CNA PCA—-what ever the title it doesnt matter—-I have met CNAs over my career I would trust over half the nurses I have met. It all comes down to what kind of person you are. It was a gift that you were their while the patient drew her last breath—and did it joyfully the way she did—it can be a very special time for onlookers to watch someone”passover”—I am sure you were there for a reason………. Anger can be a disquise for so many different problems—I find angry people are people who are very hurt inside—they need our love and attention more than others but it can be so difficult to try and give it to them……….. What do you do now? I hope you work in Human Services you belong there

Love the Color Purple but The Associate was always my favorite - it makes my inner feminist smile. Then there’s the magical Corrina, Corrina…oh, and Boys On the Side!!! Wait, you’re right - they’re all great.

About 10 years ago, my kids and I lived in this big, old, two-storey house for nearly 6 years, that was built in 1902. It was converted into an upstairs/downstairs duplex back in the early 50s. We lived in the ground floor unit. Since it was such an old place, there was no soundproofing betwixt up and down. We could hear everything from downstairs. And I mean EVERYTHING! We experienced all manner of strangeness there. Never felt threatened, but it was unnerving, at times. The livingroom vibrated. Just the livingroom. If you sat in this one chair, you could really feel it. You could see the plants shaking. It never happened in any other room. And the place would groan like an animal. I kept telling myself it was an old house and old houses make noise. Several times, when I was absolutely certain there was no one at home upstairs, we’d hear footsteps. Again, chalked it up to being an old house. But, how can one explain this when that unit was completely empty betwixt tenants? It happened all the time. Many times when I was in my room, I’d catch a glimpse of something walking past my door, and another door somewhere in the house would slam. Thinking it was my teenaged daughter coming home from school or work, I’d go to say hi. I was always surprised to find myself completely alone in the house. Well, except for my cats, but they don’t appear to be 6 foot tall. The front door of the building led into a foyer that used to be the original front porch. As you entered, my front door was to your right, and to your left was a staircase that went up five steps, hit a landing and turned, and went another eight steps to the front door of the upstairs apartment. You could really tell which was the original section and which was the new section of the staircase. I could always hear if someone opened the door and came into the foyer. I’d wait for a knock at my door, or footsteps going upstairs. If they went up, I’d be a good/nosy neighbour and let them know there was nobody home upstairs and could I relay a message. About half the time, I heard footsteps…and no one would be there. After experiencing this several times, I’d just go bang on the neighbour’s door, to see if they were home, and they never were. I think the original staircase came down into the livingroom, where my sofa was. If you were sitting in one particular spot, you could sometimes feel an intense cold go through you. It was drafty there, but I don’t think that was necessarily the reason for that happening every, single time. My daughter’s room was a creepy one. I could never quite figure out what it had once been. It was off the kitchen and under the original part of the stairs. There were no windows…only a little, three-foot tall door that opened to the outdoors, on the side of the house. In the middle of the night, she’d be sleeping only to be awoken by the sound of feet going up and down the steps. Up and down, up and down. The rest of the house would be quiet…just noise in her room. The first time it happened, it freaked her out, and she called me at work. Thinking it was a burgler (the upstairs was empty at the time), I called 911 and flew home on the freeway, from Seattle, where I wrorked graveyard. I arrived, and the police were still there. Everything had been locked up tighter than a drum, and they reported no intruders. The next few times it happened, I happened to be home. She came out of her room, white as a sheet, and told me to come hear the noise. Yes….up and down…up and down…over and over again. We sat on her bed listening for over an hour. During this time, I’d gone out into the foyer a few times, expecting to see someone, but no…the stairs were empty. I couldn’t hear them from out there, but I could definitly hear them from in her room. There were all sorts of things like that, the entire time we lived there. Just weird, unexplainable happenings that both of my children and friends of the family would also experience. It wasn’t scary, just very creepy. Even all the different upstairs neighbours would have tales of odd things going on in their space. One incident, in particular, stands out. The guy upstairs, Kevin, was downstairs visiting my son and I..just hanging out chatting and watching TV. His girlfriend, Kay’D, was at work and didn’t get off until midnight. We were just sitting there when all of a sudden their TV upstairs came on, full blast. Kevin looked puzzled and wondered why she was home so early. We all trudged upstairs to say hi and…nothing. Just the TV blaring. But that wasn’t all. The ceiling fan, which they never used because it kicked up too much dust for Kay’D’s allergies, was also on full bore. We thought it was going to spin itself off the ceiling it was going so fast. He called, no answer. We all kinda looked at each other, very confused. I went into the kitchen to look out the window for her car, and all the burners on the stove were red hot. All the lights in the place were on, too, and Kevin swore he had only left the bathroom light on. He got on the phone to call her at work, just to see if she might have come home (as work was only about 5 minutes away) for some reason. No reason could really explain, but he was grasping at straws. Yep…working at Lowe’s and with a customer. Hmmmm… I did some research at the library on the house…the Everett (Washington) Library Main Branch had a wonderful section to be able to do this. Through old Everett Herald newspaper articles, city and county records, et cetera, I learned that the original owners built the house. Their names where Robert and Emily Moore. He was a chemist and she was an assistant superintendant for the Everett School District. They had one son, Henry. The parents lived in the house for the rest of their lives. Robert died, at home, in 1942, and Emily died, at home, in 1949. Henry inherited the building, and revamped it in 1952. I think that Robert and Emily were still there. I am the sort of person that has to investigate stuff like this. I have to find reasons for things before I can form a final opinion. The vibrating livingroom: I crawled under the house a few times to check the foundation, flooring joists and to chase out the resident raccoons, possums and stray cats. Solid as a rock, as far as I could tell. Was it traffic on the main road 3 blocks away? Doubtful. Was it trains going into a tunnel 12 blocks away? Maybe, but doubtful. The dark shadowy figures: Could have been my imagination. Dunno. Slamming doors: The doors in that place were pretty stout and didn’t close easily, let alone slam by themselves. It was expected in the summertime when all the doors were open and a vaccuum was created; I’d prop them open. But in the dead of winter when it was hella cold, the doors were all shut tightly. Dunno. Mystery footsteps on the staircase, cold spots on the couch, and appliances and electronics that turn on by themselves: While I can see where TVs, lights and fans may react to a short in the cicuit or something (even though they were all on separate circuits) by turning on, you had to push and turn each knob for any of the burners to come on. You tell me… The place is haunted and I’m sticking to that. I’ve always wanted to write the new owners to see if they’ve experienced anything strange there. Perhaps I should do that. I can risk being labelled a kook, if they haven’t. But if they have, they might just answer me. Heh heh heh…

Fraaaank! So nice to see you way back here. I liked your apology. That was very good of you extend the olive branch to the above offended persons. I re-read your intial comment, and you are correct that you merely offered your opinion of the supernatural. That’s the spirit! (Pun intended…) That is what the question was all about. Unfortunately, it all deteriorated from there. Being a member of all sorts of forums on The Interweb, I’ve noticed that people get offended at the slightest thing. It’s one of my pet peeves. Not that the offense is taken, but that all manner of sniping and nastiness ensues thereafter. It’s not necessary and can get real ugly quite rapidly. All reason goes out the window and obtuse tangents are created. I have been guilty of this offense, myself. I hate it when I get into the fray, but there it is. In a certain frame of mind, my buttons can definitely get pushed. I am human. It IS possible to have a pleasant and intelligent cyber conversation, while still maintaining some modicum of respect and manners towards an opposing opinion. I just don’t see it too often. It’s easy to talk about things when everyone has the same point of view or reference. But that’s not always a really great conversation amongst the wide variety of people one encounters in The Void, is it? I don’t think so, anyway. I like hearing others’ thoughts on differing subjects. It can be very interesting, and sometimes my mind can be swayed. I try, very hard, to take other ideas into consideration when deciding how I feel about something. I’ve always prided myself on being able to see all sides to a question. I’m just hard-wired like that. There are certain topics of conversation that I have a very strong opinion of, but I won’t express it because it usually results in a stalemate. People believe what they want to believe, and it’s a pointless expenditure of energy that can be better spent on something else. That, and I really suck in debate situations. Often times, I can’t produce any concrete reasons about how and why I think a certain way. It’s just how I feel about something. Illogical? Irrational? Probably. That’s just how I work. I understand how this election is very important to this country. I understand how the recent events in the news have most people foaming at the mouth. People have become very passionate about what side they are on, and who’s right and who’s wrong. I think that most of us have lost sight about what’s really important in life and what’s going to be really good for America, because we all want to be on the winning side. Shouldn’t it really be more than just that? As ludicrous as this sounds, it all boils down to this for me: to quote Mr. Spock, “The needs of the many must outweigh the needs of the few or the one.” So simple yet so complex. I have given up watching the news, of late, because I am trying to quit smoking. It makes me crazy. It makes us ALL crazy. It all makes me wanna go out and buy a pack of smokes. I come here to relax. Unfortunately, all too often I end up saying something I will have to back up at a later point in time. Or regret saying. So, most times, I just sit back and watch. It’s quite busy in my head, you know. If I have offended you, I am truly sorry for that. It was not my intent. And if you thought I was attacking you, well…that wasn’t my intent, either. I really wasn’t calling you an asshole. I just was using a saying I’ve heard for a long time. I was trying to be humourous. It’s a funny quote. I just now have been trying to find the origin of it, and it’s been attributed to Dirty Harry, a couple of other movies and someone’s mother. LOL I have no idea where it came from. For all I know, Shakespeare first wrote it. Who knows? I just try to get people to think about what they are saying to one another. And to be nicer to one another, as well. Life’s too short to waste on ill will, nit-picking and insults. Also, if my long comment before seemed to have a lecturing tone to it, I’m sorry. It’s not that I look down upon others from some lofty perch. When I write, I make a very concentrated effort to choose my words carefully. I try to inject some humour into a situation to diffuse animosities. And I try to offer some of the wisdom I’ve learned from life…to help others become better, kinder, more mannerly people. That sort of thing is very important to me. I think we have lost that, over time. I think the world would be a far better place if we treated each other with mutual respect, especially if we are strangers. I have many faults. I am not perfect. I don’t have any delusions, whatsoever, that I am. I don’t think that I’m better than anyone else. I’m just a silly woman who has an ideal of what we could be if we could only see what we shouldn’t be. *sigh* Yes, I do have opinions…many, many of them! If you and I can get past this little fracas, you might hear some of them. You may not like them or agree with them, but we may have more in common than you think. I believe myself to be a reasonable person. I have reason to believe that you are a reasonable person, as well, judging from the apology you’ve offered above. You have laid out some real concerns that are important to you. I haven’t heard some of what you speak because I’ve taken the ostrich approach to life, lately, so I’m not qualified to offer an opinion or an answer. It’s not that I’m vaccuous, but I am uninformed. May I go out on a limb and be completely honest with you? Even though you feel that there’s some hidden agenda with the Obamas, I’m not worried about any of that. That’s your right to feel this way just as it’s my right to not care about it. I don’t think you are less of an intelligent being, believing as you do. It must worry you or you wouldn’t have put it out there. I respect that, and I’m sorry that you’re so concerned. Personally speaking, if he wins the election, I think everything is going to be okay despite your feelings. I also think that if McCain wins the election, everything is still going to be okay. Life has a way of working itself out, somehow. I’m voting for Obama. You’re voting for McCain. We are cancelling each other out, and everything is still going to be okay. There are enough things that they both agree upon that will be good for this country and the rest of the world. The big things are: to stay in Iraq or not to stay in Iraq, Sarah Palin, and Roe V Wade.. That’s basically why I’m voting for Obama. There are other differences, but that’s for another time and another election. I just want what everyone else wants: for America to pick itself up, dust itself off, and move forward. I want for the rest of the world to not think that we are a collective bunch of arrogant idiots who only care about money and material things. I want for us to have real pride for America and not some jingoistic imitaion of what it is to be patriotic. I want things to be better for us all. I want people to feel safe and secure in their daily lives. I want to be able to not have to worry about the cost of going to the doctor because I have no insurance. I want to be able to know that when I get to be my father’s age (91 a few days after the election), I’ll be able to not have to compete with my cats at their food dish because groceries are so expensive. I want to be able to breathe clean air and drink clean water and know that the planet will still be around when my children’s children are my age. *takes a looong breath when she realises that she’s getting all worked up…* So…can we be friends? I’d like that much better. Let’s start over! Hi, Frank. My name’s Renee. Pleased to meet you. Would you like to hear my take on ghosts? It may sound crazy and odd, but it’s what I’ve experienced in life’s interesting and mysterious journey. You can find it in the main post area on page 6, towards the bottom. I hope that you find it interesting and/or entertaining. Skeptic? Oh, that’s okay. I’m used to it. X-Hubby #2 thought I was crazy when our son told him that I’d seen Bigfoot one night on the way home from my father’s house near Mount St. Helens. It was late at night and I was driving on the backroads, through the forest in Mason County……

Frank, Just a little tid bit of information you might not know. I’ve been worried about McCain’s age…………here’s another reason to continue my worry about him. He still refers to Czechoslovakia and Czechoslovakians…………The country hasn’t existed for 15 years. His mind if not as sharp as one’s should be when holding the Office of President of the United States.