Cheese and Ball Lightning

I found myself climbing up out of the buried city, and beholding the world made new, covered in a layer of cheese ten meters deep, everywhere. It had begun falling in the fall, and by winter, the world was covered in warm velvety goodness. Religions, governments and economies the world over collapsed. Clogged up hydro electric plants, covered solar plants, stuffed up the intakes and outputs of gas and oil fired plants left much of the world buring cheese for energy. Humanity survived because the fall was gradual enough to stay on top of it, to dig one's homes and shops out from under it, mostly. Most importantly, it was completely edible. Apparently it was also rot resistant as well, a giant edible organism, like overabundant mana from heaven. During the same period of time, the ball lightning showed up. I remember looking at one YT video, shot from a security camera, so yellow and orange in hue as to look sepia-toned, where an unbearably bright ball of lightning was moving along the third floor of a hotel, and stopping momentarily at each door, its lightning tendrils snaking out along the door and window frames, blue white and crackling, as if searching for something, then moving on. The bottom two floors were not visible as the parking lot and lower levels were filled with the creamy yellow orange cheese. Fireweed, fleasbane and short grasses had alread begun to colonize the smooth surface. Whispy threads of smoke followed the ball lightning where its arcs touched the layer of cheese on the handrails and walkway.

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.

Crimson Bullfinches

Several dreams last night, one where I fell again, and this time scraped up my knee as well as twisted my ankle and banged up a hip. But the worst part was that I tore holes in my favorite pair of pants.

The last dream this morning found me in my VR rig at the office, logged into Steam Trunk with my non-development character trying to replicate a teleportation game bug that had been reported, but we were unable to reproduce it with the development accounts. (Probably because they had a different teleport/instance tracking system.)

I was playing in a high mob intensity area, working on a king of the mountain scenario, one of the slightly more common reported trigger areas, when I overlapped the bounding box of an "Extra Large" wolf mob. The sanity teleport kicked in. Then all the teleportation gizmos in my inventory, one after another, began to fire. I was suddenly at the bottom of the hill, then on the edge of some violet and blue cliffs, about seventy clicks away (one of my "vacation" teleports had fired.) Then to a sandy beach, then to a portrait mobile device view of the minimalist map (low bandwidth, icon based for mobile devices) then several others, including the holding area for one of the more popular team sport gauntlet arenas. When I appeared there, I was also in my Crimson Bullfinch uniform, so at least the uniform widget part of that teleport charm was working along with the teleport. The uniform was a sort of padded striped looking armor with a catching mitt on one manipulator and a ranged thrower on the other. I also had the wide angle /medium range helmet. I could see the top down gauntlet overlay showing a match in progress. I noted that both teams were advancing off center from each other in a four by four square, and had passed one another, but just before the match turned into a straight race the cowboy hats at the top of the leftmost square snared the top four of the opposing team and then their strikers opened up, knocking the other team's cargo tokens willy-nilly across the narrow field of play. A sneaky maneuver well executed. As I blinked away from that location I got a message from another player complimenting me on the outfit, and asking what color it was. The last couple of teleport gizmos fired and I was left sitting on the top of a stepped pyramid overlooking a jungle. I made a note that the text communication overlay needed to be improved in the VR interface.

Before debriefing with the debug team I searched back through the messages to respond to the player who asked about my gear. I explained that it was my "Gauntlet" scout/striker uniform, and the team colors were dusky maroon with black pinstripes.

Then I went back to the VR to try to figure out, with the bug fix team, where the heck I ended up, and how the bug had fired not only the usual teleport gizmos I had in my inventory, but even the unopened charms in my mystery loot trunk. The Mystery loot charms weren't even supposed to be generated until they were opened. I looked in the "Mysteries Trunk." All of the items were still there, and all indicated that they were still unopened.

The detail on the "Gauntlet" map was amazing. Also, I seemed to know that Gauntlet Matches were played in teams of Two, Four, Eight, Twelve or Sixteen. The Crimson Bullfinches fielded all of the team sizes. In the top down map, each player was indicated by a top down view of their headgear with their number below it and their cargo token in the center (if it hadn't been displaced yet.) Little icons next to them showed what type of manipulator they had and if your range and sensitivity were enough, you could see active charms by zooming in. The Crimson Bullfinches B-Team was one of the open teams used for pickup games, their uniforms were white with maroon pinstripes. Don't know why my brain thought it was important that I knew that.

Back to Work

I was called back in to work, but only for the purpose of collecting up the toys that had accumulated around my old desk. It was full of dozens of brightly colored thirty-millimeter plastic robots and toy dinosaurs. I explained, as best I could, that the toys weren't mine, as I had been gone almost three years. Everyone insisted that they'd been there since before I retired, though. I took the boxes they gave me, and started packing them up. Lots of people stopped by to chat, so progress was quite slow. Also, every time I went back after filling a box, there seemed to be more of the little toys, even where I had just picked them up.

After a couple of hours, I had about twenty shirt boxes full of plastic toys. I made my former co-workers take my phone number and email address, so that when the actual owner of the toys showed up, they could contact me for their return. As I was packing the boxes into my shopping bags, I was thinking there might be a game here somewhere. My former boss insisted that I fill out a time sheet so I could get paid for the day. I didn't think that was fair to pay me for a whole day just for two hours of packing up someone's toys. She suggested I could hang around and answer questions for people who came into the department. I tried pointing out that any answers I had were based on very outdated information. She insisted it wouldn't be a problem, and folks started showing up for tech help on their tablets and phones. Turns out, my boss was right. I did know enough to be helpful.

When the drop in hours were done, I turned back to see that the help desk was covered in more little plastic toy soldiers and insects this time.

I think I'd been set up.

Time Transit Tech Support

I had gone back to work, and after a three day training marathon, I started my first day of tech support for "Time Transit" a company which was using a new technology to see into the past, and occasionally, when conditions were applicable, into the future. Most of the first tier calls were of a pair of issues; username and password problems, or browser not looking forward problems. I could see that I would be regularly explaining to people that while looking into the past was going to be pretty accurate (under most circumstances) it wouldn't be possible to always move into the future, particularly if knowledge of the future would likely change the outcome of current events and decisions. Oddly, this sometimes meant that a person in location "A" would not be able to see the future of location "A" while a person in location "B" who was unconnected to the events of location "A" might be able to see some, or even all of what was to happen there. This, of course, led to a somewhat rare third type of call. Something is wrong with my time viewer, can you look into the past and zoom into the future of my current location.

That trick rarely worked.

I was working from a VR rig in the isolation suite (a sort of home away from home that was supposed to keep our own effects on the future to a minimum) when I got a call of the third type. I managed to make the connection to the person's time viewer, and was able to see their past altercation with a woman, who I assumed was their girlfriend. Silly argument, really, and the gentleman was very obviously in the wrong. Suddenly, I heard a sound in my front room. It was the caller, and he threw a gun into my small bedroom and then ran out, disconnecting the call. He shouldn't have even been able to get into the isolation suite. I reconnected, but he just laughed and told me to sit tight, the police were on the way. I took off the VR rig, and noticed that my bedroom now looked like the scene I had just witnessed, and there was the body of the woman lying along side the bed, obviously dead. How had I not noticed the smell before now? I set my rig to look into the past, and there was someone, looking a lot like me, now arguing with the woman, who was blaming the "not me" for something that hadn't happened yet. I checked to make sure my recordings were uploaded to the company, and then to my own cloud backup, even though that was technically a violation of my TOS with the company. I had the feeling things were about to get very weird. It seems my call had come from the past, I'm not sure how that was even possible, but I knew, despite the visual similarity, that the perpetrator wasn't me, as I wasn't even working for the company a week ago. I called the police to report someone dead in my Isolation Suite while using the internal communications software to notify my supervisor.

Dolphinia

I had been selected for a strange experiment. I was injected with something that allowed me to stay underwater for several minutes, and sent out into a netted off bay to find and communicate with the trapped Dolphinia. I managed to find her, or allowed her to find me. I was able to communicate with her after a time, finding out that she was a mother, and her pod contained two of her children still. She desperately wanted to be re-united with them so she could see them join up with other pods after their summer feeding meet up. The more days that went by, the harder it would be to catch up. She also worried that it was dangerous for a lone dolphin to migrate the later the season got. I relayed this to our experimenters, and they told me to promise her that people could transport her directly to the feeding grounds where she could find the rest of her pod. She just needed to come play some games with us first.

I did my best, but it seems there were no easy way to talk about being transported really fast until I learned that dolphins bow surfed on whale and boat waves, so used that to say a boat would let us surf quickly to her pod. I felt bad for deceiving her.

The experimenters lowered a whole office building into the bay. I had to explain to them that we still needed to breathe air and couldn't reach the lower levels without extreme risk, so they put down diving bells with oxygen pumped into them. The two of us managed to swim through the building, with Dolphinia teaching me the proper way to swim, and how to glide to conserve air. By the time we were done with our experiments, I could stay down almost as long as Dolphinia. The longer these "games" went on, and the less the experimenters shared with me the more I began to worry that I had been deceived as much as Dolphinia.

Then one morning I woke up in a normal bed, with my normal body intact. I felt woozy though, as if I'd been drugged for days. I managed to get out of my room and found where they were keeping Dolphinia.

She had been completely transformed. She was human now, at least six feet tall, and in a blonde curly haired wig and red dress. She was stunning if a bit alien looking. She was frightened, couldn't figure out how to swim (walk) and confounded by the need to breathe continuously through this thing above her mouth. Turns out I had been allowed to find her in order to calm her down and get her cooperation again. She was so happy to see me, and concerned that I too had been made into this awkward land animal. She was convinced that I, too, had been a dolphin, and that was why I learned to swim and breath so well with her. Spiritually, I agreed with her, and I wanted nothing more than to be back in the warm water of the bay, swimming freely. I wanted to get her back to herself, and then delivered to the summer grazing area with a large pod she could travel with until she found her own. I had the feeling, though, that the dolphin to human conversion was only one way, neither she nor I would be able to go back.

A Rolling Kayak Gathers Momentum

Was out working in the back yard when I heard a commotion from on top of the hill. New neighbors had moved in, taken down the fence, and filled the drainage easement with two to three pound river stones (as they didn't want to water the grass that was there previously.) Unfortunately they had a couple of younger children who liked to roll the stones down my hill, smashing up the ivy and the celery and bean plants at the bottom of the retaining wall. This time one of the stones hopped the wall and grazed me in the calf. I was dodging, but just not fast enough to get missed. I shouted the Ouch, ouch! ow! song. They looked panicked a moment, and then ran off. I decided I needed to put all of the stones in a basket and make a trip around the block for a visit. As I was gathering up the stones I looked up to see an orange and white plastic kayak sliding down the hill towards me, but not in time to get out of the way. As I turned to run, the kayak bounced off the ivy swinging into my legs, knocking me down and leaving me with a huge cramp in my right calf. (Which was still there when I woke.)

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.

Reality Storm

I was stranded on an Island Nation, my plane had crashed and us few survivors managed to patch ourselves together and get the attention of locals. The Island Folk were perfectly aware of the modern world, and some had even gone off the Islands to college, but had returned to farm and fish. When the first group of rescuers came I stayed behind because I was on one of the smaller islands, learning about the various fish, fowl and flora, what they were each used for, and what to avoid. I was a little bit depressed that I had missed the "rescue" plane, but decided that my letter home would be sufficient to let people know I was alive and well. I helped the village by repairing their packet radio receiver and the village cell tower (not that the cell phones really could reach off island, but the islanders could talk to one another. Because I had repair skills I was admitted into the ranks of the priesthood. When I was asked if that made me a witch-doctor by a tourist I explained that it was more like an Electron Shaman. That got a confused look from the tourist, and lots of laughs from the Islanders.

I was quite content with my life there, and glad to have been accepted for citizenship; the elders of the island sitting around drinking grape crush and root beers saying "yep, he belongs here."

One morning I was helping replace the batteries in a local fisherman's Garmin Navigation system when I spotted some really odd lightning filled clouds on the horizon.

"Reality Storm, looks like a bad one." The fisherman hurried me along and asked if I wanted to ship out to sea with him to avoid the storm.

I was feeling echoing flashes in my head, like a migraine coming on, so I deferred. He shook my hand and thanked me for everything. In doing so, it felt a lot more like a permanent good-bye.

I made my way back towards my tree house in the hills, the Reality Storm overtaking me with bright flashes overhead, big splots of rain and echoing flashes in my vision. I never made it. I remember seeing my friends running towards me as I collapsed and then the world vanished in a white hot blur of headache and flashing. When it subsided, I was someone else.

Or, more accurately, I was somewhere else, I had never been a shaman, and those memories were rapidly fading, but I was still a technician, retired, and very confused. With the help of a friend I managed to get out of bed and walked to the balcony. I apparently had a micro condo in a tall high-rise. I couldn't stop talking about the Island and my life there, but my friend suggested that it was just a fever dream, aided by the unseasonal lightning storm we'd just had. The paramedics insisted, however that I dress and come with them. At the hospital there were lots of tests and poking and prodding. What my prostate had to do with cluster migraines was beyond my, but "I'm no doctor." I joked. My sister came to visit, and was the only person who seemed to be very interested in my experience. She even encouraged me to remember as much as possible of it. It was odd, in a way. I knew she was my sister, but we both couldn't tell a single incident from our childhood together. She said not to worry about it, she might be able to shed some light on that later.

On my third night in the hospital, oddly not missing my own bed, because I really had the feeling that it wasn't really my bed at all, in the sense that I'd woken up in it, but hadn't ever really been in it before then, a visitor arrived. Hew was dressed as an orderly but introduced himself as a friend of my sisters. I thought that odd because it was definitely plural, but I was sure I only had one sister. He asked me about my experience with the Reality Storm. I had, by then decided it had just been a dream, but played along and told him about it. He asked if I was feeling anything about like it still. I wasn't, he grunted and sat down to continue our conversation.

Now, I hadn't been, but as we talked I noticed the tiny flashes starting at the back of my brain, just at the base of my vision. I mentioned that, figuring he might be interested. He nodded, rose, went to the cabinet next to the bed and handed my my clothes. "Let's get you out of here now." As I scooted to the end of the bed he took the big machine at the foot of the bed and laid it down where I'd been laying. "Hurry, before the storm gets here."

He was very urgent about it, so I dressed, wondering if leaving the hospital before falling victim to the headaches was actually a good idea. As we walked out of the Hospital. "Where are we going?"

"The storm is heading for your sisters, we need to be with them if we're going to weather this."

"Weather this? You mean this storm might send me back home, to the Island?"

"Not likely," he explained, "Reality Storms, as you call them, affect different folks in different ways. Some get tossed about to different times and places so often they start to remember all of them, some get shifted once and never again, we suspect some get shifted and blend right into the new reality without ever even knowing, and some pile up. Like your sister."

We entered a large suburban home, my sister, and two other of her were waiting for me in the large living room. I knew I only had one sister, but all three of them were her. "Oh, my." The flashes in my head increased and I collapsed into a chair. The four of them were talking when police broke in through the front and back doors simultaneously. The Orderly and my sister (well, one of them) grabbed me and crushed themselves together with me sandwiched between them. The lighting flashed and thunder from outside drowned out the orders of the police to get on the ground and the three of us found ourselves under a threatening sky in an alleyway with trash cans overflowing and the stink of not having been collected for a couple of weeks, at least.

"Garbage strike," I informed my companions. One was dressed as an orderly and the other seemed to be a mildly attractive housewife sort, very suburban looking and quite out of place in a trash-filled urban alleyway. I vaguely remembered dreaming of an Island and a shining clean hi-rise world with a high tech hospital. I wasn't sure what had happened that had made me collapse in the alley. I checked, my wallet was still in my pocket, so I didn't seem to have been mugged. I was grateful that these two had come along to help me up. We made our way out of the alleyway next to my apartment building.

"It worked, sort of." They spoke to one another in front of me like I was supposed to know them, or what was going on. It was apparent they knew one another, and I thought it was odd that I was being helped by two people from my dream while unconscious in the alley. Though, that made some sort of sense if I'd noticed them before I passed out.

Pointless, Mean Work.

I was working in cubeville, doing endless pointless, uninspiring and essentially mean work on the computer. (Designing stuff that was essentially mean to people.) I was retired from one job and had taken this job to refill my savings after making a rather impulsive purchase.

The manager of my part of the cube farm was even more uninspiring and mean, and I finally decided that I had enough. I went on a rant about the only way to keep us doing uninspiring, pointless and mean work was to pay us well and treat us well. And I don't have a complaint about how well we're paid.

The company boss came over and gave me the perfect bound quarter page sized booklet about how to "get along" the "Company Way." I pointed out that it was available on the company web site in PDF format, and I had read it. It was 64 quarter-pages about how to go along and get along with your bosses, and it was pointless and uninspired. I then took the book, slid the spine half off the table hold it firmly in place with one hand I whacked it the other, breaking the glued spine. I then tore it in half and gave it to my boss, who, flustered, wandered off in a huff. My co-workers just sort of kept their heads down and looked away while I went back to my work, which now consisted of labeling some of my assignments as "pointless," or, "Paint it whatever color you want, it doesn't really matter." And then I selected every part of the drawing and made it Primer colored.

At this point I figured they would either fire me or ignore me, but I figured they certainly wouldn't bother to try being less mean or uninteresting.

House Creature, Home Wrecker, New Cats

Rough Night last night, but I woke up enough to remember bits of three different dream experiences.

In the first dream, I had a small flying house. I was able to float between my three or four "landings" depending on which weather I preferred. On one of my Landings there was a knock at the door. Some local "Inspectors" were at the door wanting to check the premises for mice. I looked around the three rooms, and the little grey mouse got a worried look on his face, and dashed into the closet. The Inspectors spotted the motion, so I had to let them in and then had to admit that I had a small grey pet...The closet curtain fluffed out and a moose stepped out...moose. The inspectors were taken aback, and frantically started looking at their field book and ticket books. Apparently there was no infraction for having a grey house moose. Or a grey and silver cat, or a silver and black coatimundi, or a flying monkey, though the last one was more than a little bit scary when it jumped out and landed on my chest, asking, "how are we doing, boss." The Inspectors fled.

In the second dream, I was sleeping, when the whole house shook with a bang and then rattled to the sound of a heavy engine for a few seconds afterword. I just figured the neighbor was getting ready for work and had closed his gate, which is part of the fence running between our houses. Just as I was falling back to sleep, it happened again, only I could tell the sound was coming from my back yard. I struggled up out of my sound sleep and into some clothes and shoes. I looked out the window and saw that the back hill was covered in sandy dirt. A little darker and redder than street sand, and more powdery. It had over flowed the retaining wall, and only the top of the trees showed at the top of the hill. I could hear the sounds of engines and cracking wood from behind the slope. I noticed a pair of treaded tracks down the sandy embankment and then turning just at my now dirt covered patio, then up the hill over the space where the ivy used to be thickest. I didn't like this at all, I certainly hadn't given any permission for any work to be done. I followed the tracks up the hill, slipping occasionally in the soft dirt. I crested the hill and was looking over the back neighbor's yard. Bulldozers and backhoes were at work tearing down the house. There was a gap under the house where the granite had been dug up and pushed out the back yard and down the hill. Fairly shortly I saw a spinning cylinder covered in two foot steel spikes tearing up the granite as it drove out from under the house. The spikes were mostly bare metal, but the cylinder still retained some of its construction vehicle yellow. The fellow driving the vehicle looked very wide eyed and happy under his orange destruction cap. the tractor rolled back under the hill, then came out again, pushing the dirt in front of the now stopped cylinder, up the slope, across the back yard, and then toppled the heap over the hill into my yard. The tractor teetered on the crest of the artificial dune a moment before sliding down towards my house. He didn't make the turn this time, slamming into the fireplace, and shattering the glass doors on either side of it. (Apparently I'd added french doors to the dining room side of the fireplace.) The whole house buckled in slightly and was pushed about six inches off the foundation towards the front of the house. I shouted a loud "What the hell are you doing!" as the tractor climbed back up the hill towards me. The driver then spotted me, and with a maniacal gleam in his overly large, not very human eyes, lifted the cylinder and started it running, steering directly at me. The tractor was surprisingly fast and it was on me before I could dodge to the side, and though I might have been able to jump over the spikes onto the cab of the thing, he'd thought of that, and lifted the spinning cylinder of death just after I launched myself into the air. I knew I was dead. I wondered who would save the cats. I woke in a sweat.

The dream I was having this morning before the Chimester chimed in started out disturbing, the neighbors had dug a pit and were fighting insects and small animals in it. They had amassed a collection of scorpions, spiders, frogs and lizards and a struggling cat. I had to intervene for the sake of the vertebrates in the group, pointing out how sweet they were and how cute. It would be wrong to make them fight one another. Real animals feel pain and there is no Poke Hospital for them. The creatures all escaped, except one little dragon like thing that puffed out it's black and yellow scales, then eyed me sideways, then ran up my arm and dove into my shirt pocket. It cheeped at me and I rubbed the center of its head between its eye bumps, making it cheep some more. I wondered if it would eat cat kibble, or if I needed to make a trip to the store for crickets or mealworms. I needn't have worried, when I opened up my garage door it jumped out and raced over to the litter pan area, like it knew what it was doing, and began digging out the earwigs and snacking on them loudly. I crouched down to get a better look at what it was doing, then felt a cat rubbing on my elbow. It was the little white and black kitten. Marked much like Giles, only with more black than white on her. She ran off under a vehicle parked partly across my driveway. I went out and stretched out on the curb to see what she was up to. She came out with two more cats, a nearly all black cat with a just a white chin and toes, and an all white short haired cat, with beautiful golden brown eyes. The two adult cats had letters wrapped around their collars. The letters had obviously been written by a child. It stated that they had to move, and mommy and daddy said the cats would be okay on their own, but she knew better (I knew it was a she because there was a drawing of a little girl with her three cats, each with a name below them.) "Please take care of them and keep them together, they're family." There was a phone number. "text me."

My little dragon like friend cheeped at the cats, and they all got head bonks and shoulder rubs as they walked over me and then screwing up their courage, dashed across the open driveway and followed it into the house through the cat door. The white cat stayed with me the longest, unsure about the whole thing. I scruffed her up across the shoulders and ears, trying to let her know she would be safe in the house and wouldn't have to come out into the big blue room again. That seemed to satisfy her and she raced across the driveway, pausing only a second to two to figure out the cat door. I was glad I had just stocked up on cat food, and that I hadn't gotten rid of the extra litter pans yet. Giles and Ember would certainly be entertained with four new housemates. I texted the number that the cats were living with me, and they would be kept together. It was only a few seconds before I got an emoji filled text with hearts and kitty faces. I resolved to text pictures of the cats when they settled in.

Surprise House Party

While I was sleeping, the house decided to throw a party. I woke up to thumping music out in the back yard, the sounds of running and giggling, a door chime, and the smell of BBQ wafting into my office. I had been working about thirty six hours straight, then had fallen asleep in my task chair. Except for bathroom trips and to get food, I hadn't been out of the office for several days. I had some sort of deadline I was racing to make, and had lost one of my illustrators, so was trying frantically to color correct everything for printing. the job was done, and I had fallen into a coma like sleep for a period of time I wasn't sure of, all my muscles hurt. I really needed to swim, but didn't have a suit that fit. I made my way through the surging crowd of party goers, only a few of whom I recognized. It didn't take long for me to decide that the party atmosphere had lasted long enough for me, it didn't help that I was dressed in a pair of pajama bottoms missing the fly button and an old holey T-shirt, neither of which had been changed for at least four days. I went back to my office, but the house had locked the door. When I tried to override the lockout the house said "You need to socialize," and that I would not be allowed to hide in my office until after I did so.

I made my way to the master bedroom, which was also full of party goers, who had overflowed even into the master bathroom. I reached in and grabbed a towel. I shrugged. "Okay, house, if that's the way you want it."

"What are you thinking?"

"I feel like swimming."

"Okay, shall I turn up the pool heat for our guests, the hot tub is already hot."

"That won't be necessary." I like my pool a little bit cooler, and the last thing I wanted to do was warm it up and make it more inviting.

I noticed that there were already a half dozen folks in the hot tub, and only a couple in the pool. They looked like they had gotten too warm and had jumped in to cool off before returning to the hot tub. I waited for them to climb over the wall into the hot tub so I would have the pool all to myself. I dropped my towel and pajama bottoms over a shaded (and thus empty) pool chair, then strode naked to the deep end of the pool. A couple of people came up to me to ask me to put something on, I didn't recognize them, so just pointed to the "Swimsuits or Nothing" sign, and said, "It's my home, my rules." One of them hurried off to go gather his children and leave. I smiled, waved at my friends in the hot tub and dove into the pool.

The house whispered to me through the pool speakers, "that wasn't nice."

I stayed under the water, kicking off the walls and gliding through the cool waters, enjoying the relief the cold water provided from my hand and foot inflammation. When I'd been down for a couple of minutes, several of the women in the hot tub had entered the pool to see if I needed help. I swam over to them and they dove down to greet me, saw my "condition" and turned and broke for the surface. I surfaced between them and mounted the stairs to make my way to the hot tub. A small pink and yellow swimsuit top plopped into the water next to me. My young friend M was below me on the stairs stepping out of her bikini bottoms. Only a couple of people stayed in the hot tub with us. I decided I liked the party after all.

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.

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.

Guest Announcer

I arrived at the stadium and was met by a smartly dressed woman (in blue and gold) and given a quick tour of the new facility. It still had the open breezeway's between levels and the centralized staircase pillars, two per side and one on the north end of the field. The concrete floors had been tiled over with an industrial beige textured material, and the metal safety rails and fences were painted bright red (not the electric blue like I was expecting.) The other end of the field had the Giant Display, which was currently showing the view of the bay from the camera on top of the screen. The sun was just heading into a low marine cloud bank, but the sky above the bay was bright and clear and reflecting off the glassy smooth waters of the bay. A large sailboat slipped through the water it's wake rolling silently away. It would be a great advertisement for the city, I thought.

We made our way to the announcer's booth, the local booth was open but under a long overhang, so no matter the weather, it would be comfortable. There were closed broadcaster's booths a couple to either side and there was a green room across the open breezeway, tucked between the bar and the souvenir shop. When I got to the booth, the people there greeted me, and handed me the Blue blazer with the bolt on the back and lapels. It complemented my Jelly-fish shirt quite well. I was also handed a baseball cap with the team's logo, but I was wearing a knit cap with the logo already, so I just set it on the desk, taking it out of the bag and making sure the logo was facing the camera pole outside the booth. Instead of the teleprompter, they had a long glossy paper scroll for me to read from. A memento of the occasion.

I sat down at the mic and we did a mic check, I read through the script, which they recorded (in case I would freeze up.) As the script started to make no sense, I realized I was dreaming and deliberately looked away from it, focusing on the people on the field getting it ready for the game and the stands. It worked, I drifted deeper into the dream. The stands filled, I was having fun watching the closeups of the folks on the large screen, especially as the people I'd invited started showing up. There were a lot more of them than I thought there would be. (The team assured me that my section would be full, no matter how many of my friends and former co-workers showed up, or didn't show up. I was a little sad that the team still had to give tickets away to fill up the stands. Well, after several minutes, it looked like they were opening up the overflow reserved "buffer seats" on either side of my section as we got closer to the opening of the game, so I guess I shouldn't have worried. It seemed like I pretty much recognized everyone, or at least one or two members of each of the larger family groups.

I got the queue and launched into my announcements. Just like practice, I added in some of my own comments, which garnered some laughs and even applause. After the National anthem the regular announcer introduced me as the former voice of PUSD's Help Desk, and said I would be staying on for the rest of the game. That was a surprise. I did, even taking turns reading the "color" statistics from the second teleprompter. About a third of the way into the first half, the producer handed us a note. One of the car dealerships had asked if it would be okay if I read their ad instead of the owner. There was a number written on the paper. I asked what that was. "Your pay, if you want to do it."

I said sure, a couple of hundred bucks would come in handy. I did all of the announcements during the half time show so the regular announcer could take a break. Then I took a break. While we were reading the car commercial, they put the three of us up on the large screen. By this time I was fully aware that I was dreaming, so was milking the experience for everything it was worth.

Woke up refreshed and happy, such a fun dream.

Lunar Rebellion, Cruise Ship Encounter.

Multiple long dreams the last couple of nights, including a dream in two parts! It's been awhile since I had one of those.

Two nights ago, I found myself embroiled in a Rebellion in a Lunar Colony. The colonial citizens were fed up with the lack of work, and thus the absurdly low pay they were getting. They wanted to riot to convince the government to provide more work for them. I was in a position that allowed me a significant amount of mobility throughout the colony, driving one of the transport trains, as well as maintaining the software system it ran on. A lot of us who were keeping things running wore two hats like that. It was, therefore, obvious to me that I was essentially taking up two jobs, even though my life and my cargo pretty much relied on the software systems to make our schedule and avoid traffic jams and the like. I wanted to know what the AI was doing that was in control of my safety. On my way to deliver food to an outlying mining community, all radio communications were suddenly cut off. I found myself using the lunar version of Facebook to make an ad-hoc connection back to my dispatchers, once they figured out that was how they could still talk to us. I got the warning that there were rioters waiting for my food train just as I was locking into the station's air locks. Too late to lock myself into the control cabin, or eject, I found myself captured. They almost killed me, but someone a little bit saner prevailed upon them to spare me, so they wouldn't have to wreck the train to get into the locked refrigerator cars. I knew that once I'd let them into the cars, I wouldn't have much leverage. I started trying to find out what their issues were, and how they thought wrecking their connection to the Central Authority was going to make things any better. They weren't entirely self sufficient now, and blocking their reception terminal with a wrecked train wasn't going to encourage the Central Authority to send any more. This train needed to clear the station and go back if there was ever to be another one.

I convinced the rabble-rousers that they wouldn't get anywhere in my transport without me to unlock the software. Mostly by making it clear that I wasn't going to tell them how to get to the central core of the colonial administration dome, and I wouldn't be there to authenticate the transport at the various junctions on the grid to get back. If they killed me, they would have to figure out how to get there by walking. Not really possible during the long Lunar night.

On the long trip I tried to explain to them the actual "how things work" of air, water and food production and distribution. Trying to convince them that if they caused so much trouble that it wasn't financially worth it to maintain their habitats, mines and factories, the central authority could simply cut them off, forcing everyone to relocate, or die. Their standard of living would be far worse than it was now if they had to live on the air, water and food they produced locally. If they could even make it work with the population they had. By the time I'd managed to make it back to my dispatch station, the group had calmed down, more thoughtful and less angry leadership had appeared among the crowd, and we were given clearance to bring a group to the Central Authority. As we made our way across the surface, I pointed out a collapsing dome in the distance. Emergency evacuation pods were shooting out across the surface of the moon, and transports like my own were hurtling off the tracks, deploying their emergency service vehicles. The central system caused us to stop, and I began to deploy my half dozen emergency service vehicles, each programmed to pick up two of the emergency pods before returning to the transport. Our first rescuers told a rather harrowing tale of how some nearby minors had rioted, and then someone had blown out their central dome. Hundreds of people had been gathered in the central dome to hear a connected mining colony protest their working conditions and the rationing that was going on. Rioters from that colony had shown up. Only a few dozen had made it to evacuation pods. The mood was much more somber on the way to the Central Authority. I was surprised we'd been granted permission to travel that far. I was not surprised when there was about a hundred people with tasers waiting for us when we arrived. They were very surprised when the injured evacuees were carried off first by my passengers, and that none of my group were armed or unruly. I explained that the envoys needed to talk to the CA about preventing the same sort of disaster we'd just helped rescue people from.

Later, I dreamed that I was on a cruise ship, my four person room had been paid for, but I was the only one who could make the trip. I bumped into a very unhappy woman and her two children at some sort of lecture event. She had just been dismissed from her position on the cruise, and they were threatening to put her off at the next port, where she would have to try to find a way home for herself and her two girls. I shared my box lunch veggies and dessert with the kids, and made napkin rabbits and other puppets for them. She left to go get her luggage packed up. After the kids had left, I noticed that they had left their shoes behind. An elderly (more than me) man indicated that she was quite fetching, and he might just have the thing to cheer her up. He wanted the kids shoes so he could introduce himself to her. I thought he was way creepier than I am, so decided that I would return the shoes instead.

This morning, I dreamed of music without any sort of plot, I kept trying to understand the words, but they didn't make any sense. I woke up to Giles purring in my ear, and Ember meowing her creaky little meow. Their food bowls were empty.

I went back to bed and dreamed I was back on the cruise ship. I had asked where she had worked, and went to the lounge where she was checking out to leave the ship. She was glad to see her children's shoes. There was some kerfuffle with her paper work, so I agreed to sit with the kids while she went to take care of the issue. (She was just a few feet away at a big desk.) One of her supervisors came over and started telling me things I didn't need to know, and that were private. I told her I'm just the baby sitter, and it wasn't proper for her to share private financial information with me. I asked to see her supervisor. A ships officer was going by and intervened. I asked him to switch the family to my cabin, as I had three empty beds. He seemed to dislike the supervisor enough to ask me to wait there a moment while he checked to see if there was a way to do that. A porter stepped away from his station and brought the family's luggage, three small bags and one larger one to us, then asked what room I was in. I told him and he wheeled the luggage away. I started to stop him, as it wasn't resolved yet. But he just smiled a huge grin at me and indicated that I should just wait. The woman returned, obviously trying to be brave in front of her children. She asked where the luggage was going, but the porter just waved in my general direction.

I confessed that I might have done something rash. She started to refuse, but the kids jumped in with the "Please, please, pleeeeas! chorus." By the time she'd gotten them settled in, the officer was back, and had three extra room keys for me, and wrist bands to replace the ones the kids were wearing. The former supervisor just sputtered incoherently and walked away. I found myself hoping that I hadn't gotten myself in too much trouble. But the ship's officer assured me that we would all be treated just like regular passengers.

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.)

Plague

This dream was more than two weeks ago, but I dreamed last night that I wouldn't remember any other dreams until I wrote it down, so, here is what I remember (Without super graphic smell-o-vision, thankfully.)

Plague.

We had it, worse, in sheer numbers, than anything the human race had faced before. In pure percentages, we were only headed for sixty percent fatalities, or perhaps a little more. Some people had suffered a mild case early on, and that made us less likely to die. No less likely to get sick, it seemed, but less likely to die. Cities were the worst, of course, and places so isolated there was no food and water delivery system to keep everyone hydrated.

We thought the whole west coast would fail, but when the fatalities started racking up, the resources were suddenly sufficient to keep water flowing and heat and food delivered. Who knew we'd be so resilient in the suburbs.

Still. Things were bad. The death rate had gotten so high that there were two collections a week. One for normal refuse, and one to pick up the dead. Every week on Sunday night, the trash cans would roll out, and the bodies of the dead, marked with their names and birth dates, and the date they passed on, if there was someone to write it. Sometimes the people left inside could not take a person out, so they called on their healthier neighbors to help. So much sadness. So much despair.

I was headed home from one such outing when I noticed two little ones on the lawn bags next door. They were laying arms at their sides like little soldiers at attention, their names and vital dates written on their naked chests. Six and four, so little. I stopped, my breath catching. And they sobbed. I started.

What are you doing out here?

"Won't last the night."

"Don't want to stink up the house." the little one sniffled and coughed weakly.

Such brave little souls, I couldn't stand it and had to bite the inside of my mouth to keep from sobbing myself. I looked at their almost skeletal frames, though the younger one still showed some signs of baby fat, someone had made the attempt to comb their curly mops of shoulder length black hair, but hadn't succeeded in reigning in the wildness. Can only guess that they'd been asleep or unconscious when they'd been set out. They were both awake, and just, well, being brave about the whole thing.

I didn't think they would last the night...but I wasn't about to let them lay out in the chill night air.
I covered my mouth and nose, then put on fresh gloves, scooped them up and took them inside.

They were a mess, dried vomit, diarrhea, snot and mucus everywhere. I took them straight to the bathroom where I had the de-humidifier running full tilt to heat the room. (I found that helped keep me comfortable, so thought it might help them.) I filled my bath with water as hot as I could stand it, then took the little pair to the guest shower and washed them gently. They fussed a bit about their names and dates, but I promised I would be careful not to wash them off completely. On the other hand, they couldn't wait to be out of their soiled panties. Oh, they stank. I didn't even try to rinse them out but put the right in the trash and tied the bag shut.

I cleaned them as gently as I could, and they didn't fuss about it, falling asleep or passing out from time to time, so they were just limp on the pile of wet towels. However, soon color was coming back to their faces and limbs. I wrapped them in a big towel and carried them in one big pile to the hot bath, where I set them in to soak and warm up. Despite the warm shower water, they were still shivering. They agreed that they were much more comfortable than out on the garbage pile. I had to arrange towels in the tub to keep them from slipping under they were so weak. I didn't think they would make it through the night, but I was determined to make it as comfortable as I could. I arranged them so they could see each other and hold one another's hands, that seemed to help a lot. I closed the door and left them to warm up and let the warm moist air do its thing, I hoped.

I had fish stew, well it was more soup at this point, frozen fish heated up and cut into a batch of rice, kumquat peels, dandelion greens, grape leaves, peppermint and a dose of salt and brown sugar. It was still a little bit bitter, but it made me cough less and my throat was starting to heal, so I kept eating it. I brought some to the girls, hoping they hadn't drowned or died while I was fussing with the food. One of the side effects of the plague was that everything seemed to take twice or three times as long as you thought it would.

They didn't want to eat, because "you won't have enough, and we're going to die anyway." Without thinking I told them that if I ran out I would just have to eat them.

Wrong move.

They started crying.

I quickly pointed out that they wouldn't mind because they were going to be dead anyway.

That didn't help. It spent a few minutes to convince them that I was only joking around with them, and that I had plenty to eat. It wasn't working, they were just sort of whining weakly. That's when Giles walked in and climbed up on the bathtub. "See, I've even managed to keep my little kitties alive." Giles at this point was probably bigger than the little one.

Gile's happy chirping meow changed everything. I offered them food again, after giving a piece of fish to Giles. They sniffed it, then the little one took tentative tastes, the older one waiting to see what happened. I didn't expect them to have more than a tablespoon or so, as it was obvious that they were nearly dehydrated to death to start with. But the soupy stew seemed to agree with them, so I brought more of the broth for them to drink.

I got them dried off and put each of them in one of my t-shirts. The little one had to hike it up and I made a little belt to tie it up. They really couldn't stand up on their own very well, but insisted on looking at themselves in the mirror, so I lifted each of them up so they could see themselves. (I'd put them in my two cat shirts.) They were very sleepy, but breathing better than earlier. I propped them up on some pillows and made a little tent over them to help keep the air moist around them. I got out a book from my kids book collection and read to them until the fell asleep hand in hand. I went outside and sat in the hot tub, I honestly believe that was what was keeping me alive.

When I came back in I laid down gently so as not to disturb them, hoping that they would have a peaceful night.

They didn't. We made several trips to the bathroom. Several more hot showers, after the first accidents I diapered them with my small white shop towels. They complained but were too weak to fight it, really. The two of them drank the rest of the broth from the stew and so I started another batch. I discovered that combing their hair seemed to calm them down. By morning, they had actually eaten a bit of the rice and fish, picked out the green bits, and, though I was exhausted. They seemed stronger, and in better spirits. I actually felt hopeful we wouldn't need this morning's pickup for them. "Are we in heaven?'

"No, Sweety, if this were heaven you wouldn't need diapers."

I told them that I thought they were going to live. They both smiled, and asked for another story. (I read them "Anne Can Fly.")

At this point the dream turned into me trying to read from the pages, and having that very dream feeling that the words just weren't actually there, or weren't correct, or...well it was so off it pulled me out of the dream. I woke exhausted and drained, throat scratchy, coughing. At least I could tell where that part of dream came from. Miranda and Ember were tucked up on the pillows next to me, like the little girls in the dream. I had pulled the covers up over my head. I uncovered myself and was slipping back into the dream when the alarm light came on, right in my face. (Which is why I remember so much detail.)

I didn't manage to convey how weirdly depressing life had become under the plague. Sure we were pulling together to help where we could, but everyone retreated to their little quarantine zones as soon as a task was done. There were whole households that were empty now, and many places where there was only a couple of survivors. Children and older people were the most hard hit, myself and my neighbor kids being an exception, and even though I'd survived, everyone just expected me to relapse and die so the only thing I could do was help with the removal of bodies, sort of a "let the dead bury the dead" kind of thing. No one wanted me to help with any deliveries and I only drove myself to the store for cat food and essentials. Food wasn't exactly rationed, but people were trying very hard not to allow hoarding fever to kick in, that had destroyed several communities around the world. Social Media had become the news thing, and radio had become the community communication medium, all government meetings were broadcast live, and people could call in, it was oddly effective, and calming, but still somehow desperate seeming. We had plenty of everything, except mortuaries. The rest of the world was faring similarly, but some had used the plague as an excuse to raise up the specter of old wars and hostilities. Large military groupings without good medical support, however, were short lived in the field. Most of those campaigns fizzled and casualty rates were actually higher from disease than from combat. It seems that eventually, everyone's losses were too great to continue, trucks needed to be driven, trains and ships needed engineers, pilots were needed to ferry medicine and supplies, there just wasn't enough manpower to run around shooting at one another. Perhaps that was why things were working so well, we could all follow the news, hear the decisions being made, participate. The whole thing was an oddly utopian dystopia.

Missed the Boat, Movie Extra Extra

I dreamed I was wrapped up for winter, even though it was only a mildly chilly day, because I was going on a cruise to Alaska. Unfortunately, the traffic was stopped and my shuttle missed the sailing time by about 15 minutes. I managed to get to the ticketing office, and they switched my boarding to LA, but told me I had to get there on my own. I made my way over to the train station where they looked at me like I was crazy, but the ticketing agent just smiled and asked if I'd forgotten my sunglasses. I looked at her questioningly, and she laughed and said I looked like a spy from "Where in the World is Carmen San Diego" and that made me chuckle.

In the second dream of the morning I was an extra in a zombie movie, and at the same time performing with some friends in an art film using some of the other extras as their main performers. I was in a torn up tuxedo and my hands were made up so I could tear off bits of my own "flesh" and chew on them. It worked so well that the director of the movie I was an extra in decided to promote me to a "named" zombie and featured me in a couple of different scenes. This sort of threw off the filming of the other film a bit, but the directors' production assistants managed to work out a compromise, and at one point I was being whisked away in a cart with a makeup artist and a costumer going at me while I sat in the back. In the second movie there was a weird romantic tangle and I had a set of cheat cards with the character faces and names of my partners, because there was not going to be any other way to recognize them under all the makeup. Those cards were in plastic badge holders and kept popping out of my shirt. We finally got the idea to rubber band them together and safety pin them to my t-shirt.