The 2 Cellos concert
The 2 Cellos were coming to Milwaukee and my sister and brother-in-law were about to celebrate their wedding anniversary so for a gift I bought VIP tickets for the 3 of us.
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Two days before the concert my dad passed away suddenly and unexpectedly. I have a pretty healthy view of "death" but my dad and I had been very close, so of course I was sad at the fact I wouldn't be seeing him again here in my earthly life.
We debated if we should stilll go to the concert. All of my dad's arrangements had been made, the tickets had been expensive and we ultimately decided my dad would have told us to go.
Still, I wished I could have Jmmanuel with me at that concert for moral support if nothing else. But I know how busy he is and didn't want him to feel guilty by saying "Gracie, I just can't get down there" so I never even mentioned the concert to him. He had enough on his plate without babysitting me.
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As we waited for the show to begin, I looked around the theater. Typical of 2 Cello concerts, tickets had sold out within a day or two of going on sale. There was only one empty seat in the theater - right next to me.
I figured as expensive as the VIP tickets had been whoever held that seat had probably gotten tied up in traffic or something and would show up eventually.
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The theater darkened, the curtain went up and I got totally wrapped up in the music. I barely noticed when a guy sat down next to me.
Stejphan and Lucas began playing the theme from Titanic, My Heart Will Go On.
Normally listening to that song uplifted me...but that night it just made me sad, thinking about not having my dad in my life.
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Suddenly the guy sitting next to me reached over and took my hand in his.
I was debating how to go about breaking his fingers for him without disrupting the whole concert when he turned to me and smiled.
It was Jmmanuel.
Hurricane Katrina
I had a client living in New Orleans when they were evacuating the city prior to Hurricane Katrina striking.
Being my client she knew who I called on for help when I needed it and she asked me to ask Jmmanuel to keep she and her family safe and let their house come through Katrina relatively unscathed.
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Katrina hit and we lost contact. Three years later I got an email from her. They'd returned to New Orleans and she wanted me to thank Jmmanuel for her.
She'd attached a couple of photos of her house. Every house in her entire neighborhood had been leveled to matchsticks. And there her house stood intact in the middle of all the rubble, the only damage to it being the water damage from the flood. A very large tree had fallen right next to the house and should have hit the house. Somehow it had miraculously missed the house by only about 3" to 4".
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Ask and ye shall receive...
Be careful what you wish for...
When I was being targeted at the Sheriff's Department all of my fellow cops turned against me for fear of losing their jobs. This was really hurtful but especially in the case of our K9 officer as I had a bond with his Malinois no one else but he seemed to have. Cory (an alias) had quit speaking to me altogether.
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I was angry too. I said to Jmmanuel "You need to teach that boy a lesson about just whose camp he has his boots in!" Mind you, I was largely venting...but the Angelics take things very literally.
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The next day was my wedding anniversary. I awoke that morning to the news Cory had hit the back of a logging truck in his squad right near my home. His dog had been in the car with him.
Cory's squad after hitting the logging truck
By all rights both of them should've been killed. Luckily, Cory only suffered a broken leg and the dog was unharmed.
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A couple of weeks later I ran into Cory at our local medical clinic. Suddenly I was good enough to talk to again.
He told me "Someone was watching out for me that morning!"
I told him "I'm glad you realize that!"
The Angelics always do things in 3's.
Jmmanuel wasn't through with Cory and teaching him a lesson just yet.
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We have bobcats up here and Cory had spotted one in his yard. He and his wife had just had a baby so Cory was on high alert for this bobcat.
Unfortunately, his niece decided to prank him by hiding in some bushes and playing a recording of a bobcat growling. Cory drew his gun and fired - hitting his niece high on the shoulder and just missing her head.
He was put on administrative leave while an internal investigation was started. Ultimately, he wasn't held responsible for shooting his niece and she recovered from her injuries.
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Shortly after that, he fell asleep at the wheel and hit a tree head-on going nearly 60 mph. Again, he escaped serious injury.
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I think that was really the first time I fully realized what kind of power the Angelics hold. I learned to be careful what I wished for from that point forward.
Dillinger
Jmmanuel loves to shock people and he's not above pranking people in the least!
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My friend from Australia was visiting for 5 weeks. She and her mom were both fascinated by 30's gangster John Dillinger and when she learned Little Bohemia (scene of the shoot out between Dillinger, his gang and the FBI) was right up the road from me she wanted to see Little Bohemia. It was too early for dinner so we decided we'd just stop and have a drink at the bar so she could see the lodge.
(It's also the location the FBI shoot out scene was filmed for the movie Public Enemies with Johnny Depp.)
Like myself, Julie was a very gifted psychic medium. While she went to get us seats at the bar, I stopped in the restroom. When I came out, Julie was rushing toward me in a panic.
"Sis! Where was Dillinger shot?"
"In the back, why?"
"OMG SIS! I have Dillinger and my back is killing me! We have to get out of here!"
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So out the door we went. Little Bohemia has a very long driveway and we were driving down this driveway
when Julie shouted "OMG SIS! HE'S IN THE BACK SEAT!"
I looked in the rear view mirror and sure enough, there sat Dillinger.
"OMG WHAT DO I DO? WHAT DO i DO?" as Julie's panic escalated.
"I suppose ask him what he wants," I laughed.
"He says he's looking for his girlfriend Mary. What do I do?"
"Well, try calling Mary forth I guess..."
At that moment a woman appeared in the backseat next to Dillinger.
"Thank you, ma'am" he said to Julie. "If there's ever anything I can do to repay the favor just call on me."
With that the two of them disappeared.
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I was laughing about the whole thing and how panicked Julie had gotten and soon she was laughing too.
When we got back to my house, my neighbor Robin was in her yard. We told her what had just taken place. As fate would have it, Robin's gramma Fern had been Dillinger's favorite waitress at Little Bohemia. He'd always ask for her to wait on him, then tip her $100 - a heck of a lot of money in those days but I guess if you rob banks for a living...
Gramma Fern told us we had Dillinger exactly right, that he was always very well mannered and polite with her and if someone did him a favor he'd always repay that favor somehow. And yes, he did have a girlfriend named Mary.​
We looked up Dillinger on my computer, looking for this Mary. I couldn't remember him having any girlfriend named Mary. Well, sure enough...there was the woman who'd appeared in the back seat of the car next to Dillinger. Her name was Mary Evelyn "Billie" Freschette.
No wonder I hadn't heard of any Mary but I sure knew of "Billie".
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As it turned out, Julie did have the real Dillinger in the bar but the Dillinger in the back seat of the car had been Jmmanuel pranking her. But he wasn't through pranking her just yet...
Lions and tigers and BEARS...oh my!
Julie was absolutely petrified of encountering one of our bears. After all, in Australia all they have are those cute, cuddly Koalas...not any real big a** bears. Robin and I kept telling her she had nothing to worry about where the bears were concerned. They didn't like contact with humans and would avoid it whenever possible. She probably wouldn't even see a bear while in the Northwoods. Then we made the mistake of telling her only the females were dangerous if they had cubs with them.
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We were driving back from an outing in Eagle River, driving through St. Germain when she started in the bears again.
"Oh for crying out loud!" I said. "You have a better chance of getting struck by lightning than seeing any bear!"
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At that INSTANT what comes charging out of the woods, straight at our car?
"The females are only dangerous if they have cubs with them..."
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Julie's now screaming at the top of her lungs "DRIVE FASTER SIS! DRIVE FASTER!" as she's trying to climb on my lap behind the steering wheel.
I slowed down and asked "Want me to stop and get a picture of them for ya?"
"NO I DON'T WANT YOU TO STOP! DRIVE FASTER!"
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At that moment I hear Jmmanuel just cackling away.
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Julie's parting shot to me as she was boarding her plane back to Australia?
"I wish I would've had you stop and take a picture of those bears for me..."
The Doves
A pair of mourning doves began appearing in my front yard each day. When Jmmanuel would have to go incommunicado, only the female dove would show up alone. When Jmmanuel could begin communicating with me again, the male would reappear with the female. Not that remarkable in itself...it was the behavior of the doves interacting that was kind of remarkable.
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While Julie was visiting me we'd have coffee in front of my picture window and watch the two of them together. Julie said to me, "Do you realize those doves act just like you and Naz?"
This will lose something in the translation I'm sure...but Julie began doing a running comedy routine on Jmmanuel and I as these two doves that was absolutely hilarious. The two doves are together in the yard when the male dove takes off. The female dove watches him take off and just goes about her business, waiting for the male to return. She finally gets tired of waiting for him and takes off herself.
Shortly after she does, the male returns. I had this railroad tie sandbox I'd turned into a planter and have veggies growing in it that had gotten fairly tall. Each different kind of veggie was marked with a wooden marker with a face on it that I'd made. Like the ones pictured at right below.
The male dove is walking around in this planter, obviously looking for the female as Julie is imitating him, calling "Gracie! Where are you?"
The male stops in front of the tomato garden marker, cocks his head as he looks at the face on the tomato marker... as Julie says "You're not Gracie!"
By this time I have coffee coming out my hose I'm laughing so hard. We couldn't have scripted this whole thing with the 2 doves better than it had gone down.
At that moment the female dove returns, landing a short distance from the garden. The male goes over to rejoin her, then starts moving up a little hill there at a good clip.
Julie as Jmmanuel: "Come on, woman! We have work to do!"
The female dove falls in behind him, running for all she's worth up this hill to catch up to him.
Julie as me: "I'm coming Naz!"
She'd just NAILED how Jmmanuel and I interact with one another and these 2 doves had played it out perfectly.
When I moved to my new house no mourning doves here. I was sitting on my deck one afternoon remembering the doves when I said to Jmmanuel "Could you bring the doves back so I could see them one last time please?"
I kid you not...not 2 minutes later the mourning doves land in a tree right next to my deck and sat there looking at me. After about 5 minutes they flew off and I've never seen them since.
Jmmanuel lets me know he doesn't like my new "do"
Jmmanuel's a typical guy in that he likes women to have long hair.
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I'd just gotten my hair cut short in a spiky do. I'd taken a shower and gone to bed with my hair wet so the following morning I had spikes sticking up all over the place.
I'm not a morning person. I have to have at least two cups of coffee in me before my brain starts firing on all cylinders.
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That morning I stumble out of bed half asleep and go to the coffeemaker. I'm making coffee when I jear Jmmanuel clear as day remark "You look like a cockatoo."
Okie dokie. Safe to assume he doesn't like the new "do".