My golfing round with 007

Last night I had an odd dream (I don't know why I say "an odd dream" - they're always odd). I ended up playing golf with the actor Daniel Craig.

This made a nice change from Jeremy Irons, who appears in dreams occasionally and is always chasing me. Usually we are running through the narrow alleys adjacent to the Central district of Hong Kong. Eventually he catches up with me, but he's not violent. Instead, he grabs my arms, looks me in the eye, and keeps asking me, "Who are you?"  I think he's a reasonable actor but he reminds me of a despondent beagle. I have no idea why he invades dreams, any more than I have the occasional dream where I hit a bump and go flying out of my car.

But back to last night and Daniel Craig. 

I was at a posh beach resort with my mother. We were both considerably younger than we are now. I suggested we go for a swim, but she passed. After I got back to our room, I realized she'd packed up and gone home.  I was a bit hurt, but didn't try to contact her.

Later in the day, I decide to visit the resort's golf course on my own, as I'm about to return home the next day. The course is deserted as it will be difficult to play all 18 holes before sundown, but I'm still paired up with another golfer, who I recognize as the actor Daniel Craig. I decide to act as if I don't know who he is.

I don't remember much of the game except that I beat him, which didn't seem to bother him. There wasn't any flirting. But just before I departed, I began begging him to continue making James Bond films. He eventually nodded. He wasn't even offended when I added, "even though Sean Connery will always be my favorite Bond."

Any guesses why I would dream this? Leave a comment if you like. Anonymous is okay. 

My dinner with Daniel

New readers may not be familiar with Daniel* so here is a synopsis. I met Daniel several years ago while intermittently dating Ian*, as I was still considering a long-term relationship. I met Daniel by stepping on his foot at a book store, and then we went out for dinner, and in about a month it was turning into a reasonably intense relationship.  He hinted about eventual marriage.

We saw each other quite steadily for over a year and spent amost every weekend together, but he gradually lost interest in sex - not that he'd had an overwhelming interest to begin with. I also began to notice that he harbored a subconscious fear of relationships due to his marriage from hell, although this didn't bother me as I tend to share this fear (although I'm more apprehensive than scared).

When I finally decided to discuss the lack of sex, he duly visited his doctor who diagnosed low testosterone, and prescribed hormone replacements and Cialis. But Daniel was oddly uninterested in a cure, saying instead that lack of a sex drive made life less complicated for him. When he once complained about the expense of Cialis, this wounded me to the point where I immediately decided that the relationship had to end. When I left for home that Sunday, I took my toothbrush and  Miss Dior bath gel with me.

Over a year went by. I met James*, things didn't work out, and I put my sex life on the back burner. Then I met the Cub* and eventually told Daniel I'd found someone to have sex with (no details). That put a 100% kibosh on things, although we would still have a perfectly civil lunch whenever we attended Sunday mass at the same time. And as mentioned before, Daniel surprised the hell out of me with his $100 gifts last December.

Last month I bought him a smallish, late holiday gift but never had the chance to give it to him. So last Saturday I suggested we have an early dinner. I was kind of surprised that he accepted. 

We went to a pub with surprisingly good food and had a surprisingly long visit. There was no talk about sex; mostly it was about the stock market and investment matters, which is an interest we both share.

I remember studying Daniel over the table after dinner and thinking how attractive he still was. At 58 years of age, he's a gym rat who can still fit into his college outfits and has all of his hair. It was a pity he didn't have any interest in sex, even now. But as the worn cliche goes, that ship has sailed. 

* See Key to Characters at right. 

the late winter drag

Even though we have had another non-winter and more sunny days than usual, the season is beginning to grate on me a bit. Late winter tends to crank up the vestiges of SAD (seasonal affective disorder). I don't descend into a major depression; it's more accurately described as ennui. Which is a clever French word that describes someone who's simultaneously a bit bored and a bit depressed.

And since Valentine's Day is tomorrow, I am busy feeling sorry for men. (Except Ian*, who knows he's off the hook.)  It's a silly, depressing occasion for several reasons. There's no chance of a spontaneous gesture of affection, the stores are full of stupid balloons and teddy bears, and a depressingly large percentage of women will be pissed off in juvenile fashion if their significant other doesn't present them with some tawdry gift. 

Lastly, an occasionally unpleasant aspect of perimenopause snuck up on me last week and attacked with a vengeance. I woke up last Monday bleeding so heavily that it looked like someone had filmed a slasher movie while I slept. (These occasional mega-periods are actually called "flooding" by gynaecologists.)

Tuesday I was in so much pain that I got very little done. But the worst happened Wednesday afternoon, when I discovered mid-afternoon that I had actually bled onto my office chair. This is the sort of thing that happens to 13-year old girls, not card-carrying members of the AARP.  Thankfully I was wearing black pants, but I ended up staying until everyone else had gone so I could attempt to clean the blood off the chair. I wasn't able to do this very well with the supplies on hand, so I finally switched the chair out with one in an unoccupied office.

But things are looking up. I think I may have actually bullied the boss into a decent raise and it's become easier to find new homes for my foster cats. Onward and upward, wimmin, and don't forget to download the Make America Kittens Again extension for your Chrome browser. 

* See The Usual Suspects.

Very different and very funny

Part of my rejection of cable TV included a subscription to Amazon Prime. I already had Netflix and Hulu - I would switch them on and off when I ran out of stuff to watch on one of them. But when Amazon offered me a 30-day free trial I went for it. 

There's plenty of movies that are ie lncluded with Amazon Prime, which means you don't have to pay extra. I spotted a trailer for this movie (it's best to click on the YouTube link to watch - it's a bit squashed here.)

It was crude, surreal, and very funny. It even managed to include an intelligent piece of chewed gum that paid homage to the physicist Stephen Hawking.

More about my 2017 later this week. It hasn't been as dull as you may be thinking.

my next car

Last night I was catching up on a series called The Man in the High Castle on Amazon prime. It is a dystopian, "what if the Nazis had won the war?" story, and a generally good watch except that a couple of characters tend to go off into confusing alternate universe tangents. I think I need to order the book.

During a scene filled with well-off Nazi Berliners, a pretty blonde drove away in a yellow two-seater convertible I didn't recognize. I confess it gave me some serious girl wood, especially as I was fascinated by the pocket doors. I'd never seen a car with pocket doors before.

I surfed around and eventually identified the car as a 1954 Kaiser Darrin. Here are a couple of photos:

Some background on the car:

"The Kaiser-Darrin was America’s first production fiberglass sports car, with its prototype built before the Corvette, although production did not begin until 1954. It was powered by the reliable Willys six-cylinder engine, and its design became a legend of 1950s motoring, with sweeping front fenders that plunged behind the doors into a “Darrin dip,” a split windshield, and a distinctive “rosebud” grille, which, it was commented, always looked like it wanted to give someone a kiss. Most fascinating of all were Darrin’s beloved “pocket” doors, which slid forward into the front fenders to permit entry and exit. Darrin promoted sliding doors for decades, claiming that they were a very safe alternative as they did not open into traffic."

Only 435 were produced as, alas, it couldn't compete with other imported roadsters. It was considered underpowered and too expensive for most. 

Perhaps one of these will be my next car when I have about $160k spare lying around.