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October 31, 2005
Last installment - I see dead people
The last installment... I see dead people
On the last day of fifth grade I was to spend the night at Rhonda Pier's house. She lived on a farm out in the country and since we had to pick-up our report cards from school the next day we instead spend the night at her grandparent's house. They lived in town in a little 1940's bungalow with a screened in front porch and in the living room, there was a couch which folded out into a double bed.
We were very excited to get our report cards because if our grades were good enough, my mom was going to take us to the brand new McDonald's for a treat. Ok look, we lived in a town so small that we didn’t even have a stop light at the time, so Mickey D's was a big deal.
Anyway, that night at Rhonda's grandparent's house we had a grand time. We danced on the front porch, while listening to a little old radio. I specifically remember dancing to Centerfold by the J. Geil's Band. We played board games and laughed like 11 year old girls are wont to do.
Eventually we exhausted ourselves and crawled into bed. Sometime in the middle of the night, I woke up because I heard someone calling my name. At the foot of the bed in a sort of misty haze was my dedo (Serbian for grandfather). My sleep addled brain was trying to make sense of the situation. I didn't understand how he could have been there, he didn't know Rhonda or her family and besides he lived in California at the time.
I couldn't figure out why he was wearing the outfit he had on. He was very "old country" in his dress and I only remember ever seeing him in the typical black shoes and pants with a wife beater t-shirt and a white button down shirt over it. In this moment he was wearing a brown suit, white shirt and brown bowler type hat. He was talking but I couldn't hear what he was saying, it was fuzzy and garbled. I kept saying "What, what?" Then he said, clear as a bell, "It's all right, don't cry." And then he was gone.
I freaked out. I woke Rhonda and frantically told her what had happened. She was still half asleep and assured me that it was all just a bad dream and that I should just go back to sleep. I lay staring at the ceiling for what seemed an interminable amount of time before falling back to sleep.
We woke early the next morning and had pancakes and sausages while waiting for my mom to pick us up. I was still thinking about dedo when my mom showed up. I rushed down the front steps to the sidewalk to tell my mother all about my "dream". She barely had a second to get out of the car when I had already spilled out my story to her. I could see she had been crying and when she heard my words she started to cry again. She calmly told me that my uncle had called in the middle of the night from California to tell her that their father, my dedo had passed away.
I didn't understand.
I didn't cry.
We still picked up our report cards and went to McDonald's like any normal day.
Then several days later my mom and I flew to San Francisco, where we were picked up by my uncle's friend who drove us to my aunt and uncle's house in Sebastopol. All of my aunts and my baba (grandma) were there. It was the first time I would have to go to a funeral. At first I was enjoying myself because my aunt and uncle and cousin lived up in the mountains in a fancy "log cabin" and they had chickens, dogs, cats and horses, which I got to ride. And it was only a few days until my 12th birthday so I was having fun even if all the adults seemed very sad.
Then we had to go to the funeral. I didn't want to go up to the casket. I had never seen death before. My uncle took my hand and went with me. My dedo was there but not. And strangely he was wearing a brown suit, white shirt and a brown bowler hat. I said goodbye.
It's been twenty-two years, I still miss him dearly. And sometimes I feel guilty because I've never cried. But I know it's all right.
Posted by bugg at 01:56 PM | Comments (4)
October 27, 2005
oh happy day
I am happy to report that everything seems to be in order. The ultrasound did not detect any abnormalities, not a one.
Of course the doctor reminded me that nothing is totally certain but because my test said I had a 1 in 16 chance of the baby having Trisomy 18, the ultrasound would have certainly picked up something, if there was a problem. She said I could have an amnio to be certain but we decided not to do it.
So for today I am relieved and cautiously optimistic.
Thanks everyone for all of your thoughts and warm wishes.
It helped immensely.
Side note to Armaedes - You changed your settings so I can't comment anymore on your blog! Change them back, please. :)
Posted by bugg at 10:48 AM | Comments (6)
October 24, 2005
time to let you in
Sorry, I haven't been around much the last few days. It has been a stressful couple of weeks.
Grumpy and Little Bear got bad colds last week and passed it on to me. I was out sick from work on Thursday and Friday. We also had my in-laws, brother and sister-in-law, and their sweet baby here for four days, from Arizona.
It's been rough because, dear reader, I haven't told you yet, but I am pregnant, 17 weeks to be exact. So being pregnant when you have a fever and a bad head cold SUCKS!
I am also trying not to stress out because I had to take the triple screen test last week, which looks for signs of abnormalities in the baby. When I was pregnant with little bear it came back positive. The dr. told me he most likely had Down Syndrome and I ended up having to have an amnio, which was very scary.
Thankfully, he didn't have any issues like that but since I had pre-eclampsia and gestational diabetes and a host of other problems at the end there, Little Bear ended up with a lack of oxygen to the brain that caused his cerebral palsy.
So as you can imagine, I am scared. I was already nervous from day one because I understand all too well the host of problems that can arise and how delicate life can be. I am more scared because on Friday my doctor called to tell me that as a 34 year old woman, my triple screen test indicated that I have a 1 in 130 - something chance of having a child with Down Syndrome (this is higher than the norm at my age), but it still falls in the negative range (which is good). But (God, I hate that word), my test came back postive for Trisomy 18, so I have to go have a very detailed ultrasound on Wednesday, to see for sure if the baby is ok or not. I may have to have another amnio as well. Apparently the triple screen blood test isn't that accurate so the dr. told me not to worry yet. HA! Easy for her to say.
I really am trying not to stress out about it but I can't help it.
So, please send some positive thoughts my way if you could.
Posted by bugg at 01:24 PM | Comments (7)
October 18, 2005
i see dead people - installment 4
The summer before Bunny and I moved to Seattle she was living in this little old house in Kalamazoo. I was living in Bland Rapids with my parents and most weekends I would head down to K-zoo to see my friends and plan our move. For some reason the house reminded me of Hansel and Gretel. If I remember correctly it had that gingerbread house trim. It seemed smaller than it should have been, bordering on doll house proportions. It was set back behind another house, so I think originally it had been some kind of servant’s quarters or something.
Some strange things happened over time and we ended up playing Ouija a lot that summer with some bizarre results. But the incident that really sticks out in my mind is the night we were hanging out chatting, trying to stay cool in the humid Michigan summer.
We heard a loud clattering sound which made us jump.
In the bathroom we discovered that all of the shampoo, conditioner and soap bottles that had been sitting on the edge had been knocked into the tub. No big deal, we assumed that Glacier (the dog - American Eskimo) wagged his big, fat tail and knocked everything over, or the cats were screwing around in the bathroom and tumbled the items. I was fine with either of those explanations.
What I can't explain is why when we bent over the tub to pick everything up, the shower turned on, full blast on our heads. The shower had three handles, one for hot on the left, one for cold on the right, and one for the shower in the middle.
For the shower to come on you had to clockwise turn at least one of the knobs (hot or cold) to start the water and then turn the middle knob for the shower. Each required at least a couple of turns to get the water started and then to have it filter through the shower head instead of the bottom tap. The water came on full blast without transitioning from bottom tap to shower head. Neither of us touched the knobs in any way either. But we both got soaked.
Posted by bugg at 03:36 PM | Comments (8)
October 17, 2005
i see dead people - installment 3
Right after high school I became friends with this guy named Bob, because he was dating my friend Sally. Bob had his own apartment in the heart of the historic district of our little town.
The building Bob lived in had in the late 1800's/early 1900's been a rooming house/hotel. It had a long porch that crossed the entire building frontage and it was up on the bluff overlooking Lake Michigan. It was a great building.
Once inside though, it got a little weird. Originally it had about 18 rooms but when the building was converted to apartments they knocked out walls to make 3 rooms into one apartment.
The high ceilings and open foyer allowed you to look up to the second level, where Bob lived. You could see that they had changed the layout of the landing to end at Bob's door instead of the way it used to flow all the way back to the front of the building. This is hard to explain but what it means is that there was a door in the wall on the second floor that had no walkway under it. The door was now part of Bob's closet and couldn't be opened but it did look strange up there just hanging in space.
Anyway, Bob used to tell us that late at night he would hear old time phonograph type music and on occasion he had seen the forms of two people in old style clothes dancing in his living room. He also said that many times he could hear heavy footsteps coming up the stairwell.
One night we were sitting in his living room waiting for Bob's friend Biff (yes, his real name) to show up. We heard footsteps coming up the stairs and assumed it was Biff so we went to the door to meet him and head out for the night. We opened the door, but no Biff, no one at all, and the sound abruptly stopped.
Later on, Bob bought a house a few blocks away. He broke up with Sally and two of my other friends, Amy and Michelle, ended up living with him. Both ended up moving out because too many freaky things happened to them. Michelle's cat would hiss and get in attack pose sometimes for no reason, then the lights would go out, a door would slam or the shower would turn on, things like that.
The house had a creepy narrow doorway and stairwell that led to the attic and the door had an eye hook lock on it. Bob said every night he made sure it was hooked and every morning it would be unhooked and the attic door would be open.
Bob and I were watching a movie one night when we heard something that sounded like someone dragging something across the hard wood floors on the second floor. Bob assumed it was his dog (a big old chow) so he yelled for the dog to cut it out. But, the dog was sleeping under the coffee table next to me and lifted his head to give us a look. No one else was in the house. The noise continued until Bob started up the stairs. Then it stopped immediately.
It totally freaked me out and I couldn't go hang out at Bob's anymore after that. Not because I was afraid of ghosts but because Bob tried to put the moves on me and I don't do sloppy seconds. Especially, Sally's, she was kind of a ho.
Posted by bugg at 01:57 PM | Comments (6)
October 13, 2005
bunny the rescuer!
I know I am supposed to be telling spooky stories but this is important.
My friend Bunny runs an amazing pet resecue called WOW. She has truly found her calling. Animals have always known how to find her and she cares immensely for every animal she meets.
She is currently down in Louisiana with her trusty sidekick Kristin, rescuing every animal they can. They are keeping a blog about the experience and I thought all you dog and cat lovers could appreciate the work they are doing. Go check it out!
Posted by bugg at 02:02 PM | Comments (5)
October 12, 2005
i'm it
The lovely Newplanet has tagged me to take part in the niftily titled "23/5" Meme.
The rules are as follows:
1. Dust down the archives of your blog.
2. Find your 23rd post (or the closest to it).
3. Find the fifth sentence in that post (or the closest to it).
4. Post the sentence in your blog, then ruminate as to whether or not there is any backstory, subtext or hidden meaning behind the sentence that was not already apparent.
5. Tag five fellow bloggers to do the same.
The fifth sentence of my 23rd post is from August 9, 2005 - Houston We Have a Problem:
You had to be kind of ballsy because they could be intimidating and they would try to boss you around so they could hurry up and get the press run done without having to make all of the color adjustments you were paying good money for.
Besides being a hugely long run-on sentence, there isn’t really any hidden meaning or anything. I was just blabbing on about how I was the only girl on the press checks I used to go on and all the men would try to intimidate me so they didn’t have to do their work.
The real meat of the story comes later when I tell how I got stopped by the metal detector at the Houston airport. The security woman announced to everyone (in her Pee Wee’s Big Adventure, there’s no basement in the Alamo, southern accent) including my color vendor that the reason I kept setting off the alarm was because of my nipple rings. This was after she had me strip down to my tank-top style, see through bra in front of everyone, including said color vendor who couldn’t bring himself to look at me again the rest of the trip. Utterly humiliating, yet, one of the funniest things that ever happened to me.
And, I’m not tagging anyone because I don’t want to get punched.
Seriously, I really will post more spooky items soon. This last week has been crazy with Little Bear's 3rd birthday and he started pre-school too. Grumpy's family is coming for a visit next week so I'm trying to get things in order before they arrive. Cut me some slack will ya?? I'm exhausted.
Posted by bugg at 12:20 PM | Comments (1)
October 06, 2005
a wee break from the spooky stories
I'm trying to decide what Little bear should be for Halloween this year. To date he has been a pumpkin, a tiger and Elmo. I do love the little furry outfits. Let me know if you have any good (and cheap ) ideas.
Posted by bugg at 01:14 PM | Comments (6)
October 05, 2005
i see dead people - installment 2
My friend Bunny and I have played with an Ouija board many times over the years we've known each other and I truly believe that Bunny has some kind of bizarre force around her that attracts spirits or something because I have had many strange things happen when I've been around her, and when we were roommates.
While still living in our "haunted" apartment, my friends Bunny, MW and MA came over to play with the board. MW was terrified and the rest of us just kind of laughed at her.
That night Grumpy and Aphid (Bunny's man) were going out and they were having a drink at our place before heading out. They kept making fun of us and saying it was all a bunch of hooey, that kind of thing. We gave them the rolled eyes whatever and then they left for the evening.
We got down to business.
We must have sat there for about an hour and a half and nothing. Not a damn thing happened. I was quite disappointed because I was really hoping that Susan (the murdered girl) would try to contact us or something. MW was relieved.
Finally, tired, the girls decided to head home. I walked them to my front door. They exited my apartment, went out to the front hall and exited the all glass security door. I waved good-bye and locked up for the night.
I had just sat back down on the couch and was thinking about the evening when the sound of the front door buzzer going off scared the absolute crap out of me. It sounded like fast, frantic Morse Code. Instead of punching the button that allowed entrance into the building, I unlocked my door and walked out to the front lobby to see what the hell was going on. All three of my friends were standing there yelling "Open the door!" As soon as I did they pushed passed me screaming all the way into my apartment. MW was hysterical. I followed trying to figure out if they had been attacked or what.
Bunny explained to me that as they approached her car, yes, her keys were in her hand, but no she had not yet touched the car or unlocked the doors or anything; as they approached the car the windshield wipers started up all on their own. Back and forth back and forth. Obviously, it freaked them all out and they came running back into the building.
I thought they were just trying to scare me, so all tough and brave I was going out to the car to see for myself. I thought they'd stop me and laugh saying it was all a joke, but they didn't and we all went out together. Sure enough, when we got outside to where her car was parked, there in the dark you could see and hear the windshield wipers going back and forth. Shoop shoop. Shoop shoop. The doors were still locked, there were no keys in the ignition. Nothing. We have no explanation for it.
The girls came back inside to calm down for a bit. After awhile they decided it was time to go and we all went back outside. The wipers had stopped moving. It never happened again.
Posted by bugg at 12:02 PM | Comments (4)
October 03, 2005
i see dead people - installment 1
MS. Knees has me all giddy for Halloween, my favorite holiday, in my favorite month.
Grumpy asked me to marry him at our favorite club, the night before Halloween. He asked me one night early because he was dressing as a cheerleader that year he was afraid that while bending down on one knee, he might inadvertently expose his pom-poms, if you know what I mean.
Little Bear was supposed to be born on the 26th (silly me thought I could hold him in until Halloween) but he had to come out early so he will be three on Monday the 10th.
Anyway, in honor of these things, this will be the first entry in a series I will be calling... I see Dead People. All month long I will tell stories of the freaky things that have happened to me.
Here goes:
Grumpy and I used to live in an apartment building that was always a little creepy. It was too quiet, drafty and the tenants really kept to themselves. It wasn't very old or anything, as it was built in the 60's, but the whole thing was built into the side of a hill with stairwells on either end of the building. It had a main entry and two side entry security doors. This meant you and your next door neighbor could technically enter the building through two different doors, go up different stairwells and never run into each other.
We had a one bedroom, one bathroom with a large walk in closet. From childhood I could not go to sleep unless the closet door was tightly closed. I had to keep the closet monsters at bay. But in this apartment I couldn't sleep if the closet door was closed. I felt like I couldn't breathe if the door was closed. I even put a stereo speaker in front of the door to make sure that it stayed open. I hated that closet.
Sometimes we could smell a flowery perfume smell in the closet but we could never figure out where it was coming from.
The bathroom butted up to the back of the closet and sometimes when standing at the sink we would feel like someone was watching us.
Many times when we would be sitting on the couch we would look toward the hallway because we thought that someone was watching us or we thought that out of the corner of our eye we saw someone walk out of the bedroom, passing the bathroom and out the front door.
Once when Grumpy's sister and boyfriend came to visit they had gone sight seeing and got back to the apartment before we got home from work. They said when they entered the apartment every single cupboard and drawer in the kitchen were wide open. I never had that happen but I believe them.
We were never scared but sometimes the hair on my arms would stand up and I'd feel a little freaked out. One night after we had lived there about six months, I was chatting with the apartment manager (also our next door neighbor) about how strange the building was and how creepy it could feel sometimes, especially at night. She says to me, "Well it doesn't help that someone was murdered in your apartment."
Excuse me?
She tells me that as it turns out that there was a young couple that lived in our apartment about three to four years before we moved in. The girl was 20, a topless dancer, and several months pregnant. The boyfriend was a jealous, girl beater. She had kicked him out several times and had tried to get a restraining order against him. He came to the apartment one day and found her with another man. He went into a rage, and killed them both. They have never found the man's body (as far as I could tell from the newspaper articles I found).
As for this poor girl, Susan, he choked her with a telephone cord and put her body into a soft-sided suitcase and locked her in the walk-in closet. Truly, I almost fainted when I heard that part. She was reported missing after several days and the police had to bust down the door to find her body in the suitcase, in the closet.
My closet.
Posted by bugg at 05:39 PM | Comments (6)