Today I am a Scout

Okay, first off, yeah, I know, it's been a little quiet around here lately, mainly because there is a KITTEN IN DA HOUSE!, but we'll get to that shortly.

I was rummaging around in my closet the other day and found a boy scout shirt, complete with merit badges!(don't ask me why) (there's a boy scout buried in the backyard) (KIDDING I am KIDDING), and I thought, eh, maybe I'll dress up for Halloween.  Nobody at the office will care, and a boy scout shirt sounded more comfy than the usual Business Casual, so there you are.  I knew I had a sash someplace, and I dug that up (ha), except it turned out to be a girl scout sash instead of a boy scout sash (do boy scouts even HAVE sashes?  I do not know), so I thought I could go as a Transgendering Scout, but that seemed like a little too much detail even for me, so I am a Scout.  And very comfortable.

(and yes, I DID consider going as a Crazy Cat Lady, complete with Kitten!, but that's been done to death, so no.)

Now! Kitten!  Yes, it is the Dump & Run kitten from last weekend.  I was in need of a kitten fix, so I made a stop after work the other night, and now I am caring for this lil dude for a few days:

His eyes are a mess so I'm keeping the spare room dimly-lit.  I didn't want to use the flash, plus he's wriggly, so I don't have any decent pics yet, but here is one of him next to a flashlight for size:

Yep.  Tiny.   Little Talon.  Talon the Tiny Terror.  That cat is gonna be a handful when he starts feeling better, so I'm enjoying the calm before the storm right now.

Oh, and guess what I'm gonna do tomorrow?  Get a HAIRCUT.  I am sure that SOMEONE (cough) will be glad to hear that news, and I'll have you know it's only been ELEVEN WEEKS since my last haircut, so I should totally get an award.  Hand it over.

So!  That's what's up.  Scouting and kittens and haircuts, oh my.  Let me know if there's any little old ladies who need help crossing the street or anything.

Pretty as a picture

Dump & Run

Our rescue had an adoption event Saturday at the local Tractor Supply.  Things were going swimmingly, with one cat already adopted out, when I saw an obviously distressed woman carrying a cat carrier, heading toward our tables at a fast clip.

"Oh crap," I muttered to the head of the rescue.  "It's gonna be a dump and run."

Yep.  It was.  A six-week-old kitten, very ill.  The woman said she lived in a trailer park and rescued the kitten from under a neighbor's trailer.  She said she had taken it to a vet, who put it on Clavamox for four days (Lie #1 - nobody puts a cat on antibiotics for only four days).  She said the vet told her that the cat had a cold, but it wasn't contagious.  (Lie #2 - the cat was obviously suffering from an upper respiratory condition, which is very contagious.)  She said the vet told her it was a girl cat.  (Which turned out to be Lie #3).

The head of the rescue took the cat, out of pity, and handed it to me while she tried to figure out what to do with it until the event was over and she could take it to her house. 

Teeny little kitten, shivering, its eyes so matted shut with goop that it couldn't see, dirty and sneezing and wheezing.  I wrapped it in a tshirt to warm it up, went to the restroom and wet down another t-shirt with warm water, and started cleaning the goop from its eyes.  The eyes were bright red - conjunctivitis. Oh, lord.  The thing was PURRING.  Like CRAZY.

Hmmm, I wondered.  What would Sandra Bass do?  (Because Sandra Bass is my new hero, obs.)  WWSBD?  Well.  I grabbed a carrier, put the kitten in, and took it to the local walk-in vet clinic.  A hundred and forty-one dollars later (which I paid out of pocket because the rescue is broke) (the rescue is always broke) (ALL rescues are always broke, except for the local Humane Society, which takes in over HALF A MILLION DOLLARS A YEAR and yet mysteriously turns down  EVERY SINGLE PERSON WHO CALLS THERE LOOKING FOR HELP but don't get me started on that), we walked out (well, *I* walked out - the kitten was in the carrier) with Clavamox, terramycin, and a bandaged hand from where the kitten scratched the sh*t out of me as the tech was taking its temperature.  (I told the woman who runs the rescue that she needs to name it Talon.)

The kitten went to a foster home and is now doing swimmingly.  Oh, and it's a boy.

 And, as always, one could argue that it's a waste of money, that it's silly to spend that money to save one kitten when there are so many others, when there are people in need, and yada yada yada.

I just keep telling myself the starfish story.  STARFISH STORY FTW.

Ha.  That kitten's a born salesman, 'cause he got me to cough up a hundred and forty bucks.  On meds for him.  Go figure.

Crazy world

  I was reading the paper this morning, and came across an article about a guy from Plattsburgh, which is upstate from here, trying to raise funds for surgery for his little dog.  The dog has a rare heart condition, and this dude, who does not have a lot of resources, was trying to raise $32,000 for heart surgery for the dog at a local animal hospital.  The dog helped him when he was down and out, and he wanted to return the favor.

He went to his bank and applied for a loan, but they would only loan him $20,000.  He sold a car, which got him another $2,000.  Ten grand to go.

He started a gofundme campaign, and six thousand came in, in dribs and drabs.  Four grand left to go.  The surgery is scheduled for a few weeks from now, without it the dog would certainly die, and he was running out of time to raise the money.  I swear, I got teary-eyed reading the article about the love this guy has for his dog, so I went to gofundme and chipped in twenty bucks, in memory of The Runt and Little Girl, both of whom died young of heart problems.  The least I could do.

I kept checking on the gofundme page this morning, wondering if there would be other people who, like me, would read the article and help out.

And then?  And then? 

Somebody donated ten grand.

Sandra Bass (or someone using the name of Sandra Bass), donated the entire ten thousand dollar amount of the original fundraiser.  And the donations keep coming in.  So far, funds raised exceed $18,000.

You can read about it here. 

The gofundme campaign is here. 

You can argue that there are other animals (or people) who would be more deserving of the money, you can argue that it's stupid to spend thirty grand on heart surgery for a dog, you can argue whatever you want.  *I* would argue that, every once in while, people are good.  They are.

Mem'ries ... light the corners of my mind ... (OR NOT)

I was talking to a woman the other day with whom I went to high school, and while there was no love lost between us back then, we have become friend-ish lately, and it's funny how that happens, isn't it?

ANYway, she was talking about some trip the select choir took to Canada, back in high school, and I'm just, like, sorta listening, and then she's, like, "Don't you remember?  You went, too!"

And I'm, like, "---"

"You were totally there!," she said.  "I remember you being on that trip!"

I remember being in the select choir.  (It wasn't THAT select, obviously, if I was in it.)  I do not remember this particular woman being in that choir, and I have no memory of that trip whatsoever.

And honestly?  A LOT of my high school existence has faded out of memory.

Oh, sure, I remember some of it, and I remember going to Florida with the marching band, and I remember some of the boys I dated, and I remember my first after-school part-time job, but most of it?

Nope.  Gone.

It just ... wasn't that important, in the grand scheme of things.  I mean, sure, it was important at the TIME, but over thirty years have passed, for Pete's sake.  I can't remember EVERYthing.

Except I'm pretty sure that some people can.  Remember, that is.  Facebook has a great (or evil) way of reconnecting you with high school classmates, and some of the kids I went to school with (now grown adults, of course), can go on and on and ON about this dance and that teacher and this field trip and I'm just, like ...

okay?  If you say so?  Was it fun?

I mean, I'm sure that some of it is due to the fact that I went to a big high school.  There were six hundred kids in my graduating class, so obviously I'm not going to have the same memories as all of my classmates.  But to un-remember an entire field trip to Canada with the choir?  Seems kind of ... odd.

Was it the drugs I took?  I mean, I didn't do a LOT of drugs in high school, I was a good kid, but I certainly kept pace.  Lots of alcohol, some weed, some coke but not too much because nobody knew anybody who had it on a regular basis - just the same stuff all of my peers were doing.  (It was the seventies, after all.  Nobody'd even HEARD of Just Say No back then - it hadn't been invented yet.)

So now I'm curious.  How well do you remember your high school experience?   All of it?  Some of it?  Every detail?  None of it? 

Enquiring minds want to know.

Go home, Pony. You're drunk.

Silly kitty.

Baffling

Me, at bank, to teller:  "Hi, I was here on Friday afternoon, and I think I left a pair of sunglasses in here.  Do you have a lost-and-found box?"

Teller:  "Blue sunglasses?"

Me, excitedly:  "Yes!  Exactly.  Sunglasses with blue frames."

Teller, rummaging around behind counter:  "Hmmm, they're not here ... Hey, Matt, did you lock up a pair of sunglasses?"

Matt, aka Teller #2:  "Sunglasses?  Let me check out back."

Matt comes back.  "Nope, no sunglasses.  Sorry."

Me:   -----

Me:  "So ... you don't have a pair of sunglasses?"

Matt:  "No.  Sorry."

Me:  "Ummmmmm ... okaaaaaaaay ... thanks?"


WTF?  The first teller knew my sunglasses.  He remembered them.  But then Teller #2 said nope.  No sunglasses at all. 

I know I left those sunglasses at the bank.  I walked in with them; I realized five minutes down the road that I no longer had them.  And  I mean, they were dollar store sunglasses, which is why I didn't go back right away, but still.  They were pretty dollar store sunglasses, which is why I went back at all.  And sure, it could happened that the next person in line behind me saw the sunglasses sitting on the ledge and scarfed them, but Teller #1 remembered the sunglasses, and yet did not contradict Teller #2 who said no sunglasses.

I guess ... enjoy your new sunglasses, Teller #2?  Although I do think they'll look kind of silly on you, having blue frames and all.

Recently Read

As usual, skip it if you wanna.

1.  Can't We Talk About Something More Pleasant? by Roz Chast.  Ms. Chazt is a noted cartoonist, so I'm not sure why I was surprised that her memoir, about her aged parents' decline and death, was in cartoon form, but I was.  Anyway, it's really good, and a really quick read, and her Dad had dementia, so I could relate to it in a billion different ways.  Plus, she's flat-out funny.  Favorite line:  "Where, in the Five Stages of Death, is EAT TUNA SANDWICH!?!?"  (Her mom, er, lived a little longer than the doctors expected.)

2.  Heartbreak Cafe by Penelope Stokes - Novel about a recently widowed woman who opens a restaurant. Think Fannie Flagg lite.

3.  Cruddy by Lynda Barry - Novel about a young girl with a hard childhood.  I was having a hard time getting into this one, but I knew I had read one of Ms. Barry's novels before and really liked it, so I did a blog post search and ...  it was this book!  I read it back in 2008 and, according to my review, really liked it!  This time around, I didn't like it, couldn't even get very far into it,  so it just goes to proves that your own life situation at any given time has a lot to do with whether or not you'll enjoy any particular book, I guess.

4.  Wild by Cheryl Strayed.  I wanted to read it before the movie came out.  It's a memoir from a woman who hiked portions of the Pacific Coast Trail.  Good.

5.  The Idiot Girls' Action-Adventure Club by Laurie Notaro.  Humorous essays.

6.  Untamed:  The Wildest Woman in America and the Fight for Cumberland Island by Will Harlan.  Biography of  naturalist Carol Ruckdeschel.  Really, really good.  Along with a fascinating portrait of a woman who truly loves wild things, this book also explains, in an entertaining way,  lots of subjects that might ordinarily be considered dry, like the Social Darwinism concept, and why Jimmy Carter is interested in monitoring elections,Very, very good and highly recommended.

7.  Whistling in the Dark by Leslie Kagan.  Novel about a child murderer on the loose in a small town in the fifties told from the viewpoint of a young girl.  Okay.

8.  Let Us Build Us a City by Donald Harington - Nonfiction about several small Arkansas towns and their inhabitants.  I loved, loved his novel When Angels Rest and I enjoy reading about small-town life, so I thought I would like this book as well.  Nope.  It just wanders all over the place, and not in a good way.  Didn't even get past the first town.

9.  O Pioneers by Willa Cather.  No, I'd never read it before.  Novel about Nebraska farmers in the late 1800s, written in the early 1900s.  Interesting, because unlike a lot of books of that era that come off as really dated, I felt like this one could have been written today.  Good.

10.  Found by Davy Rothbart.  Series of essays, mainly written by hipsters and people in bands nobody's ever heard of, about found things.  Meh. 

So!  That's what I've been reading lately.  How about you?

The Stones of Jones

So, Sunday I ended up playing hooky from my responsibilities and I headed to Jones Park.  If you can do boring household chores on a gorgeous fall afternoon, you're a better man than I am, Gunga Din.

I was happy to see that the stone arrangers have been out in full force.

Their works range from the fairly simple:

(I love the little pebble on the top - it's like a cherry on top of a sundae.)


To large-scale fortresses:

To the spectacular.

That last assemblage reminds me of the scene in Poltergeist when the mom walks into the kitchen and all of the chairs are balanced on top of each other.

Who builds them?  I do not know.  The Stones of Jones are a mystery.

Yet another jam-packed weekend in RockyCatlandia

So!  Saturday was carpet-ripping day.  But I did lots of other stuff this past weekend as well:

I bought some corned beef hash because I'd never had it, and I thought it would be ... like hash browns?  Yeah, THAT was a nasty surprise when I opened up the can.  Do people actually eat that stuff?  Because I wouldn't even give it to the cats.  Straight in the trash can.  That sh*t ain't right.

I got home from work on Friday to discover that SOMETHING had chewed most of the bark off the bottom two feet of one of my brand-new baby willow trees.  Son of a B*TCH!  Can the tree be saved?  I do not know.  Whatever went to town on it (deer, I'm looking at YOU) did not manage to totally gird it, so I'm hoping like heck that it might recover.  In the meantime, I stapled aluminum window screening (sometimes it helps to never, ever throw anything away) around the trunks of all three of the new trees.  Chew through THAT, a**hole deer.  Gah. 

I was driving out in the sticks when I saw a calf in someone's driveway.  Why on earth would somebody have a calf in their driveway, I pondered as I slowed down to get a better look.  Turns out it wasn't a cow; it was a dog!  Dogzilla!  It was the biggest damn dog I've ever seen in my life - thing was HUGE.  Judging by the look, it was part Rottie, part Shepherd, and part Incredible Hulk.  Thankfully I was driving by the house and not walking - I think I would have had a heart attack.

I was supposed to do all kinds of chores on Sunday.  But by the time I got home from the grocery store early in the afternoon, it was gorgeous.  Sunny and in the 50s.  So I looked at my to-do list.

Raking leaves ... can wait.
Mowing ... can wait.
Washing the windows ... can wait.
Planting the daffodil bulbs?  Well, maybe I can get to that when I get back, because it's too nice of a day not to hit the woods.

There is a snake in this next picture.  Shhh, don't tell anybody ...

Tune in next time for Jones Park Part II: the Stones of Jones.

Demolition Day

Remember when I discovered that there was hardwood underneath the carpet in my house?

I was going to have the contractor come in and rip it up out of the foster bedroom, but he kept pushing back the schedule, and I was dying to get a look at all the pretty wood.  So on Saturday, I bribed a friend with the promise of a yummy! diner! lunch!, and we got our game on. 

Here is the room, before:  (You can see where I had already started pulling in the far corner):

I will tell you what, it was a lot of WORK yanking all that carpeting and padding up.  And then there were the tack strips, which looked like some kind of medieval torture device, which we ended up crowbarring up off the floor, but in the end we got it all done.  I still have nine kabillion staples to pop out of the floor, but that'll come.


Are you ready?


Are you ready for the awesome floor reveal?


Ready ...


Set ...


GO!!!!!!

Dudes.  Duuuuuuuudes.  Granted, it only looks so shiny because I had just mopped it, and I'm still going to have to put some kind of finish on the floor (suggestions welcome), but can you believe it?  Can you believe somebody covered that UP?

I keep going to the doorway, just to gaze at the pretty wood.  Hot DAMN that's a good-looking floor.

Freaky Friday: Crazy Crafts!

Okay, I think we all could use a little respite from my racist boss (see yesterday's post if you missed it), so let's do a Freaky Friday.



I know you guys all think I'm nuts.  Truth is, I am.  But there is a method to my madness, and today I thought I'd give you a step-by-step look into my world.  Previous Freaky Fridays have given a glimpse into some of the weird sh*t around my house; today I'll show you how one such item came to be. 

 Start here, with a flat-back birdcage I picked up at Kohl's using one of the gift cards they keep sending me.  Original price thirty-nine bucks, marked down to fifteen, and I had a ten dollar card so it cost me five bucks.  But it's plain!  This can not stand!

Let's see, it needs some background.  Maybe some sky?

Nah, not quite right.  How about some lizards?

Oooooo, better.

I was gonna go with the lizard motif, and maybe put a little hanging plant in there, but ... eh.  It's been done before.  I needed something different ... something really different.

I wanted to have a cage of light.  Of brightness, for the winter months.  But I couldn't quite put my finger on the idea ...

And then, I went out walking the other weekend, and the trees and the asters all looked like fireworks going off, and I thought, "fireworks.  I want a birdcage full of fireworks."

Well.  I knew I had some wrapping paper or a gift box or something at home with a fireworks print.  I thought I'd head for the dollar store to see what else could remind me of fireworks.

I was looking for anything sparkly.  Metallic sparkly.  I picked up some cheerleading pompoms, one of those balloon-weight thingies, some shiny gold wire garland and some bead necklaces.  It was time to go to work.  First up was deconstructing the pompoms; I was pleased to discover that the strands were all attached to some plastic backing and not just running amok once they were removed from the handles.

(Yeah, I was working out in the backyard. It was a beautiful day.)

I started with the fireworks-printed gift box; I unfolded it and put it in the back of the birdcage.  There wasn't enough to cover the whole back, but I figured that wouldn't matter once I put the other stuff in there.

 The balloon-weight thingie went in the center as the main firework; I draped a dismantled pompom across the back of the birdcage, arranged the garland to look like streamers, and ran the bead necklaces down from the top.  In progress:

Close-up view:

Here it is inside:

Hmmm.  Looks a little dark, there in the corner.  Needs more light.  I took a nightlight, attached it to an extension cord, and stuck it in the back of the birdcage.  Let's LIGHT IT UP, BAYBEE.

Close ... close ... getting closer ...

The light needed to be ... more firework-y.  (Am I insane?  Don't answer that.)

I pulled out the nightlight, threw in a small string of Christmas lights, and tried again.

THAT'S IT! I GOT IT!

A birdcage full of fireworks.  Oooooo, pretty.


 

Oh holy sh*tballs, guys, you're not even going to BELIEVE this (now with updates)

So, I was at work this afternoon, sitting at my desk, typing info into spreadsheets, lalala, and I'm still kind of cheesed at my sister and also about some other stuff and my jaw was killing me because stress and my boss and a client were standing in front of my work area, at the (open) door to the outside, as the client was getting ready to leave.

And they're yakking away, blahblahblah, and I'm not really listening because

 (a) They weren't talking to me, and

(b) boring whitemanspeak, no1curr, and the client is going on and on about a cousin of his who's having trouble with the IRS and the federal government and yadda yadda yadda and then

"I've got one thing to say about that," my boss says, laughing, to the client.  "Isn't the n*gger wonderful?"

I sat there, my mouth hanging open, thinking, "Oh no he didn't oh no he didn't"

except he did.

I grabbed my purse and pushed past my boss, who was heading back into the office.

"Are you going somewhere?" he asked.

"Yes," I said.  "I'm going home."

"Is there something wrong?" he asked.

"Yes," I said, "I feel SICK."  and I left.

And now I have to decide if I really want to work for a man who has no problem calling a black man a n*gger.  What. The. Actual. F*CK.

Anybody want to go to Mexico?  Like, now?  Spiffikins, it looks like my schedule is WIDE OPEN. :)



UPDATED TO ADD:  My boss called me at home a couple of hours after I left the office and wanted to know what was going on.  I explained that what I had overheard him tell the client offended me, to the point that I felt sick and had to leave.  I said that I wasn't sure I wanted to work anymore for a man with such cavalierly racist attitudes.  (I have known this man  for many years.  I knew that he had outdated, offensive views, and is an old white man seeing the world as he knows it change around him,  but I also know that what he said upset me deeply.  Would it have upset me as badly if I hadn't already had ten tons of sh*t piled on top of me in the past few days?  I don't know.)  He apologized profusely and said that he would never say such things in front of me again. 

I just ... I don't know, guys.  There is no world I want to live in,  in which it is all right to call the President of the United States a n*gger (or any black man,  as far as that goes), but I also know that small-minded people express small-minded attitudes, and Freedom of Speech and blah blah blah.  And on my end,  I don't know if being tolerant also has to include being tolerant of attitudes that make me want to scream.  I do know that he will continue to be a racist, whether or not he expresses it in front of me.  He apologized for saying something I overheard, not for being a damn racist in the first place.

Am I being oversensitive?  Undersensitive?  I DON'T KNOW.  Will I go back to work tomorrow?  Yes, since he apologized, repeatedly.  Does that make me as bad as he is?  Holy f*ck I do not know.

Come on,  you guys, Mexico is looking better and better.  Let's go!

Son of a f*cking BITCH

Sis is backing out of the trip.  Says she's worried about ebola.

The travel agent was basing the rates on double occupancy.  I don't think there's any way I'll be able to swing this, budget-wise, as a single traveler.

God f*cking DAMMIT.

Museum info, and a question

So, yesterday I was talking about the Johnson Museum.  Here's a brief article about the light exhibit on the overhang.

It was a little disconcerting to see that the artist is younger than I.  HOW can somebody younger than I am do such cool stuff?

Of course, as I get older, there are more and more people younger than I, but it still seems weird.  Like, my dentist is younger than I am - how is that possible?   When did I get so damn OLD?

And is it weird that I'm having panic attacks about my theoretical upcoming trip?  While I don't like flying, particularly airports, I'm not afraid to fly, nor am I afraid to travel, nor am I afraid of Mexico. One of my sisters will be joining me there, so it's not that I'd be vacationing alone.  Oddly enough, the thing that is freaking me the f*ck out right now is the idea of leaving the cats.

I KNOW.

Whaaaaaat?  I have several reliable people I could use as petsitters, I am sure the cats will be JUST FINE, and yet somehow, it is causing me mega-anxiety.  Which makes me think that there is something else going on here that is making me panic-y.  Hmmmm ... do any of you panic unnecessarily about travel?  Is it, like ... a thing?  Because if I can't get this under control, it's gonna be a rough few months.  Theoretically.

Johnson Museum

First off, thank you for all of your awesome advice in the comments of the last post!  Feel free to keep it coming.  (Theoretically, of course. Heh.)  Oh, and I have another question!  What about cell phones?  I've heard about people who used their cells in Europe and ended up with insane phone bills - is it the same way in the Caribbean?  Is there a work-around?

Saturday was a rainy day, so I headed up to the Herbert F. Johnson Museum for a visit.  (And goddammit, Kate, thanks to you, I am incapable of typing "Johnson Museum" without chuckling.)

There was a light show displayed on the underside of the overhang - these lights would flash across in all different configurations - I'll bet it's really cool at night:

 I like the old stuff the best:

 The open storage section is really neat:

 I always have to stop and say hi to the horse:

And of course, the views have to be, well, viewed:

 Yesterday, it was still mostly cloudy, but at least it wasn't raining, so I went for a walk.  Autumn in New York, in one easy picture.

Theoretically, of course

Let's say, you came into a bit of money, unexpectedly.  And let's say, theoretically, of course, that you decided to take a little bit of that money and plan a vacation.

On the beach. In late January, or February, when the weather where you live is the worst.

And Hawaii is out, because too far to fly and too expensive, but maybe, theoretically, you could go to the Caribbean.  Maybe Jamaica, or the Virgin islands.  Or maybe this place called the Riviera Maya that someone told you about.  For a few days.  Theoretically.

And you definitely have a budget, so it's not gonna be anyplace too over the top,  but you're not going to be squatting on the beach, either.

Where would you go?  Theoretically.

The road home

I had my camera with me at work the other day, and I thought I'd take some pics of my commute home.  (Yes, I stopped the car to take each pic.  Well, mostly. No, there was no one behind me.  Sheesh.)

After leaving the office, it only takes a few minutes to get out in the sticks.  There are horses in that field below - can you spot them? 

Out in the Counnnnnntry ... (anybody remember that song? No?  Just me? O-kay.)

This house has been abandoned for YEARS.  Somebody used to come and mow the lawn a few times a summer, but they haven't even done that for a while.

Abandoned houses always make me wonder:  What would make someone just ... walk away?

The old guy that owns this next house on the left is fanatical about keeping the leaves off his lawn.  He's out there with the leaf blower almost every time I drive by.  He's fighting a losing battle:

This is the field where I saw a white deer once - no lie:

There are lots of things to see along the way - I'll have to bring my camera more often.

And here it is - the street where I live:

Home again. 

Hey heyyyy ... come out and PLAY

The other night, I had another dream about the house I grew up in.  I know why; it's because there's been yet more family f*cking drama going on lately, and any time that happens, I tend to dream about the house.

The haunted house, that is.

The funny thing is, I don't really believe in ghosts, per se.  I don't believe in the afterlife and I don't believe that some of us hang around after we die.

But there was something in that house.  I'm still having nightmares about that house, fifty damn years on.

I won't go into details about my dream the other night; suffice it to say it was a nightmare, and it was about the door to the storage room, and I finally got the courage to summon forth whatever was lurking in there, and

I don't wanna talk about it anymore.  Seriously, I don't want to talk about it.  It's too hard.  Most of the time, as soon as I wake up from one of these dreams, I'm fine, because I realize that I'm not actually back in that house, that I'm in my OWN house, which is not haunted in any way, shape, or form, but for whatever reason, I had a hard time shaking this one off. 

Maybe someday I'll stop dreaming about that house.  I hope so, anyway.