I did not cough up the $150 to attend the paranormal conference. I thought about volunteering like you suggested, but then I realized I wanted to be able to escape if necessary.
But it was our anniversary weekend (seventh), and we celebrated by having friends over to help us tear up the remaining ancient green carpeting in the house.
Continue Reading 29 comments September 25th, 2006
Why must it cost me $150 to finally meet my animal spirit guide? Why? I have been waiting all my life to meet my animal spirit guide!
Continue Reading 20 comments September 21st, 2006
If you are an expert on antique wood floors, this would be a very, very good time to delurk. What am I looking at? Why was the carpet underlay made from pink mice?
Continue Reading 75 comments June 27th, 2006
Consider yourselves CC’d. You might want to check your toilet.
Continue Reading 21 comments June 8th, 2006
While you were at that barbecue yesterday, I was squatting awkwardly in a cemetery, muttering about my toilet to a headstone. Good times!
I was supposed to be tracking down sandals for Sophie at Wal-Mart. But Wal-Mart makes me want to huddle in a pile of clearance-rack size-6x Mary-Kate & Ashley sequined peasant skirts and gnaw my wrist veins open and spurt wanly at passing shoppers until store security guards get wind of my suicidal hijinks and drag my gray clammy body out back via the loading dock. I am always looking for a good reason to put off a trip to Wal-Mart.
Since it was Memorial Day, and I knew one of the Mr. Pipe & Mrs. Kitchen clan had served in World War I, I decided to take flowers to the cemetery where all of the former inhabitants of our home are buried. I cut the flowers from our garden-that-is-not-really-a-garden-of-our-own-doing. Plentiful dog poop is the reason forget-me-nots and violets have sprouted out back; purple creeping phlox that the family before us planted on the front lawn continues to make an appearance each year.
The only thing I have achieved personally, gardenwise, is clearing enough space a few weeks back to assure that many happy caravans of gypsy weeds could find a new place to call home. As I type this, they are propagating like bunnies and doing tarot card readings for the other weeds and complaining about my politically incorrect nomenclature for them. But as always, I digress.
We were talking about Norman. It was Norman’s headstone I was talking to. Norman and his family are the folks that we bought the house from, and Norman had all sorts of lung problems. At the closing, he was in his 80s, and hooked up to a portable oxygen tank. We’re pretty sure the bowling ball and the odd hospital-issue breathing apparatus we found several years back in the crawlspace in the upstairs bathroom belonged to Norman. We donated the bowling ball to a local artist who was creating a gigantic installation from found balls. There are many, many good jokes to be made, and I am sorely tempted to go skipping and chuckling through the funny, funny world of found ball art, but there are more serious issues we must cover today.
We threw out the breathing apparatus, as we were unable to interest the found ball artist in a found breathing apparatus project, but it may have been a bad move. Norman died in 2004, and I am getting the impression he’s maybe a little ticked off about our moving his bowling ball and his breathing stuff.
When Tree came to town and I gave her her first in-person tour of the house (her first two readings of the house were remote readings, which still makes my brain spin in two directions like the double window fan I got at Wal-Mart), she stopped cold in the bathroom, held her hand over our toilet, and said, “There’s someone here. Do you feel that? Oh. Wow.”
I did not want to feel that. I did not want to picture a ghost feeling me feeling it, right over our toilet.
But I stuck out my hand anyway, hoping I was not patting any ghostly privates. Nothing that I could discern.
Tree waved her hand over the loo again and shook her cute sweet head. “It’s gone now. But you should know . . .” I scanned her face frantically, the way I do with flight attendants. But Tree was smirking, so I wasn’t too freaked out. A smirking psychic friend is preferable to a wailing or shrieking or Exorcist-vomiting psychic friend. “. . . you really have a full house here.”
The bathroom of your home is not the best place to hear this sort of information, particularly when it is coming to you via a trusted source.
I asked Tree what my options were. I told her I did not like the concept of ghosts playing How Many Of Us Can We Fit In This Bathroom in our bathroom. I told her I did not like the concept of my face buried in Mr. Toilet’s ghostly hovering rump while I take care of business on the potty. I told her I did not like the concept of stripping for a shower while Mr. Toilet throws phantom wooden nickels at my naked Polish-American ass and sneers at the poor quality of the entertainment.
Tree was very helpful. She told me it was perfectly all right to have a room that was off-limits to spirits. I told her I wanted to have two or three or four rooms that were off-limits. “Is that allowed?”
Tree said it was allowed, and that I just needed to tell the ghosts that I needed Jenny Private Time. Jenny’s Privates’ Time. Either way, I needed it bad, and so I told the Toilet Ghost and any other par-TAY 24-7 ghosts in the vicinity that the bathroom and the bedroom were henceforth spirit-free zones.
But SOME SPIRITS WERE NOT LISTENING. I’ve never much liked being in our bathroom, particularly not at night, and I figured after my stern talking-to, I’d immediately feel like I was in Zero-Ghosts Spa Heaven. But no! No no no!
The scalp has been going off! My scalp goes off like a car alarm! No, you can’t hear it. Bad analogy, but they are my trademark, so I must not stop them, ever.
My scalp has been tingling ever since my second reading with Tree (the reading that happened RIGHT AFTER THE UPSTAIRS TOILET OVERFLOWED, AND MAY I REMIND YOU THAT IT OVERFLOWED AFTER SOPH AND I GAVE MRS. KITCHEN AN OFFERING OF A PAINTING AND SOME CHAMPAGNE, WAS MR. TOILET JEALOUS?). It does not tingle all the time, but it weirdly “goes off” at strange times…and it feels like someone is gently moving my hair.
It is very bad to feel like someone is gently moving your hair when you are going wee-wee. And occasionally, that’s what it feels like is happening. Mr. Toilet has not been listening! He is being brazen! I have been very displeased with Mr. Toilet. And I have told him so in the bathroom, and I have wrapped my naked body in blazing white light yadda yadda yadda and STILL the scalp goes off in the bathroom.
I can’t know for sure if Mr. Toilet is Norman, jonesin’ from the grave for a little oxygenated bowling, but considering the crawlspace is right smack where Tree stopped and stuck out her magic hand, well, I figured it was a good place to start.
I think I’ve told you before — there have only been three families in this house, and one of them is us. I have been spending an insane amount of time researching the first family who lived here, the Richmonds. So I’m wondering if Norman (the patriarch of the second family) is cranky about this and feeling left out. But his family is still alive — including his wife — so I’m not sure why he’d waste his Crossing Over moments in our bathroom, sitting on my lap while I heed the call of nature and leaf through Sephora catalogs. Life after death! Such a mystery!
I had found Norman’s grave by accident the last time I was at the cemetery, researching the Richmonds. And after I stopped by the Richmonds’ plot yesterday, I took my remaining forget-me-nots to Norman. And if you hadn’t gone to that barbecue and had instead been hiding behind a nearby tombstone, you would have caught snatches of this monologue:
Hello, Norman, sir. If you’re the one who’s been hanging around our toilet, that’s really going to have to stop, sir. I really don’t appreciate that sort of company. I know I’ve been talking about the Richmonds a lot, and I don’t want you to feel left out or anything, but look, you’ve got family nearby, and I’m sure they could use you around. We love the house, we respect you and your family, and we love the tulips and the phlox. The shed is great too. And everybody who visits talks about the screened-in porch. Tree and I also got a kick out of seeing all the puzzles you left upstairs in the attic.
What I’m saying is, you don’t need to assert yourself, sir. Rest assured, sir, you are remembered. So let’s just move on. I have a hard enough time sleeping as it is, and I’d really appreciate it if you’d respect my need for a little downtime in the bathroom, particularly in the evenings. We’re sorry about the bowling ball and the breathing contraption, but we’d never inherited crawlspace items before, and we did what seemed best at the time. I’m also sorry about throwing out your Red Cross Blood Drive newsletters and the coupons, but we told the postman three times that you didn’t live here anymore, and we had a small child and didn’t have the energy for any extra bureaucracy so, yes, we did throw out some of your mail. Please try to understand, we were doing the best we could, just like everybody else. You did the best you could, we’re doing the best we can, and that’s all anybody can ask of anybody, sir.
So please, stay out of the bathroom, sir, and don’t make the toilet overflow and drip through the kitchen ceiling anymore. Mrs. Kitchen sure doesn’t appreciate it, and we’ve got our hands full around already. I’ll drop by and visit you here at the cemetery from time to time, but a lady needs her space where it counts.
33 comments May 30th, 2006
I am on the phone with my mother, The Mater. She is getting impatient.
“I keep waiting for you to post more about your ghost research,” she says pointedly. She has been leaving little nudgy comments here at the blog like “DON’T WORRY, THERE’S MORE TO JENN’S GHOST TALES BUT IT IS NOT MY STORY TO TELL!” and “WAIT TILL JENN TELLS YOU THE LATEST ABOUT HER GHOSTS BUT I DON’T WANT TO GIVE ANYTHING AWAY!” and “OH BOY THE LATEST IS A DOOZIE BUT JENN WILL HAVE TO TELL YOU HERSELF!”
“You should really stop telling everybody at my blog that I’m going to post more about the ghosts,” I say.
“Why?”
“Because I don’t know if they want to hear about it.”
“Of course they want to hear about it. Everyone is leaving comments asking to hear more about the ghosts!”
“YOU are leaving comments asking to hear more about the ghosts. I think there were, like, two other people besides you who asked about the ghosts.”
She hmmphs. “There were more than TWO people, but okaaaay.”
I sigh. “Traffic took a nosedive after I brought up the ghosts.”
Stunned silence. “Really?”
“Yes. It still hasn’t recovered. I just don’t think this is what people come here for.”
She is skeptical on the other end of the line. “Well, I still think it’s a great story. But okay.”
“I just don’t even know how to write about it. I feel sort of protective. Of our ghosts.”
“Protective.”
“I just mean…I don’t know if I should go on about them if people aren’t into it. I think they come here to feel better about their own parenting. I think they come here to feel wealthy and appreciate their own kitchens more.”
“Well. Do what you need to do. I’ll stop asking about it.” She is feeling a bit miffy.
I backpedal. “I’m just not sure…they’ll think I’ve completely lost it. Maybe I need a separate blog. An anonymous one.”
“I still say they want more,” she says.
“Today I had lunch with Mrs. Kitchen,” I tell her.
A pause. “You had lunch with her.”
“I set out a plate for her and put some garlic bread on it. And poured her a glass of water. And then I sat across the table from her and we had lunch. Well, maybe we had lunch. I’m not really sure. But my scalp started to do the tingling thing, so I think she was there.”
Horrified silence. “Oh, you can’t write that.”
“That’s what I’m saying.”
“They’ll think you’ve lost it.”
“That’s what I’m saying.”
Pause. “I’m worried about you. You fed her lunch.”
“That’s. What. I’m. Saying.”
81 comments May 27th, 2006
I haven’t posted recently about the ongoing ghost stories unfolding at our humble abode, because I really don’t know how to pick up where I left off. It’s a good not-sure-where-to-pick-up, not I’m-so-freaked-out-I’m-afraid-to-write-about-it kind of thing. It’s all evolved into much more than just a good party story. LET’S JUST SAY.
After my house reading with Tree, my curiosity about Mr. Pipe and Mrs. Kitchen reached fever pitch. I packed up my little Nancy Drew notebook and headed for the local library, where I spent several afternoons hogging the microfilm machine and pestering the reference librarians to haul 1890s and early 1900s maps of our town out of the refrigerated vault.
Fortunately, the reference librarians were not skeptics. When I told them what I was up to, they in turn told me spun some excellent yarns about the library’s ghostly activity, including furniture that would move itself and barricade one staff member’s office so she couldn’t get in in the morning, a toilet that frequently flushed itself, and a dark-haired woman who liked to appear in the bathroom mirror from time to time. Needless to say, I waited to tinkle until I got home. Where I could be observed by our friendly ghosts. Much better.
So as I was saying, the librarians were absolutely super about helping me on my quest to figure out 1) who lived in the house before us and 2) what the hell the library had on hand that might help with that. It felt a bit like I was looking for a proverbial needle in a haystack, except I didn’t actually know that I was looking for a needle, and would probably have been happy to find a thimble or a Pomeranian in all that hay instead.
I hit the maps first, to see if our house appeared anywhere before 1903, which is when we were told the house was built. Surprise! Our house was on a 1900 map, with beautiful old penmanship on top: Beer & Dowlin.
To make a long story shorter, I found out with a little more Nancy Drew Nerdwork that Beer & Dowlin were attorneys and real estate developers at the time, and most likely neither lived in the house.
So I dove into the town directories. Without anything else to go on, the only thing I could figure out to do was scan the endless columns of names (and their occupations) and hope I saw our address somewhere before my eyes hemorrhaged and I died of that and paper cuts from the microfilm rolls.
I got lucky. My eyes held out, and then they nearly fell out when I found our address in the 1901 town directory. Our address, and a name: William E. Richmond. Occupation: engineer at the gas light company four blocks away from our home. His home.
If anyone had tried to take a turn on the microfilm machine at that point, there would have been another ghost walking around.
Crazy-excited, I then proceeded to scan through as many directories as I could. I am saying I WENT THROUGH A LOT OF TOWN DIRECTORIES. I scoured every directory I could find from 1894 to 1957, to see if there was anyone else besides Mr. Richmond (and presumably, his family). But there he was, every single year until 1944…when his widow began to be listed: Emma.
I followed Emma at our address until 1954, and then the directories skipped to 1957. I knew the name of the family who sold us our house, and it was their name listed from 1957 on. Which makes us, most likely, only the third family to live here.
In 1957, the Richmonds disappeared from the directory. They may appear in later ones, but I haven’t gotten past 1957 yet.
And that’s just the beginning.
Now, if you’re a person who likes spoilers, or you read the last page of a novel first, you should go read what dear, magic Tree wrote about meeting our house in person. Mind you, I had never before set foot in our attic, not once in the five years we’ve lived here. But with Tree, it was time, and it was more than okay.
Oh, heck, you should read it even if you don’t like spoilers, because I don’t know when I’ll get around to saying more. What gets me the most? By your thirties, you start feeling like you can’t be surprised by much anymore. And I have been surprised so grandly, well, I forgot how lovely it can be to really be surprised. And moved. Deeply. How about that.
33 comments May 10th, 2006
“I told you about Google Earth. Like, four months ago,” says David. He sounds mildly miffed but he is trying to channel his miffiness into his miserable graphic design job on his laptop, so he doesn’t actually look at me.
“I thought it sounded familiar. But I wasn’t ready then. My brain couldn’t handle it until just last night,” I say.
Nearly imperceptible sigh from the den of graphic design despair. “It’s fine.”
“We looked at my mom’s childhood home. We could see the back porch. We could even see the garage my grandfather died in! Do you believe that! We put the cursor on the roof and my mom said, ‘Wow, my dad died right there in that corner of the carage! Right below the cursor thingie!’ Isn’t that amazing?”
“Really? Huh.” My husband is less than impressed with our macabre application of Google Earth. Mom is in town to see the play, but last night I was sick, so she stayed home with me and we spent an hour and a half looking for satellite images of Remote Places, Places Where People Have Died, and Places Where People Are Buried. This pasttime brought to you by Contrary, who freaked us out with her Google Earth screenshot captures of the cemetery where her grandfather is buried.
We didn’t see any scary faces, but Googling Earth made us feel all Alias and espionage-y even though we were sitting on the couch on an apple-juice–stained Polarfleece blanket covered in dog fur and I was coughing wheezy viral strands all over the computer and my poor mother. Why had I waited so long to explore this miraculous and addictive pasttime? Why had I never flown to the Great Wall of China or the Isle of Lewis or Montauk ON MY LAPTOP?
I was seized with the urge to make a collage for you of all of the places that mean something to me, but then it occurred to me that that would be about as original or interesting as telling you about my very favorite beauty products. Which inexplicably I still want to do really badly but Jane Iredale Pure Pressed Base in Warm Silk I know that RJ and Spot the Wonder Dog Jane Iredale Absence would never come back here after a tedious bit like that DHC Cleansing Oil and I really do appreciate my male readership Blistex so I must not be frivolous. This is a serious blog and pointless frivolity and product endorsements will not be tolerated.
I know where you live and I can tilt your world.
24 comments May 6th, 2006
Yeah, I know this is supposed to be a blog about bohemian parents parenting and cute kids saying the darndest things, but I’ve got to get it out of my system. I’ll be back to talking about Pull-Ups and dog vomit and kitchen renovations in no time.
I’ve added a new ghostly category (Boo! Our resident ghosts), so that in the future, those of you who groove on the ghost tales can skip the earthly stuff and astrally project yourselves into Ghost Wonderland! And the rest of you can pretend none of it ever happened and I am still the same sensible blogger you have always enjoyed with your morning coffee and a.m. procrastination!
Continue Reading 25 comments April 16th, 2006
Needless to say, Tree had me at Hello, he smokes a pipe. Mr. Pipe! We have a Mr. Pipe who sits on the woodpile and strokes his beard and means us no harm! This, I can live with! Yes! Ghost jackpot!
She had David at Hello, he smokes a pipe, too. He spun around in his desk chair, gaping. (Good old-fashioned don’t-let-the-flies-in gaping! It takes a lot to make David gape! He is not a gaper by nature! It’s impolite in Canada.)
“WHAT ELSE DID TREE SAY???”
I bet you are asking the same question. So I will tell you:
“I tried to figure out your February issues next: first, I saw an older woman in the kitchen. She spent a lot of time in the kitchen and made bread on a regular basis. She was a very big woman, and hard working. I was a bit confused about how she appeared to me…she was making bread and kneading the dough…Details were hard to get, but I felt that she is your connection to February. Valentine’s Day was especially hard; she suffered instead of being happy. I’m sorry; that’s all she showed me about what happened to her. She also showed me a little boy. I am unsure whether he lived in the house or was a friend, but she showed me that he fell through some ice…it was a big event in the town. Might be something to look into.”
Mrs. Kitchen! We have a Mrs. Kitchen and a Mr. Pipe! This feels right to me! I am feeling much better about things all of a sudden!
I just want Mrs. Kitchen to be happy. I wonder if there is anything I can do to make Valentine’s Day happier for her. I am lost in Mrs. Kitchen thoughts. I won’t make her bread because 1) I don’t know how to make bread and 2) I don’t want her to think I’m trying to steal her doughy thunder, because no doubt the little lady could bake like a dream. But maybe I can paint the pantry for her, if she’s spending so much time there. Mrs. Kitchen will find happiness, by God! She will never weep ghostly February tears again! Rainbows and white light and playful ghost puppies will spill out of the pantry once we make things right for Mrs. Kitchen!
I see that David is still gaping from his desk chair. It’s beginning to look like a Perma-Gape. It’s very endearing, really.
“Maybe you should paint a little oil painting of a loaf of bread and we can hang it up in the kitchen, in her honor,” I say.
“Uh, maybe,” says David. He uses his lips only to make the two words, then they snap back into the Gape.
Later, I ask Tree if Mrs. Kitchen and Mr. Pipe know each other. I ask her if she’s sure these aren’t mean ghosts who are going to retaliate now that I’ve ratted them out. I ask if H-Belle is safe in Mr. Pipe’s pipey old room. I ask if Mr. Pipe and Mrs. Kitchen are watching us during delicate moments. I already have to endure Victoria’s Secret dressing-room surveillance and children who want to sit on my lap when I am on the toilet.
I keep asking questions. I can’t stop.
Tree is very kind and patient with me:
“Your house is friendly! The most negative thing is that there is some sadness…but the vast majority of energy is wonderful, welcoming energy. These people LOVE people…love children and are happy for the company. I do believe the pipe-smoker is a quiet observer, just enjoying being around your lovely family. And yes, I think the woman knows him, but I’m not sure how. Husband? Father? I don’t know. But I know that when she was sick he grew distant…
Anyway, your house is a wonderful house. Nobody is going to bother you. Yeah, they could be around during your more private moments, but honestly, they don’t think of pooping or sex like we do…it’s just not funny or embarrassing anymore.
You have respect for your house and the energy in it and it (and they) appreciate that. You are doing exactly the right thing! You can say hi to them if you like, or not…it’s completely up to you! And yes, Hannah is fine in that room.
You said you wish the woman could be happy…she is! She’s mostly in the kitchen and that pantry room. I do feel like she thinks something’s in the wrong place, though. But I couldn’t begin to tell you what!”
I take a look at our kitchen. Everything is in the wrong place. The walls and cabinets are half-primed. The table is covered with boxes and buckets of paint and rollers and tarps and BIN primer and foam brushes and screwdrivers and rows of little seedlings that Sophie and I are hoping will make it into the garden. We have not eaten in the kitchen for over a month.
Oh my God! Mrs. Kitchen can’t bake her bread! She can’t roll out her ghostly dough on our kitchen table BECAUSE I AM SELFISH AND TAKING UP ALL OF HER GHOSTLY BAKING PREP AREA!
“What are you doing?” David asks.
“I’m cleaning up for Mrs. Kitchen,” I say. “So she has a place to work. I don’t want to be rude.”
“Huh,” he says. He has stopped gaping, and now he looks very amused.
I am spritzing, wiping, shoving, organizing, arranging. “And maybe we should buy some pipe tobacco and leave it out on the woodpile for Mr. Pipe.”
“We don’t have a woodpile. We don’t know where the woodpile would have been.”
“It’s the thought that counts,” I say. “We could get him some of that cherry-vanilla–scented pipe tobacco. Is there such a thing?”
Gape has transformed into a Full-On Smirk.
“I just want them to know we respect them.” Suddenly I am horrified, remembering. “Oh God, I yelled at the girls today!”
“Everyone yells sometimes,” he says. “It’s okay.”
But I am disturbed. “But what if Mr. Pipe and Mrs. Kitchen don’t like it? Now I’m going to worry that they’re assessing my parenting skills. I have to require more of myself now.”
David continues smirking. It dawns on me.
“I was a compulsive people-pleaser. Now I’m a compulsive ghost-pleaser,” I say. “Crap.”
“I think you’re going to need to write about that one,” he says.
27 comments April 12th, 2006
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