Early Morning Excitement

I had a terrible time going to sleep last night.  It seemed that, for the first time ever, the night time cold meds I took had a reverse effect and my heart was beating a little too quickly.  I lay awake for what seemed like hours, right on the edge of sleep.  At last, somewhere in the dead middle of the night, I drifted off, only to be waken in the predawn morning by my dog Salem barking.  She was perched on the end of the bed, looking toward the window.

Salem barks at everything and oftentimes nothing, and, as is my custom, I grabbed her and shoved her back under the covers where I spent perhaps the next half hour holding her snout while she continued to bark.  I don't remember the last time she behaved this way in the middle of the night, but I was dismayed that I might never be able to go back to sleep.  When I heard other dogs barking -- Mom's dog Henry and what sounded like other dogs in the neighborhood -- I knew it was never going to end.  Once one dog hears another barking, it causes a chain reaction.

Suddenly, I opened my eyes to see a red glow at the window.  I jumped out of bed and lifted the blind to find two flashing police cars.  Richie and Mom and I were soon in the patio room, where from the window we could see  that several police cars and one fire truck lined the streets in front of and alongside Mom's house.  There was a man cuffed and lying on the street, with a cop standing over him. 

As the dogs needed to go outside anyway, it worked out that the cop and apprehended man were only feet away from where the dogs had to potty.  We shuffled around in our PJs, catching some of the interrogation, while the dogs did their business.  It seems the man wasn't telling the cops where a gun or something was, and the cop was explaining to him that the dogs would find it anyway.  We also noticed that the man had been injured somehow and his leg wrapped. 

Meanwhile, Mom returned inside, but the ever frustrating Salem still hadn't gone to the bathroom.  So the conversation between the cop and suspect became punctuated by my prompting "Go potty!  Go potty!"

Once back inside, we observed the man lying on the snowy street and began to feel sorry for him.  Mom speculated that he might need a blanket, but I reminded her that the cop wasn't getting any answers out of him and they probably wouldn't appreciate us making him more comfortable. 

We all watched for the next thirty minutes or so, and eventually the police helped the man into the car.  The policeman who had been questioning the man saw us watching and came over to the house to explain what was going on.  We learned that the man had been robbing a house nearby and ended up fleeing the scene.  He ran into this neighborhood and was caught hiding in Mom's hedge.  When he tried to run from the police, one of the police dogs bit him  -- hence the injury we saw (and the blood that is still in the snow). There were three robbers total and all three were caught.

I reminded Mom that just yesterday I had alerted her to the fact that her front door had been unlocked when nobody was home, and that she had replied it was OK, that this was a really safe neighborhood.  Oh the irony.

So, Salem was right for a change.  And she finally pottied, which is no easy thing to get her to do.  Perhaps, with my powers of persuasion, I should have helped the cop interrogate the man.  But I probably would have ended up bringing him a pillow.

The pics show the bloodstains from where the dog bit the burglar and the window from where we watched.  The hedge by the window is where the burglar tried to hide.

Another strange case of synchronicity

As with every Christmas season, I have been receiving books I've requested.  As with every day of the year, I'm already behind on books I have been intending to read.  I'm currently undertaking everything Orson Scott Card has ever written, but because I'm kind of a slow reader due to some degree of attention deficit, that will likely take me a couple years. 

Two weeks ago, I was concentrating my energies on Ender in Exile.  Richie had just bought OSC's latest (Pathfinder), so that was next on my list, followed by Anne Rice's latest angel book. That would take up the next three months for sure, and that's not including my plans to continue reading The Ender series with my uncle. 

Suddenly, for no reason I can identify, I dropped everything and began reading The Owlman and Others by my friend Jonathan Downes.  Why in the world I chose now, halting my already ambitious reading plans, to pick up this book that had been in my possession for two years is mysterious to me, but why I would choose the Christmas season to immerse myself in the part of cryptozoology that deals with the more sinister side of the unknown is even stranger. (The Owlman is the British version of the Mothman.)

Richie and I are presently at my mom's for the Christmas holidays.  Two days ago (and two weeks into my Owlman book) we received a phone call from MUFON (Mutual UFO Network) for whom we are field investigators.  This was an unusual case they were assigning us to: an apparent man-bird sighting in San Antonio.  MUFON does not typically address cryptid sightings, but a lady who, with her husband and son, had seen a giant man-bird flying over her neighborhood back in April had just decided to report it to MUFON. 

I find it nothing short of bizarre that the report this of sighting -- the first of its type that has ever come my way -- would occur the very time I had chosen, for no known reason, to read a book on this very thing.

I cannot believe this is coincidence.  As George Noory says, there is no such thing.

Strange Occurences in My Friend's House

I have a friend I will keep anonymous who has now had four bizarre things happen to her over the past year.  These are things that many people would dismiss as absent-mindedness, but she is one of the most together, alert, and deliberate people I know.  I told her she needed to keep a record of these experiences, so I'm doing it for her:

First incident: Last year, she was leaving the house with her daughter.  She grabbed her very bulky keys and stuffed them into her coat pocket.  She remembers this specifically.  She got the car and they keys weren't there.  She went back to the house, opened the front door (I can't remember if she hadn't locked it or what) and the keys were hanging on the hook next to the front door.

Second incident: She woke up one morning to a bizarre noise.  She discovered it was coming from her deceased grandmother's electronic keyboard which had been turned to full volume.  The cover -- which takes some effort to get on -- was still on it.  My friend not only meticulously turns the keyboard off when she is done with it, but she always turns each volume adjuster all the way down.  Her little girl is too small to have messed with the keyboard and replaced the cover.  My friend shut the keyboard off, turned it back on, and could never get it to duplicate that odd noise again.

Third incident:  the evening before last, my friend was washing her dishes and came to the last thing -- a bread pan.  There was some cheese stuck in the bottom corner of the pan and she considered just soaking it all night.  Then she decided against it since she had a brillow pad or something and she scrubbed it, rinsed it, and put in the dish rack.  The next morning when she got up, the pan was soaking in the sink, cheese still stuck to the bottom, as if she had made a different decision.

Fourth incident: the same evening (evening before last) she specifically remembers putting her phone on the charger because her mother-in-law had tried to call right before she did so.  She ignored the call, joked with  her husband, then plugged the phone in.   The next morning the phone was in its case next to the charger station. Her husband witnessed  her put it on the charger and can't figure it out.  He also is pretty sure he saw her wash and put away the bread pan.

Inconsequential weirdness, but weird nonetheless.

444

I have never been one to take notice of a recurring time on the clock, such as the famed 11:11.  I have actually never paid much attention to the significance of numbers, but a couple weeks ago I started noticing that I kept seeing the clock right at 4:44.  There isn't any particular thing I'm doing at that time to explain why I would suddenly look at a clock.  In fact, I get off work around 4:30 and often go to the gym.  I don't even pay attention to the time.  But over weekends and days when I wasn't at the gym, I kept noticing 4:44.  I don't know why, or if there is a "why."  But it's interesting.  I did finally research 444 and found there is a web site devoted to it.