Anne's Blog

Freckled Oranges Oranges and Purple Too Velvet Pink White Stars

      I think I have a ghost visiting me once in awhile.  The first two times she visited me in the Fall, I totally discounted the occurrences. What sane person wouldn't.  I couldn't see her face but I could feel a very agitated presence and it happened twice at the same, unusual location. I told a good friend about the experience. She actually validated the ghost. Some friend. I am also pretty sure the napkin lady was the ghost. Maybe, she is trying to tell me something and, feeling desperate, is getting creative about how she crosses space and time. Today, as I was walking Yoshi, she came to me again. I don't even know anybody named Sheila nor have I ever. All of a sudden, as with the other times in the Fall, there is a presence with me and I know it is a woman and her name is Sheila. I don't know how I can help her but I can still feel her frantic, pulsing energy. The rest of the story will have to wait. I have to be at work early.      ...

Today, I am meeting my youngest son for breakfast. I haven't seen him in awhile. He is busy.  I love spending time with my sons.

     Today was my Grandma Christensen's birthday. She was born June 11, 1916. She was a pretty cool lady who put up with two alcoholic, abusive sons. And, I think husband. I recall my mother once saying she remembered seeing my Grandpa, her father, push my Grandma out the door. I don't know if it was the front door or, if my mother actually told me that it was the front door, but I have long had this picture in my mind of my Grandpa pushing my Grandma out the front door of their house in North St. Paul; The same door my mother is shown walking out of on her Wedding Day. Her Dad was holding his hand out to her in a picture in my Mom and Dad's Wedding Album.  In the picture, she looks young and beautiful in her Wedding dress and my Grandpa looks handsome in his black cutaway coat and striped tuxedo pants. My mother was 21 when she got married which means my Grandpa would have been almost 42.      Abuse is usually a learned behavior so I would imagine m...

"They could have been anecdotal. Instead, they are dominant."          -RolandGarros 2017 commentator referring to Rafael Nadal & Roger Federer

     I have been thinking today about how far we let ourselves get away from what really matters. If you let yourself be distracted by daily living, it can take up a lot of energy both mentally and physically. For me, I have to have basic, personal goals that I work toward and I have to remind myself of them daily.  It is also helpful for me to have some type of guiding philosophy so that, when things suck and I find myself being negative, I can remind myself what is important to me. It is easier to let some things go that way. It has taken me a long time to arrive at an awareness of how I want to be everyday. I work on it sometimes daily and, sometimes at work especially, by the minute.

     I took Yoshi for a short walk after work. On that walk, I saw two Crackles taking a bath in a big puddle on the Southwest corner of 37th and Jefferson. They were having the best time splashing water up into their feathers. I don't know what made me look but there is a house on the Northwest corner of the same intersection that houses a really nice young family of six. There is a mom, dad, 3 young boys and a young girl whom I am pretty sure she starts school in the Fall. When I turned around, she was on the porch watching the same two birds. I like that I, a young girl and two Grackles were all caught up in a moment together. I thought the birds were related or, possibly, a couple but one eventually flew North and the other South. I could see shiny, wet feathers on the one that flew North.      When I took Yoshi for his evening stroll, I carried him across the Trafficway and we walked through a block of the Roanoke Neighborhood. He gets bored walking ...