Strange goings-on

I've had some strangeness going on over the past few days but I haven't had time to address the issues properly. First of all we have been working the store on an almost continuing fashion. Both of us were exhausted. Thursday night we came in had supper and I informed my wife that I was headed upstairs to bed. My wife decided she would stay up a while and catch up on the computer. I left our two dogs downstairs with my wife. Since her leg problem she has been using the separate Noah's room anyway. I must have really been out of it because I was asleep as soon as I hit the bed. However, at about 10pm (three hours after turning in) I was awake for a bathroom run. Then shortly after mid-night I was gently awakened by the motion of the bed. I lay there for a few minutes trying to figure what I was doing to cause the bed to gently rock back and forth. As I was laying perfectly still and I was still being rocked. This made no sense to me but I finally got up to see what was rocking the bed. Once off the bed the rocking could no longer be felt. I turned back in and discovered the rocking motion continued. I was pretty sleepy and must have simply gone back asleep. At around 4:15am I was again awakened by voices, muted, garbled, but no question voices. OK, My wife must be going to bed and is talking to the dogs. Last thing I remember thinking was "boy is she up late". I didn't awaken again until a quarter after 9:00am.So I had slept about 14 hours straight. Obviously I needed the sleep. I got up, got dressed, went downstairs only to see the stairway gate was in place and my older gray schnauzer looking up at me. Obviously my wife left the dogs downstairs. I replaced the gate and walked into the kitchen. My dogs wanted to be taken out; so I had the put on a coat, hat, heavy shoes, retrieve the leashes where I had stashed them the day before and take the mutts out. By the time I came back in, my wife was in the kitchen fixing breakfast. I chided her for being up so late and was quickly set straight. She turned about 11:30pm but as her leg was really bothering her , she had not taken the dogs out but left them blocked off in the downstairs. No wonder they wanted out so bad when I came down. I told her about the shaking bed and she reminded me that that use to happen infrequently in the past and apparently, with her, that explaination took care of it. True, there were times in the past when we were awakened by a rocking motion on the bed. As to the subunderstandable dialog I heard? Now that she had no explaination for. Then the very next night...

I finally got around to printing the Halloween pictures I took this past beggars night. Unfortunately there was nothing of paranormal interest on any of the shots. Funny how just 4 and 5 years ago, I had numerous strange artifacts show up in some of the photos, but the past 3 years have been zilch. I have used the same Cannon digital camera all of those years. I didn't use the film camera this year because I couldn't find it, but I did use it 4 of the 5 past years. I had artifacts on both the digital and film cameras those two years running, but nothing on either kind since. Well maybe I'll have better luck at Beltane or next Halloween.

Halloween has once again come and gone.

Halloween was here so fast and gone in a flash. I never prepared for it until just two days prior. My wife's store took up all my time and the day was upon me. Our brilliant town leaders decided to have "trick or treat" on Friday the 31st, this year. I admit, that is still in the Halloween time frame; however, all of the other little towns and villages plus the much larger town just 8 miles west of us all decided to have trick or treat on Thursday the 30th of October. So, a lot of lil ghosts and grimlins got to have two trick or treat evenings instead of one. I generally have somewhere around three hundred trick or treaters. This year I had over 500. Imagine giving out 500 treats in just an hour and you can imagine the bedlam. Other years I enjoyed shooting pictures of some of the more creative get-ups. I certainly didn't have time this year. I have a talking skeleton Butler who greeted everyone at the door; scaring the bejeebers out of the very young and not a few young ladies this adding to the confusion. I tried taking pictures with my digital camera before the festivities began and again later in the evening. Unfortunately, upon reviewing the shots on the camera monitor I did not detect any orbs or other artifacts. Possibly when I actually print them some will show, probably not. I could not find my film camera so I didn't get to shoot anything with it. I haven't had any luck for the past two Halloweens and it looks like this one will make it three. Oh well, there's always next year.

Lost article of clothing.

My wife uses a different bedroom from me since the leg ulcer on her leg went bad. She's up a weird hours with it so she uses what we call the Noah room while the dogs and I stay in the master bed room. Of a night she goes through a systematic method of undressing to make dressing in the morning more convenient. Last night was no different. She also laid out 8 candy mints on the night table beside the bed. This morning when she arose she first discovered the mints missing and then when she tried to dress an article of clothing was missing. Totally missing, she searched the room over several times, no luck. I first thought "mice". Mice could have carried off the mints, but not an article of clothing. I have seen no evidence of mice though they sometimes get in this time of year. I just hope I don't see any mice running around in oversized ladies unmentionables. Another mystery.

Talking Skeleton

This happened down at my wife's store. As I have pointed out before, my wife has a store in a small Ohio town. The store has a lot of history having been built in the late 1800's. Halloween is fast approaching so naturally we have a lot of Halloween wares displayed for sale. Amoung the masks, critters, signs and other Halloween gegaws I have a six foot skeleton that is dressed in a tuxedo, black, with a white shirt and bright red bow tie. This skeleton talks in a low bass voice saying several different phrases anytime someone walks with-in six feet of him. His head turns, his teeth clack as he spouts his humor on often unexpecting shoppers. "Gabby" as we call him has been quite popular with the customers. As our store is small and we are in a small town there are periods of time when there are no customers. One of those periods, a short one, thank-goodness, occurred today. My wife was at the cash register in the front of the store and I was working in the work area pricing some late Halloween items. All of a sudden the skeleton starts talking. Being pretty certain there is no one but us in the store we looked up to see who got past us to get Gabby talking. There was no one there. We have "Gabby" situated midway back in the second room of the store. He is no where near a window or door. He only takes if someone walks in front of him less than 6 ft. He has never before ever talked unless someone activated him by walking in front of him. That was the only time today that is has occurred. There was nothing big enough in the store to activate him. Flies, bugs, and small rodents will not activate him. So what or who did activate him and how.

Thing out of place

My wife and I run a small store in a small town about 10 or 15 minutes from our home. We are not home for several hours of most days so our dogs have, pretty much the run of the downstairs except for the formal parlor and den. My wife has the parlor pretty much set up to look like it did in the 1800's and the den, where the TV is located is simply no place for unsupervised dogs. For one thing, my younger schnauzer has learned to turn on the TV and if something really interesting should happen to be on her frantic gyrations could conceivably upset the set onto her. So the den and parlor are closed off when we leave. Of an evening I can monitor her excitement when the TV is on. Now getting to the point. I frequently have pancakes and maple syrup of a morning for breakfast. Recently I ran out of the syrup and had to pick up a new bottle at Walmart. It along with some other groceries were taken into the kitchen and put away. Well, the syrup disappeared. I had waffles in the toaster but when I tried to get the syrup I could not find it. So I had blackberry jelly on my waffles. The maple syrup was missing for several days. I had decided to buy another bottle but that particular day we were running late and didn't take time to run up to Walmart for it. After supper, that evening, I called the dogs and opened to den door (as I do every evening) so we could turn on the TV. Laying in the middle of the den floor was the bottle of maple syrup I could not find. I had been in the den every day and that syrup was not there. In the middle of the floor, where I would have tripped over it getting to the TV. How did that bottle of syrup manage to get in the den, which is across the house from the kitchen, in the middle of the floor? The dogs were blocked from the room during the day. I had been in the den every day and didn't see the syrup bottle in the middle of the floor totally unobstructed. Things in this house disappear and then often reappear in some totally illogical place. I just like to know how. I wish my dogs could talk.

Strange snarls and growls

It was getting late, probably around 11:30pm. My wife had just finished with the computer and had come into the kitchen where I had just entered myself, having brought the dogs in after their night walk. I had taken a seat at the kitchen table and my wife was standing beside the kitchen sink spreading blackberry jelly on a piece of bread. Suddenly, from the direction of the dining room we heard this snarling growling commotion. I started to yell at my dogs, assuming they were the reason for the commotion. It wasn't my dogs; They were still in the kitchen with us. The older dog was beside my chair and the younger one was laying partly under the kitchen table. They both started, their ears up, but neither followed through and the snarls in the dining room were over. The whole episode had to have been well under a minute in length. But if it wasn't our dogs, what made the racket? It definitely sounded like my little female when she goes after our male for being too forward. But both of our dogs were in the kitchen with us. There definitely were no other dogs in the house. Dog noises from other than our own dogs seem to occur from time to time here. It would just satisfy a curiosity itch if I could figure out how they come about.