Betty Dangers

Posted on July 5, 2017 by Trish and Rob

During our recent trip to Minneapolis, we met up with Rabbit (Rob Larson), one of Rob’s oldest friends, for dinner at a place called Betty Danger’s Country Club. On their website, they tout it as “the country club for the 99%.” It’s definitely not a country club with rolling hills and golf courses, but is smack in the middle of a neighborhood.

When Rob told me there was a Ferris wheel at the place, I envisioned some little Ferris wheel for kids. Well, surprise! This Ferris wheel was shipped in from Italy, is full scale, and is the centerpiece of the restaurant. Most of the outside tables are arranged around it. For six bucks, you get five revolutions on the wheel, can take your dinner and a drink with you, and the view at the top is fantastic.

When you’re at the top of this gigantic thing at sunset, the city in the distance looks like something out of a fairy tale and everything below looks utterly magical. We could see the Mississippi River, one of the unusual bridges that crosses it, and numerous neighborhoods partially shrouded by trees. Those five revolutions take at least 20 or 30 minutes because the wheel moves very slowly, with numerous stops. There was a breeze that evening, and during our stops at the top of the Ferris wheel, our gondola swayed.

We got a kick out of the sign posted in our gondola:

The woman who owns Betty Dangers also owns another restaurant/bar down the street called Psycho Suzi’s Motor Lodge. I suppose it’s a motor lodge for the 99%!

Betty Dangers reminded me of something that might be a place where the world of the living and the dead intersect. So I used it in my new novel, Water Dancers, as exactly that sort of place.

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Our Trump Prediction – Flopped!

Posted on July 4, 2017 by Trish and Rob

We’ve posted a number of things about trump on this blog and several of them concerned when he would be GONE. Rob predicted June 23. A tarot reading in May seemed to back up that it would be SOON. We were wrong. But I’m hopeful about the prediction from astrologer  Alex Miller.

It’s now July 4, and trump is  still in power, doing his usual twitter storms about CNN as fake news, that an MSNBC host was bleeding from a facelift, that everyone is against him, etc etc. And that’s the whole thing with trump. A huge etc. to be continued in tomorrow’s tweet and the tweet the day after and after and on into who knows when the congress wakes up and even the radical right republicans realize this man is flat-out nuts.

Trump isn’t a president. He’s a joke. A travesty. He’s the ultimate trickster archetype that could turn this country into a dictatorship if he manages to usurp the other branches of government that are supposed to provide checks and balances. But one thing trump does well is to change the narrative by doing or saying something outrageous. I don’t think this happens because he’s particularly intelligent. I think it happens because he has an instinct for media hype.

During the campaign, he didn’t have to spend a dime to get coverage; television obliged him because they didn’t think he could win and hey, he was good for ratings. The Trumpster, doing his silly thing night after night, igniting the pissed off masses. Ha. So silly. But the ratings went up.

And then, gasp, he won, probably because of Russian hacking, but who knows if we’ll ever get the full, true story on any of that. The democrats are not blameless in all this. Once upon a time, they really did represent the people, the conscience of a country. They passed terrific social legislation that actually helped people. But somewhere along the way, they became beholden to their donors, their base, and lost sight of the fact that the 21st century demands a new paradigm.

 For years, I was a registered independent. When Obama ran in 2008, I changed to the Democratic party so I could vote in the primary. Rob and I waited hours to hear him and Biden speak that year. I had watched his speech at the Democratic convention in 2004 and knew he was it, the candidate for 2008. Obama wasn’t perfect. But he was presidential, smart, savvy, and an incredible orator whose words moved me. He governed well for eight years. Our country prospered. Sure, he made mistakes – his health care stuff, for instance,  set the bar too low. He should have gone for Medicare for all. But he was up against an intractable republican congress.

By contrast, when I hear trump speak, I nearly puke.  I can’t stand looking at this orange man with his bulk, his crassness, his corrupt cabinet. This guy belongs in prison. And yet, if he goes and we get Pense, then we may be headed for The Handmaid’s Tale,  based on Margaret Atwood’s brilliant Dystopian novel where a handful of white men in back rooms (SOUND FAMILIAR?) decide the fate of an entire society.

And so, on this 4th of July, symbolic of our country’s independence, I’m left with a weighted heaviness in my heart, that we’re pretty much screwed as a country unless something changes and fast. Where are Will Smith and Bill Pullman and Jeff Goldblum from Independence Day? This invasion of trump and his idiots are as alien as it gets to the concept of democracy and freedom.

Trump’s presidency tests our constitution. Will we survive as a democracy?

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Nutshell

Posted on July 3, 2017 by Trish and Rob

 

Every so often, I head over to our local Barnes and Noble and cruise the aisles, checking out new books. If the book has an interesting cover,  I pick it up, read the back cover or the inside flap for a synopsis of the story. If this captures my interest, I turn to the first page and read it. If it seizes me, I buy the book. This is true whether I’m familiar with the author or not.

This is what happened with Ian McEwan’s novel Nutshell, published in 2016. I bought the paperback version, which came out in May. Here’s the first line:

So here I am, upside down in a woman. Okay, that seized me. I knew from the back cover copy that the novel was written from a fetus’s point of view. He goes on: Arms patiently crossed, waiting, waiting, and wondering who I’m in, what I’m in for. My eyes close nostalgically when I remember how I once drifted in my translucent water bag, floated dreamily in the bubble of my thoughts through my private ocean in slow motion somersaults, colliding gently against the transparent bounds of my confinement, the confiding membrane that vibrated with, even as it muffled, the voices of conspirators in a vile enterprise.

I already knew from the back cover copy that the fetus’s mother is planning on murdering his father. And this fetus knows it. Nutshell is one of the most unusual novels I’ve ever read. The premise is brilliant, but what’s really startling, though, is that McEwan’s creativity extends beyond his gender, into what it’s like for a woman to be pregnant and what it may be like for that in vitro soul, crammed into this tiny space of the womb.

One of the most innovative scenes and laugh out loud scenes happens when mom imbibes more than 3 glasses of wine and the fetus lets you in on what he knows about  the types of wine. It’s speculative fiction at its best.

 

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Exceptional Art

Posted on July 1, 2017 by Trish and Rob

I’m a huge fan of this young woman’s art. She happens to be our daughter, Megan, and over the past four years, Rob and I have witnessed how her talent has expanded, how her palette of color has deepened. The painting above is part of a series of wave paintings she did. I love this one so much I used it for my business card.

Here was my birthday present this year, our beloved dogs, Nika and Noah:

Here’s the painting she did of just Noah:

One of the local restaurants in Orlando invited Megan to set up during a festival. She painted one of the swans on Lake Eola:

Another wave:

On her website, you can see other pet portraits, people portraits, waves, wildlife.

This ability wasn’t inherited from either of us. Our paintings, rendered at her Paint Nite classes, are too pathetic to even post!

 

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A Synchro video

Posted on June 30, 2017 by Trish and Rob

Here’s an interesting take on synchronicity, playing with the idea that you can create synchronicities, i.e., such as desiring to meet a new friend and that person appears. But he explains the nature of that relationship will be related to the nature of your mind-set when you send out the request.

It starts out a bit slow, but is well worth watching.

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Oddball Synchros

Posted on June 28, 2017 by Trish and Rob

It seems that nearly every day, we experience oddball synchros. They aren’t game changers, aren’t particularly powerful or memorable except that they seem to say, Okay, you’re in the flow, keep moving.

 For instance, tonight Rob and I and the dogs went to dinner at an Italian place we like because we can sit outside on the wide deck with Noah and Nika. Shortly after we’d sat down for a dinner for two, Rob dropped his phone and a Groupon popped up for a local restaurant that read: Dinner for two. I wanted to snap a photo of it, but Rob already had gone into the Groupon already, so I lost my proof!

Earlier today, Rob gave me a list of people whose stories we used in our spirit contact book that comes out this summer. The publisher wants permission slips from everyone whose stories we use, something we haven’t encountered until this year. I started emailing the individuals and the only person who answered was Dennie Gooding, a clairvoyant who lives in California, whom we haven’t spoken to in years.

In 2009, she was hired by a Palm Beach County cop to investigate a cold case that Rob and I had been involved with back in the mid 1980s. We wrote about the synchros concerning the Christie Luna case. Now, thanks to Dennie, there’s more info about that case that we’ll be posting soon.

Then the third oddball synchro. It involves cats. Since 2007, we’ve had an orange tabby cat, Simba. (picture at top of post). Our neighbors owned Copper, an orange tabby cat.

They were the same age. Same color. The difference between them was subtle: Simba has green eyes, Copper’s were amber. They often hung out together, getting high on the catnip I put out for them.  I can’t say that Copper and Simba were best buds, but they sure enjoyed getting high together.

In late December 2016, Copper was hit by a car in our neighborhood and we buried him between our two houses and had a beautiful dusk ceremony for him. This evening, when I whistled for Simba to come in, I found him rolling around on Copper’s grave. Something he has done before. Why there? The front yard offers other ample opportunities for rolling around in grass. Is he drawn to Copper’s spirit? My sense – anthropomorphism and all – is that he misses Copper, misses those evenings on the front sidewalk, the two of them rolling around in mounds of catnip, purring with contentment, sharing a moment of feline camaraderie.

Sometimes, these oddball synchros lead to larger synchros. And sometimes they don’t and are simply woven into daily life, their message simple, pure: Hello, I’m here. Your ally, friend, cheerleader. Now let’s get on with the work. It’s almost as if synchronicity is just checking in, confirming its existence.

 

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Trump and House of Cards

Posted on June 27, 2017 by Trish and Rob

 

This Netflix original series first aired on February 1, 2013 and stars Kevin Spacey and Robin Wright. Rob and I have watched most of the seasons since then and now the series is in its fifth season. It’s a fascinating look inside the corruption of American politics, with Spacey as Francis “Frank” Underwood, a corrupt Democratic Congressman from South Carolina, and then a corrupt Democratic president. At times, it’s difficult to decide who is more corrupt and amoral – Spacey, his wife, Claire, or his creepy aide, Doug Stamper, played by Michael Kelly.

At the end of last season, it was apparent that the show’s writers believed that Hillary Clinton would win the 2016 election, so the episodes were written with that in mind. The Underwoods finagled events and circumstances that allowed Claire to run for the VP slot while her husband campaigned for re-election. Imagine it. A husband and wife team running the country. Both are ruthlessly power hungry, have an open marriage, and their relationship is so dysfunctional that Freud would have a field day with them.

In earlier episodes, we discovered that Underwood is bisexual. Claire eventually takes a lover, her speechwriter, and he actually moves into the White House. In one strange scene this season, Tom Yates (played by Paul Sparks) asks what will happen if Underwood dies and she become President. “Will that make me First Concubine?”

It was tonight’s episode, though, that pretty much ended my fascination with the show. Election night. Will the Underwoods win or will a young governor, Will Conway, win the election? The Underwoods are awaiting election results in the White House’s private theater, watching Double Indemnity, an election ritual for them. There is no love between these two, only a symbiotic relationship that feeds off their mutual lust for power.

As I sat there, I thought about how stupid the Underwood’s relationship is. They lead separate lives, don’t sleep together, and the only thing they have in common is their hunger for power and the fact that they are mirror reflections of each other. Why was I wasting an hour of my time watching something that could be a day in the trump White House? Thgere’s enough of that 24/7 on the news.

Frank Underwood and trump share an appalling egocentrism and belief that they can act with impunity. Underwood doesn’t tweet as much as trump does, but he’s just as evil. He may not overtly express trump’s disdain for women, minorities, climate change, the poor, disabled and the elderly, but it’s implied with his every action. If I’m going to spend an hour out of my day watching a TV show, then give me escape – like Netflix’s paranormal series, Sense 8.  Or their family drama Bloodline, filmed in the Florida Keys. Or their homage to the 1980s, Stranger Things. I don’t give a damn what happens to the Underwoods anymore. Who needs it when the media covers the nightmare reality show of the trump presidency 24/7?

 

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Clairvoyants or Magicians?

Posted on June 25, 2017 by Trish and Rob

Take a look at this you tube video. Regardless of whether these two are clairvoyants or magicians, their performance is impressive.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93vtNc_T3W0&app=desktop

 

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Broken Foot Synchro Saga

Posted on June 23, 2017 by Trish and Rob

A couple of weeks ago, we posted about our daughter’s broken foot – a case for universal health care. After a week in a splint, she finally got her cast on June 7. Before the orthopedic surgeon approved the cast, he went through his spiel about the possible ramifications of just getting the cast – possible early onset of arthritis, persistent pain, loss of flexibility in the foot. Megan nodded. “I’ll take the risk.”

So, Megan chose the color she wanted and the cast went on. The surgeon said she should come back in 4 weeks, they would take X-rays and if the bone was healed, she would be fitted with a boot. Since her foot had been in a splint for 10 days, he counted that time. It’s her right foot and that means she can’t drive until she learns to do so with her left foot. She has a knee scooter that makes it easier to get around her house and helps with dog-walking. We did some of that while I was there and I admire Megan’s tenacity. It’s awkward on a knee scooter, particularly with dogs that are high energy, but she did great.

I stayed another day to help her out with wine walk, an Orlando event that occurs every second Thursday a month. Customers pay $10 for the walk and make their way from bars to restaurants to shop for refills. Megan sets up her pet portraits on the porch of a dog bakery, Wolfgang’s, so she has a built-in audience and she usually gets commissions from wine walk. Here are the pet wine glasses she does – Nika and Noah, my birthday present!

Getting there entails a short drive, getting out the scooter, going up a driveway and three steps to the porch, then setting up her table and pet portraits, all without her placing any pressure on her broken foot. Challenging. She collects email addresses that she enters into a raffle and the winner wins  a free pet wine glass.

The evening went well. Her foot didn’t hurt, felt more stable in the cast, but she still worried about whether she’d made the right decision. So the universe provided her with a confirmation synchro. And this one is incredible. She went out afterward with a friend and later texted me a photo of her and her friend sitting with four orthopedic surgeons (residents), all of whom looked at her foot X rays on her phone, and concurred she’d made the right choice – a cast versus surgery.

Okay, so what are the odds on this one?

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Ione MacGregor, RIP

Posted on June 19, 2017 by Trish and Rob

This photo was taken around 1995 or 1996, when Megan was 6 or 7 years old. We were traveling with Rob’s parents in Minnesota, taking a ferry across one of the 10,000 lakes, and we can’t recall which lake it was. But I think this photos captures the MacGregor spirit – Megan standing behind the other two generations.

Today at 2:03 p.m., central time, Rob’s mom, Ione MacGregor, passed on.

For the last 13 or 14 months, Ione had been in an assisted living facility in Minneapolis, suffering from dementia, heart problems, and a host of other ailments. She would have been 92 on November 18, and for months had been telling Rob and his sister, Sandy, that she just wanted to die. Her husband, Don, Rob’s dad, died 20 years ago, in 1997, and over the years, Ione had several contacts with him that she told Rob about and that we’ve written about in various books.

I didn’t know Ione well. She was a Scorpio, the most secretive and psychic of all the sun signs, and whenever I was with her, I felt she knew and sensed things that were beyond my ability to see. I always enjoyed the times we visited her in Minneapolis. She had a wry sense of humor and she, like Rob’s dad, was a big reader, an avid fan of our books and of any other books we sent her. Until her late 80s, she was quite self-sufficient, living in the home where Rob had grown up. Then she began hearing and seeing things that weren’t there, and it got to the point where she started calling police about the voices in her basement.

Fortunately, after her husband passed, she wasn’t entirely alone. She met Sal, who had recently lost his wife, through a bereavement group, and they were together for several years. She was with Sal when he died from cancer.

As with most pivotal turning points – death being the biggie – there are some stunning synchronicities associated with Ione’s passing. She died 17 years to the day that my mother did, almost to the hour. My mother passed at around 5 PM June 15, 2000. Ione died around 2 pm EDT on June 15, 2017.

At the time Rob heard about his mom’s death, we were sitting out on the porch and he was talking to his sister. The two dogs, Noah and Nika, were outside by the pool and suddenly, a tremendous gust of wind blew through the yard. It whipped trees back and forth, lifted leaves that swirled through the air, the dogs freaked and hurried back onto the porch. Then the air returned to normal, just overcast and hot.

My God, I thought. Was that Rob ‘s mom? As soon as he hung up with his sister, he said the same thing. Ione had a cat that moved to the assisted living facility with her and when she got too sick to care for it, Rob’s sister took the cat in. Early this afternoon, the cat, Sandy said, went all quiet and still, “almost like she knew what was happening.”

So, thank you, Ione, for giving birth to your wonderful son, and may your afterlife journey be filled with all the happiness that these last few years lacked. And please, don’t rest in peace. I hope you and Don and Sal are rabble rousers over there!

+++

We won’t be posting for several days. We’ll be in Minneapolis, helping Sandy and her partner move Ione’s things out of the assisted living facility. But if there are some synchros that point to spirit contact, as I suspect there will be, we’ll post about them.

 

 

 

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