Ghosts Again!

Well... I guess I should start by saying I'm not sure that ghosts are in fact what I'm dealing with.  I'm also not sure a "haunting" is as permanent as people often seem to think.  A drive-by haunting? Lol!  Sounds funny, right?  But is it such a weird idea, really?  If all ghosts are is energy, and energy is moving all around (electricity for example) then why couldn't some hauntings be fleeting?  Like a ghost made a bump in the night as he was just passing through your house on his way to wherever.  Like he was zooming by, in his ghostly way, and happened to bump a table with his energy and knock something off of it and then just continue on his way.  And then you're there thinking OMG my house is haunted! But it never happens again. 

I can't remember if I wrote about this or not (and frankly I don't have the desire to go hunt for it in the archives) but there's a spot in the living room that Mara always stares at and smiles, coos and giggles.  I always just assumed it was my grandma.   Mara didn't do it all the time, just occasionally.  And there aren't any windows, lights or colorful things over there.  It's just a fireplace.  So I figured it was grandma, popping in to say hi and check on Mara and me. 

One night a few months ago, Corky was in the bathtub and I was brushing my teeth.  It was probably around 10:30pm, Mara was in bed. I heard a crash downstairs.  The dogs were asleep on the bed.  I looked at them to see if they reacted but they stayed asleep.  Had I imagined it?  No, I was sure I had heard something.

"Did you hear that?" I asked.

Corky looked up from his Kindle. "Hear what?"

"That crash downstairs."

"No, I didn't hear anything."

"It sounded like someone knocked something over.  And the dogs are up here!"

I decided to go investigate.  Corky wanted to do it but I vetoed that.  For one thing, he didn't have any clothes on and for another, he would drip water everywhere.  As it turned out he jumped out of the tub, dried off quickly and followed me. 

I arrived downstairs in the dark, and everything was quiet.  I turned on the kitchen lights and the living room light.  Corky appeared at the bottom of the stairs behind me (ever the protective husband) and we looked around.  Everything seemed to be in place.  We ventured into the living room.

"Corky, look!" I exclaimed, pointing.

A picture frame hung empty on the wall.  The picture (a landscape of trees and crows that his mom painted for us as a housewarming gift) stood on the floor, propped up against the leg of the desk that the picture frame hung above. 

THAT was weird. For 2 reasons: first, how did the picture come out of the frame all by itself after it had been hanging there, intact, since last spring?  Second, how did the picture clear the desk, hit the floor, and manage to prop itself up nicely against the leg?

The weirdest coincidence?  It was near the grandma corner. The picture hangs on the wall about 6-7 feet to the right of where Mara looks, perpendicular to the direction she is looking so I know she's not actually looking at the picture. 

The whole thing just gave me a chill - the same chill I remember feeling as a child in my parents house when something weird would happen.  (See April 2013 archives for the blog post about "Paul".) 

Mommy's big girl