Transcript
[00:00:00]
Music: “Oh No, Ross and Carrie! Theme Song” by Brian Keith Dalton. A jaunty, upbeat instrumental.
Ross Blocher: Hello, and welcome to Oh No, Ross and Carrie!, the show where we don’t just report on fringe science, spirituality, claims of the paranormal. No, no, no, no, no, we take part ourselves.
Carrie Poppy: Yep, that would be bullshit! But here, when they make the claims, we show up, so you don’t have to. I’m Carrie Poppy.
Ross Blocher: And I’m Ross Blocher. As promised, as predicted in the last episode—first true prediction of 2024—we are back to talk about our visits to psychics to find out what our lives are going to look like in the coming year.
Carrie Poppy: Yes, you’re right. This is a foretelling foretold, a prophecy fulfilled, because last week we knew we would do this. And by last week I mean ten minutes ago.
Ross Blocher: We are recording directly after the last one, because we were all ready to go with all this, but we just realized this was too long of an episode.
Carrie Poppy: And because we realized, thanks to Isaac Mars, that time is not real.
Ross Blocher: These are the important lessons you learn on Oh No, Ross, and Carrie!.
Carrie Poppy: But we wanted to get predictions that are about us specifically, not just about the world, because it’s our show.
(They chuckle.)
Ross Blocher: Sure. Well, and hopefully the lessons that apply to our readings from psychics could also apply to your readings from psychics and the readings of—
Carrie Poppy: (Speaking in unison with Ross.) —your readings from psychics. We show up so you don’t have to.
Ross Blocher: (Speaking in unison with Carrie.) —don’t have to. And also, you know, if you know someone in your life who’s smitten with a psychic, maybe you can contextualize some of the things that they’re hearing.
Carrie Poppy: So, I went to my hometown of La Crescenta, California. It is sandwiched between Tujunga, California and La Cañada, California. Now, La Cañada, California, is where Jet Propulsion Laboratory is, for example, if you’ve heard of it. JPL, part of NASA’s top… place!
Ross Blocher: They build the rovers.
Carrie Poppy: Yes, yes. They build the rovers. That gives you an idea. Anyway, I didn’t grow up there. I grew up next door in La Crescenta. And in La Crescenta, instead of JPL, we have a street psychic. So, when—
Ross Blocher: Yeah, I was waiting for the transition and there it was.
Carrie Poppy: (Laughing.) When I was growing up, my mom and I would drive by this psychic all the time, and I would see this bizarre little house front.
Ross Blocher: Oh, love a good house front.
Carrie Poppy: Yeah, it definitely was a house that became a business, and the other houses around it have been mostly stripped away. So, you’ve just got that one, uncanny, looks-like-a-house-but-is-a-business business.
Ross Blocher: Interesting, okay, yeah. Is this on a major street?
Carrie Poppy: For the area, yes. It’s on Foothill Boulevard. Yeah. So, yeah, it’s a major street.
Ross Blocher: An arterial road.
Carrie Poppy: Yes, exactly. So, I’ve sent you this photo, but there’s the front of her house with her big sign.
Ross Blocher: So, yeah, you’re showing me this psychic reading sign. It’s got neon, both on the words psychic and readings but also on the moon. There’s a crescent moon and there’s—is that a ring around a planet? What’s going on over here? A UFO?
Carrie Poppy: I think it’s Saturn.
Ross Blocher: And then the crystal ball that the wizened Merlin-like figure is carrying. He’s got like his little sorcerer’s cap and symbols on his blue garments but a long white flowing beard. Yeah. Yeah. This is great. This is great signage. Is this something that you were kind of seeing your whole life growing up?
Carrie Poppy: Yes. Oh, and here’s—sorry. There’s also this guy.
(Ross “woah!”s and gasps.)
There he is in the flesh. And by flesh I mean a statue of the wizard right out in front of her house.
Ross Blocher: Alright, they’re doing well on the advertising.
Carrie Poppy: Yeah, so you can see why when I’m ten I’m like, “Mom, why have I lived here ten years and we have not yet gone to the psychic?!” And so, when I was ten, my mom took me.
Ross Blocher: Oh, really?! (Gasps.) To that psychic.
Carrie Poppy: To this woman.
Ross Blocher: Now that would have never happened, because this would have been evil and scary to me growing up. But yeah, this little statue of the wizard character is pretty cool. And I see behind it says, “No smoking, no recording, no photo taking, no food or drinks.” And I always love a good photo of a no photo taking sign.
Carrie Poppy: (Laughs.) Oh, that’s funny. I didn’t even notice the no photo when I did it. I just said, “I’m going to take a picture of him. Is that okay?” And she was like, yeah, yeah. Alright. So, I went to see her when I was about ten with my mom. And how I remember it is I remember feeling like she didn’t tell me very much. And I remember that she asked me for a wish. And my wish was that my horse would live a long, happy life. And so, when I was a kid, we had this horse that I never rode, but my sibling rode—Brownie—and Psychic Dorothy, which is her name, told me at the time that Brownie would live a long, happy life.
[00:05:00]
I have no idea if that’s true, because my parents sold Brownie soon after that and didn’t tell us.
(Ross “oh no”s.)
It was terrible. But anyway. (Laughs.) Yeah. But I have no idea if Brownie lived a long, happy life. Maybe he did. But that was my memory. And then months later, my mom was watching Unsolved Mysteries and insisted that a psychic on Unsolved Mysteries was psychic Dorothy. She was this psychic who (inaudible) people—
Ross Blocher: Who was on the lamb, but has a storefront in La Crescenta.
Carrie Poppy: Yes, and she called the Unsolved Mysteries hotline.
(Ross laughs.)
And anyway, as far as I know, nothing ever came of this. And my mom mixes up faces like a lot, like a lot. So, I’m suspicious that she was not the psychic from Unsolved Mysteries. But that is what I knew about Psychic Dorothy, and I was like I want to go back. What’s up with Psychic Dorothy?
Ross Blocher: Oh my goodness, so many years later. Decades later.
Carrie Poppy: And she is still there!
Ross Blocher: That’s amazing. It’s still the same psychic?
Carrie Poppy: Same woman. She’s been there 40 years.
Ross Blocher: Same signage. Okay.
Carrie Poppy: I was actually able to find her in the LA Times from 2008, talking about at that time how long she had been there. Because she was picking the—like picking NFL picks or something. Yeah. It was a puff piece.
Ross Blocher: Okay. Wild! And I think that’s really cool that your mom heard your request and said, “Sure, let’s go see the sidekick.” ‘Cause that would have never happened for me.
Carrie Poppy: Oh, right. Yeah, we weren’t Christian enough for anyone to object. So, I find her website, which is LaCrescentaPsychic.com.
Ross Blocher: Good URL reserving.
Carrie Poppy: Yes, absolutely. Very strong. And in her—
Ross Blocher: Oh yeah, she is on with the branding. Oh yeah, oh good. So, go there everybody, and you can see the storefront that we’re talking about and this very cool sign. So, that sign is repeated, I guess. There’s one version of it on the house and one out front to catch people’s attention. Yeah, this is highly effective.
Carrie Poppy: Yeah, it’s so cool looking. The wizard is dope. He’s got Birkenstocks on.
Ross Blocher: Well, and thank goodness you can go there anytime, because it’s 9AM to 10PM, seven days a week!
Carrie Poppy: Yeah, go hit up Dorothy. So, I call her on December 27th and ask her for a reading, and she was like, “Well, I’m not in La Crescenta right now, but I may be able to do a reading over Zoom, but I don’t know. Can you text me your full name and your date of birth? And then we’ll see if—”
Ross Blocher: Gotta look up your star chart.
Carrie Poppy: Yes, exactly. “We’ll see if we can book anything.”
Ross Blocher: Or at least know your star sign. I guess if she wanted to do the star chart, she’d need the time you were born and location.
Carrie Poppy: Yeah, she just needed—you know, another way to see it is she wanted to Google me, but yeah.
Ross Blocher: I see tarot card reading for $65, energy reading for $95, palm reading for $45, and a combination reading, $165!
Carrie Poppy: You know what? This is really interesting. I asked for the combination reading, and you’re right, it says 165. I thought it said 160, and I just said to her, “It’s 160, right?” And she said sure. So, I wonder if I could have said any price. I should have been like, “It’s $20, is that correct?”
Ross Blocher: You shaved five bucks off that. I ended up paying five dollars more, so. Look at this karmic balance.
Carrie Poppy: Oh, there you go! I did end up tipping her. I’ll tell you about it.
(They laugh.)
Okay, so I text her. I say, “Hey, Dorothy, we just spoke. I’d love to come in for a reading on Thursday or Friday, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I was born Caroline Snyder on July 13th, 1983, but I go by Carrie.” All facts!
And she said, “I’ll get back to you in a little bit.” I say sure thing. Okay! (Chuckles.)
Ross Blocher: See, I’ve started to just assume that most longstanding psychics, especially someone who’s had a successful storefront for decades, are generally just going to be too lazy to even try to look someone up. Like, I think that that would be more effort than they feel they need to put into it, because they no longer have to prove anything to anyone. That would be my assumption. So, I’d just be like here you go.
Carrie Poppy: Oh, interesting. Okay. Yeah, that could be right.
Ross Blocher: And I say that knowing now that, when I tell my story, there were things where I was hesitant to give information. But still, I feel like generally people are kind of lazier than we would assume. But if you’re doing like a live performance or you’re a new and upcoming psychic, I more suspect you of doing hot reading.
Carrie Poppy: Interesting. I guess I just figure for 160-odd bucks, one hour of conversation, I’d look someone up. So, an hour and four minutes back, she asks me if we can do a reading tonight by phone or FaceTime. She feels some really strong energy for me. Hello, am I there? Am I there?!
Ross Blocher: Like multiple texts. “I want a reply now.”
Carrie Poppy: Yeah. So, I didn’t see that right away. And so, I texted her back in a little bit. We ended up setting a call for 4PM the next day.
Ross Blocher: The 28th.
Carrie Poppy: At 4PM I call her.
[00:10:00]
She does not remember we had an appointment.
(Ross “oh no”s several times.)
She asks who I am, then asks me to send her my name and my date of birth.
Ross Blocher: I did!
Carrie Poppy: And also, to send her two wishes.
Ross Blocher: Oooh! (Whispering.) Oh, this is so weird.
Carrie Poppy: I text those back. Okay. Then she asks me to call back in 45 minutes after she has spent time analyzing my star chart, which supposedly she had already done. Okay. An hour and 44 minutes later, I get another text from her. She says, “Hi, for the little bit of research that I’m doing, changes are immediately on the way. But I’d like to look in—I’m gonna need another 40 minutes.” I’m just sitting by my phone here. It’s been hours now.
Ross Blocher: That sounds like me before we record an episode.
(They laugh.)
Weird. Yeah. Okay. What is this prep work? Interesting.
Carrie Poppy: Yes. So, I said, “Wow! Okay.”
Then she says, “Thank you for understanding. I want to look further into this, but I do see something that’s pending. If you don’t mind, give me 40 more minutes. Thank you.”
I say, “No prob, can do.” Then I believe a couple more hours passed.
Ross Blocher: Oh my goodness, so we’re getting later into the night.
Carrie Poppy: My log falls off here, because I remember what happened. I got a migraine. So, eventually I text her, and I’m like, “Look, I have a migraine. Let’s hold off on this.”
Ross Blocher: Mm. Now that she’s got all this fresh research crackling in her brain!
Carrie Poppy: Sure, that she’s done 40-minute sections of over and over and over.
Ross Blocher: So weird.
Carrie Poppy: So, you and I have—in the meantime, we have like scheduled other stuff for the show. So, I know she’s coming back to La Crescenta. I’m like when she gets back, I’ll do it in person. So, eventually I go, and I see her. I see her on January 12th, 2024. I meet her out there at her little store front house, psychic shop.
Ross Blocher: And it looks smaller than you remember.
Carrie Poppy: (Laughs.) No, it looks exactly how I pictured it. She has this cool little shed in the front that is actually where you get your reading, and the doors are open to the outside, and you’re just sitting with kind of a shrine of Christian iconography and tarot cards. And she has a big cool crystal ball. It’s probably like a foot and a half in diameter. It’s big.
Ross Blocher: Wow! Oh, those are not cheap!
(Carrie agrees.)
‘Cause I have a small crystal ball and even that was, you know.
Carrie Poppy: Yeah. Pricey?
Ross Blocher: But it was like, okay, this is the price point. I don’t want to go bigger. ‘Cause these things are, yeah, expensive!
Carrie Poppy: Yeah, it was big. It was pretty. So, it’s a cool vibe.
Ross Blocher: It still weirds me out to see Christian iconography at the psychics. And I mean, it happens all the time. But just having been raised the way I was, it just feels like this strange syncretism. Like, these are different things! What are you doing?
Carrie Poppy: Yeah. She was quite Christian. Yeah. At one point she assumed that I was a Christian. She called me a believer. And actually (chuckles)—I’ll just tell you this now. The reason that she brought it up is because she saw the name David for me, as she was giving me my reading. And I could think of no David except for our mutual friend, David Diskin, who’s an atheist activist in Sacramento, which is how I described him.
And she said, “Oh. Yeah, that’s coming up for me, because you need to stay away from him. Because he is really trying to drag down your energy and pull you away from the divine. And you’re a believer, and he’s an unbeliever.” Yeah, I was like, oh, you have this wrong. But!
Ross Blocher: But so, you’re going to avoid David.
Carrie Poppy: Obviously, I’m just thrilled that I finally have an excuse to not have to deal with David Diskin. No.
So, what’s wild about this reading is that there was VERY little predicting. And there was a small amount of analyzing. I would say 80% were her personal life stories.
Ross Blocher: Okay, interesting. Now that’s maybe a little excessive of a mix, but I was thinking as I was reviewing my reading as well that if you haven’t been to a psychic and somehow you expect you’re going to sit down and they’re going to be like, “Okay, here’s what I see. The prophecies foretell, you know, you will meet this kind of person on this date, and then you will blah, blah, blah.” That comes in dribs and drabs, where there will be little drops of future knowledge or prediction. But mostly it’s going to be just telling you like, “Oh, you’re this kind of person. You feel this, and I see you do this and blah, blah, blah. And that, you know, there’s this person in your life. And they blah, blah, blah.”
It’s not going to be this string of just predictions, or it would go very fast. Things got to draw out a bit more. So, this is ringing true, but wow. It sounds like she really goes into the personal stories about her.
Carrie Poppy: Yes. She told me—I mean, I liked her stories. I liked listening to her. She was fun, but—
Ross Blocher: What did she look like?
Carrie Poppy: It left very little to put on the spreadsheet. Oh. (Muttering.) You always look at people. That’s so interesting.
[00:15:00]
(Ross laughs.)
She has like, uuuh—
Ross Blocher: Vaguely.
Carrie Poppy: Reddish hair? I think she’s White? And I know that she’s shorter than me, ‘cause when we stood up I said, “Oh! I didn’t realize I was so much taller than you.” And that’s what I know.
Ross Blocher: Okay, and I’m guessing she’s—
Carrie Poppy: She told me her age. She’s seventy-three.
Ross Blocher: Oh, wow! Okay. So, when you would have seen her, she would have been probably in her 40s. She’s been doing this a long time.
Carrie Poppy: Let’s see. It was 30 years—yeah, probably. Yeah. She was probably circa my age. Woooah, weird.
So, I was only able to put down—one, two, three, four, five—six specific predictions in the spreadsheet, but here they are.
Ross Blocher: I’m just now looking at that picture of the palm on the front window, and it’s got these three lines that do not correspond to any lines on an actual palm. Oops!
Carrie Poppy: Oh, yeah. Kind of cool though. I like the design.
Ross Blocher: Yeah. Well, you know, neon’s hard to design. Anyways.
Carrie Poppy: So, I’ll go back through my notes and may add some minor things, but these are the main things she predicted. She saw no children for me.
Ross Blocher: Okay. A reasonable prediction, knowing you.
Carrie Poppy: Yep. And this was far along in the reading where we had already established that I had two cats, and I had mentioned my husband many times. But then—but finally she looked in her crystal ball and said, “I don’t see any children around you. What’s going on there?” So, good work!
Ross Blocher: I gotta say, usually psychics seem to be on the side of like let’s get you more children! So.
Carrie Poppy: Yeah, true. When she said, “I don’t see kids around you. Why is that?”
And I said, “Oh, I don’t want them.”
And she—
Ross Blocher: Solid.
Carrie Poppy: Yeah. And then she was like—actually, she was like, “That’s great. I have two kids, and they never call, and I have all these grandkids. And like, sometimes they pay me attention, but it’s like not worth it.”
(Ross laughs.)
And then—
Ross Blocher: I like that she gives like a one-star review to her own children.
(Carrie laughs.)
She’s like, “Good thing you’re not doing that.”
Carrie Poppy: And then, yeah. And then she told me about how her tarot cards; her granddaughter wants her tarot cards. And she’s like, “No, I’m getting buried with my tarot cards! I am holding them in my hand, and I’m going in the ground!” (Laughs.)
Ross Blocher: Oh! That was her granddaughter who is interested in her grandmother’s craft, and she will not—? That’s terrible!
Carrie Poppy: And then she had another story about what was going on in her coffin.
Ross Blocher: That’s tarot-ble! Sorry.
Carrie Poppy: Tarot-ble! Yes, yes. Yes, yes. Tarot-bull! There we go.
Ross Blocher: Oh! There we go. The circle is complete.
(They chuckle.)
Carrie Poppy: Another thing she’s bringing into her coffin that she told me about is a tiny hand Bible that’s white with a gold cross on it. She told me maybe a 25-minute story about it. I never saw this Bible, but boy, I can picture it in my head, because I heard about it for a very long time. But this Bible she had a dream about, and she had a very vivid dream she describes to me, which I won’t put you through the vivid details of her lucid dream. But she had a dream where someone—where Jesus told her that she needed to carry a white Bible into heaven in order to get in.
After the dream, she told her husband about it. She told other people about it and then was shocked when some other friend, sort of related, came up to her with a white Bible and a gold cross. And she couldn’t possibly have heard this through the grapevine. That just doesn’t make sense to Dorothy. This was God.
Ross Blocher: No way they could know. And there’s only so many colors.
Carrie Poppy: So, anyway, she has to carry that in her hands and her tarot cards now.
Ross Blocher: God is going to be so confused.
Carrie Poppy: Yeah. And anyway, that took up a good 20-30 minutes of our reading, telling me all of that.
Ross Blocher: That’s wild. Okay. So, I’m guessing one of those little New Testament plus Psalms and Proverbs tiny Bibles?
(Carrie confirms.)
That’s funny, ‘cause my dad makes a big deal out of for many, many years, he had a red Bible. And he would always joke, “Because a Bible should be read (red),” as you would expect from my dad.
Carrie Poppy: Ah! That’s pretty good. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Ross Blocher: And then I couldn’t believe it. He gave it away to a guy at his church who didn’t have a Bible. And I thought this is a big deal. I don’t think this guy knew how major it was that my dad gave him the red Bible.
Carrie Poppy: Gave his pun away! Yeah!
Ross Blocher: Yeah, I was like, wow, that’s—
Carrie Poppy: The greatest honor a Blocher can give!
Ross Blocher: (Chuckling.) And the guy came to the service for like a few weeks and then never came back again.
(Carrie “oh no”s.)
And he’s got dad’s red Bible.
Carrie Poppy: Oh, he read it.
Ross Blocher: Yeah, I hope it’s read.
Carrie Poppy: Okay, so when she finally gave me predictions, they were no kids, that I will be an extremely successful person. I will live to be 102.
Ross Blocher: By the end of 2024?
Carrie Poppy: No.
(They chuckle.)
I asked her this. I said like, “You know, this is a new year’s reading?”
And she was like, “Yeah, yeah, but it might not be this year. So, that was not helpful.
[00:20:00]
Ross Blocher: Oh, it’s hard to track long term predictions.
Carrie Poppy: Yeah. But there is one very specific to this year.
Ross Blocher: 102! Okay.
Carrie Poppy: We’ll get there. My trauma book will be a number one bestseller! Okay! A little bit of pressure, but okay! She said that actually won’t be this year though. My cats will not get along. They might be able to tolerate each other at best.
Ross Blocher: Okay. Seems like a safe prediction. And one just hopped up on the table, little Golly.
Carrie Poppy: (Sweetly.) Yeah, Golly.
Yeah, she said not to leave them in the same room alone together, like there could be violence. And I was like, “They seem to be improving…”
Ross Blocher: Oh, absolutely, leaps and bounds over last time. Though, now Golly is staring at Georgie and ready to hiss at her.
Carrie Poppy: But yeah, she basically told me to give up on it, and I said, “You mean like they shouldn’t live in the same house, or do you mean like won’t be buddies?”
And she said, “They can live in the same house, but you should separate them when you leave.”
I was like, man, okay. Don’t want to do that forever, ideally, but okay. But then I was thinking—
Ross Blocher: Georgie’s really cute right now, laid one paw over her head almost as if to say like, “Leave me alone, Golly.”
Carrie Poppy: As Golly stares daggers at her.
But I had left the cats alone to go see her, so I thought, “Oh god!”
Ross Blocher: They’re at home now!
Carrie Poppy: What’s going to happen when I come home? But they were fine. And the most specific prediction she gave for 2024 was that Drew and his company—his tiny, little movie company, Drew Spears Productions—will get a huge movie contract with lots of zeros in April to June of this year. And he may need to travel for it.
Ross Blocher: Okay, that is specific and measurable. And you will know about it if it happens. Okay!
Carrie Poppy: I would know. I would know. It would be a big surprise for everyone, but it would be great!
Ross Blocher: Okay, Dorothy, there’s a lot riding on that one specific prediction tied to this year!
Carrie Poppy: Yeah. DSP. Yeah, so those were her only actual predictions. Then we talked at length about her life and her stories and every once in a while, she checked in about me. (Laughs.)
Ross Blocher: Yeah, I like that you’re paying for her therapy session.
Carrie Poppy: At least we like got along.
Ross Blocher: I would count it as a hit if someone listening to this is like, “I have a project; I’m going to throw it at Drew Spears Productions.”
Carrie Poppy: Oh my god, please. Please, please.
Ross Blocher: For big money bucks. That would count.
Carrie Poppy: So, at the end I asked if I could pay her with my phone, and she said I could Zelle her. I said, “Great. And at the number we’ve been texting at?”
And she said yeah. And so, I started to do it as I was walking out. And she really was like, “You need to stop and show me the screen.” Yeah.
Ross Blocher: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, I was going to say that’s so trusting to just let you wander off and assume that you’re going to follow up.
Carrie Poppy: Yeah, yeah. It just—it takes like a while to do, so I was kind of like doing it as I was walking. And it was like, “Stop!”
Ross Blocher: No, halt.
Carrie Poppy: (Laughs.) Yeah. Anyway, so it was $160. And for some reason, as I was sitting there, I felt so connected to this woman after she had laid out her whole life to me that I tipped her $20! What am I doing?!
Ross Blocher: Oh no! (Laughs.) Yeah, originally we had a kind of a rule that we had established not to tip when we didn’t have to for these types of services.
Carrie Poppy: Yeah, what happened here? Explain me to me. Because she sat there and told me her whole life story, and I was just like, “What a darling woman!” And I gave her 20 extra dollars!
Ross Blocher: Yeah, well how long were you with her?
Carrie Poppy: A long time. Like, an hour and 45 minutes, maybe?
Ross Blocher: Okay. But still, 180 bucks. Pretty sweet haul.
Carrie Poppy: Pretty good. Yeah, I don’t know what I’m doing anymore.
Ross Blocher: Especially compared to my reading. Uh, yeah, I don’t know how to explain you to you.
Carrie Poppy: Okay, well that’s what might happen to me this year. What might happen to you?
Ross Blocher: Okay! So, I had—as you mentioned, I tried to get a reading in my hometown of Santa Cruz. I was visiting there. I have a longstanding tradition where the last week of the year, I’m staying at my mother in law’s place, and I just hide away in the upstairs room and do nothing but read books and try to like artificially inflate my numbers for the year like I’ve been a good reader when I need to play catch up.
Carrie Poppy: That’s not artificial!
Ross Blocher: No, but yeah, I read like 15 books in the last week. It was crazy.
Carrie Poppy: Oh, amazing. Oh, including The Hunchback of Notre Dame, which is long, people.
Ross Blocher: Yes, which took me over 13 hours to read. Yes.
So, partway through that, I looked up who are the psychics in Santa Cruz? ‘Cause it’d be really fun to go somewhere. And obviously I haven’t been to psychics in Santa Cruz, ‘cause I wasn’t doing that when I lived there. So, I found just a couple that showed up on Google maps, and one was right next to the boardwalk. And I mean like right next to the boardwalk, like just down the little block where you can see the roller coasters, you know, from the house.
[00:25:00]
So, I tried calling the number that was listed. And it went to like a voicemail, but it wasn’t a specific thing, you know? So, like, okay.
Carrie Poppy: (Robotically.) “Your voicemail box has not been set up yet.”
Ross Blocher: Yeah. Something like that. Exactly. So, I drove out there on the 29th of December. And there was—kind of like you were saying, there was this little front house that was painted bright yellow. And kind of like what you were showing me, had like the slats and the trim and everything. A cute little thing, but you know, not even a one-bedroom apartment size. It was just this tiny little house on the corner painted yellow. And—
Carrie Poppy: Cute. Oh good, he’s got a pic. He’s got a pic.
Ross Blocher: It was cute.
Carrie Poppy: Okay, cool. I didn’t expect the weird like corner element here.
Ross Blocher: Yeah, it’s right on the street corner. And you can see the roller coaster in the background. The Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk.
Carrie Poppy: Oh yeah! So, that one side is painted black in a rather mysterious fashion.
Ross Blocher: Oh, the front face is a dark blue kind of tile.
Carrie Poppy: Oh, that’s blue. Okay. It really sticks out.
Ross Blocher: And yeah. And then the sides are the bright yellow. And yeah, there’s the neon sign. It says, “psychic”, big red hand, and everything else is in blue. It says, “tarot cards”. And then it says, “Psychic readings by Barbara, natural born psychic reader. Psychic, Palm, Tarot, Love, Business, Marriage, Health, Friends, Family, Happiness, and Success. Please knock next door for readings.” Oh, okay!
So, I go to the little house next to it. There’s a big statue of Mary out front, and that’s where I ring the doorbell. Sister Barbara comes out and greets me and says, “Oh, are you here for a reading? Well, sorry, I only do appointments now.”
And I said, “Okay, well, I did try to call the number.”
And she said, “Oh yeah, the number online is wrong.”
And I’m thinking, okay, well, how does—how does anyone ever find you?
Carrie Poppy: “I’d like to make an appointment?”
Ross Blocher: Yeah, exactly. And I was like, “Oh, well I am leaving town tomorrow. Is there any chance you’d be able to like meet in the morning?”
She’s like, “Oh, probably not. What time are you leaving?”
And I said, “Well, pretty early.”
“Uh, you know, I need to work in—” She motioned to that building, the tiny, tiny little like one quarter of a house on the corner. She said, “All my energy is in there.” So, I guess she has all her implements. That’s where she applies her trade. She had some weird story about how her daughter has the key and is out of town. And I’m thinking like none of this feels right. Like, I think you’re just making this up. But—you know, she doesn’t want to do it right now. She doesn’t want to do the walk-in psychic reading.
Carrie Poppy: She’s not feeling it.
Ross Blocher: Yeah. And so, she gave me her business card and said, “Oh, well, next time you’re in town, let me know.”
And for a second, when she mentioned that like the online number wasn’t correct, like the one on Google maps, I was saying like, “Oh, well, maybe I can go update that for you.” And then I thought like why would I do that? Why would I go like try to make her easier to contact?
(Carrie laughs.)
So, I didn’t end up doing that. But I did go wander around the boardwalk for a bit. So, not a total waste. Anyway. So, alright. Failed there. So, the other psychic that had come up was in Capitola, which is another little beachside community. And this was at the time where we were having this news about really big waves hitting the coast, and Capitola had been one of the places. So, it was really wet and rainy, but there was still this little psychic shop. Yeah, we got more neon lights, said, “psychic reader”, and a big sign with the hand for palmistry and the word “psychic, palm, and tarot card readings”.
So, I ran through the rain over there and tried to knock. No one was picking up, but you could see there was like a little light in the back. Like, there was a habitation in the back of the storefront.
Carrie Poppy: Okay, this is very cinematic.
Ross Blocher: Yeah. So, knocking.
Carrie Poppy: “Hello? Is anyone there?”
Ross Blocher: Getting nothing, but then through the darkness, I can see that there is a sign inside that has the number to call for this person. So, I call, leave a message, tell them, “Hey, I’m here. I’d love to get a reading if you’re around to, you know, call me anytime within the next hour or so.” And so, I hung out for a while, just staying in the area.
Carrie Poppy: In the rain.
Ross Blocher: Yeah. In case I get a call back. Nope, no return. Never got a response from either of them. I also like left a message for Sister Barbara later that night saying I could do tomorrow morning, I could stick around longer if she’d be available. No response from either of them. And I was thinking like what’s up with these psychics who don’t want business? I got money.
I should say sister Barbara did see me, and I had kind of left myself scruffy, and I was wearing like—I don’t know, like an olive drab, green jacket, and I was just disheveled. I was trying to look like, I don’t know, somebody down on his luck or something. And I wasn’t wearing my wedding ring. And Sister Barbara had, when she had seen me, said, “Oh, I can see you’ve been going through a lot.”
(Carrie “oh!”s.)
So, it sounded like, you know, “I would love to talk to you. But, ah, sorry, I can’t do it right now.” Like, what is she doing that’s so important? She’s probably watching Netflix. Anyways, that didn’t work out. Didn’t get to do my hometown thing.
[00:30:00]
But hopefully that was an interesting enough story about attempting to do so. So, I got back in town. And right after you and I recorded audio for the Kenny Biddle episode, I had an appointment right after that. So, I drove straight from here, your place, over to Sherman Oaks to go to The Psychic Eye!
Carrie Poppy: Ah, that’s right, the Psychic Eye. Very important establishment in our lives.
Ross Blocher: Yeah, Psychic Eye has been featured in many of our early episodes, so you may remember us talking about it. But it’s this pretty large store, like they’ve got the main bookstore and various psychic paraphernalia and incense and crystals and all that stuff you could buy. But they even have a secondary shop right next door, the Annex, where you can sign up for some of these readings.
Carrie Poppy: Where Ella Poppy once got a reading!
Ross Blocher: Oh, that’s right! Yeah. So, I called up and got a guy on the phone, and he said that at the time I was suggesting he had five different readers. And so, I said, “Okay, well, which one would you recommend?”
And he said, “Oh, I would definitely recommend—” And then he had the name of one guy in particular. And he said, “You want a new year’s prediction? Well, that’s exactly what happened when I was working at Starbucks. This psychic came to me, and he gave me a prediction, and I guess it must’ve been really good, because now he’s working at The Psychic Eye.”
So, I said, “Sure! Well, give me that guy. That sounds great!” And so, we had an appointment.
And I got called back about an hour later and he said, “Unfortunately, he’s leaving earlier in the day, so he won’t be available.”
Carrie Poppy: The Starbucks psychic, okay.
Ross Blocher: Yeah. And I’m thinking again like, augh, why is this so difficult?!
(Carrie agrees.)
But there were still other people available. And so, he gave me additional options, but first asked, “Well, what’s your sign?” I said I’m a Leo. And he said, “Okay, then I think I’ll recommend—” And I’m going to call her Natasha. “I’m going to recommend Natasha.” And I said, okay, let’s do that.
So, I showed up at 4:30 on December 31st. So, right before the end of the year, getting a prediction for 2024. And they similarly have a sign out front that says, “No photography, audio or video recording, absolutely no soliciting, leashed pets welcome but be reasonable, and shoplifters will be hexed.” Which I think is pretty cute.
(Carrie agrees.)
Yeah. So, I came in there, and you’re instantly surrounded by—well, certainly lots of incense smell and statues of the Buddha and angels and—
Carrie Poppy: Chairs shaped like hands.
Ross Blocher: Yes, that’s right. It’s a little wonderland if you’re trying to buy selenite crystals or pyramids or tarot cards or what have you. So, I was there like right at my appointment time. And nobody was like there to talk to. The store was kind of empty. There are two people having a conversation. So, I just kind of wandered over there to the counter and the woman who was having a conversation and said, “Oh, hey, I’m here for my reading with Natasha.”
And she said, “I’m not a clerk. I’m a greeter.”
Carrie Poppy: (Laughs in surprise.) Doing a stellar job at it.
Ross Blocher: Yeah, I feel so greeted. And so, okay. Eventually, the guy that I talked to on the phone, he came around, and I recognized him from his voice and said, “Were you the one who set me up with Natasha?”
And he said, “Oh yeah. Hold on, let me get her.”
So, Natasha comes out, and she’s wearing a hat—like a green Christmas tree. And it’s got the white brim and little like fake elf ears attached to it. And I was like, oh, you’re fun.
Carrie Poppy: Yeah. (Laughs.) And it’s December 31st, correct? Got it. Okay. Mm-hm.
Ross Blocher: It’s December 31st. And she’s wearing an intense orange—like kind of a darker but very saturated orange, satiny shirt and a white scarf over it.
Carrie Poppy: She’s like an art teacher, like a kindergarten art teacher getup.
Ross Blocher: I would buy that! She did eventually take off the hat.
Carrie Poppy: Yeah, a very, mmm, aunt invited to Christmas. The aunt who has adult children who don’t call, so she’s always at your Christmas, but she’s cool.
Ross Blocher: I would guess she’s maybe in her mid to late 40s. And she has bleached blonde hair, ‘cause you can see the brown roots there. And she seemed very friendly and excited to see me and kept calling me dear. And the whole time she was chewing gum during the reading and beyond. I could tell at the time that she had like maybe an Eastern European accent. So, she led me back to a tiny room. There’s like this row of rooms where you can get your readings. And they’re just super small. They’re just big enough for like a little table in between you. And there’s maybe like a table against the wall. And other than that, it’s the chairs that you’re on, and there’s no like—you know, you wouldn’t get up and tap dance or anything. That’s all the space in there.
Carrie Poppy: Yeah, yeah. Tiny little interview booth.
Ross Blocher: Mm-hm. And there’s a series of them. And I don’t recall actually overhearing any other conversations. So, either there weren’t other readings going on, or the soundproofing was sufficient. But the door was essentially just like a heavy velvet drape.
[00:35:00]
And there’s tapestries on each wall and everything’s painted orange, but there’s also a lot of Christmas decor. So, the little table in between us has—like, it’s a white tablecloth, but it’s got like gold bells and angels on it. So, there you go. There’s a little picture.
Carrie Poppy: Okay. Six days after Christmas.
Ross Blocher: Yeah, that’s right. But the season is still alive.
Carrie Poppy: I say with my Christmas tree (inaudible) on January 15th.
Ross Blocher: Indeed. Yeah, there was like a card someone had given her, and she’d probably just opened a gift. Anyways, first thing I could tell was this lady has a lot of tarot decks. So, I think I saw seven. She used like seven or eight throughout the course of this.
(Carrie “wow”s.)
Yeah. So, she just kept kind of—she kept going into different sections of a reading and being like, “Okay, now we’re going to use this new deck.” So, she asked, “How can I help you?” once we’d gotten seated.
And I said, “I just want to see what the new year holds for me.”
And she said, “What sign are you?”
And so, I was kind of hesitating, ‘cause I had that thought of like, oh, I kind of want to ask you what you think I am. But okay, it’s not necessarily a fair question. And as I’m thinking, she says, “Are you a Libra?”
I said, “No, I’m a Leo.”
Carrie Poppy: I got the “lee” sound.
Ross Blocher: And she got all excited by that. “Oh, a Leo! Oh, a little Leo. That’s a beautiful sign.” So, okay. Alright. We’re off to a good start. She had a little disclaimer that she doesn’t do so much predicting, but I think over time she did make some predictions. But like we were saying, you know, it’s going to be more about the storytelling and just what she sees about you as a person.
Carrie Poppy: And yeah. And sometimes they are not specific about when things are going to happen.
Ross Blocher: She made a big deal that 2024 is a dragon year. So, in the—
Carrie Poppy: Oh yeah, I’ve heard this a lot.
Ross Blocher: The Chinese zodiac. So, that means it’s going to be filled with opportunities and challenges. She said, “Karma, karma, karma, lots of things happening, lots of power struggles.”
And I said, “Oh, well, for our nation, for sure.”
And she said, “Oh yeah, yeah, but you know, for everybody.”
Carrie Poppy: You know, I forgot about this dragon year thing. I’m going to add that generally to our spreadsheet. ‘Cause you know, we don’t usually track the Chinese Zodiac piece of it. Yeah, okay. I’ll look at that.
Ross Blocher: Yeah. Okay. Fair. So, when I said for our nation, for sure, she said, “Oh yeah, for my nation as well.”
And I said, “Oh, where are you from?” And she’s from the Ukraine.
Carrie Poppy: Ukraine! That’s what I was going to guess. Okay.
Ross Blocher: And I was like, oh, wooow. Okay. There’s been—there’s already plenty going on there. And I asked like, “Oh, I hope your family’s okay.”
And she said, “Oh yeah, my mom escaped two years ago.” And that’s the only family member she mentioned. So, as she starts shuffling her tarot cards, she tells me that she can see that St. Michael is hovering over me. And she indicates—
Carrie Poppy: Okay. Archangel. (Bungling the word on purpose.) Darsch-shangel.
Ross Blocher: (Laughs.) Yeah, and so she points behind me. And sure enough, there’s a little illustration, I guess, of Archangel Gabriel.
Carrie Poppy: Oh! Okay, so he’s literally behind you.
Ross Blocher: (Laughs.) Yes, but she also sees him spiritually floating over me, keeping watch over me.
Carrie Poppy: Okay. I mean, it sounds a lot like, “I’m seeing Cleopatra when I look at you,” and there’s a mural of Cleopatra behind me, but okay.
(They laugh.)
Ross Blocher: Right. Well, and she’s chosen to adorn her room, I’m assuming. So, she has that visual. And there’s very few named angels in the Bible, so they get to do a lot of work!
Carrie Poppy: Totally, yeah. And maybe one lady angel. It’s like the Smurfs.
Ross Blocher: I know, there’s probably got to be all these other angels just ready to work, but nobody calls upon them. “Ugh. Really? Again? Gabriel? Can’t I get an assignment?”
Carrie Poppy: Yeah. Send Kevin in!
Ross Blocher: “Let me watch over somebody! You can’t handle the billions of people on the earth!” So, she has a really interesting way of handling the tarot deck, because we’ve seen psychics build little formations or like a little pattern or put three here, three here, three here. What she does is she has kind of like one in the center and then four big groups. And just as she’s talking, she’s just continually dealing, dealing, dealing, dealing.
Carrie Poppy: Psychic Dorothy did this too! Yeah!
Ross Blocher: Okay! Just like this endless movement of cards plopping down.
Carrie Poppy: Yeah, like it was clearly just for her. She wouldn’t point at anything. She wouldn’t be like, “Here’s this.” She was just like, “Mum, mum, mum. Okay. You’re going to—ooh, I see. I see. You’re going to live to 102. Oh, I see. Your husband’s going to such and such.” Yeah.
Ross Blocher: Huh! But not be like, “Oh, because I saw this image, and it made me think of this.”
Carrie Poppy: “I saw this.” None of that. She could have just closed her eyes, and it would have been the same effect for me.
Ross Blocher: That was mostly Natasha, but she would occasionally point to something. Like, early on, she pointed to the King of Cups that fell on this deck. And I’m always interested in tarot decks. This was—they look kind of like traced photos of photographs of humans, kind of brightly colored. But otherwise, I wasn’t too interested in this. Later on, I asked her what the deck was, and she said it was the Light Seer’s deck. So, I looked it up. She was correct.
Carrie Poppy: Psychic Dorothy had been using the same deck for 40 years. It was very beat up.
(Ross gasps.)
This is why she has to take it into the coffin. Also really little. They were like two inches tall and like an inch and a half wide. Really little.
(Ross “wow”s.)
Very thin, paper thin, didn’t really want me to touch them. Didn’t want me to look at them very much.
[00:40:00]
Ross Blocher: Look, Dorothy. You’re not gonna need them when you’re dead. Give them to your granddaughter.
Carrie Poppy: She needs them! She needs them!
Ross Blocher: Your granddaughter will carry on your legacy and remember you!
Carrie Poppy: The coffin will carry on her legacy.
Ross Blocher: Carrie will carry on your legacy.
Carrie Poppy: Maybe if you give me your tarot cards, but she’s not gonna do it.
Ross Blocher: (Laughs.) Man. My dad can give away the red Bible.
Anyways, so the King of Cups meant that there was a guy coming for me who’s on the creative side. And she would speak in the manner of someone who—she spoke very fluently, good English, but every now and then you’d like recognize an ordering of the words that felt like there was an idiom that didn’t quite translate or something. You know, and it was just kind of fun and cute.
So, the guy on the creative side was going to be very romantic, which is weird, because I don’t know if she meant that for me. But he’s going to be a water sign, maybe a Cancer, and “He won’t be your cup of tea, but he’s interesting.”
And I said, okay, so this is a—
Carrie Poppy: Oh, I think she read you as gay.
Ross Blocher: You know, but later on, she definitely didn’t. Yeah. That would have been my thought as well. So, I was trying to like reify this into like a firm prediction of like, okay, so there’s a man coming into my life, and what is he going to do? And she said—
Carrie Poppy: (Giggles.) And that’s when she’s like, “Oh shit. He’s not gay. Not gay. Abort, abort, abort!”
Ross Blocher: Maybe. “Something to do with finances.” So, then yeah, she’s talking about decisions that I’ll need to make related to finances that I’m building. I’m trying to move. “There’s a project, a company. There’s an idea. There’s something happening for you.” And this would be—
Carrie Poppy: (Snorts laughing.) “Is anything at all going well for you?”
Ross Blocher: This would be constant, where she would just throw out something that felt like a prediction, but then just sort of modify it a bit, modify it a bit, modify it a bit. And you’d have just this like quantum wave of eight possibilities, and you could collapse that wave however you want to make it right for you. But yeah, there would be a lot of that going on. She said that I think I’m not productive, but I am.
Carrie Poppy: Interesting. Okay. You are productive. Do you think you’re not productive?
Ross Blocher: I’ll call that a hit. Like, I understand that people think of me as being a very productive person, but of course I’m aware of all the time I’m not producing things. So, I always think I could be doing more. She told me that I’ve been dodging bullets without even knowing that I was. Okay.
This was interesting. “Someone is secretly praying for you.” And I thought, well, geez, yeah, my family. They are all, and I’m—
Carrie Poppy: Yeah, but not secretly.
Ross Blocher: Fair. Though, you know, I don’t know about every instance of their prayer, but you’re right. I am aware of that. And the first person who came to mind was one of my sisters. And she said, “A male. Someone who’s concerned for you, who’s praying for you.” And then I thought, okay, well, my dad. I’m sure he does that. And she said, “Maybe it’s a father. Maybe it’s an uncle who loves you so much.” Okay! Probably true.
Carrie Poppy: Hm. Is she waiting for you to confirm these things, or how are you responding to these pitches? Can you even hear pitches?
Ross Blocher: Uh, you know, I’m—(laughs) I’m sometimes giving verbal assent, sometimes asking follow up questions. But no, she will just kind of keep going on without feeling the need, which will become apparent very soon where she starts saying things where, if she asked for feedback, I’d have to tell her she was wrong. Okay. So, she saw a true soulmate connection coming and also something to do with my living space. Could be relatives. And she lists all these different types of relatives, like essentially just a list of how people can be related to you.
(Carrie laughs.)
Like, “You know, like a nephew or a niece or maybe an aunt or an uncle or a sister or brother.”
Carrie Poppy: Uh-huh. Yeah, I’ve heard of all these, yeah.
Ross Blocher: (Laughs.) Like, yes, those are the options.
Carrie Poppy: (Laughs.) “A second cousin, a first niece.”
Ross Blocher: Okay, so something related to my living space, like either I’m going to move in with somebody or they’re going to move in with me, someone who I’m related to. Okay. Alright. Chalk that down as a prediction. So, as she continues to lay down the cards, she says, “In the next seven to eight weeks, there’s going to be more clarity on someone’s part. There’s going to be an epiphany.” And that’s where she indicates. “So, this is you, the Emperor, and this is the Two of Cups. I see recovering from something in your living space. So, something about my living space! I don’t know if that’s related to the prediction of someone coming to live with me or me going to live with them. Alright.
So, she mentions that like this particular area of the cards that she’s dealing down that have fallen in this large and growing pile—she says that “this is all of your work and your mission stuff”.
And so, I say, “Oh, okay. And so, what would this one be?”
And she’s like, “Oh, this is your friend. So, she’s got little areas worked out.”
Carrie Poppy: She really can’t figure out your romantic life.
Ross Blocher: That’s exactly right. She’ll—and I did take off my wedding ring. Because, you know, I never want to like give that one up.
Carrie Poppy: Yep. I usually do that too. This time I left it on. I don’t even know why, exactly.
Ross Blocher: Okay, okay. Well, as we saw with Chris Dufresne last year, he—well, he couldn’t even see me. We were talking over the phone, and he just ran roughshod, assuming I had no wife and that I was waiting for this woman to come into my life. ‘Cause why else would I call him? And same thing with Natasha. She was ready to figure out my love life.
[00:45:00]
Oh yeah. Another one of the piles was universal messages. And that’s also, I guess, the love life. And I said, “Okay, well I’d like to know what love holds in the next year.” ‘Cause it could just be like you’ll keep loving your wife, and she’ll keep loving you right back, and things are going great.
Carrie Poppy: Right, right! She’s waiting for like any more hints of what your life is like and she’s not getting it.
Ross Blocher: Uh-huh. And she said, “Oh, you’ll be busy, busy, busy.”
And I said, “With work?” ‘Cause I don’t really think of being busy as being relevant to relationships.
Carrie Poppy: Oh, I take that to mean she thinks you’re single, and you’re going to be like seeing a lot of people.
Ross Blocher: Okay. Well, I think that is what she was going for. So, she said, “No, in general. Like, yes, you’ll have new projects and old projects. But yeah, with relationships.” And boy, she was really jumping around as I’m looking at my notes. Like, she was also saying a lot of money would be coming for me. So, don’t expect her to stick with a topic, but she will come back to this. So, she said maybe at work I’ll see like a sponsorship or a bonus or probably like two other synonyms for getting a windfall of money. And she also saw that like I would be moving into another dimension at work, but it could be a move to Florida, to New York, to Canada, or to Italy.
(Carrie “wow”s.)
That’s a lot of options! Okay!
Carrie Poppy: Okay. Does Disney have offices in all those places? Probably.
Ross Blocher: Well, definitely Florida. I would imagine New York. Definitely Canada. I don’t know, probably Italy.
Carrie Poppy: Italy, probably? Disney Italy. I mean, got to, right? It’s like the biggest company in the world.
Ross Blocher: But never did she ask, and never did I tell where I work.
Carrie Poppy: The Walt Disney Company Italy, formally the Walt Disney Company Italia SPA! There we go!
Ross Blocher: Okay, there we go. I can stay in my current work and maybe go to Italy. She was telling me that there’s going to be a fresh start for me. “Don’t be afraid, trust the environment, move whenever the opportunity comes.”
Carrie Poppy: Sorry, (giggles) Disney Italia makes Toon Disney. If you wondered.
Ross Blocher: Good to know.
Carrie Poppy: Yes. Yes. Okay. Sorry, distracted. Go on!
Ross Blocher: She said that I’m not in the right company or I’m not doing what I was supposed to do. Yeah. So, whatever I’m doing wasn’t meant to be. And so, whatever this new thing is, it doesn’t have to be the same work that I’ve been doing up to this point.
Carrie Poppy: Oh, okay! Well, then forget all that Italy stuff. Okay. Or Disney stuff, rather. Got it.
Ross Blocher: Or it could be a different role within the Disney empire. So, I wanted to narrow this down. I said, “Do you see this in the first half of the year or the second half?”
And she said, “Oh, it’s going to be soon.” And she looks at another card. “April.”
And she’d occasionally do that. Like, oh, you asked me for something? Let’s flip over two more cards. Here’s your answer.
So, you saw something in there.
Carrie Poppy: Okay, okay. April. Okay! So, that’s when the job change happens, April.
Ross Blocher: Yeah. Big job change, yes, that could involve me moving to Florida, or New York, or Canada, or Italy.
Okay, so now we’re going to look at relationships specifically. So, she said that there was a relationship from the past that I had that was supposed to be. And I have a very limited dating life.
Carrie Poppy: Oh, right. Yeah, you met your wife so young.
Ross Blocher: Right. So, I was like, “Um, Nicky?” Like, who would that be? But okay.
Carrie Poppy: Nicky’s your girlfriend from when you were like really little?
Ross Blocher: Like 17. That was like really the only significant relationship I had before my wife. Yeah. So, she said, “It didn’t work out, and I’m seeing like disappointment. You’re not feeling appreciated. I see so much pain, but don’t worry. It’ll be released. I’m seeing like three to four months, and there might be a work connection.” Where like I meet someone through work, I guess?
But I did ask, “Do you see a romantic relationship connected to work?”
And she said, “Yes. And it’s someone who’s coming up, someone victorious.”
Carrie Poppy: Okay. Someone coming up at work, someone victorious. Okay.
Ross Blocher: And so, I said, “Do you see that in the first half of the year?” ‘Cause, you know, supposedly I’m moving out of the country or to the other side of it. She flips over a few more cards, but I don’t think she gave me an exact prediction on that. Like, the timing of it. But she said more about me. I’m so sensitive. I’m so vulnerable.
“If you don’t receive what you need, it hurts you. And you’re just going to have to take life easy, or you’re going to have a heart attack.”
(Carrie “wow”s.)
I know! Yeah, I don’t know if that counts as a prediction, but I guess if I have a heart attack this year, that would be notable. Yeah. Let’s add that. Okay, so this is where she— (sighs) I feel like some of this is contradictory, but this is where she’s telling me now that like I need to not be so attached to people I’m dating and not look for a serious relationship. I should just be having a lot of casual dating. “Observe. Don’t get all disappointed if it doesn’t work out. Protect your heart. So vulnerable,” she says. She’ll come back to relationships, but she says, “I see something with graphic design. There’s a hobby. You’re so creative.” It felt less jumbled in the moment than it’s coming across now, but she moved really quickly with all of this. Okay, so she did go back to the relationship advice.
[00:50:00]
“So, don’t claim anyone right away, remain neutral, and wait for someone to tell you how much they love or value you, and then you can open your heart and trust them.”
Carrie Poppy: Interesting. Okay, so don’t be the pursuer.
Ross Blocher: Yeah, or just like, don’t take it—like, go ahead and date, do it. But have just a lot of—and she said, “Not like a one-night stand or anything, but you know, just have a lot of relationships and don’t expect them to go anywhere.”
And I told her like, “Oh yeah, I’m not really the casual relationship kind of person. That’s not my thing.”
Carrie Poppy: Uh-huh. And she’s like, “Oh, I know. I know. I saw that right here.”
Ross Blocher: Of course. Of course. So, then she said, “Well, did you want me to check on a particular relationship, like at work or with your family?”
And I thought, well, it’d be awkward now to tell her I have a wife. (Chuckles.) So, I said, “Well, maybe with my son.”
And she said, “Is he giving you a hard time?” And as I was getting ready to answer that, she said, “He’s young, yes?” Which obvious read, you know, ‘cause I look like I would have a younger son.
And I said, “Well, not so much.”
And she said, “Oh, he’s older. Is he 19?”
(Carrie laughs.)
I said, “He’s 22.”
She’s like, “Ah, still a baby then. What’s his sign?” And again, she—while I’m getting ready to answer that, she ventures, “Aries, Pisces?” Neither of those are correct.
Carrie Poppy: I got a “-ces”.
Ross Blocher: And I’m gonna hold off for a second on saying what his birthday is, but I told her his birthday, and she said, “Oh, congratulations, my dear. You’ve got a Cancer. Okay. Cancer. And what is his name?”
I said, “Andrew or Drew.”
So, she starts putting down more cards, and she says, “Now, Cancers, they aren’t fighters.” Now, Carrie is a Cancer.
(Carrie confirms.)
So, all of this should apply to you equally as well as to my son, as she’s reading him. She said, “You can’t expect Cancers to do anything. They live in a bubble. They’re very sensitive.”
Carrie Poppy: Oh, okay! Can’t expect them to do anything. Okay.
Ross Blocher: She’ll get into this, but like they’re very lazy.
Carrie Poppy: (Laughing.) Oh, wow! Rude. Okay.
Ross Blocher: (Laughs.) Yeah. So, she said, “Okay, well, he just doesn’t have the stamina. He’s a loving, caring person, and he will be a good father and a good lover. But you need to put him in a position and say, ‘This is what you’ll do’. Like, he won’t go out there and find it for himself. You need to set it up for him. And then he’ll be a good worker. He also needs something creative.” She sees an offer coming to him from a gentleman having to do with real estate. So, I think we can put that down as a prediction that—
So, also apparently I need to invest money for him while he’s young. I was like, okay, he’s 22, but okay. And that he needs a home provided. And you know, it could be anything. It could be, she said, “A bungalow made of hay.”
Carrie Poppy: Ha! That sounds nice.
Ross Blocher: Yeah. He just needs a home provided for him. Well, wouldn’t that be nice? Anyway, so he’s a lazy little kid. And he just needs to get out of his bubble and do something.
So, then she starts telling a little bit of her own storytelling. And she said, “Well, I also know an Andrew who’s a Cancer. And he’s a June 28th friend, and he’s 60. Oh, he’s so lazy! They just—they don’t work, the Cancers.”
(Carrie “wow”s.)
I’m thinking, yeah, that doesn’t match up for Carrie.
Carrie Poppy: Aw, thank you. Thank you. Yeah, I work hard.
Ross Blocher: And “Oh, he wanted to date me,”—this 60-year-old Andrew. And she said, “But you have to work! And, you know, honestly, I didn’t want to date him anyway.” She’s telling me.
Carrie Poppy: He’s a lazy fuck!
Ross Blocher: “But he got—you constantly get depression, and ugh. He just like—he’d hang out at Starbucks and, you know, I would invite him to—”
Carrie Poppy: Oh, I hope he’s the Starbucks guy from before.
(They laugh.)
Ross Blocher: Oh, that would be hilarious. Like, the next psychic who just took off his shift. Probably cause he’s lazy! Yeah, no, I think a different guy. But she said, “You know, like I invited him to dinner as a friend, and I was trying to set him up with a work connection. Like, hey, meet this guy. He’s got an idea that you might be a good match for. And he didn’t even show up! And I told him, ‘Andrew, you’re a hopeless case!’” And then she told me this other story about him going to visit his German dad in Ohio and that the dad threatened to shoot him. The dad was like in his 90s, and he threatened to shoot his 60-year-old son, Andrew the Cancer, because he wasn’t making anything of his life.
Carrie Poppy: Wow. Wild if true.
Ross Blocher: Wild if true, and a very interesting story that I’m getting, unprovoked.
Carrie Poppy: I was just thinking like why are these psychics—? They need to go to like storytelling shows or something if these are the things they want to do with their time.
Ross Blocher: Yeah. Clearly they need to get something off their chest.
So, I said, “Okay, well, how do I keep my son from matching this description that you’re painting?”
And she said, “Well, he just needs space to dream, and you need to stop being so hard on him. Help him find a job.” I’m thinking, okay, well, I’m always trying to find the balance between—because partly this is resonating. I’m thinking, yeah, he needs to be doing more. He sits in his room for long hours, watches video game videos, hangs out with his friends on Discord. So, she was saying, you know, like, “Get applications and say let’s do this together.” Okay.
Carrie Poppy: Sure, sure. Often good advice for a 22-year-old, but yes.
[00:55:00]
Ross Blocher: She’s like, “Well, don’t tell him that you’re a lazy bum. Well, or maybe do, but in a joking way.” Because clearly she does that with everybody in her life. And she said, “He needs like a father figure in his life. You won’t be the only father in his life.” (Laughing.) You know, I’m thinking like—
Carrie Poppy: I just took offense for you.
Ross Blocher: I’m kind of the father figure, but you know, there’s apparently more that he’ll get. And another thing about Cancers apparently is that everything they decide is based on feelings. So, you know, I shouldn’t try to talk to him rationally about, you know, this is what you need for your life. But rather like, don’t you think you’ll feel better if you—blah, blah, blah? Which sounds like every manipulative person I’ve ever met in my life trying to say, “Don’t you think you’d feel better if you blah, blah, blah?” And they project their own feelings on you. I will never speak that way to anyone, let alone my son.
She even made a note here. She said, “He’s not a Gemini.” And I can’t remember what that was attached to, but I made note of it, because she said he’s not a Gemini. Keep that in mind.
Carrie Poppy: Okay. I feel a pattern is being set up for me.
Ross Blocher: Indeed. Yes. Just pay attention to these breadcrumbs.
We shall see where it goes. She was also warning me that Cancers can be driven to do drugs if they’re kind of mishandled or not given what they need in a relationship. And I said, “Well, I didn’t really suspect him of that, but okay. Yeah, I definitely don’t want to drive him to do drugs.”
And she said, “Okay, well, let me look at relationships more. So, you’re looking for a new relationship?”
And I just kind of hem and say, “I don’t have anyone in mind right now, but I’m interested in what you see.”
(Carrie giggles.)
I’m trying to be neutral about this like—keep going. But yeah, this is not the time to tell you, actually, I have a wife of 23 years.
Carrie Poppy: Right. I’m in a monogamous marriage.
Ross Blocher: So, she looked at my past and my future and said that—this is a new deck, by the way, that she’s shuffling.
(Carrie “wow”s.)
Yeah. So, this is deck number two. And not only did I look this deck up, but I bought it. ‘Cause I think you’re going to find it very entertaining. So, she kind of apologizes in advance, but she said, “This deck is, you know, a little explicit. I hope that’s okay.” But she starts laying down these cards all over the table.
Carrie Poppy: Oh, boobs. Okay. Oh, two women fellating a man. Okay. Guy using a whip on a woman. Two hot ladies, boobs out, guy looking at lady’s boobs; she’s tied up. Okay, lady, huge tits pouring water.
(They giggle.)
Pan-like character holding a huge dildo. Okay, man sitting in woman’s lap, they’re making out. Man and woman in bondage with baby?!
Ross Blocher: (Laughing.) You get the idea.
Carrie Poppy: Moving on. Man kissing woman. Oh, wow. Man giving woman hand job. Very explicit. Man sucking woman’s thumb while she thinks about how her friend’s drowning behind her?
(They laugh.)
Guy making out with woman, guy holding woman’s boob. How does she even interpret different things from this? She’s like, “Oh, in this one, she’s motorboating him, but in the other one, she’s fellating him! That’s really different!”
Ross Blocher: Yeah, so this is the tarot of sexual magic.
(Carrie “wow”s.)
Yeah. This is how she went in depth on relationships.
Carrie Poppy: Horny. Oh, yeah. Okay. Swing sex. Oooh.
Ross Blocher: Yeah. So, she kind of apologized for it for a second and just wanted to make sure that I wasn’t scandalized by the images, but I was like, “Hey, I like this deck! This is fun.”
(Carrie laughs.)
Now I got to say there’s no like explicit—like, you can’t see any penises or vulvas in this. They’re all kind of tastefully covered up, but lots of exposed breasts. Yeah, absolutely.
Carrie Poppy: A lot of boobs and a lot of phallic imagery, but you’re right. They’re not actual peni.
(Ross agrees with a laugh.)
They’re a lot of dildos and things. Wow!
Ross Blocher: So, okay, this is interesting. She’s like kind of indicating certain cards. I’m looking around. Oh, wow, alright! That’s a sex act. Oh, interesting! Okay!
Carrie Poppy: And now—and these are all heteronormative. It’s all man, woman, or—
Ross Blocher: For that deck, I think there’s a couple…
Carrie Poppy: Oh, you know what? There was one of two women, but they’re just kind of hanging out. They’re just like hot and hanging out nude.
Ross Blocher: It’s at least mostly heteronormative. There might be an exception here or there.
Carrie Poppy: Yeah. Wooow. Really something, yes. Yes.
Ross Blocher: What a deck, right? I was like, I gotta have these.
Carrie Poppy: Yeah, these are great. These are—these are great. Theeese are great.
(They laugh.)
Ew! Except for this one! She’s killing a pig! Booo! She’s got a big knife.
Ross Blocher: What the hell? I don’t—like, she’s like—she’s wrangling it. No, I think that’s its tusk she’s holding onto. She’s like trying to ride it. Hopefully it’s not a bestiality thing.
Carrie Poppy: (Overlapping with Ross.) Maybe it’s a bestiality thing.
Ross Blocher: I wondered that.
Carrie Poppy: This is called strength or the force. I don’t know. Okay. Go on. What did she say?
Ross Blocher: Interesting. She’s wrangling a boar.
[01:00:00]
She’s suggesting that sometimes people come from the past. I think maybe she’s still kind of holding on to this idea that I might have an old flame that’s going to rekindle. And, oh, she can just see—again, flipping over these cards with these various sex acts. I’m like, oh, these are interesting cards. She can see that I’ve been sooo disappointed and I just—I need to forgive. And I said, “Oh, I don’t have any hard feelings.”
Carrie Poppy: She’s like, “Why are you here?!”
Ross Blocher: She said, “Well, good for you. But well, maybe you hurt them, because I see a lot of pain. I see heartache coming through.” And so, then she clarifies, “I’m not saying that you’re attracted to the wrong girls.” And then I don’t really react. So, she paused. “Boys? I said—
Carrie Poppy: You blink again.
Ross Blocher: (Chuckles.) Yeah. Yeah. Keep trying. I said, “Yeah, girls.”
And she said, “Okay, well, there’s someone who misses you a lot. She was your soulmate, and there’s a lot of pain. Maybe she’s in pain if you’re not. But again, this whole thing, you should just start dating people for the sake of dating, not expecting anything.” Yeah. So, I guess whatever big change in my relationship life isn’t immediate, because she sees me just casually dating for a while.
Carrie Poppy: Okay. In Canada, Italy, Florida, or maybe here.
Ross Blocher: She’ll mention some other places too.
Carrie Poppy: New York.
Ross Blocher: Yep, that was one. So, nothing permanent. She said, “I could be wrong. Don’t take it too seriously, but I feel like one girl will attract another girl.” Somehow I’ll have this like—I don’t know—rebounding energy of one girl leading to another. Can’t imagine this life for me.
(Carrie laughs.)
“But eventually you’ll attract another soulmate.” She said it was better to have two-night stands. What’s that? How’s that different from a one-night stand?
Carrie Poppy: That’s where you have sex two nights in a row or—
Ross Blocher: Okay. She says—but it should be with someone you know, not like a random person. But a real soul connection is going to take a while. She kind of said in that same thought like, “You’ve been through so many souls.” And I took that as like me having dated so many people rather than me having like lived past lives or anything. So, I thought that was a solid miss.
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[01:05:00]
Promo:
Griffin McElroy: (Dramatically.) From the twisted minds that brought you The Adventure Zone: Balance. And Amnesty, and Graduation, and Ethersea, and Steeplechase, and Outrespace, and all the other ones—the McElroy brothers and dad are proud to reveal a bold vision for the future of actual play podcasting!
It’s, um—it’s called The Adventure Zone vs. Dracula.
Music: High energy, gothic-inspired harpsichord music.
Justin McElroy: Yeah, we’re gonna kill Dracula’s ass.
Travis McElroy: We’re gonna—well, we’re gonna attempt—we haven’t recorded all of it yet. We will attempt to kill Dracula’s ass.
Justin: The Adventure Zone vs. Dracula.
Griffin: Yes, a season I will be running using the D&D 5th edition rule set. And there’s two episodes out for you to listen to right now. We hope you will join us. Same bat-time, same bat-channel.
Clint McElroy: (Amused.) Bats, I see what you did there.
(Music fades out.)
Ross Blocher: Okay. So, then we were already 40 minutes into a half-hour reading.
(Carrie “wow”s.)
That’s what I signed up for. The intercom turns on in the little room. So, the voice of the guy who originally scheduled this comes across and says, “Natasha, you have a line two for 15.” Meaning a 15-minute reading.
She says, “Thank you, dear.”
So, I’m all ready for her to wrap up, and she just keeps going. Yeah, yeah. I’m nervous. Like, I want this to wrap up, because I’m feeling the pressure of the person on line two waiting for her.
Carrie Poppy: Yeah, totally! The third party.
Ross Blocher: And so, she just keeps going.
(Carrie giggles.)
“So, you have to fly. You have to go places.” And she points to the Ace of Cups, which is somewhere down in there. And she says, “You are fundamentally damaged.”
(Carrie “woah!”s.)
Yeah, ouch. Again, relationship related. She said, “Maybe you don’t even feel it, but one of you lost face.”
Carrie Poppy: Oh, probably lost faith.
Ross Blocher: Maybe. And I tried to clarify, “Like, in the relationship, me and this important soulmate from the past, I’m guessing?” That’s how I read this, that one of us lost face. And I said, “Oh, meaning like serious embarrassment?”
Carrie Poppy: Yeah. Yeah. Dignity?
Ross Blocher: “No, no, no. In the relationship, there was no reciprocity. You need someone who will love you unconditionally.” So, I don’t know. Maybe she had some different understanding of what that means. And she said, “Maybe next year, but stop being so rigid. You’re so rigid!” She said eventually I will have a marriage, but it certainly didn’t sound like it was next year.
Carrie Poppy: Congratulations!
Ross Blocher: (Laughs.) Yeah. And so, like big miss. “And that relationship will have something to do with a different country. So, either she’s from a different country or you will be working in another country.” And I thought, well, you know, according to what you just told me—
Carrie Poppy: Yeah, remember ten minutes ago?
Ross Blocher: Yeah, there’s a good chance—unless it’s Florida and New York, I guess. So, this has been going on for a while. And so, another call comes like 45 minutes into the session saying, “Natasha, line two for 15.”
She’s like, “Yeah, honey, I got it.”
Carrie Poppy: (Laughing.) What?!
Ross Blocher: And so, yeah, I’m like feeling so nervous. And she’s talking more about this lady that I’ll eventually end up with. “Yeah. She’s going to be so sweet. So kind. So beautiful. Another Cancer. It’s like your karma, just like your boy. There’s going to be the female version of this. So nurturing.”
Carrie Poppy: Another lazy fuck! Addicted to drugs!
Ross Blocher: Shipless, good for nothing—
Carrie Poppy: Who cannot get their life together and apply for a job!
Ross Blocher: Who I have to restrain with all my effort from falling into drug addiction. Exactly. That’s what I need in my life.
(They laugh.)
She also warns me that Cancers don’t forget anything. So, be careful.
[01:10:00]
Every single fight, every single hurt will be remembered. I’m thinking, oh, this sounds like a great, great relationship.
Okay, so after this discourse, then she jumps on the phone. I think there’s another reminder like, hey, you need to answer this person.
Carrie Poppy: Listen. Listen, asshole.
Ross Blocher: And so, she hops on the phone and speaks to someone named Laura and says, “Oh, I’m so sorry to keep you waiting, dear. Don’t worry. I’ll give you the full time, even more. Can you just call back in like two to three minutes?”
Carrie Poppy: What?
(Ross laughs and confirms.)
Wait, what is she, Psychic Dorothy?
Ross Blocher: I’m still there.
Carrie Poppy: Okay. Boy, read the room.
Ross Blocher: And she said, “If not, just call back and maybe find some other psychic.”
Carrie Poppy: Oh my god!
Ross Blocher: She doesn’t say it that way, but it’s like, yeah, you know, maybe someone else. And you know, this is December 31st, people are trying to get in like before the end of the day. “I just need to finish with this gentleman.” Okay. So, she comes back to me and said, “Don’t worry, she’ll call back in five minutes.” Like, you just told her two to three!
(Carrie giggles.)
Time is very fluid for Natasha.
Carrie Poppy: Time doesn’t exist.
Ross Blocher: So, she sits back down with me and says, “How long do we have?”
And I said, “It was just half an hour. I feel like I’m good. I feel like you’ve done your work.”
Carrie Poppy: Yeah, yeah. You’ve actually overstayed your welcome!
Ross Blocher: “Okay. But one more question, my dear—in regards to your work.” So, she pulls out another deck and starts shuffling it.
Carrie Poppy: Oh my god.
Ross Blocher: She’s doing the little bridge shuffle. And this one, when she starts turning it over, is like the traditional Rider-Waite or Waite-Smith tarot design, but each card has like a border around that most common design. And it’s got additional info and star signs and charts and numbers to work with.
And so, I asked her, “I’m curious, what sign are you?” Because she’s been saying a lot about Leos and a lot about Cancers.
And she said, “Scorpio, but I’m a mellow Scorpio. I’m an October Scorpio.”
So, I was like, (sarcastically) oh, phew, that tells me a lot.
Carrie Poppy: Scorpios are notorious. That’s the one that people always pick on, because you know, it’s like the animal people.
Ross Blocher: The scorpion. Yeah, yeah. Well, and also the word “cancer” is so laden.
Carrie Poppy: I don’t know why Cancer doesn’t have that reputation!
Ross Blocher: Okay. It doesn’t? Interesting.
Carrie Poppy: Yeah. No, no. Whenever I say I’m a Cancer, people are like, “Oh, you guys are so creative, and you’re moon children, you’re flower children.” Stuff like that. But never like, “Oh, you’re a malignant disease!” It seems like the most obvious thing I could be with the word “cancer”. But no.
Ross Blocher: Okay. Well, good to know that’s not a connection they make. I was slightly curious, because she had just been saying that I would end up with a Cancer. And I’ll say, I felt like she was—
Carrie Poppy: (Jokingly excited.) Maybe you’ll get cancer!
Ross Blocher: (Laughs.) She was a little coquettish, a little flirtatious was the reading I was getting from her.
Carrie Poppy: Oh, okay! So, you’re like, “Maybe she’s going to say, ‘I’m a Cancer’.” (Laughs.) “Let’s get out of here.”
Ross Blocher: Yeah, like are you one of my future relationships? (Laughs.)
Carrie Poppy: “I don’t have to take my next call!”
(They laugh.)
Oh, now the sex cards are starting to make sense. She’s like, “Do you like these!? A man fucking a woman! Do you like theeese?” (Inaudible.)
Ross Blocher: It does just seem a little strange in this intimate of a space to be like, “Here, let me pull out all these boobies and like nudie pics.”
(Carrie laughs.)
So, she said, “I see. Most likely you’re going to be working with a family member and this water sign guy that we already saw, like at the beginning of the reading. So, he’s either related to you or maybe to someone in your family. You’re not working with your son?”
And I said, “Not that I’m planning.”
So, then she said, “You’ll move to New York.” Okay! We just narrowed that one down. “Next two months.”
Carrie & Ross: (In unison.) Woah!
Ross Blocher: Yeah. You’d think I would tell Carrie that I’m moving to New York in two months.
Carrie Poppy: Woah! Yeah. Okay. It’s the first I’m hearing of this.
Ross Blocher: And maybe I’ll like take a class or learn from a master there. “The cards are saying by May, you’ll be happy that you’ve done it.”
Carrie Poppy: Ooh! Three hard months. Okay.
Ross Blocher: Mm-hm. “Might have to change everything about your work.” Yeah, I know. This is going to be rough to break to my boss and for podcasting.
Carrie Poppy: Yeah, you have to move to New York, meet a foreign woman, get a totally new job.
Ross Blocher: (Laughing.) Yeah, yeah, a lot’s happening, coming soon. Well, I’m just going to be dating a bunch of random women, but yeah.
Carrie Poppy: Right, but eventually.
Ross Blocher: And she said she sees money, investments, real estate. I mean, I don’t see myself working in real estate ever.
Carrie Poppy: Yeah, yeah, that would be a surprise.
Ross Blocher: She says, “And then you’re going to be moving a lot far away.” And then she says New Zealand. And again, she’s just throwing new cards out as she’s talking, so presumably she’s seeing something in the cards that are giving all this as she verbally scats.
Carrie Poppy: Yeah. New York, New Zealand. So, it’s—okay, yeah.
Ross Blocher: At least those two.
Carrie Poppy: Okay. Any more news?
Ross Blocher: Let’s see. She tells me to either ask for a promotion or a transfer. Like, it doesn’t have to be leaving my current job, but maybe just like a new role within that job.
Carrie Poppy: She really wants to get you out of LA.
Ross Blocher: So, she’s repeating on these themes and telling me that I need to ask for support and mentorship, and that may come from an old friend.
[01:15:00]
But then the intercom goes off again. And this time it’s the lady who’d been kind of brusque with me at the beginning. And she sounds pretty fed up.
Carrie Poppy: The greeter? (Laughs.)
Ross Blocher: Yeah, exactly. The greeter. Yeah. It hasn’t been working with the other guy trying to get her attention. And she says, (flatly) “Line two for you.”
So, finally, Natasha says, “Okay, I’ve got to take this.” (Laughs.)
And so, I get up and I say like, “Okay, well, thanks so much. Like, how do I pay you?”
And she said, “Well, here it’s with cash, dear. But you could pay with credit card up at the front.”
And I say, “Okay, well, how much?”
And she says, “Well, 30 minutes—they raised the price recently. So, it’s $35.” And I’m thinking, well, it feels like a steal of a deal.
Carrie Poppy: Yeah, that’s not bad.
Ross Blocher: Like a dollar a minute. And so, I say, “Okay, well, I’ve got $40,”—’cause I’ve only got like 20s to match the amount.
And so, I put that on the table, and she says, “Okay. Well shoot, I only have 10s here, but I can get you change. We can go to the front.”
And I said, “Oh no, don’t worry about it.” ‘Cause I’m thinking in my mind we’ve gone way over this point.
She said, “Okay, well, I’m going to take this call, but here. Go sit over here.” And she has us like switch places. She wants me to sit in her chair, and she says, “Think of two wishes that you’d like to make.”
Carrie Poppy: What?! You had to make two wishes too?!
Ross Blocher: Yeah! (Laughing.) I know! You said that, and I was like what’s up with the two wishes?! Alright. So, I’m sitting over where she was sitting before, and I’m watching her. She puts on the little headset. It looks like she’s in a call service center. She’s got a little Britney mic in front of her mouth. I’m so I’m trying to think of my wishes that I’m going to talk to her about when she’s done after this 15-minute talk with Laura. And as she’s talking to Laura, she pulls out yet another deck—another erotic deck!
Carrie Poppy: What the hell?!
Ross Blocher: This artist is Milo Manara, who I have definitely heard of before. And yeah, this is the Manara Erotic Tarot. And so, she’s talking to this lady, and I’m just listening to her read Laura while she’s kind of like occasionally looking up at me and either like rolling her eyes like, “Can you believe this lady?”
(They laugh.)
And while she’s shuffling these even more sexually explicit images onto the table between us.
Carrie Poppy: This is incredible. I really like this one. We have a hot lady just like stroking the crotch of a shy man she’s sitting with on a bench.
Ross Blocher: Stroking the crotch of a clothed, suited man. She’s taking his bowler hat and she’s rubbing his crotch. She’s wearing a very short dress.
Carrie Poppy: Man. These are crazy! The other one has more sophisticated artwork.
Ross Blocher: Oh, this guy was like really popular for a long time.
Carrie Poppy: Okay, I mean, these are really fun. These are really pop art-y.
Ross Blocher: But this one you actually see, you know, penetration and penises and exposed vulva.
Carrie Poppy: Yeah. Wow. Wow. Oh, that’s a butt. Butt, butt, boob, boob, butt, butt, boob, boob, boob.
Ross Blocher: Yeah. So, she’s doing the same thing where—(laughs) she’ll just keep dealing out the cards as she’s talking. And every now and then she’ll sort of stop and get confused, maybe go back or deal two fresh cards to get, you know, an insight. So, it seems like she is using the cards as a tool. She’s responding to something in them. And I’m looking at other decks that are on the table, and I’m like looking them up on my phone, trying to figure out which deck is which. ‘Cause I have time to research, ‘cause she’s talking to this person on the phone. And so, as she’s talking to this woman, I keep hearing her talk about like this guy in her life. And she’ll say things like, “Oh yeah, well, he’ll be helping you move.” And “Oh, well, yeah, he’s lying. He’s always lying. He’s just full of lies.”
Carrie Poppy: Oh, I hope that’s right.
Ross Blocher: And then she says like, “Oh, yes, sign the contract.”
I’m thinking what contract!? Like, what are you telling her to do!? And then she says, “Yeah, there’s something wrong with him psychologically. He’s a mental case.”
(Carrie “woah”s.)
Yeah! Like, what is this conversation happening?!
Carrie Poppy: What are you weighing in on here? And should you be?! Probably nooot.
Ross Blocher: I’m only hearing half of this. Apparently, this psychologically damaged mental case who is always lying will keep trying to get Laura back, especially around March. I have no way of checking in with her later. I have no idea how this is gonna go. She talks about another woman in the picture for a while, and then she talks I assume about the same guy that she’s saying all the mean things about. She says that he can be abusive and there’s a viciousness to him. But the sex is good.
Carrie Poppy: Oh, okay. Okay. Okay. Oh. Poor Laura.
Ross Blocher: And at some point she asks her, “What sign is he? Oh, that’s good. ‘Cause I see someone else for you.” So, then she mentions that there’s going to be a man that she meets who’s older than her—maybe 10 to 12 years older. “And you’re not going to be attracted to him, but give him some time. Because he will give you stability. He’s reliable. I don’t know how to say this word, but he’s—he’s a hot fellow. He’s a very hot man.”
(Carrie laughs.)
Which is weird because of saying that you won’t be attracted to him. “And you’ll have a hard time, because you’re damaged.”
(They laugh.)
So, she tells Laura that she’s damaged too.
Carrie Poppy: Okay. That must have lifted a little bit of weight off of you.
Ross Blocher: Yeah. Whew! Okay. At least I’m not the only damaged person here.
Carrie Poppy: She sees us all as damaged.
Ross Blocher: So, the caller gets her full 15 minutes, 20 minutes in fact.
[01:20:00]
And I’m just sitting there the whole time like researching tarot decks on my phone and taking notes. And she gets off the phone. She has us switch seats again. So, I’m back where I was before. And she says, “Ah, sorry. How can I help you, dear?” (Cackles)
Carrie Poppy: (With genuine confusion.) What?
Ross Blocher: You asked me to stick around!
Carrie Poppy: What?!
Ross Blocher: I put the money on the table! It’s there! We’re all paid up!
Carrie Poppy: Is it like she doesn’t know who you are? No. No.
Ross Blocher: No. No. It’s just like what more would you like? And I said, “Okay, well you, you asked me to think of some wishes?
And she looks back at me blankly and says, “Hmm. Wishes?”
Carrie Poppy: What?!
Ross Blocher: Like she has no idea what I’m talking about!
Carrie Poppy: Oh my god! Good lord! Good lord!
Ross Blocher: Yeah, she doesn’t even remember having told me to come up with these wishes. I’m ready with them. She doesn’t ask for them. And she said, “Oh, how much time do we have left?”
Carrie Poppy: Oh my god!
Ross Blocher: I said, “Well, I mean, it’s 5:47.”
She said, “Okay, we have time. We don’t close ‘til 6.” And I’m thinking you’re not gonna respect the 6 o’clock closing time!
So, I said, “Well, I was thinking one wish for the new year would be to—”
And she’s like, “No, no, no, no! Don’t tell me. Let’s talk about your son.”
Carrie Poppy: What?!
Ross Blocher: “He’s June 20th?” And I said June 15th. And she said, “Oh, so he’s a Gemini.” Which is weird. I had to look this up later, because I don’t have these internalized, but the 20th is also still a Gemini. So, I don’t know what she was thinking. Maybe she was just immediately confusing him with her other Andrew friend, who’s a Cancer. I feel bad like putting her in this awkward situation where she’s given all this long reading and—
Carrie Poppy: Yes, of how he’s such a shit, because he’s a Cancer.
Ross Blocher: —has probably spent, you know, 15+ minutes talking about my son having the wrong sign. And she said, “Okay, well, he may have some water in his life. You know, they’re right on the cusp, so it’s okay.” You know, we’re adjacent. And she said, “You know, even if he’s a Gemini, you still need to show him the way. He can still accomplish more.” But yeah, she doesn’t say I take back everything I said about your son being a lazy good-for-nothing.
Carrie Poppy: Right. Having a potential drug problem.
Ross Blocher: Right. And she said, “You know what? It’s actually better to be a Gemini. They’re a bit cooler, but he feels more loving and caring. Is he this way?”
So, I was like, “Well, yeah, he is loving and caring.”
So, she interrupts me in the middle of this and says, “You look like a younger brother of Mark Wahlberg.”
(They laugh.)
Carrie Poppy: Who is this woman? What is her deeeal?
Ross Blocher: And I said, “Okay, I’ll—I’ll take it!”
And she said, “That’s so sweet. Mark Wahlberg is a huge star, but I like the brother.”
And I said—this came to my brain in just the right moment. I said, “Donnie?” Because I know there’s a Donnie Wahlberg. I couldn’t remember what he looks like.
But she said, “Yeah, he looks like you, and you look like him.”
Carrie Poppy: (Laughs.) Is this woman hitting on you?
Ross Blocher: “He seems like more of a quiet man than his brother, who’s all busy, busy, busy.” (Laughs.) Yeah, I mean, it kind of felt—it felt very flirtatious. Apparently, she has some clients, and she knows through the grapevine that he is a nice guy. Okay!
Carrie Poppy: What on earth!?
Ross Blocher: So what do you think she does? She pulls out a new deck and starts shuffling it!
Carrie Poppy: Is it erotic?
Ross Blocher: No, this one—I mean, it has like pretty people. But yeah, this is the Tarot de la Nuit—yeah, the Tarot of the Night. And so, yeah, it has nice illustrations on it. But yeah, it’s not explicit. (Chuckles.)
But she’s shuffling this one. I’m thinking oh my goodness. So, I say, “You work with so many decks!”
And she says, “Oh yeah, I have thousands. I love them.”
And I said, “I have a collection at home too, but nothing compared to this.” And now having bought these new decks, I’m at 12, I’ve counted—if you include two Oracle decks. I don’t mention how my wife can’t stand that I just keep accumulating new tarot decks. But she says—
Carrie Poppy: Oh yeah, she’d try you away from your wife right away.
Ross Blocher: Right, right. She’s like, “Oh, this? This is nothing. I used to burn them.”
Carrie Poppy: What? Why? Why?
Ross Blocher: Her tarot decks. To expel the energies or something? And she’s like, “Yeah, I used to do it. And you know, it’s fine in my country, but here in this country, you get in trouble for this. I almost burnt down my house.”
(Wheezing a laugh.) I was like what is going on?! What are you—what—?! Who are you?!
Carrie Poppy: Oh, that’s what you mean by trouble! Yeah. Yeah. We don’t like it when you burn down your house. That’s true. We hate that here.
Ross Blocher: But she says, “Yeah, I don’t burn them anymore.” But she’s very excited. “Oh, you do tarot. That’s beautiful. Do you read for yourself?”
And I said, “Well, I’m no expert.”
And she said, “Oh, we all are. Just read the guides. All of the decks have a different motive. Like, I love this one.” And she holds up the one she was just using on the phone, the Milo Manara deck with all the erotic illustrations. And she says, “For me, sure it seems like it’s on the sexual side, but for me it’s not. It’s just—it’s the truth. And like if I suspect someone’s cheating, I use this deck.”
[01:25:00]
“Because it will tell me the truth.”
Carrie Poppy: Uh, sure, because it’s sexual. Okay.
Ross Blocher: (Chuckling.) Yeah, “I can see exactly what’s going on in more detail” than she would with another deck.
Carrie Poppy: Oh yeah. She’s like, “Oh, they are cheating on you. In fact, they’re cheating on you with another man and a woman and a goat-shaped object and—”
Ross Blocher: “And he’s finger-banging her.” Exactly. Ooooh goodness.
So, she starts flipping over this new deck of cards and says, “You’re going too slow. You need to start like moving mountains.” Someone in my work life is going to suggest a new partnership, and I don’t have to wait passively for this to happen. It’s the year of the dragon, so I need to be aggressive. No sleeping mode. I need to spread the news that I’m not quitting; I’m just looking for more money and some change. Not like money change but change of position. “So, stay attuned to who’s hiring. Again, it might be in New York. And you know what, maybe you’ll end up working on Wall Street!”
And I thought I’ll never work on—I’ll never end up working on Wall Street.
Carrie Poppy: That’s not what’s gonna happen. That’s not gonna happen! Why would you?!
Ross Blocher: Not at all! So, I can already say that one is false, unless it’s magically true! So, at this point I said, “Oh, very interesting. Well, thank you so much and happy—” You know, like, we wrap it up—
Carrie Poppy: “I would like to leave!”
Ross Blocher: (Laughs.) Yeah, it’s six o’clock and I’m worried about like the store’s closing hours. Yeah. You know, I don’t want the greeter to come in and bounce me.
Carrie Poppy: Yeah. The greeter is mean.
Ross Blocher: So, we wish each other a happy New Year. She bids farewell to me and calls me Donnie Wahlberg.
(They laugh.)
And all told, I was there for an hour and 20 minutes.
Carrie Poppy: Oh my god!
Ross Blocher: Yeah. So, so much for the half hour reading.
Carrie Poppy: Wow. These psychics really have a lot of time.
Ross Blocher: So, I got my money’s worth. You paid $180 for—
Carrie Poppy: Well, for many hours’ worth of texting.
Ross Blocher: Oh yeah. And her stories.
Carrie Poppy: And then two hours’ worth of—a little under two hours’ worth of stories about her life and five or six predictions about mine.
Ross Blocher: Okay. But minute for minute, I got a steal deal here. 40 bucks.
Carrie Poppy: Definitely. Definitely. And it sounds like a life partner. It sounds like you’re in love with this woman.
Ross Blocher: That is correct.
Carrie Poppy: Wow. Okay, you’ll put that all in the spreadsheet?
Ross Blocher: Yeah. We’ll track those predictions.
Carrie Poppy: Okay, so here’s what we do. For the course of the year, we look at these predictions, we see how they match up with our lives. And then at the end of the year, we will go back, and we will look at the predictions for ourselves, for the world, and we’ll see how well did these psychics do?
Ross Blocher: But in the meantime, between making our spreadsheet and then following up, we don’t think about them.
Carrie Poppy: No, we forget entirely! Which is kind of the beauty of it, because then we’ll come back, and I am not concerned about—like, I guess there’s a world in which you stay too plugged into the spreadsheet, and then you start to like organize your life around the expectation, pro or con—yeah. But we just freaking forget.
Ross Blocher: Overanalyze, self-fulfilling prophecies. Even if you’re trying to like—yeah, we’re not trying to avoid making them come true either. And like, hey, if I moved to New York in two months—
Carrie Poppy: So be it!
Ross Blocher: You know what? Maybe I will remember that one.
Carrie Poppy: Maybe. I find that I often don’t. I will think like, oh, that’s a big one. I’ll remember that. And then I don’t really. Yeah. So, we’ll see!
Ross Blocher: Okay. I’m sure we’ll get messages from listeners like, “Hey, you moved to New York. Remember? Remember?! The psychic?”
Carrie Poppy: Oh yeah. If you do that, yes. Absolutely.
Ross Blocher: Well, hopefully you enjoyed that journey through the psychic shops.
Carrie Poppy: Yes. I hope that my cats get along though. I hope that psychics aren’t real so that my cats get along, but I hope that psychics are real so that I have a number one book. But I hope that psychics aren’t real, so that you don’t move to New York. But I hope that psychics are real, so I live to 102!
Ross Blocher: Yeah, and I hope they aren’t real, so my wife doesn’t get pissed at all these new dates that I’m on. But I hope they are real—
Carrie Poppy: So that Drew gets a huge movie contract with lots of zeros in April to June! Uuugh.
Ross Blocher: There we go. So, boy, pluses and minuses to these predictions. Or maybe the world is just random, and the only influence we have is our own actions.
Carrie Poppy: We’ll see!
Ross Blocher: Maybe the fate is not in our stars, but in ourselves.
Carrie Poppy: Maybe, maybe not.
Ross Blocher: Okay, well, we will find out, as we do every year. 2023, I would say, didn’t pan out in the psychics’ favor. So, we’ll give them another shot, though.
Carrie Poppy: ChatGPT, again, won.
Ross Blocher: Yeah. (Chuckles.) So, alright, we’ll give them another shake, though.
Carrie Poppy: You know what? It’s interesting that all these psychics are worried about AI creeping up, because AI won the last psychic competition!
Ross Blocher: Yeah. Oh, one of many jobs AI threatens to displace.
Carrie Poppy: Yeah. Interesting. Well, that’s it for our show!
Ross Blocher: Our theme music is by Brian Keith Dalton. Our administrative manager is Ian Kremer.
Carrie Poppy: You can support this and all our investigations by going to MaximumFun.org/join.
Ross Blocher: Yes. Thank you. Thank you so much to everybody who does support us. It means the world. You make this show possible, so you should feel proud of that. You should sit a little taller in your seat.
Carrie Poppy: Mm-hm! Yeah. And this is our 400th episode. Thank you to everyone who’s been with us for 400 episodes!
[01:30:00]
Ross Blocher: 400!
Carrie Poppy: That’s over 399 episodes! That’s so much.
Ross Blocher: That’s a lot of listening. And I’m always super impressed when people write us and tell us that they’ve listened to the whole back catalog, sometimes in a matter of weeks. And I don’t know what that means or how that happens. ‘Cause that’s a lot of us talking.
(Carrie agrees.)
(Rushed.) Even when we talk really fast, when we’re on 2x speed on your podcast listener.
Carrie Poppy: Mm-hm. 400, Ross. We’ve done this four hundred times.
Ross Blocher: You know, podcasting is not easy work!
(Carrie agrees.)
I was just recently reading—the McElroy brothers wrote a book called Everyone Has a Podcast Except You. And it had a lot of good recommendations on starting it. But one of the chief pieces of recommendation that we always give people is pick something that’s a broad enough topic that you can expound on it for 400+ episodes. But also pick something that you care about enough that you’ll maintain that passion for.
Carrie Poppy: Yeah. You’re going to be the juice.
Ross Blocher: Exactly. So, advice to future podcasters and a nice little confirmation for ourselves.
Carrie Poppy: Yeah, I gotta read that book.
Ross Blocher: Okay, alright. Geez, I shouldn’t have put it on the giveaway table at work. I’ll go see if I can rescue it.
Carrie Poppy: We love the McElroys.
Ross Blocher: We’ve had two of the three authors on this show. Griffiiin! Where you at?
Carrie Poppy: Oh, that’s true! That’s true! We gotta get Griffin McElroy on the program!
Ross Blocher: You’re overdue.
Carrie Poppy: And remember!
Ross Blocher: Another prediction from Teal Swan, because she loves us sharing these!
Clip:
Teal Swan: The potential for landslides stands out in 2024. This is a year when potential for landslides must be recognized. That means drainage has to be improved, slope angles should be reduced, protective berms should be introduced. On top of climate changes, the vibration of insecurity that is emanating from life forms on Earth is like a form of energetic pollution that is causing a destabilization of the surface layer across earth. Subtle warning.
Music: “Oh No, Ross and Carrie! Theme Song” by Brian Keith Dalton. A jaunty, upbeat instrumental.
Promo:
Music: Playful, exciting synth.
Ellen Weatherford: People say not to judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree.
Christian Weatherford: Which is why here on Just the Zoo of Us, we judge them by so much more.
Ellen: We rate animals out of 10 in the categories of effectiveness, ingenuity, and aesthetics, taking into consideration each animal’s true strengths—like a pigeon’s ability to tell a Monet from a Picasso or a polar bear’s ability to play basketball.
Christian: Guest experts like biologists, ecologists, and more join us to share their unique insight into the animal’s world.
Ellen: Listen with friends and family of all ages on MaximumFun.org or wherever you get podcasts.
(Music ends.)
Transition: Cheerful ukulele chord.
Speaker 1: Maximum Fun.
Speaker 2: A worker-owned network.
Speaker 3: Of artist owned shows.
Speaker 4: Supported—
Speaker 5: —directly—
Speaker 6: —by you!
About the show
Welcome to Oh No, Ross and Carrie!, the show where we don’t just report on fringe science, spirituality, and claims of the paranormal, but take part ourselves. Follow us as we join religions, undergo alternative treatments, seek out the paranormal, and always find the humor in life’s biggest mysteries. We show up – so you don’t have to. Every week we share a new investigation, interview, or update.
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Get in touch with the show
@OhNoPodcast
/ONRACPeople
How to listen
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