Come in for a "spell"

Okay! I do not have hardly any time today. Mo (Lulu) is home today and as usual when she's home we have to go to town and run her fifty two errands. Yes, I know that she's old enough (I mean she lives on her own now. Kinda) to go alone but I enjoy spending the time with her. So, I have a ton of things I'd like to blog but they will have to wait. So today I'm going to give you what I hope is a treat. It's in keeping with my "October Ghosties" series but it's not a ghost story. It's not even a story. It's a ...wait for it...poem. Hey! You in the back of the class! I do not want to hear any groaning! Poetry is good! And you're going to like it! (And if you don't, don't tell me). Just kidding. I'm open to all constructive criticism.

Anyway it's just for fun. We were driving to pick up Mo from girl scout camp one year (I think she was like 10, so eight years ago) and it was an hour and a half drive from where we live. Along this one back road (and I do mean back road) we passed this old cemetery on a hill. And me, being me, and extremely bored, I started writing a poem in my head. And the following poem is what I came up with. I'm also giving you a picture, to set the mood. I hope you enjoy!



The Spell


In an old dark cemetery
Upon a lonely hill
Beside a fallen oak tree
I feel night’s eerie chill.
The moon is full above me
The ground wet beneath my toes
To stand here is to court Death
Or so the story goes.
Two candles sit before me
A stick of incense burning near
I chant a secret litany
My voice rings loud and clear.
It is not fame or fortune
Nor beauty that I seek
It’s for Love I’ve made this journey
To the graves by Deadman’s Creek.
My lover lies with another
Her skin so ghostly white
As I call upon dark powers
To end her life this night.
She stole him with her magic
A bold and daring plan
But not a game she should’ve played
For I hold the winning hand.
Her breath will cease, her soul take leave
Before the dawn’s first light
And I will have my sweet revenge
With the work I do this night.
Her death will not be called a crime
No fingerprints to be found
Although my ma calls it a sin
To wish her in the ground.
And as they put her in her grave
Beside the coffin I will stand
As we walk away that day
I’ll take back my lover’s hand.
It’s sad to have it end this way
A part of me will miss her
Backstabbing lying slut she is
And yet she is my sister.*
So if you’d steal another’s man
Bear my tale in mind
It’s hard to tell just what might happen
If you choose to cross that line.

SMT 07/00


*My sister has never ever tried to steal my man. Just wanted to be clear on that.

And obviously, when I copied the poem it had a date on it. So I guess it was 9 years ago. =]

Hope you enjoyed,
♥Spot

Ghosties Again...

Ah, so I took a break from blogging yesterday. Sean is still got the cough he's had for ten days now and I wasn't feeling great either so we crashed on the couch and watched scary movies all day. And um..yeah...you guys know me too well...I did still do two loads of laundry, make beds, play laundry room CSI, make supper and shower and smell good. I know, my idea of a "lazy day" is slightly skewed. But it was a good day!

So for a horror movie update~ 100 Feet is a movie about a woman (Famke Janssen) who murders her abusive husband in self defense. She's sent to prison but then changed to house arrest. She can't move out of the 100 foot range of the alarm box without setting it off. As it's a huge ass brownstone in NY, this doesn't allow her to go outside. To make things worse, her husband's old partner (Bobby Cannavale) is pissed she killed her husband and harasses her to no end. But worst of all...the Hubby comes back in ghost form and returns to his habit of beating the crap out of her. I thought it was an okay movie. I wasn't ever bored and didn't poke fun at it. However, Sean gave it a thumbs down. He thought the girl was ridiculously stupid and that Famke Janssen is not only a bad actress but unattractive as well. I tried explaining that she used to be a supermodel but he didn't care. So I guess all in all this movie gets a shrug.

We also watched The Haunted Airman. This one is a BBC production starring Julian Sands and Twilight Heartthrob Robert Pattison. If your only goal is to stare dreamily at Robert for an hour and a half, rent this movie. If you want a good plot, solid acting, and a few jumps~ rent something else. The movie was confusing from the beginning. You never do really know what's real and what's a figment of Robert's mind. But he does a lot of that "brooding" look. An hour and a half of my life I'll never get back. Thumbs down from both of us!

Okay, on to an "October ghostie" story. And this one is PG so even Cynica can continue reading...

I live on 745 acre Boy Scout Camp. Of course a lot of it is timber and there's a 40 foot lake. There is a house on the property that was built 26 years ago for the last Ranger to use. We now reside in the house. Here's a pic:



Kind of got that snow white cottage thing going on doesn't it? It's deceptively small looking however. It's like an optical illusion or something, because once inside it's really big. Like 3600 square feet big. Anywho, it's not haunted. Not in the least. I'm not even afraid to be home alone at night. I can read ghost stories, watch a scary movie, nothing. It's safe.

But the garage is a whole other story. The garage is set across the drive from the house. It's one of those Morton buildings, you know made of metal and totally modern. And big. It's a two car garage. My husband insists during the winter that I park my car in there. Which does save on scraping off ice and snow and what have you. But I must admit that the garage scares the pudding out of me. The ground it sits on was where the original house on the property was located. It was an old farmhouse that was already there when the Boy Scouts bought the property over 50 years ago and of course the house was much older than that. I have no idea what the history of this property is but that is a spooky piece of land. Inside they built a little room in the front, but it doesn't extend all the way across the garage so theres a little cubby hole area (if cubby holes were 4 foot by 4 foot) in the front on the side. The light doesn't really reach this area so it's always dark, even in the daytime. And that is the area that bothers me. Not because it's dark, but because it feels wrong. Now, my hubby says it feels fine. And none of the kids seem to mind it either. But Mo's friend Alex, who's 20 and my "all things ghostie" buddy and another friend went in there one night close to midnight to see if they got any impressions. Both boys high-tailed it back into my house in 10 minutes. Yep. Creepy feeling.

Now, you'd think I could easily avoid this garage and that would be that. And now, I can. But when I worked outside the home, I worked retail. Which meant alot of my hours were at night. That meant coming home to a dark garage. Now, I'm no chicken. I didn't call my hubby every night and demand he meet me at the garage. Nope. (Not that he would have anyway...) I'd come home, pull down towards the garage, stop, get out and open the garage door (yeah, we lost the remotes) and pull in. Then, with the car lights still on, I'd get out and turn on the overhead in the garage. Turn the car off, shut the doors. Then I had a choice...turn off the lights and walk through the small room to get to the door. Or turn off the lights, make a mad dash out the large garage opening and pull the door down fast. Yep. That's the one I did. I would then walk all the way around the garage on the outside to get to my house. If I gone out the front door of the garage, theres a path straight to the house. An always cleared off path. Not me. I was that scared. I'd wade through snow, rain, whatever in order to bypass going out that door. I always felt like something was right behind me when I used that door. The hair on the back of my neck stood up and I'd fight the urge to look behind me (Never look back!!) or to break into a run.

One night, I came home late. It was pitch dark. In fact, hubby had forgotten to turn any of our outside lights on (and let me tell you people, the country is waaaayyy dark at night). So I did the usual, pulled up to the garage, got out and opened the overhead, pulled in. Then I gathered my courage, got out of the car and screamed bloody murder. Something had touched my hand!!! I nearly had a heart attack on the spot. Then I realized that the dog was out of her pen and had her nose in my hand. And was giving me the "why is my human screaming" look. Well, actually since it was so dark, I was pretty damn happy to have the dogs company. =]

So there you go. We've actually talked about doing some EVP sessions and taking some night photos in the garage. And the little cemetery from the slide show. If I get the gumption up to do it...I'll let you know.

good scares & night screams,
♥Spot

So about that haunted house...

I decided to take Mark's suggestion about a theme. Although, I don't think I have enough personal ghost stories to continue the rest of the month, I can indeed come up with something. But I do have at least one more ghostly encounter of my own...


Right about the time I got pregnant with Molly we decided we needed more space than the two bedroom apartment we were living in. Now, in the apartments defense, it was a great apartment and it really wasn't small. But it was pricey. And since we were going to have very small children we realized that daycare would take up most of my salary and I wanted to stay home with the kids anyway. So we started looking around for a new place to call "home". I've always been lucky when it comes to finding new places and it was probably only a week in that I came across a two bedroom house that was going to cost less then our apartment. And it had a yard! A big, fenced in yard. In fact...it was pretty much perfect. There was a den complete w/fireplace, a large great room , a kitchen, a bath with double vanities and then upstairs were two bedrooms and a half bath. It was right across from a school and a block and half from a really nice park. It was everything we wanted for a really decent rental price. It was owned by a real estate agent and he was a super guy. Really sweet and a great landlord. We moved within the week.

The only immediately apparent downfall to the house was that the washer and dryer went in the basement. It was a dark concrete basement that really hadn't had much done to it. And it made me nervous. Like seriously nervous. There was small room built into the corner of the basement that had at one time been "secret" but had since been uncovered. The light never seemed to reach that corner and I hated turning my back on it. Unfortunately, the washer and dryer were set in the opposite corner of the basement and to do laundry I had to turn my back on it. I would finish my work down there as quickly as I could and then practically fly up the stairs (pregnant belly and all) and slam the door shut, convinced something had been watching me. My hubby found this behavior hilarious in a twenty one year old girl.

The second thing I noticed was that storms made me exceptionally jumpy in this house. Now, I've always loved thunderstorms and living in the Midwest, we are treated to them regularly. But for some reason, in this house I'd get jumpy as soon as a storm started and hated being alone during them. It got so bad that I would wake CJ up if he was sleeping just so I could rock him. Any mother of a nine month old knows this is crazy behavior!!

At this time, my hubby worked nights at a factory in town. He was gone from 4:00 pm to 3:30 am Monday thru Thursday and 2:30 pm to 11:30 pm on Fridays and sometimes Saturdays. So most nights I was on my own. I had a comfortable routine (CJ was a baby who loved his routines, now that we know he's autistic, this totally makes sense!). I'd rock him to sleep between 8:30 and 9:00. Then watch a little more tv and head to bed myself. Usually I climbed in bed around 10 and read for a bit. I'm a horror novel fan so lots of times it's was Stephen King or Dean Koontz on the nightstand. Well one night I woke up in the middle of the night and heard footsteps on the stairs. They continued up the stairs and down the hall, right to the middle of the bedroom where I was. They came right to the edge of the bed where I lay (with my back to them) and stopped. I thought it was my hubby coming home and rolled over to say something. Except there was no one there! Completely freaked out I turned the light on and waited for him to get home. Of course he told me it was a bad dream. But it started happening every night that he wasn't home. At 3 o'clock like clockwork. He dismissed my accounts and admonished me for reading Stephen King and getting myself all worked up. Honestly, I was never really scared of the presence, I just didn't want to see it. Or have it touch me or anything like that.

When I was 8 months pregnant I flew to Louisiana to visit my folks. My dad was stationed at a base there and I had never been to that state before. It was an unpleasant visit. CJ got a sinus infection and was sick and cranky the whole time. He refused to sleep most night and as a result, I was tired and cranky. And the state of Louisiana is unbearably humid in august. Not good when that pregnant. My hubby called everyday of the week we were there, to check on us. And on one night he said "tell me again about the footsteps". I knew by the sound of his voice that he'd heard them. I told him and then asked point blank "did you hear them too?". He admitted that he had, exactly like I described and apologized for thinking I was crazy. Ha! I remember feeling much relieved and vindicated.

Now, I don't remember exactly what the celebration was for, but for one reason or another, CJ ended up with a helium filled balloon one day. One of the foil ones that last forever. He played with that balloon alot during the day and sadly left it downstairs that night. Downstairs. In the den. Now to get from the den to the bedroom upstairs one had to walk through the living room, turn 90 degrees to the left, walk down the hall, turn 90 degrees to the right, go through a doorway, make another 90 degree turn to the right, up a steep flight of stairs, turn 90 degrees to the right, down a hall and into our room. Somehow, the balloon made it. When we woke up the next morning it was hovering over the middle of our bed. No, the heater nor air conditioning were on. So much for air currents.

And then there was Christmas. CJ was 15 months and Mo was 3 months. We did the usual rounds of family dinners and gift exchanges and made it home completely exhausted. We got the kids into bed and collapsed on the couch. When we'd brought all the presents we'd collected at various grandparents in, we'd piled them all in the den for sorting out later. At one of the grandparent's the kids had gotten wind up sesame street characters. I think we'd gotten Bert and Ernie. They were made of hard plastic and when you wound them up, the little arms moved to cover the eyes and uncover them in a game of peek-a-goo. The little feet moved and they played the sesame street theme. As my hubby and I were sprawled on the couch we heard the sesame street theme coming from the den. Now, we'd been home for hours, no one had been in the den and they didn't play unless you wound them up. I looked at him.

Me: You should go check that out.

Him: I'm not going in there. You go ghost girl.

Me: Not a chance. Let's go to bed instead.

And so we did. We only lived in the house another couple of months before we moved again in search of even cheaper rent. I must say I never felt threatened in the house, just jumpy. Even the footsteps weren't threatening it was more like an echo of something that had happened. Only the basement creeped me out. The day before we moved, I went over to say goodbye to the elderly couple that lived next door. We'd spoken a few times since we lived there and they were always friendly with me and the babies. As I sat in the living room, drinking tea, my neighbor lady remarked that they were sorry to see us go and that nobody ever seemed to live in the house long. And it was a shame because these houses were so full of history. She commented that she'd done some research on their house before they bought it and that both houses were over a hundred years old. And that our house had been a stop on the underground railroad. Didn't I know that's what that basement room had been? No. I hadn't known. But things made a lot more sense now.

Well, the house is still there, and I drive by it sometimes just for old time sakes. We had a happy year there, all things considered. It also fascinates me. It's had a variety of residents since we moved and oddly enough I received a call one morning from a girl my hubby had gone to school with.

Her: So I talked to (insert mutual friend's name here) and she said that I should call you because you used to live at (insert address here).

Me: oh yeah we did! We lived there about 3 years ago. I loved that house!

Her: well my fiance and I are in the process of buying it. Um. I was wondering...did you ever hear anything weird?

Me: oh you mean the footsteps?

Her. Yes! Omg. He told me it was just the rain!! We're remodeling the big bedroom so we're sleeping in the little one and last night I swear I heard footsteps come up the stairs and turn and go to the big bedroom. He tried to tell me I was just hearing the rain on the roof!!

Me: Nope. They're footsteps alright. But I don't think they're anything bad.

Her: And a wind up alarm clock, that was packed in a sealed box in the middle of the big bedroom went off the other night in the middle of the night!

I proceeded to tell her our stories, again assuring her I didn't think it was anything bad. But it didn't help. She moved out.

Anyone else got a ghost story for me? Are you scared yet?

things that go bump in the night,
♥Spot

That story I promised you on Sunday

Okay, so the other day I promised you a story to astound and amaze you. Or was it terrify and repulse you? Or maybe it was amuse and bewilder you? I don't remember. But this is the story you're getting so I promise it will have one of the three effects above.

So I posted before about my "spidey sense" and so far no one has come up with a better name so we are just going to go with that for now. And I mentioned how it is not really useful for personal gain (unless you count avoiding doom which is kind of a point on the gain side really). And then I said unless I started talking to ghosts and became a medium on one of those ghost shows (but really the good ones never use mediums so I'd have to be on one of the mediocre ones and I don't know if I can settle for mediocrity). And then I said that I really didn't want to talk to ghosts. It's true, I really don't. I wouldn't mind seeing one (like a totally non threatening, non scary one of course!) but I don't want it talking to me.

Well, here's the kicker...according to my mom and dad, I used to talk to ghosts. When I was little. I know that you are all pretty freaked out and amazed and OK, maybe mostly freaked out because I know I was!! But they have at least two separate accounts of this behavior.

First, when I was between two and three, we lived with my grandparents (dad's side) for awhile in Bloomington, IL. This was just before my dad joined the air force and began whisking us all over the place. I guess the house my gparents lived in was notably haunted. Lights turned themselves on and off, things mysteriously got moved around, and people passing by the house when my grandparents weren't home would hear the sounds of a party and music and see lights on. It seems that more then one friend of theirs actually got pissed because they thought they had a party and didn't invite them. (It was the early seventies you know). Anyway, the story goes that one night my mom woke up in the middle of the night to the sound of me chattering away (this probably wasn't all that unusual as I'm told even then I was a "talker".) But she said I was even pausing as though I was having a conversation and someone was talking back. She said I didn't sound upset at all. She went down the hall and into my room to find me standing in a corner of the crib chatting animatedly to the empty room. When she asked me who I was talking to I promptly informed her "the lady" and that the lady was cold. She picked me up, I fussed some about the lady being cold and waved "bye bye" as she started down the hall. At which point she started booking it back to her own room, me in her arms. They moved me into their room after that. And we were only in that house a couple more months. I have no recollection of this at all. (of course!)

The second occurrence was much more ongoing and lasted about eighteen months. When I was four we moved to Okinawa, where my dad was stationed. I actually celebrated my fourth birthday on the plane crossing the pacific ocean. At first we lived in a house in one of the villages and I really only had my mom and my dog, Fuzzy, for company. When we moved on base, my mom got rid of the dog (she and he were not friends to put it mildly) So, even though I was in kindergarten (I started early, back then they let you do that), I didn't have a whole lot of friends. So when I started talking to a boy named "Manny" that my parents couldn't see, they figured it was your typical imaginary friend solitary children come up with. But things got increasingly weird as I made them set a place for "Manny" at the table, cried when my mom shut the door too fast and caught "Manny's" elbow in it, walked as though there was someone actually beside me, and had one sided conversations. The doctors assured them it was normal behavior and I'd outgrow my need for my imaginary friend when I started making more real friends. Well "Manny" stayed with me throughout our stay in Okinawa even though I did make real friends. And there were a few odd happenings- once during a typhoon when there was no power, a small plug-in lamp in my bedroom stayed lit anyway. And then "Manny" even followed us back home to America the year I turned 6. Our first stop in America was a visit to my grandparent's (Mom's side this time) home in Illinois. At that time my grandparents were still married (they divorced the next year) and my grandfather was still an alcoholic. One afternoon, my father was taking a bath (they didn't have a shower) in the (only) upstairs bathroom and I was playing in the hall outside the door where our suitcases were stored. My mother had admonished me to stay right there while she went in to rinse my dad's hair for him (picture a 6'2" man crammed into an old fashioned claw foot tub). I was playing horsey on the largest suitcase when suddenly I got up and ran to the door to the bathroom and grabbed the handle. At that moment the sound of a gun going off echoed through the house. I don't remember much of what happened but apparently my father, dripping wet and dressed only in a bathrobe raced downstairs to find my drunken grandfather, my uncle who'd taken the gun from him, and my grandmother. My grandfather had been waving the gun around and it accidentally discharged, sending a bullet straight through the ceiling and exactly where my leg would have been had I still been playing horsey on the suitcase. Well my dad came really close to doing great violence to my grandfather but grandpa spent the night in jail instead. My extremely shaken mother asked me why I'd come to the door when I did and all I could tell her was that "Manny" told me to. "Manny" disappeared after that and I never mentioned him again. While I don't remember much of it (just flashes of scenes) this story still gives me goosebumps. And I thank my lucky stars for "Manny", whoever and whatever he was.

So there you have it. Kind of explains my life long interest in ghosts and all things paranormal, doesn't it? I hope that you, whether you're a believer or not, enjoyed the story. I'm kicking around the idea of making it into a novel (so don't go stealing it!). So which reaction did it get from you?

goosebumps & gratitude,
♥Spot

Scary things...like ghosts and my mothers driving...

So talking to my sister the other day and her telling me to come visit her made me think back to October of last year. Most of last year I was sick. I spent a year going through tests and getting diagnoses only to have them ruled out later. I'd taken the entire summer off from my job, hoping that the rest would help, I returned in September but things weren't good and in October, my boss finally asked me to take a medical leave of absence. I did and ended up not going back. And all of that is another blog, but the result of this was that I decided to tag along with my mom and go to my sister's house for Halloween since my kids are older and past the whole trick-or-treating thing. Plus my sister is the only person I know who loves Halloween as much as I do! My aunt also decided to go with us. So the three of us set out.

First pitfall? My mother feels the need to take half of her house with her when she goes anywhere. We were going for 5 days so she takes 3 suitcases, two "bathroom" bags, and hanging clothes. My aunt has three suitcases. I have one suitcase and one small bathroom bag. We're going to Ohio, not China. If you forget something there's a Walmart down the road. So, finally, I get all of this luggage crammed into my mom's Ford Escape and we argue over the driving. My mom insists on driving. Now, my mom is almost the worst driver I know. My aunt is the worst. Neither of them really pays much attention to where they're going and both of them take this crazy mix of prescription pills that renders them semi-conscious on occasion. Can I just say that I huddled in the backseat, surrounded by excess luggage and feared for my life for 5 hours?? Example:

Mom: Boy this road is really rough!!

Me: Um. Mom? You're driving on the rumble strips.

True story. No lie. So we get to my sisters finally! I enjoyed my stay with her and the kids. I had a blast taking them trick-or-treating around the neighborhood. My sis and I are both avid ghost fans so she and her gf's (her bestie Jen, our cousins Nikki & Andi), and myself go to a haunted house at Mansfield Reformatory (one of the most haunted places in the US)! It was some good scary fun let me tell you! But after our 5 days are up, I have to get back in the car for the return trip. Again, my mother insists on driving. And I have to let her due to the fact that I'm under doctor's orders not to drive. Unfortunately, we've shopped while we were there and found a stray kitty (which of course I'm taking home with me). So there's even more stuff to cram in the car. Once again, I find myself huddled in the back seat, furiously texting my sister.

My sis: Where you guys at?

Me: Mom took a wrong turn. We're lost in downtown Indianapolis. And it's going to be dark soon.

My sis: Holy shit! I hope you brought supplies?

Me: You mean like crosses and wooden stakes?

My sis: Well, as you may or may not know, Indy is a hotbed of wampires (not a typo. She actually calls them wampires).

Me: Yes, I've got holy water in squirt guns of course. And it's okay because I'm wearing a hoodie.

My sis: A hoodie? How's that gonna help? They can bite right through that.

Me: No way. It's cotton. Everyone knows cotton is God's fabric.

My sis: Seriously?

Me: Of course. It's grown in dirt. Everyone knows vampires don't like dirt.

My sis: Dude. You're making that up. They sleep in their native soil.

Me: Yeah, so they don't like other dirt. I'm totally going with it.

My sis: hmm. Whatever. If you turn into a wampire don't come visit me.

Me: Rude.

Thankfully, my mother managed to get us home without killing anyone. I'm thinking of going to my sisters for Halloween again. This time...I drive. And don't think I won't be wearing my hoodie.

That's my blog and I'm sticking to it!


Ghosts, wampires & cotton hoodies,
♥Spot