Say Hello To My Little Friend

He has joined my other friends up on the curios shelf in my kitchen.

Happy Halloween

The goblins will get ya if ya don't watch out!!


The Skeleton Dance (1929), a Silly Symphonies Cartoon

Happy Halloween

(photo by Tara Shannon)

For your Halloween pleasure, a re-post from September 5, 2007:

The Chair

I found it in the back of an antique store on Newport Avenue in Ocean Beach. It was a rocking chair but not like anyone I had ever seen before. It was so un-rocking-chair-like that at first I did not even notice it was a rocking chair. It was unique enough for me to take a closer look at it. What it looked like was a church pew or a high backed bench that had been cut down and then put on runners. It was small but at the same time very massive looking. It was made out of oak and very heavy. The tag on it said it was at least 150 years old. It was too weird looking for me so I did not sit in it.

Right next to it sat an old Morris chair that had recently been re-upholstered in a light knobby tweed fabric. I sat in it and knew instantly that I wanted it. Although the fabric was wrong for the piece I knew that small problem could be easily fixed. I looked at the price tag and my dream of owning it vanished as quickly as a puff of smoke. No way I could afford that price.

I walked away but could not get either chair out of my mind so when I found my sister I took her back to look at them. She sat in the rocking chair and I again sat in the Morris chair. About 10 seconds later she got up from the rocking chair and told me to sit in it and walked away. I sat down and immediately felt anger and "heard" someone repeatedly say, "Get out of my chair."

The voice was very querulous and insistent. I looked at my sister, screwed up my face, hunched my back, and started rocking furiously, mocking whoever was talking to me. I was annoyed by the fact that this spirit was telling me to get out of its chair and thought, "It isn't your chair anymore. You're dead."

I sat in the chair longer than I really wanted in order to show the spirit that it was not going to push me around and then got up and walked over to where my sister was looking at some object saying, "Well, that was creepy."

Her head spun around to look at me and she blurted out, "That's what I thought!"

She had also felt the spirit and wanted to see if what she felt was real so she asked me to sit in the chair without saying anything about her own experience. I then told her to sit in the Morris chair so she could see how a nice chair felt. We took turns sitting in the Morris chair and agreed that the Morris chair was comfortable and felt soothing. It felt nothing like the rocking chair. It took a long time for me to shake off the icky feeling of that rocking chair but after awhile I felt normal again but at the same time I felt uncomfortable and could not stop thinking about the chair.

Flash forward to Denver a couple of days after we had returned from San Diego. My husband and I were at my sister's house. It was nighttime and I was in the middle of a dream. I had variations of this dream for three or four days by this time and had attributed them to the emotional stress I was under. My sister was in the dream with me and we were both being tortured. There was a man in the dream who was holding me and, as I struggled to get away from him, told me if I did not stop he would cut my sister's throat. Standing across from me was the same man with a knife to my sister's throat. As I continued to struggle desperately to get away from the him and over to my sister, the other him slashed the knife across my sister's neck. I woke up thinking, "That wasn't my dream."

Whenever I have a nightmare I wake up with my heart pounding and my mind racing from the adrenaline rush that the dream has created . It takes a few minutes for my body and mind to disconnect from what has happened. For me, coming to full consciousness after a nightmare is like struggling to the surface of a swimming pool after you have stayed under too long. These dreams were not like that since I would wake up instantly. I felt no fear only a sense of uneasiness. I also noticed that instead of being inside the dream, like I normally am, I felt I was off to the side watching. Then there was the color in the dreams. I dream in Technicolor, bright, rich, intense colors. Colors that look as if they would stain your hands if you tried to touch them. These dreams were also in color but they were more like the color of 1970's era T.V situation comedy- subdued and almost washed out.

That is when I wondered if the spirit from the chair had attached itself to me and was punishing me for mocking it. That thought creeped me out and, just in case this was true, I mentally spoke to the spirit telling it to stop the dreams and to go away. I then said a prayer that I had learned as a little girl:

Angel of God,
My Guardian Dear
To whom God's love commits me here.

Ever this night be at my side
To light and guard
To rule and guide.
Amen.


I still felt uneasy and decided to do a meditation that would help me to surround myself in a ball of white light. After I did this I expanded the light to include my husband, then expanded it again to fill the room we were in. I then decided to fill my sister's whole house with light as not to leave the spirit there after we had gone home. I mentally went from room to room filling the house with light. When I was finished I felt safe and relaxed enough to fall back to sleep.

Since that night I have not had anymore torture dreams.

A Tale Of Two Dogs

I.
A few days ago my sister called me while she was walking down a New York City street to tell me what had happened to her moments earlier. As she was walking she noticed a man with a dog walking toward her and realized, first, that the dog was a Britney and, second, that it looked exactly like my dog Kate. She smiled at him. Then the the strangest thing happened, first the dog smiled back, then the dog and my sister locked eyes and stared at each as the moved closer together. Their eyes stayed locked as they passed by each other and each turned his/her head to continue looking at one another. Then, at the same time, both stopped walking, each looking back at the other one. The dog's owner had observed the whole thing and told my sister that it was as if the dog knew her. My sister felt the same thing and knew she had to call me.

II.
I thought I was getting over Kate's death since I had reached the point were I understood that putting her down was the loving thing to do. I do miss her but I thought I was done grieving for her until last night. I was reading Terry Irwin's book about her life with Steve Irwin and had reached the chapter where she writes about going to wake up her seventeen year old dog and then realizing that the old girl had died during the night. I started bawling like a baby. Grief is like that I suppose.

Paraskavidekatriaphobia

"When you learn to pronounce it, you're cured!"
-Donald E. Dossey


Paraskavidekatriaphobia
-A unreasonable fear of this day or date.




Jasonvoorheesfranchiseaphobia
-A reasonable fear that they will never, never stop remaking this movie

Signs Of The Apocalypse

Today's weather forecast for Goodland, KS:

The Trouble With Ghostly Cold Spots, Vampires, And Zombies

Not in the mood to write anything today so I thought I would direct you to an interesting article I read on the Skeptical Inquirer website discussing ghosts, vampires, and zombies. First up, SI explains that there may be an perfectly good reason for some of those cold spots found in some haunted houses. Next, a discusion on the inconsistency of movie ghosts being able to walk on solid ground while also being able to walk through walls. Then, proof that vampires are not real. Finally, why zombies are not really the living dead. They are zombies- they're just not dead.

Go here to read the article.

The Chair

I found it in the back of an antique store on Newport Avenue in Ocean Beach. It was a rocking chair but not like anyone I had ever seen before. It was so un-rocking-chair-like that at first I did not even notice it was a rocking chair. It was unique enough for me to take a closer look at it. What it looked like was a church pew or a high backed bench that had been cut down and then put on runners. It was small but at the same time very massive looking. It was made out of oak and very heavy. The tag on it said it was at least 150 years old. It was too weird looking for me so I did not sit in it.

Right next to it sat an old Morris chair that had recently been re-upholstered in a light knobby tweed fabric. I sat in it and knew instantly that I wanted it. Although the fabric was wrong for the piece I knew that small problem could be easily fixed. I looked at the price tag and my dream of owning it vanished as quickly as a puff of smoke. No way I could afford that price.

I walked away but could not get either chair out of my mind so when I found my sister I took her back to look at them. She sat in the rocking chair and I again sat in the Morris chair. About 10 seconds later she got up from the rocking chair and told me to sit in it and walked away. I sat down and immediately felt anger and "heard" someone repeatedly say, "Get out of my chair."

The voice was very querulous and insistent. I looked at my sister, screwed up my face, hunched my back, and started rocking furiously, mocking whoever was talking to me. I was annoyed by the fact that this spirit was telling me to get out of its chair and thought, "It isn't your chair anymore. You're dead."

I sat in the chair longer than I really wanted in order to show the spirit that it was not going to push me around and then got up and walked over to where my sister was looking at some object saying, "Well, that was creepy."

Her head spun around to look at me and she blurted out, "That's what I thought!"

She had also felt the spirit and wanted to see if what she felt was real so she asked me to sit in the chair without saying anything about her own experience. I then told her to sit in the Morris chair so she could see how a nice chair felt. We took turns sitting in the Morris chair and agreed that the Morris chair was comfortable and felt soothing. It felt nothing like the rocking chair. It took a long time for me to shake off the icky feeling of that rocking chair but after awhile I felt normal again but at the same time I felt uncomfortable and could not stop thinking about the chair.

Flash forward to Denver a couple of days after we had returned from San Diego. My husband and I were at my sister's house. It was nighttime and I was in the middle of a dream. I had variations of this dream for three or four days by this time and had attributed them to the emotional stress I was under. My sister was in the dream with me and we were both being tortured. There was a man in the dream who was holding me and, as I struggled to get away from him, told me if I did not stop he would cut my sister's throat. Standing across from me was the same man with a knife to my sister's throat. As I continued to struggle desperately to get away from the him and over to my sister, the other him slashed the knife across my sister's neck. I woke up thinking, "That wasn't my dream."

Whenever I have a nightmare I wake up with my heart pounding and my mind racing from the adrenaline rush that the dream has created . It takes a few minutes for my body and mind to disconnect from what has happened. For me, coming to full consciousness after a nightmare is like struggling to the surface of a swimming pool after you have stayed under too long. These dreams were not like that since I would wake up instantly. I felt no fear only a sense of uneasiness. I also noticed that instead of being inside the dream, like I normally am, I felt I was off to the side watching. Then there was the color in the dreams. I dream in Technicolor, bright, rich, intense colors. Colors that look as if they would stain your hands if you tried to touch them. These dreams were also in color but they were more like the color of 1970's era T.V situation comedy- subdued and almost washed out.

That is when I wondered if the spirit from the chair had attached itself to me and was punishing me for mocking it. That thought creeped me out and, just in case this was true, I mentally spoke to the spirit telling it to stop the dreams and to go away. I then said a prayer that I had learned as a little girl:

Angel of God,
My Guardian Dear
To whom God's love commits me here.

Ever this night be at my side
To light and guard
To rule and guide.
Amen.

I still felt uneasy and decided to do a meditation that would help me to surround myself in a ball of white light. After I did this I expanded the light to include my husband, then expanded it again to fill the room we were in. I then decided to fill my sister's whole house with light as not to leave the spirit there after we had gone home. I mentally went from room to room filling the house with light. When I was finished I felt safe and relaxed enough to fall back to sleep.

Since that night I have not had anymore torture dreams.

Cheesman Park

( Cheesman Pavillion with the open land behind it that was destined to become the Denver Botanic Gardens)

When I look back on growing up and living in Denver I see that I spent most of my life there in the Capital Hill section of the city. I've lived on Gilpin Street between 14th Ave. and Colfax. On 16th Ave just off Lafayette Street. At the corner of 12th Ave and Humbolt Street. On Pearl Street between 13th and 14th Avenues- south of the Safeway store. On Lincoln Street between 11th and 12th Avenues. On 14th Avenue between Ogden Street and Emerson Street, almost catycorner from Morey Junior High School. In an apartment building at the corner of Colfax and Vine Street. On Elizabeth Street twice; one between 11th and 12th Avenues, right behind Stevens Elementary School, and once south of 11th Ave right next to the reservoir that backs up to Congress Park.

All but one of these points is within ten blocks of Cheesman Park. When my family lived on Elizabeth Street behind Stevens I walked through the park both to and from Morey Junior High when I was a student there. I've played in the children's playground at the west side of the park near 11th Avenue and climbed the trees surrounding that playground. I've ridden my bike and jogged around the park. I've rested in and climbed on the roof of the wooden gazebo at the north end of the park. I've been to picnics there several times. I've been in the park in Summer, Fall, Winter, and Spring. And I've know there were bodies buried on its grounds since I was a kid.

Cheesman Park began as Denver's first city cemetery. By the 1890's it had become so rundown and neglected the city decide to turn it into a park. People were told to remove their dead and the remaining unclaimed bodies were removed by an undertaker hired by the city to do so. Only the man they hired did not do a good job of it. Heck, he did wost than a bad job of it and anywhere from 2,000 to 4,200 bodies were left behind when the leveling of the grounds was completed in 1907. In the years since the park was officially opened there have been stories told about the ghosts of the people left behind walking the park at night and a feeling of sadness and despair blanketing sections of the park during the day. It is also said that at night during a full moon you can sometimes seen the outline of the unmarked graves in the open space near the south end of the park.

My supernatural encounter in the park happen when I was around 13 or 14 years old. I was hanging out in the Pavilion one summer day when I decided to wander into the pine trees that line the eastern edge of the park . On the other side of those trees is the Denver Botanic Gardens and separating the Gardens from the park is a tall wrought iron fence. What I did not know at the time is there is a gate in that fence right where the Japanese garden is now. That day I stepped out of the trees right in front of the gate. (This was within a year of the completion of the Conservatory and the laying out of the gardens was still being implemented.) When I looked through the gate I saw the Conservatory rising in the near distance above ground that was covered in tall grass and weeds. I thought it was kind of interesting since I had never had the opportunity to see the Gardens from this angle before and stood there enjoying the view.

Then I started feeling uncomfortable. Something was wrong but I was not sure just what. I looked over my shoulder and could see the white pillars of the Pavilion through the trees. The air was heavy and seemed to press down on me. The longer I stood their the more uncomfortable I got. What was wrong? I listened and then realized I could not hear a thing. I was surrounded by an eerie "dead" quiet. It was as if I was standing inside a glass box and cut off from the sounds around me. This scared me so much I turned and quickly bolted back through the trees and on to the park lawn that lay just on the other side them. I stood there, my heart racing from adrenaline. The air here was lighter and I could hear wind in the trees, car engines, and the voices of people playing volleyball over in the open area. I turned around and looked back through the trees at the fence. There was no way I was going back in there again.

Now, what I did not know at the time is that Cheesman Park is not the only piece of land that is part of the original cemetery, the Botanic Gardens, Congress Park, and the reservoir are also part of it.

(More ghost stories about the park here.)

Baby You Can Drive My Car

Went to a car show over the weekend. There was quite a variety of cars on display. Everything from a 1928 Ford Model A to a 2007 Ford Shelby Cobra GT500. There were British Triumphs- a TR3 and a couple of TR7s. Whoever decided to put all of them together did not do the TR7s a favor. The TR7 is an ugly car which appears even uglier when sitting right next to a TR3. There were a lot of 1960-1970's muscle cars; Chevy Camaros and Pontiac Firebirds mostly with one Pontiac GTO Judge. I only remember this car because Paul Revere and the Raiders were pitchmen for it in a television commerical.

The two cars that really caught my eye were a 1957 Plymouth Belvedere (that thing is a boat) and a 1963 Mercury Monterey with the Breezeway Rear Window. First of all, this car's slanted three section rear window (close-up here) seemed very stylish to me when I was a kid. Second of all, the fact that you could roll that center window down any time you wanted to had nothing to do with my firm conviction that this was the car for me. Of course riding around in the rain with that window down would be nice though.

Two entries under the "others" categories included a Western Auto store Western Flyer bicycle (the one in the show was green) and some one's tricked out riding lawn mower. The lawn mower's gearshift knob had been removed and in its place was a Bud Light beer tap handle.

Now for the part that causes this story to be listed under supernatural. There were also trucks, including a 1945 Ford pick-up that had not been restored yet. The only thing that had been replaced or repaired was the bench seat in the cab. You got to start somewhere. Another one of the unrestored trucks was a circa late 1970's Chevy Silverado. I walked around this truck and as I walked past the passenger side door my eyes were focused on both the cab and the hood of the truck. Just off center in my vision I could see a young man sitting in the passenger side of the cab. He was in his late teens, maybe early twenties, sitting stiffly and glowering out the windshield. He did not look at me. He had brown hair and was wearing a dark color baseball cap pulled low over his forehead and a black t-shirt. When I turned my head to look directly at him he was no longer there.

I found the whole thing interesting and wondered if what I had seen was a ghost or if what I had seen was just left over energy provided by a young man who once had sat in the cab in a very agitated state. We do leave behind energy as anyone who has ever walked a room where two people have just finished an intense argument know. You know something has happened even if both people deny it.

In Life There Are No Coincidences

My husband was out walking the dogs on the road up the hill just west of town this morning. He saw a rectangular piece of paper on the ground and stopped to pick it up. It was an bank check with the account owner's address printed in the upper left hand corner. The last line read, Holly, Colorado 81047. Holly, Colorado where a tornado hit the day before yesterday. Holly, Colorado which is almost 200 miles away from us.

Emma Sightings

I took the dogs up to the cemetery for a run the other night. We have just started going back up there regularly after bypassing it most of the winter. The snow has pretty much disappeared with a few small mounds left in some shaded areas and wet and muddy spots on some of the roadways. I was walking along the back side of the cemetery near a big plowed field when something unusual happened. The dogs were running back and forth searching for anything that might be interesting to them. I noticed that a small funeral arrangement had been blown about 20 feet into the field and now lay on top of the dirt. Kate also noticed it and trotted over to where it lay. When she got there she nosed out that it wasn't anything worth while and ran back to the cemetery crossing a little bit in front of me.

A movement just beyond her caught my eye and I glanced up the road and saw a half-grown Britteny puppy run between one of the tombstones and a large juniper bush. I waited for the dog to reappear on the other side of the bush but it did not. I was a little surprised to see a Britteny up there and looked around to find its owner. I didn't see anyone else nor did I see a car parked anywhere near by. I thought that maybe the dog I had seen had been Duke but when he ran by me a few minutes later I knew that it was not. Duke is full grown and has the long legs and darker color markings of a full grown Britteny. The dog I had seen was definitely a puppy with the chubbier body, shorter legs, and faded coloring of a puppy. That's when I realized the dog I had seen must have been Emma.

I did not understand why she was appearing as a puppy but after I thought about it I wondered if it was because she had been up here with me before. This could be true because there have been times that I have seen what I assumed was Duke running in one part of the cemetery and then when I looked again he would be gone. I would ask my husband where he was and he would point him out in a different part of the grounds. I was always surprised by how quickly Duke could get from one section of the cemetery to another. Maybe all those times I thought I was seeing Duke I was actually seeing Emma. Maybe this time she wanted to be sure I knew it was her.

Go Astral Girl

Soaring high in the sky...
-Astroboy

I woke up in the wee hours of the morning. You know, that time of day when a soft blanket of stillness and quiet muffles all sound. I was in bed lying on my left side with my knees slightly drawn up to my belly but at the same time a part of me was standing above my body just behind my back. As I lay there I realized that the me lying on the bed had no weight and could not feel the mattress underneath her. Before my mind had a chance to absorb what was happening I felt the standing me spin and drop. It was the same feeling I got as a kid whenever I lost my balance while sitting in a chair tipped onto its back legs. That body falling backward feeling and then dizziness as I tried to recover my balance. In a split-second the standing me was gone and the me lying on the bed felt heavy as the weight of my body pushed against the mattress. It was like being on a fast moving down elevator right at the moment it stops moving. Your body feels like it is sinking as the full effect of gravity hits it. I could feel where my right ankle, left elbow and hip pressed against the sheet underneath me.

I thought,"That was strange," and fell back to sleep.

Have You Ever Been To Las Vegas?

Not this Vegas. The one in New Mexico. We stopped there on our way to Albuquerque last Thursday. I am sure you figured out by now I was away from home for the last ten days. Anyway, we stopped there because we needed a map of Albuquerque and saw a sign on the Interstate that said there was a Tourist Information Center in the town. When we got there we found out it was housed in the old train depot right next to a dilapidated old railroad hotel.

As I pulled the car into a parking space that faced the south side of the hotel I glanced up at one of the windows on the second floor and got the impression that a woman was standing there looking down at me. I turned my attention back to my driving and after I stopped the car and put it in park I looked up at the window again. I could not see anyone but I still had the feeling someone was watching me. I kept looking at the window as I climbed out of the car and turned to ask my husband if he could see anyone but he was all ready out of the car and halfway to the depot building. I followed him. As I walked across the lot I still felt I was being watched and so I kept turning to look up at the window where I saw the woman until I reached the door to the depot. I found the whole thing confusing because I knew enough railroad history to know that most guests were men in these old hotels. I could not imagine why I was seeing the ghost of a woman. When I got inside tourist office I found out the hotel had been a Harvey House.

Fred Harvey opened his first Harvey House in 1875. Harvey had worked in restaurants as a young man and then spent the next 30 years working for railroad companies. One thing Harvey hated about rail travel (this was before dinning cars were invented) was the food served in road houses at rail stops. These "restaurants" were filthy, served over priced badly prepared food and provided terrible service. Road houses were also so chaotic that most of the time the majority of the people waiting to be served did not get any food before the "train leaving" whistle sounded. Harvey knew he could do better and made a deal with the Atchison, Topeka,and Santa Fe Railway to build and run restaurants at all the major stops on the line.

His restaurants were a success but ten years after opening the first Harvey House he decided to replace his men waiters with women. This was because the men were causing more problems then they were worth by showing up to work drunk, or not at all, and getting into fights with the customers. Harvey decide he would hire and train young women to work in his restaurants. He described the women he wanted as, "...young woman, 18 to 30 years of age, of good character, attractive and intelligent." To make sure he attracted the refined women he wanted to work for him, he also provide housing. At some point Harvey also decided to build hotels around his restaurants and in 1904 he build the La Castaneda in Las Vegas, New Mexico. The women who worked in the Harvey House restaurant lived in rooms on the second floor of the hotel. (This is what the woman at the TIC told me. Their website says the Harvey Girls lived here) The La Castaneda's Harvey House phase ended in 1948. The hotel stayed in business after that but by 2002 only the bar remained open. Then that closed and the hotel passed through a couple of owners. The owner before the present one has the second floor gutted and then redesigned the space into apartments. That didn't fly and the hotel now sits largely empty with the present owner the only tenant.

The fact that it was a Harvey House may explain why I saw the ghost of a woman. She must have lived, or at least, worked there in life. How she died or why she is still there is mystery though.

Emma Sightings (part two)

Soon after the charka balancing it was time to sit down with Linda Lee. As I settled into my chair I caught, out of the corner of my eye, a flash of movement down by the floor on the right side of my chair. As I turned to look down I wondered who had brought a dog into the building. I was surprisingly not surprised to find nothing there. I turned back to Linda Lee and asked, "Is there a dog with me?"
She smiled and asked me, "Who do you think it is?"
"Emma?"
"Yes."
Then she told me Emma would always be with me and I felt both sad and comforted by this statement. I still can't believe how deeply an animal could burrow into my heart but at the same time I can't deny that Emma did just that.

Five days later as I was driving home after the big snowstorm I had Emma visit me again. I was out on the eastern plains of Colorado thinking about her when all of a sudden an image of her popped into my mind. It was almost like a vision. The image was so clear and sharp it was like looking at a 3D photo. The instant the image appeared I felt a great sense of loss and regret and started crying. I felt so alone.

When I got home and drove the car into the garage Duke came out to greet me. When I climbed out of the car he was standing by the back end of it and staring at me as if he had never seen me before. I called his name and he came up to sniff at me but did not greet me with the tail-wagging joy he has shown all the other times I came home from a trip. My dog did not seem to remember me. It was as if he had forgotten my scent. After a few days he seemed to warm up to me again but he still wasn't acting the way he did before I left. He was hesitant and timid where as before he had shown great confidence in himself and his surrounding.

One night he came into the bedroom to go to bed. When he got to his empty bed he stopped and looked at it and then at me the way he does when Kate is sleeping in it instead of her own bed. That look means he wants me to make Kate go get in her own bed. He stood there looking from me to his bed until I finally got out of my bed and went to his bed. I leaned down and patted it while telling him it was OK for him to sleep in it. After I patted it a couple of times he got in and curled himself into a ball and went to sleep.

It wasn't until last Saturday that I noticed his face looked different than the way I remembered it being. As I stared at it I got a mental image of him standing at back of the car and could see that his face had looked the same way that day, too. Now I understood his behavior. Emma was no longer with him. The way he had been acting since the day I got back from Denver was the way he would sometimes act when we first got him. He was only hesitant and timid on the days when I looked into his face and did not see Emma looking back at me.

It has been a year and 24 days since Emma died and a year and two days since Duke came into our lives. I knew that Emma was only with Duke to help him become a part of our family and I guess Emma thinks her job is done. And I think the reason Duke would not get into his bed that night was because he did see another dog there, Emma. Emma trying to show us she was now separate from Duke because it was time for her to leave him. Duke no longer needed her. Knowing that Emma is not with Duke any more makes me feel sad but it does not make me feel as if my heart had been torn out of my body once more. This is good to know.

Emma Sightings (part one)

One of the reasons I went to Denver St. Patrick's Day weekend was to attend the Metaphysical Fair at the Merchandise Mart. Three things were interesting this year. First, more and more "normal" people and less and less "dark" people were cruising the aisles. I don't think I saw one person who looked like she or he had arrived fresh from a Black Sabbath concert. Instead the people I noticed looked like the kind of people who did most of their shopping at Park Meadows Mall. The second interesting thing is that I got my chakras balanced. The third is that my dog Emma showed up there.

The first thing my sister and I did when we arrived was to sign up for a reading with our Spiritual Adviser. Since we like to schedule our readings one right after the other we did not find two consecutive spots open until late afternoon. While we waited we cruised the aisles ourselves but managed to keep from buying all the things that caught our eye. Everything from books, jewelry, CD's, metaphysical workshops and lectures, clothes, teas, incense, doodads, crystals, oils, candles, soaps, and artwork were available. There were a few free things going on and my sister and I got in the line for chakra balancing. The line was long even with four chairs set up and four people working.

When it was my turn I sat in the next open chair while a very gentle women attempted to balance my chakras. As she worked she talked to me. She seemed to be confused by the condition my first three chakras were in but then said, "Oh, I see, you are very tired."

And the second I heard her words I knew she was correct. I was tired but not so much in a physical way but more in a soul way. Then she reached my heart chakra and said, "Your heart is scarred."

I felt my insides collapse as an overwhelming feeling of sadness engulf me. I knew the words she was speaking were the truth; I was heart scarred. How, with the life path I was on, could this not be true at this point in my life?

As she worked her way through balancing my chakras I knew that my sitting in her chair was not an accident. There are moments in your life when you make a profound connection with a complete stranger and I knew this was one of those moments. As she talked to me about things that were the true about myself but that I thought no one else could see, I knew that my being there with her was a gift given to me (By who? Me, my angels, my guides?) to help move me to the next step in my spiritual journey through life.

It's Astounding, Time Is Fleeting

And another week gets by me. What I have been doing since last Monday:

Monday, Feb. 27th- worked at the library. The temperature reached 74F (23.3C). It was a beautiful day, which everyone who came in the library just had to tell me about. After work I took a long walk on the river. Who wants to stay indoors on a day like that?

Tuesday, Feb. 28th- temperature gets up to 81F (27.2C). That's right 81F (27.2C)! I open all the windows in the house and spend the day outside watering trees and bushes, walking, and enjoying the sun and warmth.

Wednesday, Mar. 1st- temperature only reaches 65F (18.3) but I still spend most of the day outside. These warm day are not ones to be wasted by sitting in front of a computer down in my basement.

Thursday, Mar. 2nd- my niece's 16th birthday and my husband and I drive to Denver to help her celebrate. We go to dinner at Benihana's, a Japanese style restaurant that my niece loves. The place is always packed and the main draw is the show the chef at your table puts on. My husband called it "Hooters for families." No one goes to either restaurant for the quality of the food served. We still have a great time.

Friday, Mar. 3rd- my husband and I drive up to Fort Collins and spend the day with his father. Always good to see him. When we get back my niece has just arrived home from school with a friend. She asks if she can spend the night at her friend's house (We stayed to take care of my niece while her mother and step-father spend the weekend in Las Vegas) and I say it's fine. She then asks if they can get a ride and my husband says he will drive them. Now that my niece is sixteen she can drive as long as there is an adult in the car with her so my husband asks her if she would like to drive instead of him. She of course jumped at the chance.

Saturday, Mar. 4th- spend the day shopping. One of the things we are buying is a new vacuum cleaner. My old one stopped working about a week ago. Note to anyone with a vacuum cleaner: First, if it seems like your vacuum cleaner motor is getting louder, then it probably is. I started wearing shooting ear muffs when I vacuumed. Second, if it seems like the vacuum is not picking up dirt and debris like it should, then it probably isn't. Both of these things are signs that the vacuum cleaner is dying. We stopped by Sears and bought a new vacuum as we made our shopping rounds.

Later we went to Whole Foods to pick-up something for dinner. Whole Foods bills itself as "the world's largest retailer of natural and organic foods." I hated the place. The food is good but it is also over priced. The store was a sensory overload for me. There are too many high power lights hanging from the ceiling with most of them positioned so that they are blinding you as you walk around. The entrance into the store is open (no doors) with high power fans used to keep the heat inside the building. Those babies are loud. Then they have the ubiquitous music tape playing just a little too loud so it can be heard over the fans. I don't know if it was the building or the people in there but the energy inside the store was chaotic. It was like being locked inside a small room right after a Super Ball had been thrown at one of the walls. I couldn't get out of that store fast enough.


Sunday, Mar 5th- Today we visited a couple of my husband's almost relatives. These are the people who are friends of his family and who he has known all his life. My niece came with us and acted as our chauffeur. It's kind of nice to have someone else do the city driving. I had to point out one stop sign and remind her that when pulling away from a stoplight or stop sign she did not have to use warp speed. All in all she is doing a good job.

One family friend we visited is about 65 and still lives in the house he grew-up in. The house was built in 1937 in a Spanish style. The front window is in the shape of a triangle. A very large triangle. The upstairs bathroom is in an Art Deco style and had both a shower and a tub. The tub had been set into the floor. The shower door was made of glass wrapped in chrome with the upper quarter of the door made up of chrome bars. The upper half of one wall of the shower (which faced into the bathroom) was also made of glass.

Since my niece had never been in the house before I took her on a tour. We walked though all the rooms in the house and when we stepped into "Dave's" bedroom I had the feeling we were not alone. Dave is what used to be called "a change of life baby" and was born nineteen years after his only brother. Dave's father died when he was young and for most of his life he was raised just by his mother. I have been told she was very protective of him. The room we were in used to be his parents bedroom. Family is very important to Dave and the walls of his room are covered with photos. There are a couple of his mother when she was young and as I stood looking at one of them I thought, "What a beautiful woman." At that instant I felt like I had been wrapped in a blanket of love and I knew the presence in the room was Dave's mother. I told my niece that I thought Dave's mother was in the room and she said she thought so too because she had felt someone was in the basement with us when we were down there.

When I told Dave that I thought his mother was still in the house he was surprised and a little shocked. I did not want him to be frightened so I told him that what I felt was very loving and...I could not think of the other word I was looking for and when I hesitated my niece said, "protective." That was it, protective. Dave is talking about selling his house and my niece and I said we both would buy it in a second if we had the means to do so. My niece was a little worried about the house having a ghost but I told her I thought that where ever Dave went his mother would go with him.

Monday, Mar. 6th- we drove home today and one of the first things I did was get the new vacuum out of its box and vacuum the living room carpet. The big surprise was how quiet the thing was and the second surprise was how much stuff it picked-up.

Tuesday, Mar. 7th- temperature now 77F (25C)and I am done for the day. Tomorrow it is suppose to snow.

Angel Story (3)

When I was eleven-years-old my family lived on the old Fort Logan Army Base but by the time we moved there is was a mental hospital. My father worked in the Power Plant and we lived in what was once a major's house on the southwest end of the parade grounds. The hospital sat at the east end of the parade grounds on the main road into the facility. The hospital did not interest me for the longest time because my brother, sister, and I had the many older buildings on the grounds to explore. We managed to get inside quite a few of the empty buildings including the old nurse's dormitory and the house next door to us. We knew we had to see that one after we found out there was a ballroom on the third floor.

Then one day my attention turned to the hospital. I don't know why, it wasn't that interesting, just a bland, boring, collection of shoe boxes attached end-to-end. The main entrance opened into the middle of a long hallway. When I went in the hallway seemed kind of creepy because there was not one person in sight and the building seemed abnormally quiet. I stood just inside the door wondering which way to go next; left, right, or back out the door. I chose right.

The end of the main hallway connected at a right angle to another hallway and when I reached that hallway I turned down it. As I made the turn I looked back down the main hallway and saw another girl, looking back at me, turning down the connecting hallway at the other end of the main hallway. I stopped and took a step back into the main hallway and as I did the other little girl stopped and took a step back into the main hallway. We stood sideways to each other and looked at each other over our respective shoulders. I was confused because the little girl looked like me. I thought maybe I was looking into a mirror so I turned to face the little girl and at the same time the little girl turned to face me. I started walking back down the hall and at the same moment the other little girl started walking toward me. I took another five steps forward and stopped. The other little girl took five steps forward at the same time I did and stopped at the same time I stopped.

We stood there looking at each other and again I wondered if she was me but at the same time I was sure I wasn't looking into a mirror. Even though she looked like me and even though she was wearing a short sleeve blouse, shorts, and sneakers like me her clothes were slightly different from mine. I was just getting ready to take another step forward when the other little girl turned around and started walking back up the hallway and then disappeared around the corner. For some reason this frightened me more than anything that had happened before and I quickly walked to the entrance door and out of the building. When I got outside I started running and did not stop until I was halfway home.

Years later I went back to Fort Logan and walked around the grounds just to see how much of it had changed since I had lived there and I found myself in front of the hospital. The entrance looked just the same as it did when I was a child so I decided to go inside and walked through the door and into the main hallway. I looked to my right and saw the connecting hallway just as I remembered it. When I looked to the left I felt my brain tip forward and then backward. There was no hallway. There was a wall about five feet to left of the door. A solid wall that looked like it had been there since the rest of the building had been put up.

That day has stayed with me and I still wonder about it.

FREE! Extra Post Three FREE!

Remember when I wrote that I thought my old dog Emma seemed to be with my new dog Duke? Well, I think she is still here with him. He still has all his Emma traits and he still looks like her most of the time. I've noticed whenever we are in Denver visiting my sister Duke looks the most like Emma. He was comfortable in her house very quickly and the from the first day there he played with my sister's dogs as if he had know them all his life.

I tried to take a photo of Duke on one of the days I thought he looked the most like Emma and was surprised when the dog in the photo looked nothing like the dog sitting in front of me. To make sure I wasn't imagining this I took my camera with me the next time I visited my sister. I took photos of Duke and showed them to her. (Since I have a digital camera I could show her the photos within seconds of taking them.) She was just as surprised as I had been when the dog in the photos looked different than the dog sitting in front of us.

He is doing so much better and is not nearly as skittish as he used to be. His tail wags pretty much non-stop now and he feels comfortable enough to work his charm on us whenever he wants something. At this point in his life he is a normal 18 month-old pup- except for the Emma thing.

Mekka Lekka Hi, Mekka Hiney Ho

-Jambi, the Genie on Pee-wee's Playhouse.

This has been a long, long week. Driving home from Denver was nerve racking because of the high winds. When we stopped at Limon, Co to walk the dogs my husband overheard some truckers say they thought the highway was going to be closed again because it was getting too dangerous to drive. They were wrong. Even though the trip home took a lot longer because of the winds we made it safely.

When we did reach town we found very little snow but signs that a storm had been through the area. The most interesting aftermath was the four inch wide snow/ice stripe down the northside of any telephone pole, street light, or tree that was in the direct path of the 30 to 50 mile-an-hour winds. We also learned that at least 200 people where stranded in town for the two days that the highways were closed. They put them up in the high school gym and in homes throughout town. The storm closed our schools and most business but the grocery store was opened so people could get food and the movie theater ran the movie Chicken Little to give people something to do while they waited for the highway to open.

Yesterday I worked all day at the library and had one of those "woooo" moments. A woman walked in and handed me one of our children's book and ask if it was over due. I flipped it open and saw it was stamped December 13th and told her this, wondering why she even asked. Looking kind of confused she said fine and then walked away. I closed the book and glanced down at the cover as I started to toss it into the book drop and froze with the book in my hand.

Last year, right after my brother-in-law's parents were killed, I told the story of opening a children's book and seeing the name of my brother-in-law's mother typed inside. Yesterday the same thing happened, only her name (really the author's name) was written across the front of the book. You may think this is not too strange since I do work at a library and I do check books in and out and you would be right except for two things. First, I am a substitute librarian and only work about 30 days spread though out the year. Second, we have about 500 children's books and most of those books are checked-out on Tuesdays and Thursdays during Story Hour. The way the four and five year olds pick out their books is to run over to stacks and just grab two book from somewhere off the shelves and then bring them over to the counter to be stamped. All the books checked out on Story Hour day usually come back in the following Tuesday or Thursday. So the chances of me being there when a book with my sister's mother-in-law's name on it is checked out or in are very slim. Maybe she was just saying hello.

Oh, and about Jambi the Genie- I had a disturbing dream the other night that I cannot remember much of except that Jambi was in it and protecting me. In the dream I did not realize it was Jambi until right before I woke up because, unlike in the show, he had a body and was not just a head in a box. I wonder what the heck that was all about.