Walking thoughts . . .

This morning, Mimi and I were leaving the gym and, as I walked through the door and grabbed her hand, I said: "Oh, Daddy got a job!"

When we got to the end of the plaza, about one minute later, my phone rang. It was Scully:

"Hi, guess what? I got a job . . ."

He finds things like that so eerie.

The Problem of Privacy

Over the summer, I revisited an issue that I'd once put on the back burner, shoving it nervously away from the fore after making a resolution: When I have an impression of someone -- negative or not -- I will not just announce it to the person; I will store it away and try to forget about it.

Why? Though some people have asked if it's because I'm not working at the time and therefore wouldn't get paid for sharing the intuition, it's actually because of a sense of privacy that I avoid announcing my impressions. What right do I have to just intrude on what could very well be a private issue that isn't meant to be confided?

A friend of mine visited and told me that she and her husband had postponed plans to conceive a child. Immediately, I had the sense that she was already pregnant and the impression just got stronger.

When I received the news of the impending birth, I was overjoyed and confided my first impressions then. As it turns out, my friend would not have felt that her privacy was being invaded if I'd shared the intuition.

It's an issue with which I've struggled for some time.

Catch Up

I can't believe how many people have already booked appointments for exactly one year from now.

One of the clients who booked said, "You're really popular."

It kind of makes me feel pressured to resume readings but, as my husband points out, I could always cancel the appointments and tell people that I won't be giving readings anymore.

Then, again, I may really want to do readings at that point. We'll see. . .

Through the fog that pregnancy has induced around my brain, I'm still able to see some things. Actually, I'm intuiting.

It's a close relative's new boyfriend. I don't trust him. I can't even bring myself to meet him. There's something not right there . . . This close relative -- close in the sense that we speak often -- can't understand my reluctance.

I've told her of my impression in this respect but she disagrees, even though I predicted his arrival in her life a couple of months before he actually appeared.

The Helpful Wife

Scully tromped through the wilderness with his friends over the weekend, canoeing an hour-and-a-half to his campsite. He was completely out of reach of cellphones and email.

On the way home, he called me from a payphone:

"I should be home within a few hours."

"OK. Wait...I have an impression." A terrifying image followed a mental picture of my husband but I knew that he would be fine.

"There's going to be a very bad accident on the way back but it doesn't involve you or your friends."

"It already happened. A car was half-submerged in the lake."

"Oh. OK." It didn't feel like the accident I was talking about, but, hey, how could I be sure?

When he got home that evening, he told me: "Some guy decided to walk out into traffic... It was a huge accident! Cars piled up, etc." This happened after talking to me.

I honestly don't know why some people think that crossing a highway is, well, even possible. But, there you have it, someone did and the consequent mess delayed Scully's arrival by about two hours.

A House of Sound

I apologize for the absence. Life happens so . . . quickly.

My house has been kind of quiet as far as ghosts are concerned. After telling a particularly annoying ghost to leave (who, last month, despite a fantastic security system, opened a door to the outside sometime before we all woke up ), there has been nothing very significant around here.

Well, nothing, that is, except for some intermittent banging and loud 'thumps' and the sound of a baby crying. Scully -- who is also my biggest fan -- tried to convince me that the loud sounds originate at a construction site. I know they don't.

My maternal grandmother is making herself known. I don't actually get along with my mother and, about the time that this bout of activity began, we'd had a pretty heated exchange. We are still not really speaking.

As for the baby crying? That's new to me. I heard it just after waking up one evening and it was easy to dismiss as a sleep-related event after I realized that it wasn't my daughter. It's extremely faint and I think my sister heard it, too. (Needless to say, my sister tells me that sleeping over at my house really freaks her out at times. Considering that she's so skittish, I'm shocked that she actually does stay over.)

The only thing that has caused me to raise an eyebrow is my daughter's insistence that she hears noises in her room every night. I've been in a number of times to try to hear them and I haven't detected anything. There used to be squirrels and raccoons climbing around on the roof but, again, I haven't heard them. They may still be there but I think she's hearing something else.

Interestingly, my sister pointed out that my paternal grandfather -- whom I met only 2 or 3 times throughout my childhood -- had the name of Alfred (see here and here). The impressions that I have of the ghost look nothing like my memories of my grandfather: he is young with dark brown/black hair and he wears a white t-shirt. He has a sense of humour and is pretty laid back.

What's Been Going On...

On Monday, we kept hearing large "thumps" around the house. Scully explained that they were the products of construction work next door. I didn't agree. I spend everyday in this house -- right beside the construction -- and, what I heard was the sound of a heavy box being dropped on the front porch.

I was in the bath when I first heard it and thought, "F---! I missed the Purolator guy!" (OK, I swear when I speak to myself.) As I'd stepped into the bath that morning, I'd forgotten about the possibility of delivery. I was awaiting the arrival of the rest of my daughter's birthday gifts and was worried that I'd have to go pick up a large box at a postal outlet with a toddler and a stroller.

Anyway, I jumped out, got dressed and ran downstairs: there was nothing.

The thump occurred at least a few times again throughout the day and I ignored it.

What was very frightening to me -- and it is very unusual for me to be afraid -- happened as I was trying to rest in my bedroom while the baby slept. The air conditioners in our rooms were on but I heard the sound of my living room door open and shut (a door that leads to the enclosed porch).

"Hello?" I called out, leaning over the upstairs railing. Why? I don't know. It's not as if I think a burglar would shout back or anything but what else do you do?

A second later, I slipped down the stairs, ready to close a door or to call 9-1-1, only to discover that all three front doors were securely latched. In fact, the doors leading to the porch have an old-fashioned style of lock that requires much more digital manipulation than those of today. It would be impossible to open these doors from the outside.

Confused, for some reason I chose to ignore my impressions of my maternal grandmother and of another, different ghost. I mean, I saw them but just didn't think about them. It was the day of this grandmother's birthday (which I'd also forgot).

That night, with sufficient responsibilities to erase all-but-essential data from my mind, I went to bed after locking up and arming the house.

On Tuesday morning, I awoke and went downstairs. I couldn't help but scream. The porch door in the dining room was wide open!! How long had it been open? Anything could have happened to my baby, to us, throughout the night.

Scully came down to investigate, assured me that it must have been unlocked but I was unconvinced. I know that I'd locked that door. I know that I didn't open the dining room door at all throughout the previous days.

I believe that my grandmother is here but it's not her behaviour because the activity is uncharacteristic of other visits to others in my family. Someone else is here, somebody more . . . annoying.

Just the other day, last Thursday, I was doing laundry and waiting patiently for my load to finish. After an hour it occurred to me that I hadn't actually heard my washing machine in the longest time.

When I went down to the laundry room, I was astonished to find that the lid to the machine was up -- which means that the machine won't run -- and, thinking that I'd been careless and forgot to actually start the laundry, I went over to put the lid down.

At the panel, I saw that the load was actually almost finished -- meaning, that the load had been interrupted -- and the knob had been pressed down (which means the machine was turned off).

I hadn't been down there at all. My daughter doesn't go down to the basement without myself or my husband and there's no way that she could have reached the machine's lid anyway even if she'd stood on a chair.

So, in the end, I'd forgotten again who I am and what I actually do for a living: If there's one thing I've learnt in the past twenty or so years, when you're doing renovations, activity increases.

Nearly Sleeping On The Job

Though I get impressions from many sources, I seem to be overcome lately by a certain type of experience. Otherwise alert, I suddenly begin to feel extremely sleepy. Instead of succumbing to sleep, I get the urge to grab a pen and paper.

I start to write, and feeling more alert, the impression of a ghost occurs and I write what he/she tells me. In the case of one client the other day, I was able to tell her about her life because the ghost (a relative) had messages about different aspects of her life. He even told me what she did for a living.

When all was said and done, this was only qualitatively different from my usual experiences. The sleepiness was new but I'm getting used to it. Ghosts usually do appear but mostly at night or during readings and not often immediately beforehand.

I should be posting more often. Life gets crazy. Sometimes, I feel like giving up readings altogether (like tonight) and, at other times, I worry that I won't be able to keep doing my readings. Neither scenario is realistic. I'm just moody. Especially in the past few weeks. This probably explains my absence.

I think I need to cheer myself up.