Signs

So, this is weird....  When I posted my last blog post, I was rather shocked when I clicked on the "View Blog" button and up came my blog, with my new post, and I saw that both Boomer and Zenith's photos were gone.

Yes, they were missing. Both of them.

Which is really strange since I know I did not remove those photos and no one else has that kind of access to my computer or password, etc. In addition, nothing else was removed from my blog, just those two photos.

I do know that a couple of weeks ago, I had contemplated removing both those pictures because they rather made me sad to see them there, but then I found I just could not bring myself to do it.

Now the photos have disappeared and I can only think of 2-3 possibilities:  I did it my sleep (Ha!) or  I have developed memory loss problems (I hope that's not it) OR it's Bob's handiwork....

hmmmmm....

I must say, that sometimes Bob seems to be a busy guy over there on The Other Side.  Just this morning, while I was thinking about writing this post, about Signs from Bob, the doorbell tinkled.

And I mean tinkled.  Not the real brrrrr-RING that it usually makes, but a tinkle.  And I know it was the doorbell that made this sound as Kona went nuts barking at the door.

Our old fashion mechanical doorbell.

This is not the first time the doorbell has made a small tinkling noise and, upon opening the door, I find no one there.

And this never happened while Bob was alive.

Speaking of doors, while I was waiting in the shrink's office, Kona started growling -- a low ominous growling --- which is very unlike her when we are out in public, heck, it's very unlike her at all, so I was quite startled until I noticed that Kona was looking at the front door to the office, the door that leads outside into the parking lot, and that door had slowly opened a crack. Then Kona barked. So I got up, opened the door fully, and no one was there....

Then there's the back gate, last week, when I stepped outside to see if the rain had stopped enough to take Kona out for a walk and I heard, distinctly, the sound of the metal gate latch clicking open, and then the gate swung open wide, and I nearly shit my pants -- because, jeepers, I was expecting no one and it was night time, and I ran into the house, locked the door, peered out the window and no one was there.

There have been other signs, over the months, some subtle, some not so subtle. Like Bob's beloved C.Crane radio that flashes (like a wink) at me when I walk through the room, and that's when the radio is turned off. And it does this, at least, once a day, sometimes more.  I've gotten in the habit of just saying, "Hi, Bob!" when the thing winks the digital display at me.

Or the mysterious fortune cookie slip that I discovered in the middle of the kitchen floor one morning, and knowing, full well, I hadn't ordered any Chinese food in I can't remember how long, was quite shocked to pick up this slip of paper and see what it was.  Even more startling was the fact that this fortune did not have the "lucky lotto numbers" on the back of it, which is always the case with the Chinese place we order from. The slip is below:

There have been other things, too, like the night I was talking on the phone with my sister, and we were talking about Bob, when suddenly I heard a noise coming from my office, and when I went into that room, I found a video of Bob playing on my computer screen...

Or another night, when talking to a friend about Bob's artwork, when suddenly all the lights blinked out, and even the phone went dead for an instant, and then everything came back on.

And then there's the occasional strange shadow or reflection that appears on the living room walls.  The other day it was a reflection of a window that quickly moved from one side of the room to the other side, turning the corner onto the next wall before disappearing.  And I had the shades pulled down...  Another time it was the shadow of a head and shoulders of man, that walked across the top of the wall -- our walls are 9 feet high and I ran to the french doors to see if there was someone on our front porch, but no one was there.  And the shadow disappeared.

Or the sometimes strange websites that show up on my computer in the morning (I leave the computer on sleep mode at night, so usually what shows up is wherever I last was) -- websites that have no business being on my computer and usually have to do with gardening (a former hobby of mine) or -- once, an obscure musician singing a song about "finding your creativity".

On Bob's birthday, I was quite amazed to hear the anchor on our morning local news station announce "Today is National Nothing Day!" and for years, this had been a joke of Bob's because a long time ago someone had given him a desk calendar that had all the strange different designated  days (you know what I mean, such as National Artichoke Day, or Walk Your Dog Day, etc.) and on his birthday the calendar said "National Nothing Day".  And all these years, I have never heard anyone mention this, ever, except, of course, Bob, and here it was, on the morning news, with a brief history following of how the day became named back in the 1970's and designated as a day to "do nothing"....

And then there was my friend, Shirley, who wanted to take home a Florida souvenir and especially wanted a refrigerator magnet with preferably a flamingo on it, and we went hunting all over, not finding anything in all the gift shops we went into, and I finally had a sudden inspiration and said, "Let's check Walmart" and when we did, she came out of the store with a HUGE smile because she found not only a flamingo magnet but one with a thermometer on it -- and we had just been talking about how I collected flamingos and Bob collected thermometers.  She bought two.  One for her and one for me. And Shirley looked at me as she gave the magnet, and said, "That's a sign from Bob, I'm not kidding. This is too weird.  And they only had two of these!"

I know some folks may think I'm crazy, and that some of this is just coincidences or computer glitches or whatnot, but I must say, I believe.

I believe.

I believe.

I believe.

And I don't want to stop believing...