Every so often, at a particular time in the evening, all the dogs in the neighborhood bark. I always thought it was just their set time to meet, you know, like they'd hold some grand council remotely, just by barking. Because I can hear my dogs bark, and then wait for some other dog to answer.

But my sister's boyfriend had another interesting theory. He has a Lhasa Apsu/Poodle, and he was walking him around our neighborhood, when for some reason, passing this certain spot on the street, the dog just reared up and started growling at thin air, like there was something there, although it didn't look like there was. The dog didn't calm down until they passed this particular spot.

So the theory is that there might be a ghost or two haunting the street. My sister's boyfriend wondered if someone had died at that spot, or maybe something tragic happened at the house adjacent the spot.

I've always believed that dogs can feel things that they can't necessarily see, and things that we humans definitely can't see. (My 13 year old is probably half-blind by now, but she seems to be able to see just fine.) I mean, after all, there's that theory about dogs predicting earthquakes (although this isn't all bullshit, since they can probably hear at a lower frequency than we can, and the sound waves generated arrive a lot faster than the actual wave through rock.)

I know I've dreamt of bizarre tragedies occurring on the street where I live. Like that time I dreamt I saw a car get repeatedly struck by lightning. Or that time I thought I could hear coyotes howling (this was before we had dogs) and dreamt that there was a massive pileup on the nearby freeway. This happened to precede the Whittier-Narrows earthquake in 1986 (which happened to be the first major earthquake I ever experienced.) Although I don't remember our dog freaking out during the Northridge quake, surprisingly.

Which reminds me. I've been meaning to see if I can find out if there are any Tongvan sacred sites around here. (The Tongvans are the people that the Spanish called the Gabrieleños, and are responsible for naming Eagle Rock) Well, besides Eagle Rock itself. I imagine that there must be a lot of haunted sites nestled amidst these hills that the Tongvans once occupied. That might explain the weird dreams and the dogs barking. (I don't know how, but hey, it's 1am, and I need to be awake in 5 hours. I'm obviously grasping for straws here.)

Or maybe it's just the spirit of this hill, still groaning about the incision that the Glendale Freeway makes through its flesh.

OK, I'm losing it.

By the way, I walked one of my dogs past that spot this evening and he didn't react. So it could all be my own personality insanity wanting to tie everything together.