I just re-read my previous two entries, and something jumped out at me: I woke up this morning after dreaming(?) about the sound of a single clang of a bell, and this afternoon our car gave me a low-fuel warning with a single ding of a bell. I'm kind of freaked.

I have never been in a car that's run out of gas. I don't know what that says about me.

When the fuel gauge on my Chevy Sprint broke, I got so used to using the trip odometer as a substitute - filling up every 320 miles, or so (it had an 8.3 gallon tank) - that I let almost a year go by before I got it fixed. Even after the gauge was fixed, I still relied more on the trip odometer, out of habit. I never had any complaints about the mechanical fuel gauge on the Saturn I owned for nine years. Neither Phillip nor I have been able to judge accurately how many miles each bar of our Toyota Prius' digital fuel gauge represents. We agreed today that the gauge represents a "suggestion of approximately how full the tank is." (I realized, just this afternoon, that the problem is that the Prius' mileage varies so radically - the best we've gotten so far was about 57 mpg, and the worst was about 37 mpg - with different driving conditions, that miles per tank is nearly impossible to predict.)

We left Seattle this morning with three bars of the ten-bar gauge lit. We decided it would be cheaper to fill up outside of Seattle. Somewhere after Snoqualmie Pass, the gauge dropped to two bars. Suddenly, we didn't see any "Gas Next Exit" signs for many miles. I wasn't worried, though. I knew there were plenty of gas stations - I just couldn't remember where. It seemed like it took an incredibly short time for the gauge to drop to a single bar. I saw a Texaco station after we passed it. Then I heard a polite but firm "Ding!" and saw that the bar on the fuel gauge was flashing. A sign told us that the Cle Elum exit was 5 miles ahead. Phillip opened the owner's manual, which didn't tell us much - only that a flashing fuel gauge means that we should refuel soon. We exited I-90 and followed a winding road through the woods toward Cle Elum. Neither one of us knew how far from the freeway Cle Elum is. (I'd been to the town one or twice.) I wasn't scared, exactly - just very, very worried. We pulled into a Shell station right before the Cle Elum city limits. We were probably 85 miles from Seattle. It took 10.3 gallons to fill the 11.9 gallon tank. We'd been averaging about 44 mpg when we pulled into the Shell station. We could have gone another 70 miles, or so, but neither one of us knew that at the time.

We were passing 56 mpg when the steep mountains before Yakima dropped us down to the high 40's.

We drove from Cle Elum to Zillah, took a detour through Zillah to try to find the church with the statue of Godzilla (God Zillah - get it?) and got lost in the surrounding wine country, and got back to Seattle - almost 260 miles - on three bars.

I woke up this morning remembering the sound of a bell - the single, metallic, mechanical clang of a bell. Was it a dream?

Lunch at El Ranchito, in Zillah, Washington, has been a tradition in my family for almost twenty years. We never go as a family anymore, though. Today, Phillip and I are taking the Prius on its first drive over the mountains. El Ranchito was better before it caught on with the tourists, but the food is still wonderful.

I wasn't quick enough to post one of my better anagrams. The word was nibbled. I came up with Nights in Bora Bora lure enchanted dreamers. but sam beat me to the post.

Last night, the Trois Couleurs trilogy became my favorite film(s).

Here's a quick study guide:

Blue is liberty.
In Bleu, Julie doesn't see a stooped-over old woman struggling to get a bottle into a recycling bin because she's lost in her own thoughts.
Julie carries a box marked "Blanco" through a Paris market. A man in blue passes to her left, while a woman in red passes to her right.

White is equality.
In Blanc, Karol sees a stooped-over old man struggling to get a bottle into a recycling bin and smiles cruelly.
In the bathroom of Karol's brother's house, there is a blue cup next to a white toothpaste tube, which is next to a red cup.

Red is fraternity.
In Rouge, Valentine sees a stooped-over old woman struggling to get a bottle into a recycling bin and helps her.
On a fashion runway, Valentine, dressed in blue, passes to left of a white chandelier while a model in red passes on the right.

As of this morning, I have 25 acronyms at Blogstop. There are 13 players behind me, and 14 players ahead of me. I haven't posted anything today. I think I've pretty much established myself as a serious player. It's time to slow down a bit - let inspiration be more of motivator than obligation.

The alarm clock got me out of bed this morning, and I sat on the couch, trying to wake up, but mostly trying to remember what day of the week it is. That's kind of bad. What may be worse, though, is that I figured out that today is Wednesday by remembering that I watched Queer Eye For The Straight Guy last night.

Is that a bad sign when I orient myself by remembering television schedules? Why didn't I place today by remembering that yesterday was election day, and that I dropped our ballots in the mail on my way to work? Actually, though, Queer Eye is the only TV show I regularly watch now. When the new season starts, I'll return to watching The Gilmore Girls and 24, but there are nights that I don't watch television at all.

I don't think TV is evil, but on the other hand, I could easily live without it.

Just when I begin to lose faith in the internet, something cool like City Creator comes along.

I had intended to write more last night, about last weekend, but I just wasn't motivated. I'd thought about my entry on the bus ride home - I had this whole essay planned out about friendship and the positive feeling that comes from conflicts in ones social calendar - but by the time I sat down to actually write it down, all of my inspiration had gone.

I had a great weekend. We took Craig out for pizza on his birthday on Saturday. On Sunday, we had a conflict in our schedule, so I went to writers' group, while Phillip went to Salena's with Debbie and June. I am lucky to have so many great friends.

After a couple of hours surfing the web this morning, I got on a kick of visiting automobile manufacturers' official web sites. I decided that the Hummer® site is the best example of a web site fitting the product. Every page is unnecessarily huge and bloated. The front page, for example, loads a massive Flash™ file just to show you a static photo of a H2 parked in a carport. A jpeg with javascript rollovers could have achieved the same effect for a lot less bandwidth. (I hate Flash™-only web sites. They violate the basic principle of what the internet was designed to be.)

My favorite feature of the Hummer® web site is the pages that start off with a nice landscape photo. The Hummer® logo appears over the photo along with enormous numerals telling you what percentage of the Flash™ file has loaded. Then, as the Flash™ file loads, a huge dark bar fills up the top half of the nice landscape photo until, as the file reaches 100%, half the landscape is obliterated. Hmmm... Hummer® wiping out nature... What's the message here?