red metal wheelbarrows and carry them over rocky ground too rough for them to roll.

We crested the ridge to look down into a valley that had obviously been settled at one time. There were massively overgrown trails, a rickety rope bridge over a small stream, and several ruins of buildings. There was a herd of deer in the fields, which were full of oats and mustard. (Both the deer and the fields I think.) Blackberry and raspberry bushes grew in a profusion of thorny meandering hedges, the gentle western slope of the valley was covered with peach, pear and apple trees, as well as walnuts and pecan trees. Vine of peas and beans were reclaiming various old pieces of farm machinery. Roses grew over one of the ruins, great tendrils of pink and white variegated flowers that you could smell all the way up the ridge. It was getting dark and we made our way down to the original trail that led into the valley. It had mostly fallen away, and was blocked in several places by rock slides. It would be a long time before we could clear enough to make the road passable again, if it was even possible for the dozen of us to do so.

Then there was a Hollywood style movie montage of time passing, buildings replaced with earth berm houses, using the old windows to bring in natural light, lumber reclaimed to make a barn and a watch tower, with a zip line down to the edge of the valley. We'd managed to bring up a generator (taken from Little Red, I suspect) and made a water wheel for power. I managed to rig an antenna to the tiny wind-up emergency radio so we could get music and news. People hiked out to the cars to make runs back to town for various supplies, at least for a time.

The state came and repaired the road, even though we didn't ask them to. We were able to move all the cars up into the valley, except little red.

A few months later, everything went crazy. It was an alien invasion that caused a panic, and subsequent pandemic, followed by an invasion of emaciated, diseased refugees. Folks who'd been camping out lower down on the mountain. About two dozen of them shuffled into our little valley from the recently repaired road. They climbed over the gates we'd put at the property line, but wandered listlessly around the settlement, not seeming to be aware that they were surrounded by edible plants.The fever seemed to leave them alive, but with addled brains. We hoped that they would recover, and their brain functions would return to normal. Fortunately only a few of them were violent, most were just confused and wandering, with a decided tendency to take the easiest path that led up and out from the trees. They'd lost all desire to eat or drink, at least until something fragrant, like oatmeal with black berries in it or bacon was offered. Even then, they ate and drank little.

Some of our village wanted to round them up and shoot them, but saner heads prevailed and we lured them into the barn where they could be out of the weather, and we could try to get them food. It was difficult, as we could see they were all sick, and we didn't actually want to get close to them. We sent people out to gather up tents and sleeping bags from the various campsites they'd abandoned. Our own supply of blankets was severely depleted. Food and drink eventually helped some of the sick recover, but others continued to decline. I kept worrying that this was going to turn into some sort of zombie apocalypse, but that didn't happen. We spent a large part of the dream chasing down sick folks, and then luring them back to the barn in the center of the valley. (That was where the main leech field for the septic systems started as well, so there were facilities in the barn for our guests.)

We'd lost contact with the outside world, the radio grown quiet and our cell phones no longer connecting to the network. We didn't know if there was medical help available. We sent someone down the mountain to find out, but they returned only a few hours later saying the roads off the mountain were impassable, and that someone would have to hike down into town. I wasn't sure our little valley could feed all of our refugees indefinitely, if they were to suddenly find their appetites, but knew that there were plenty of edibles up and down the side of the mountain, if we could get enough people foraging we would be okay. The apocalypse was in our very mild fall, so we'd just brought in a good harvest and had plenty of supplies.

Dreamlands Park, After Closing

I was visiting the Dreamlands Theme Park, and somehow managed to become separated from the rest of my group. I wandered around for a bit, checking out the shops in the far corners of the park. There was a little hat shop I liked, so was there in the little nook between two knolls when the fireworks began to go off. The fireworks signaled the closing of the park, and most people rushed to the little mock village in the front of the park to get the best view of the fireworks. I figured that would most likely be where my friends had gone. I stayed to talk to the hat shop clerks, and the milliner, who'd stepped out front to view the fireworks.

He commented that though they seemed pretty far away, we did have a good view of the show, because of the alignment of the valley. (Dreamlands Park, while a lot like Disneyland, was on much hillier terrain, more like Legoland California. It was an interesting feature of the Dreamlands part that there were several access tunnels through the hills and knolls of the park, leading from one section to another, and out into the loading docks and warehouses and kitchens in the back areas of the park. We chatted a bit, and he gave me a really nice scholar's/prelate cap to go with my cloak. As I walked to the front of the park, I stopped to talk to several of the craftsmen, as I had gotten to know them over the years.

As I passed through one of the large outdoor stage areas, some of the performers recognized me and invited me to stay a while for their post closing sing along. They sang the various shows' songs, and used the time to learn other shows' songs in case they needed to fill in, or wanted to change parts. I really wanted to get to my friends, but they convinced me to stay and sing a couple of songs. I made it through one song and one of the directors came and took me aside to ask if I would ever think of actually performing at the park. "Only if I don't sing," I laughed.

He laughed as well and said, "Of course not." He'd sent me on my way, having rescued me from the never ending song that had just started up as the performer's second selection.

Each time I stopped to chat, my outfit would change and soon I was dressed in cloak, scholar's cap, white frilled shirt and surplice, breeches that were black like my cape but with red and gold trim (also like the cape and hat.)

As I made my way through the candle and print shops, a group of clergy entered the shop and greeted me as Reverend Malthus.  I decided, after getting the "go for it" signal from the candlestick maker, to go along with the charade. I played the part for a bit, and then one of the clergy noticed my computer bag under my cloak and started going through it to look at all the odd "devilish looking" implements, pens, a watch, etc.  Most of the stuff wasn't mine, but I made it to be a sample of tricky German engineering, or a Spanish tube of ink with a steel nib, etc. It made for an amusing few moments and really stretched my imagination. We moved up to the Print Shop and while there, we picked up some more lost and found items to take to the front of the park. While I was there I noticed the real Reverend Malthus (well, an actor portraying him) making his way across the street with his own group of clergy.

Rather than a confrontation, we greeted each other as brothers, and laughed at the confusion of our "junior" clergymen. We posed together for pictures on each of the lost cell phones and digital cameras, figuring that would be a funny surprise for whoever claimed them. We spent a bit of time adjusting our costumes and primping our ruffles and vestments before each shot, trying to get just the right "serious and pious" expressions. He whispered to me that my friends were waiting at the front of the park, having figured out that they'd lost me. We gripped hands and hugged, sending one another on our way. He suggested (in character) that we should do this more often. We continued our tour, he handing me his group's Lost and Found items to take up to the management office, as he was actually still headed deeper into the park.  Some of my actors were very confused, so some others tried to straighten them out by saying that I was the "real" reverend Malthus and not their actor. I had a very hard time staying in character at that point I wanted to laugh so much.

When we got to the front offices I dropped my "disguise" and was back in my normal clothing, much to the younger actors' amazement. "It's the Old Man on the Hill" they whispered to one another.

"I can still hear you, you know."

Myself and the older actors and the office staff laughed at the blushing and stuttering youths. I smoothed things over by shaking each of their hands and thanking them for a delightful evening. I left a gold coin in each of their palms. (Too bad I can't do that trick for real.) My friends were waiting just outside the park office and we blended in and exited with the last of the happy and exhausted crowd.

Road Trip

I dreamed that I was on a road trip with three cars, and only two drivers. So we would drive half a day, then go back to get the other car. Little Red was making the trip with both J and myself, so I was essentially driving three times the actual distance. We were shuttling other folks in the two bigger cars, and I don't know why none of our other friends could drive, just that they absolutely were not allowed to take the wheel. The groups of friends who were taking each leg of the trip also changed at every other stop it seemed.

At one of our stops we were staying in a living room. However, our hosts had not mentioned that they were going to have a huge party the next day. We awoke when the first group of about a dozen women arrived. We were sleeping on the couch, J in her jammies and me, in not so much. The room with our clothes was being used by women who were preparing themselves to perform for the rest of the party. It was pretty tricky trying to move around in just a thin blanket until we could get into the room to get my clothing, all while more and more guests were arriving.

Lights Out

Woke up this morning to the normal light coming on, but rolled over and dropped right back into a dream. I was talking to M from KPFM, we had bumped into one another in a comic book store. Suddenly, the lights flickered, and with a small snap, went out. People were a little panicked because it was pretty much pitch black. I suggested that perhaps someone with a cell phone or tablet could turn that on so we could find our way around without bumping into one another like M and I just did.

In a mirror of my evening, I didn't have my work phone. Neither did any one else. It was then that I realized that my alarm light had gone out! I shot out of bed, fed the cats and packed up to get out of the house, already late for work.

I thought. It was exactly my time to leave. It appears that my alarm light has burned out, and my brain, still in a semi-dream state, just wove that into the plot of my dream. I've wanted to try out an LED lamp, so perhaps this is the silver lining.

Druid Civilization Game

I dreamed that about a dozen couples had gotten together for a long gaming weekend in a secluded park area. There was one main cabin, with lofts and four full bedrooms, so a couple of couples would have to share the pull outs in front of the large fireplace in the sunken living room. We got ourselves settled in and I retrieved a card game. It was a civilization building game, that had a Celtic or Druid centric theme.

The goal of the game was to build a series of villages and then to link them up in a way that made them, as a whole, self sufficient. The world you played in was different every game, as there were cards that determined the layout of the world you had to settle. It was a competitive/cooperative game, as there were certain thresholds that needed to be met by all the players in order to survive the sorts of catastrophe's that might be pulled up out of the deck. We played a round, then everyone went outside to enjoy the woods and the various rocky hillsides nearby. As we were exploring the area, several of the people pointed out that the layout of the rocks and hills and cabin and little stand of woods was very much like our game. We decided to play a live action version of the game so broke up into teams of four. One team took the stand of woods near the house, another a nearby hill, and our team took the stand of rocks and the rocky caves in them about three hundred yards from the house and hills.

We used our cell phones to show the other teams the challenge cards, and ran back to the house to get new hands when needed. The first game went pretty well. So well we decided to do a second game, even though it was coming up on sunset. When everyone got back to the house, I collected up the cards to shuffle them up and redistribute them. I dropped them into one of my bags accidentally, and we started to gather them back up. Multiple hands in a tupperware tub at the bottom of a small bag made the process far more difficult than if I'd been allowed to do the task alone.

Sunset was rather faster than we anticipated, so we ended up working from flashlights. The cards had swollen up in the humid air, and the stack seemed to be nearly twice the size it was earlier. Fog started rolling in, and the group decided that we were hungry. I noted that there was a nice fire pit near the stand of rocks we'd taken as our village in the previous game, so we agreed to gather there and heat up dinner over an open fire. I decided that sitting around an open fire with greasy fingers wouldn't be good for a card game, so started packing the game up. The swollen cards wouldn't fit back in the box. I ended up taking my breakfast cereal out of its bag and using that to hold the box and all the extra cards. I agreed that we might need to find a different printer to make the next set of cards.

I remember next to nothing about the actual play of the game, other than the cards controlled resources, messengers, and challenges. The number of cards in your hand was based on the population of your village. In the live game, the players took the messenger and resource cards from group to group across the actual countryside. (Which is why we decided not to play after sunset.)

Sleepover Dreams

Sleeping away often results in a different sort of dream, because the rest is different, I suppose. Had way too much tea before bed time, so kept having to get up to recycle. Being in an unfamiliar place requires a lot more being awake to navigate, so the dreams are usually quickly forgotten, or merge with dreams from other days.

In one snippet of dream J and I were vacationing in Julian, staying in a wooden cabin with a loft and a bed in the loft/dormer. Everything was cold in the cabin except the little loft area, which was located above a little wooden stove, which had a kettle on. Everything was working and we were both content to snuggle and watch the weather outside, a misty swirling drizzle that was threatening to turn to snow.

In another tidbit, we were on an island, but not a deserted island, an island like Long Island, or Manhattan, only with not quite as many buildings and more forested areas. The buildings were several stories tall, not all bunched together, and some of the trees between the buildings were nearly as tall. There were cable cars or zip lines all over, too.

There were other pieces of dreams, but too fragile to hold on to.

Courthouses and Castles

Two great tastes...

The new RPG from...

Interesting evening last night. There were many and varied dreams but two of them had a bit of plot to them, and stick with me, even after a full day of work.

In the first of the two, I was at work, plugging away at sending out emails telling folks they forgot to push the "Publish" button on their sites, when one of my co- workers came down from upstairs with a couple of huge envelopes. Each one looked like a US Post prepaid envelope, but stuffed with what had to be a full ream of papers each. It was obvious that they had been opened and the pages rifled through, then put back, but. like many things, they didn't quite fit properly. Both envelopes were from the District Court and both had instructions that I was supposed to read the material and appear at the appointed time if I wanted to be present for the arguments of the cases. The nearest date was for half an hour from the time they landed on my desk, but at least there was a week before the next date. I showed them to my boss and ran out to the car, one ragged and inexpertly taped together envelope under each arm.

When I got to the court, the judge was standing by our president and attorney. She looked at me as I rushed in asking "Why are you late, sir?"

"I got these..." I set the envelopes down and pulled out my phone, "Forty six minutes ago."

"Well, you missed it, then."

"That was fast."

Our attorney explained that the other side had offered to settle, stipulating that everything we'd claimed was true, but not, somehow, admitting any malice in the events as detailed. I wasn't sure that was going to play so well for them, as it only left incompetence and stupidity to blame, not altogether a better characterization of them. (In the dream I knew what all this was about, but I can't remember now.)

The judge wanted to know more about my envelopes, and if I had received them in the condition they were in now. She then indicated that they hadn't gone out of her office like that, and had been sent over thirty days ago. She called her administrative assistant and they verified the return receipt had been sent back, three days after they had been mailed. It was my name on the receipt, but most certainly not my signature. I even pulled out my driver's license so they could compare them. The judge didn't look very happy about that, and gathered up her bailiff and assistant for a quick consultation. The bailiff left the courtroom at a run, talking into his radio.

Our attorney was smiling a very satisfied looking smile as the judge and her assistant vanished back into her chambers. "So, do you think they photocopied the whole thing?"

I shrugged, "I don't know why they would, wouldn't they have a full copy of everything, too?"

"Their attorney's would."

"So why wouldn't they get copies from them?"

Maybe it was someone who wasn't supposed to have them. I looked at him, thinking 'how was that even possible,' when he pulled out a document that was an order from the court not to discuss the contents with any outside of the governing board and our attorneys.

"Oh..."

The bailiff instructed the attorneys, who'd apparently not made it out of the building to sit back down, when they looked over and saw me, and my ragged envelopes they just rolled their eyes and both of them started calling people on their cell phones. I thought that was interesting, as they clearly weren't expecting to see me here.


In the following dream, it was another one of those where I was involved in playing a game, but somehow it was also happening at the same time. Sometimes I was traveling on my little brown pony through a deep, dark forest, and sometimes I was standing over a very detailed map, looking at a yellow meeple on a brown Lego horse. J and several others were at the keep as we adventurous few loaded up our supplies and mounted our mounts, my chocolate brown pony, TC on a white draft horse, like an albino Clydesdale, and our third member, whose identity kept changing, on a Dorse or Chocobo like critter. (The miniature for it was a keyfob, I think.)

We left the keep, waving goodbye to our companions and set out for the Castle of Perilous Perils on the the other side of the Mostly Impassible Forest. The dice were with us as we traveled through the forest, nothing of note was encountered, and finding myself the smallest of the group, no more than a meter tall at best, I was disinclined to go looking for trouble. During the forest travel the dream had shifted into the first person mode, so by the time we arrived at the Castle of Perilous Perils, we were dirty and smelled a great deal like our mounts and oiled leather mixed with week old Cheerios. In other words, not pleasant. As we rode directly up to the gates of the first tower, I offered to scout around the perimeter of the castle. Oddly enough, the castle was entirely made up of the one tower, and the scouting trip was so short that each of my companions repeated the journey, just to make sure I wasn't playing some sort of practical joke on them.

We considered for a moment that we weren't in the right place, I mean, a tower is not a castle, and a castle couldn't really be just a tower, right?

The game master, frustrated that we might just go merrily on past this place blurted out that the castle was mostly underground, then fudged up some knowledge rolls to say that I knew that. And so, suddenly back in the first person view, I said, "hey, I remember that most of the castle is underground."

My companions seemed completely unaware of the GM interaction and we dismounted to check the door for traps and to see if I could pick the lock. I had to remount to do that. Once inside there was a quick encounter with a couple of ghouls, each with a burlap sack full of limbs and mildly interesting loot. I peeked out of the entry room, and suddenly had a quick flashback of another adventure, the rooms to the right, I remembered, had been full of creatures well above our ability to handle, and the left had been nearly an empty and straight shot to the widget we needed. I asked my companions to hush and wait while I snuck out into the hall. I looked down the cooridoor to the right, more ghouls, and something in the distance flitted between the corbled walkways in flickering torch light. I could hear the clanking of metal on metal and deduced that there were many heavily armed and armored foes in that direction.

I looked to the left. The halls were pitch black, I waited for my eyes to adjust, I could just make out a sort of dim outline, empty halls, nearly a mirror image of the halls full of enemies opposite.

I reported what I had seen and we decided to head left. I think I am the only one who heard the disappointed sigh. We found a largish room down the ramp that could be barred shut, and the shifting character and myself barred ourselves off from the rest of the dungeon, er, castle, while TC took a heavy crossbow and a large shield and struck out based on a sketch I'd done to see if there was a path to our objective. I warned that it wasn't a good idea to split up the party, but TC promised that he would run back at the first sign of trouble.

We waited a bit, then I got fidgety and went outside to bring our mounts into the tower...castle. I used all of TC's extra shirts and pants to tie makeshift pads to all of the animals' feet. Stopping to admire my handiwork, and picture how TC would look when he found out, I listened intently to see if the coast was clear. As I did so, I stooped low around the corner to see what the critters on the right side of the corridor were doing. The ghouls were munching on whatever was in their sack lunches, and the armored patrols were patrolling further along. They'd obviously seen and heard nothing.

The four of us snuck back into the barred chamber. SCV (currently playing our third adventurer) asking how I managed to get past the bars. I just shrugged and carefully took off the rags, folding them neatly and putting them back in TC's saddle bags just as he came puffing back into the room.

"I got it, the McGuffin of Enormous Worth, let's get.... How did our horses get here?"

I grinned.

"Well, good, I might have angered a small mob back there." Sure enough, I could hear voices shouting in the hallways in the distance.

We mounted up and raced out of the basement...castle. I was falling further and further behind, my pony being significantly less long-legged than the others' mounts. I waited until the pack was on my heals and then shot down a side path, hoping they would follow me and allow the McGuffin to be ensconced in its receptacle and thus solve the problem of the un-dead once and for all. By this time, however, the GM had begun tossing dice into the "shame" pool, skipping over the penalty box entirely. So he declared that they "didn't even see your diminutive form on the tiny pony" and raced after the group.

I stopped, and turned around, where I then began thinning the mob out one at a time from the rear with my Wand of Wondrous Webbing.

Even in the first person mode, I was sure I heard swearing and laughter coming from the sky. J's giggle was clearly audible.

Now that was a fun dream. I loved how even in first person mode, I could sometimes make out the grid lines on the forest floor or in the Castle. If virtual reality were like that, I don't know that I would ever want to leave.