Cringe worthy moments indeed...

 

Warning…. I watched news this week…

 

Cringe worthy moments are a part of it all.  Let’s face it – we all have had them.  Some are so bad that they still make you sick to your stomach 45 years later… like the time you realize that you have offended your own wonderful mother and your sweet, kind mother-in-law by naming your two new Boxer puppies after them.  Huge mistake for sure!  I have more of these moments than I like to think about. In fact -- the episode of the naming of the Boxer puppies is autobiographical – as I am sure you guessed.  Oh my … 

The thing is that I am always thankful that my cringe worthy moments have not been caught on camera.  Wouldn’t it be awful to be famous – in the public eye all the time?  I would hate it for sure.  Anyway – when I think of this type of cringe worthy event, I can’t help but think of President Trump dancing to the music at his rallies – by himself.  It is like watching your parents dance for the first time – in public – where your friends can see them.  The thing is –The Donald and I are about the same age. (Well … I am a bit younger…).  He, perhaps, should know better – or maybe I am just a stick in the mud. Actually, in retrospect, The Donald is prone to cringe worthy moments of a variety of sorts… in my humble opinion.  Then again…

I have to tell you though – this bumbling, apologetic manner and the stage whispering that our current president is doing of late is more than just a cringe worthy embarrassment. I find it sort of frightening as well as unsettling and creepy. But there is more.  When he whispers into a microphone and then leans in even further to whisper to someone standing off camera to his right, “Was that Okay?”, well -- it is more than embarrassing or creepy.  It is unnerving. It becomes the ultimate cringe worthy situation. Why are there not more reporters who will focus, if only for one moment, on this type of behavior of the supposed leader of the free world?  Who is this person standing off camera to his right? I think we are entitled to know. It matters. Since when does a President of the United States have to ask permission to do anything – to ask whether it is okay to answer a question of a reporter or if he did okay? Then to add to the concerns – along with the stage whisper -- is his tendency to say that he doesn’t want “his people” to get mad at him. He has repeatedly made reference to what he is supposed to do or say … or even to question what he is about to put his signature on. Wait. What?  Remember him wondering out loud what he was signing while on camera in the Oval Office at the beginning of his Presidency?  Remember that large stack of Executive Orders? You know – the ones that affect all of us?  Who are his “people”? Who put the stack of orders on his desk? (Are they handlers? You know – handler in the sense of a person in charge of or training another…. You find handlers in zoos, for instance.) Cringe worthy for sure.  What is going on here?

Further -- was the current President of the United States joking about using nuclear weapons against his own people? (Why would anyone joke about that?) Are there not at least three dozen members of his own political party who recommended "on the record" that his unlimited powers over the “red button” be limited? As I recall the Speaker of the House was trying to legislate that before he was even in office and she specified more than once on camera that it was to be an after the 2020 election consideration. Currently the President has total power over the use of nuclear weapons.  There is nothing anywhere that says he cannot make this decision totally on his own. Is he alone? Or – once again - who are the people who seem to have a hold over him, the people he looks to for approval or permission? 

An even more unnerving thought -- is this the ultimate case of elder abuse of an enfeebled old man? (Even the word enfeebled is painful.) Is he the victim of some sort of “Pandemic Power Play”? Is an entire nation being subjected to the consequences of such elder abuse? Is our President merely a puppet to further the personal gain of unnamed, unidentified power-hungry elitists? Again -- who is standing off camera to the right? Sometimes an open microphone even catches their voices seemingly herding him to leave the room. Why do we see so little of him? Scary.  “You can bet your (sweet) bippy” that such control seeking people would not be the ones to suffer in the long run.  Oh – this is beyond cringe worthy.  This is beyond wrong.  The thing is – we all get to watch and to wonder. That watching and waiting is, perhaps, the worst of it all. I am sensing that there will be more to come before this presidential term comes to an end. It is all very sad … tragic really when you can stand to even think about it. Cringe worthy moments indeed. They do tend to make you sick to your stomach… and in your heart.

 

This type of ugly is why I go into news blackouts from time to time.  It’s a matter of self-preservation. Then again – there is really no escape. Denial does have an end… in my experience anyway.

Part III: Unexplainable, but interesting...

I look back now to my growing up as a mix of moving a lot and of unusual experiences mixed in with a lot of normal.   Maybe the early not so normal experiences were, in some way, a preparation for what was to come. Time passes. The business of life can sometimes be a bit overwhelming and one tunes out some things. It’s a matter of survival. Moving now to more current and in many ways better and easier times -- I started to notice “out of the ordinary things” a few years after I had settled into my new home which I had built in 2001 and where I still live now twenty never boring years later.  A case in point -- one grandson, when very young, was talking about things that he had no way of knowing – odd things really.  I asked him how he knew whatever it was that he was talking about, and he told me that my friend had told him – the one I had the photo of on my dresser at that time.  Now that was understandable to me as I had lost a good friend a few years prior to my grandson’s arrival, and it only made sense to me that he might be communicating with him is some way.  Further -- I think this friend might also have been communicating with my granddaughter even before she could talk. She would look up, smile, listen and laugh at someone no one else could see.  It was later, when she could talk, that one day, reaching her limit in patience, she blurted out to a someone/something no one else could see, “Stop tapping me on the head!”  It was at that "enough now" moment that I decided to begin paranormal research of the property including my barn and on what has become known rather tentatively, yet fondly, among family members, as “the creepy corner” inside the house itself.  

And so, it began – a series of mediums, psychics and a team of ghost hunters who liked to come to my land, barn and home to test new equipment.  Why?  – because there is so much activity here. (Actually, I think the ghost hunters would prefer to be called Paranormal Investigators. Sorry.  The ghost hunter thing just slipped out.) Anyway – they think my property is a wonderful place for exploring the unknown. For me that is a dubious compliment, but we have had rather amazing experiences in my home and barn…and on my land – especially in one garden where one medium told me not to dig too deeply. (How creepy is that?). Conformation of this is that one of my dearest friends, who has the gift of intuition and mediumship, has told me more than once that when she comes into my home, she doesn’t know if “they” are all waiting for her, or if she brings them with her.  (How does one respond to something like that?)

Activity is sometimes so commonplace that my granddaughter, for a period of time, would mention casually that Nanny (that’s me) has a portal in her kitchen. That is how some of the expert opinions explained it all.  The was a time when my granddaughter tended to speak of this to visitors when they dropped by. These people were often total strangers to her, but I guess she thought they should know - especially if they were standing on the spot that one investigator had designated as the portal area. (I think of that often when standing there while making toast.) Imagine, for a moment if someone indicated that you were standing on a portal.... Anyway -- she would mention it as if the portal were a point of interest like one might point out hand painted wallpaper or even something more commonplace and not at all exceptional. I actually have no idea how many people she shared this with. Eventually I mentioned to her that some people may find the idea of a portal to be a bit unnerving … that perhaps we should keep the portal business within the family for now. Portals are not good Show and Tell topics.  She gets it now a few years later – now that she is a grown-up 10-year-old.  For a while though -- after our "talk", she whispered the world portal when talking about Nanny’s house – much like my Mom used to whisper the word cancer.  What can I say? I have to admit that I did find the whole thing amusing.  Both my nearby grandkids take it pretty much in stride these days. They have grown up with it. Things have been relatively calm of late and the last time there was an unexplainable loud noise in the kitchen, my grandson and I just looked at each other and shrugged.  It was a bonding, but “there they go again” kind of moment.

Anyway – the consensus of the experts I invited to explore the situation -- mediums (3), psychic (1) and the ghost busters (an entire team, who came several times) is that there is nothing negative or dangerous going on here.  The "entities" (is that a euphemism?) seem to be passing through (perhaps sometimes utilizing the aforementioned portal in my kitchen). It is the land, actually) that is the basis of activity. Part of my home just happens to be sitting on that land.  There is also a lot of activity in my small barn. Lucky me.  Further -- the collective opinion is that there is a strong Native American presence as well as other spirits hanging around, but it is important, I think, not to discount the possibility of a residual haunting presence of runaway slaves. Whoever they are - I live with them.  They don’t bother me at all except for the pipe tobacco smell now and again. I don't like anyone smoking in my house. The occasional tapping, knocking, bells ringing, or gentle brush on my face that feels like spider webs is nothing I can’t handle. I do find that guests are sometimes not so easy-going about the taps which, sometimes, are more grabby than tappy. I don't get a lot of company.

Things that bother me more are of an electrical nature like the TV coming on in the middle of the night, but that has only happened once… so far.  It was startling - blaring actually. I thought there were people arguing in my living room, and I didn’t invite them. Scary.  Then again there is the fact that my son, when visiting one time, refused to sleep in the back bedroom after a rather impressively firm grab on a leg.  Now that he brings his dogs, (yes – plural wagging tails), things seem to have quieted down in that room… the hangers in the one closet have stopped rattling and nothing has grabbed him in the dark --- recently.  Point of interest -- that same grabbing thing happened to my nephew’s wife. They haven’t been back to visit since then. Actually - now that I think of it, they did come back once since then, but they stayed at the local Cobblestone Inn.  Anyway -- the level of activity varies.  Another grandson once mentioned that it sounded like someone was preparing an entire meal in the kitchen in the middle of the night. The sounds woke him up and kept him awake. He hasn't come for a visit in quite a while. 

These kind of things affect people differently. Denial is real.  My son-in-law was, until a couple of years ago, a total sceptic.  Then he heard voices in the room near the kitchen where he was washing up a few things, and he realized that everyone was outside – including the kids. Then when these “entities” leaned in and began to whisper in his ear, he joined the rest of us outside on the patio -- immediately, and of course, had to share the story of his conversion from a sceptic to a believer -- complete with his wonderful sense of humor. He is an outstanding story teller. His goose bumps were most impressive.  He says now though that nothing whispered to him, but that is not how I remember it.  My daughter-in-law, however, is still a bit on skeptical side, even though I have seen her react to a presence. Actually, everyone in the room saw her turn to look as if she had been tapped on the shoulder. I think I may have heard her say "What?". Those kinds on taps are pretty routine “stuff” around here.   Those in the “fam” are quite used to it. We hope that she will join the rest of us soon.  Her level of hope for that? Well - maybe not so much, but she is a good sport about the whole "thing".

 

But – there is more….