Things That Go Bump In the Night

Samhain.  When the walls between the worlds grow thin, and spirits of the Underworld walk the earth.  It’s the best time of year for those with a love of eating pounds of candy and being scared out of one’s gourd.

I love Halloween.  I love the costumes and the chill, I love black cats and Jack-o’-lanterns and trick-or-treating, and I will happily consume miniature Butterfinger bars by the truckload if I could.  But horror movies?  Horror stories? The paranormal?  

Hell no.  

Preach it, Wonder Woman.

I have an extraordinarily hyperactive, incredibly overactive imagination.  It's the main reason I love to write, and why I'm good at it.  I can write scary shit like nobody's business - I'll freak you out in a minute - but overall, I simply don’t do scary shit.  I’m a composite wuss, if you will.  I am a firm believer in the existence of the Closet Monster, the Creature Under the Bed, and the Magic Blanket – ah, that heroic bed cover that must be draped over at least one buttock in 90-degree weather or securely tucked around one’s toes in the cold…because no one in their right mind would sleep with an exposed body on TOP of a mattress in the dark, am I right?  Even the slightest sound in a black hallway will flare into Something That Goes Bump in the Night and I will lie there with my blood pressure increasing, my heart pounding, and my imagination going haywire.  Did I lock the door?  Because, you know – something is out there.  (Especially if you live in an old, creaky house.  Like me.)  Nothing will make me go to a haunted house or haunted forest because I will piss myself in 2 seconds and will be one of those people that screams until someone slaps them.  Disney’s Haunted Mansion is my limit, and I was 13 years old before I would even consider going in there.  (Okay, okay, I was pretty much dragged in there, if you really need to know.)

What scares me the most about horror movies and horror stories is that I can’t stop watching or reading.  It’s like a train wreck – I can’t look away.  Years ago, I was subjected to “The Shining,” with the crazy Jack Nicholson.  Yeah, right.  I didn’t sleep for a goddamn week.  I refused to go up the stairs for fear of running into those chopped-up twin girls ("Come play with us, Danny!") at the end of the hallway, so I always made someone else go first.  

Get out of my hallway, you little brats.

Then there was “The Amityville Horror,” which made me close the bedroom curtains for weeks so I wouldn’t wake up in the middle of the night and see those glowing pig eyes looking in the window across from me.  

Stupid glowing red-eyed pig!  I'll make you into goddamn bacon if you come in here!

On New Year’s Eve, my father made me record this movie for him while he, my mother, and my sister went out for the evening.  (I was certain I was being punished for not going with them.)  As a result, I had every light in the house turned on, the stereo was blasting loud Christmas Muzak, the TV over the refrigerator was blaring a Perry Como holiday special – anything, anything to keep me from hearing that horrible theme music coming from the VCR in the basement.  Why do horror movies always showcase little children singing?  GAAH!

The Blair Witch.  The Exorcist.  The Grudge.  Paranormal Activity.  All of you, BITE ME.  Oh, wait, don’t.  I’ll freak out, beat the bloody shit out of you, and then probably fall down the stairs and break my own leg in my mad urge to escape.

Reading is just as bad.  Stephen King’s prose, for example, is just so fabulous that you are sucked into the horror in a Clockwork-Orange-ian, eyes-held-open-with-a-wire-speculum kind of suckage.  You read until you can't take any more, slowly put the book down, and try turning off the light, and you lie there with your eyes still wide open, bloodshot and burning, afraid to blink because Annie Wilkes from “Misery” might be standing by your bed with a fucking sledgehammer, calling you a dirty bird.  

This is what a psycho wacknut looks like.

Or that cat in “The Cat from Hell” might be sitting there, grinning, ready to pounce and force itself down your throat.  Really, it’ll be best to just turn the TV on and watch “Big Bang Theory” reruns until 3 in the morning.  You can sleep at your desk.

When I was a kid, my parents gave me “Alfred Hitchcock’s Haunted Houseful,” a compendium of ghost stories for kids.  While I now cherish it – it’s a collector’s item, very rare and very hard to find in good condition – I used to hide this thing under the living room sofa cushions.  My mother always found it and returned it to my bedroom - at first my imagination made me think that it floated up the hall in the middle of the night and slowly, s-l-o-w-l-y inserted itself into its place on my bookshelf.  (Aw, shit - *shudder*)  What scared me?  The artwork inside the front cover!  I mean, look at this…

Look at that ghostly seaweed woman!  (Actually, it’s “The Water Ghost of Harrowby Hall” – a terrific story, by the way.)  This dead kelp-covered chick is one of the reasons I couldn’t keep the bedroom door open because I thought she was in the hallway at night.  The damn moon has an eye.  An EYE.  The tree has FINGERS.  And that stick-man on the water!  Who makes artwork like this in a book for impressionable, easily-spooked children?  (Oh, shut up.  I told you I was a wuss, didn't I?)  

Anyhow, I’m bringing up the Alfred Hitchcock book because I wanted to use his opening words in this book for my ending salvo.  So I leave you with the prose of the Master of Suspense. 

First find a room where you can be alone.  Next, turn the light down low.  I know; plenty of light is better for the eyes.  However, it is death to ghosts and we should always think of others.  Now, concentrate on the printed page…

What’s that? You hear a strange noise?  I’m sure it’s just a shutter banging in the wind.  You don’t have shutters?  Good!  Your attitude indicates you have completed your reading readiness and we are all set.  

You may begin wandering through our little tract of haunted houses. 

No, I’m not coming with you.  

This is as far as I go.

Me too, Al.  Now I'll just go see if "Big Bang Theory" is on...

Happy Halloween, all.  

--Rebecca

Pass the Nyquil, Please

Cough, cough, cough.  Sniffle.  Sniff, hack.  Wheeze.

Yep, autumn is here – my lovely, colorful, ginger-scented and pumpkin-spiced autumn.  Rya isn’t the only one who loves it.  I’ve waited all sweltering, dripping, bug-infested summer for autumn’s sharp, crisp mornings and warmth-infused afternoons.  Beautiful quilted patterns in the multi-colored trees.  Huge pots of puffy chrysanthemums, grinning scarecrows, bundles of endless corn shocks and hay bales.  Cinnamon tea and gingersnaps and that first burst of dusty, oil-scented air from the grumbly ancient furnace.  Personal heaters in the old bedrooms to boost the snap and watery rumble of hot-water heat rising through the old baseboards.  I love it all.

Well, except for one thing.  (Sniffle.)

Without fail, every gold-frosted autumn brings with it a small demon in the form of a bacterium with more facets than a bag of Dungeons & Dragons polyhedral dice.  My immune system, which unfortunately has a pink neon sign flashing “C’MON IN!” and readable to every microscopic bug and germ in the known world, has already thrown out the free-lodging red carpet to the first cold bug of the season.  It has burrowed down into my sinus cavity and has gleefully began tossing out its coded messages to my respiratory system, which is now trying to drown me in my own thickening juices.

I feel ya, Cameron.

Snort.  Hack, hack, sniff.

I know to start pumping up the Vitamin C when the folks at the office start coming in armed with their own boxes of Kleenex and stand at the secretary’s counter, red-eyed and pitiful, claiming they’re sick (really?) and they “just had to come in.”  This is the signal for me to repeatedly scrub my hands, close my office door, and ward off every sniffler coming my way with a large can of Lysol.  Sadly, one of those resilient little demons crossed the Valley of Antibacterial Hand Gel, fought its way through the Lysol Cloud of Death, and slid unseen under my door, where it was welcomed happily by my dumb-assed immune system, which wouldn’t know a bacterium from a Basset hound.  Eventually, it will remember its real duty and kick the cold out on its ear, and I can head back to the office…only to probably pick up yet another strain from a loo-la who “just had to come in.”  Stay home, dammit!  That’s what sick leave is for! 

Cough, cough.  SnorHHooooork.  (Sorry, that was gross.)

The good news is I can drink all the hot tea I want.  Lots and lots of tea.  I can stay home and catch up on all of the shows I recorded last week.  I can work on story stuff.  Or, I can just sleep.  Ah, Nyquil-induced sleep is the best.  No weird dreams, no aches, just deep, peaceful sleep – as long as I remember to turn off my phone, or Telemarketer Bob will be asking me if I want to donate my kidneys to the Lady of Perpetual Back Pain shriner’s convention.

In the meantime, pass the Nyquil please.  Good health to all.  And wash your hands.

--Rebecca

Liking the Rain

Rain, rain, go away // come again another day...

When it rains, it pours...

Rain makes corn // corn makes whiskey...

Raindrops keep falling on my head...

It’s raining cats and dogs...

I love a rainy night...

And many, many more for certain...but I won’t extoll every single rain quote or song lyric here and now...

Life isn't waiting for the storm to pass...yadda, yadda...

Many people don’t care for the rain.  It messes with their plans, it can cause damage, it makes the roads slick, it makes non-drivers stupid, it makes people sad or cranky...in general many just don’t seem to want it.  I get that, but yet, I say bring it on!  First of all, we need it!  No water, no life!  There is so much good from the rain!  And trust me – at the moment where I live, we are seeing a lot of it.  I am certain we had over 5 inches fall in 3 hours last night.  Yes, there was flooding and the typical chaos ensued.  I will admit it’s been a long time since I’ve seen flooding like that.  Ok, that’s not rain...that’s a deluge...and with the report of a newly formed hurricane looming to add to it I say I might need to build an ark.

But regardless, I still like the rain and lightning storms.

Now mind you, I am no stranger to routine flooding.  I grew up in a 250+ year old farmhouse that turned into an island every time it rained 2 or more inches at once.  Between the creek that ran through the side horse field and the even larger creek across the street, that would flood the roadway, the house felt like a castle with its own deceptively devastating moat.  Scary though it was I secretly found it kind of cool.  It was then that I came to understand the sheer power of water.

The awesome thing though was the basement actually had a moat built into it to catch the water that poured in through the old fieldstone foundation.  And I mean moat...not French drain, not weep pipe, not anything you can possibly use in today’s modern houses – I am talking a 2 foot deep (in some spots) 1 foot wide open trench that rimmed the walls in the cellar, the center of which was a thick cement pad, known as a floating floor.  The entire basement was divided by stone foundation into 3 distinct rooms, so you actually had the “front” cellar, the “wine” cellar and “root” cellar.  The last two portions had dirt floors so the trenches there were just enough to divert water to the moat.  And they constantly ran water so the sound of trickling water in the basement was never absent, even in drought years.

The oil furnace and tank were on the concrete floor pad of the front cellar and when the fan would run, it sounded like a sleeping, snoring dragon in there, (at least to my father and me).

But then it would rain...

The rain would awaken the dragon.  I would go down the steps and listen.  Then the sump pump would suddenly kick on, loudly – and scare the hell outta me, even though I was listening for it – sounding like the dragon had awakened growling and snorting...(of course it was the initial draw of the sump pump, then the sound as it cavitated when the water level dropped too low for it).  I would unceremoniously run back up the stairs laughing and write whatever the encounter caused my over-active imagination to believe.

So yeah, I like the rain.

--Rya

Being Catholic

The Pope is in town, and the faithful are beside themselves with joy.  This guy is a rock star in so many more ways than one. 

Work it, Pontiff.

I was born a Catholic.  I was baptized as a wee babe, I made it through my First Holy Communion without spitting out the Host (which I would have sworn was Styrofoam), and I committed to memory the Gloria and the Confiteor and the Nicene Creed and the “short version” of the Our Father (other Catholics know what I mean there) and how to sing “Oh Come All Ye Faithful” in Latin before I was ten years old.  I attended CCD classes with a very strict nun and I made it all the way through Confirmation and was happy to get the Beatitudes straight.

I, like others, have several stories about going to Confession…like the time I lost my balance in the confessional and fell, and the resounding boom echoed in the huge old church for what felt like eternity, and the priest quietly asked if I was okay before continuing.  There was also the time I drew a blank on what sins I’d committed and flipped frantically through my Child’s Book of Confession, only to wave it helplessly and tell the priest to just put me down for everything in there (I could see him trying not to laugh through the screen) and he just gave me a couple of Hail Marys for penance because anything else would have made him bust a gut.

My parents made certain my sister and I had a proper Catholic upbringing, and we went faithfully to Mass every Sunday.  Of course, it would be only a matter of time before my sister and I had to be separated because we would always find something to giggle about – the cantors, for example, had nicknames, like “Julie Andrews,” and “Tiny Voice Woman” and one was simply a hand gesture, which he used to tell everyone to join in the chorus, and to this day it always sends us to our knees with laughter.  Then there were the deacons, like “Story of the Story” (he repeated his words over and over) and “Ta-dayyyyyy,” who had an extraordinarily thick, slow Southern drawl and would read so slowly that it felt like I’d be in service for a week.  I can hear my sister laughing from here as she reads this.  She'll confirm all of it.

Nevertheless, we continued to attend, because despite the humor, we still enjoyed the ancient majesty of the Catholic service, the huge old church, and especially the sense of stately ceremony, especially on Easter Vigil and Christmas Midnight Mass.  I enjoyed the music, and inserted myself into it by joining the handbell choir.  I had many a great time with wonderful people in that choir.  When the director quit, the choir fell apart, and to this day, I miss it terribly.  I understand they have regrouped, but for me, it just wouldn’t be the same without that director and the other fun folks.

A few years ago, my strict churchgoing began to drop off.  I get up for work at 4am, as you already know, and I took advantage of sleeping in on Sunday mornings.  As time rolled on, I was surprised to find myself a “twice a year” Catholic – Easter and Christmas – and sometimes even those are questionable.  I know, I know – God doesn’t judge, but a part of me - that little girl in white gloves and black shiny shoes - still feels the sting of guilt for not attending like I should. 

So today, I’ve had the TV on all day on Channel Pontiff.  I’ve watched His Holiness stop the Pope Mobile to kiss babies, shake hands, and take selfies with the faithful.  I’ve watched him canonize a saint, and hold High Mass in Spanish.  And I’ve found that there’s still a part of me that knows God walks in all of us, and even though my churchgoing days have slowed, I found that I talk to God in my own way, and on my own time. 

So peace be with all of us today.  Love your neighbor, forgive (or ignore) the self-proclaimed pundits who post anti-Christian crap on Facebook, and dance your way through life.  Just don't trip in the confessional.  

As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end.  Amen.

--Rebecca

Autumn

Finally!  According to the calendar fall is here. . .not sure about you but for me that kicks off the beginning of my favorite time of the year – from here to the end of it.  So actually fall and winter for me are the best.  From the first day of fall to the last day of the year I am ecstatic.

Hello, gorgeous.

Why?

WEATHER.  Oh let’s start with cooler weather.  BAM!  Hoodie weather.  Love my hoodies.  The cool crisp air feels good in the chest.  The cool breezes that give just that little chill that makes me burrow deeper into my hoodie.

BUGS.  As in NONE!  Yeah, not afraid of them, just tired of them being up in my face all summer long.  Because trust me I am the first one who will catch bugs in my house and turn them loose outside instead of killing them. 

TREES.  I love to see the leaves change in autumn.  Living in the mountains I get that privilege in spades.  The explosion of gold, red, yellow and russet leaves falling into the edge of the horse fields turns the green grasses into a particolored display.

HORSES.  The cooler weather is ideal horse weather.  Now yes anytime is a good time to ride, but the fall and into the early winter is the best.  The weather is perfect – not too hot, not too cold and the horses can just go all day long.  Riding in the first early snowfall is where it’s at.  Just as the snow starts to fall the horses sense the serenity that comes with it and as you ride in simple silence there is no better peace for the soul.

HARVEST.  I am relatively decent backyard gardener and I make everything I can, from tomato sauce to pepper relish, pickles, soups – you get the picture.  I dry, can, and I freeze everything I grow.  There is great satisfaction in eating the foods you have made from seed to harvest.

PUMPKINS.  Everywhere, just everywhere.  And in everything.  (I am a coffee drinker and love some seasonal pumpkin spice creamer in my coffee.) Pumpkins are the best single decoration for the entire tail end of the year.  They go with everything!  Pair them up with homegrown Indian maize for decoration.  And when ready make pumpkin pie and multicolored popcorn – the best desert and snack ever!

FROST.  The anticipation of waking up to that first sunrise of frost, which turns the world into a glittering realm makes me check out the window first thing when I get up.  Guaranteed to put an impish grin on my face!

WINTER.  And that of course leads to the thrill of the first snowfall that every school age child dreams of.  I am far from school age anymore, but I am just as excited as the neighborhood kids when I see all that white stuff falling from the sky.  Even simple flurries can just keep me grinning like the Cheshire Cat!

Then of course there are the big three:

Halloween.

Thanksgiving.

Christmas.

No need to extrapolate here!  Yes I love them all.  Yes I decorate for them all.  Yes I am that raging fanatic that has 40 storage crates of decorations – EACH!

What can I say?  At least I admit it.  I’m in full blown holiday mode from beginning to end.  And I absolutely love it!

Autumn is where it’s at.  It is a gateway we all get to step through every year. It is a return to childhood and simple make believe if you want it to be.  You just have to believe.

 -- Rya

The Tao of "Why"

Hi folks, Rebecca here.  So this is the fifth day in a row that I have awakened at 2am for no reason whatsoever.  2am.  Or 1:57.  Or 2:03.  Still, give or take a few minutes, I'm awake at the SAME DAMN TIME every night.  And I have lain there, trying in vain to go back to sleep, until my alarm goes off at 4am.  

Why is that?  Why?  Why do we always ask "why?"  Sometimes there's an answer, sometimes there isn't.  We can blame that on the Tao of Why.

Good old Wikipedia defines "the Tao" as "the intuitive knowing of 'life' that of which cannot be grasped full-heartedly as just a concept but known nonetheless through actual living experience of one's everyday being."  Um, yeah.  That's just useless, W; if I wanted whacked-out poetry, I'd get out some e.e. cummings and chow down, scratching my head through it all and asking myself what the fuck I just read before starting over.

At any rate, some things can't be answered, and when you're stumbling about on five days of less than 3 hours of sleep, your brain really starts churning out some wild shit.  Like, am I waking up because someone or something was in my room and willed me awake?  (That would freak me out, especially because my husband was on travel all week.)  Did some smidgen of my subconscious, astrally projected out into the wild black yonder that is my lucid dreamland, instinctively know about that earthquake in Chile yesterday and came flying back to tell me about it, thus awakening me from slumber?  Was it just trucks downshifting on the highway that reached my inner ear through the layers of cottony semi-coma?  (BTW, I really hate FedEx for their damned jake brakes.) 

Why??  Why couldn't the faceless phantom or subconscious beastie wait until the alarm went off?  Couldn't you for cripe's sake just have waited a couple more hours, and hit me with this after I was already up, so I could stagger to the bathroom and stare at my frumpy morning self blearily in the mirror, wondering what the hell just happened? Nope. The Tao of Why will not allow me to grasp the concept, remember.  I have to be awakened with this in the middle of the night.

What's even better is when you get a brain dump and your cerebrum happily starts downloading song lyrics, news reels, and Jimmy Carter spewing useless rhetoric, all tangled together in an incomprehensible sailor's knot of sound and light, and then you remember some job you forgot to do at work, which you immediately start trying to solve while Taylor Swift blathers through her latest song (probably singing backwards) and cats and gummy bears dance ballet around you in purple tutus.  This is not the shit you want happening when you're trying to get back to sleep.  But yet, this has been my life for the past five nights.  I can't even blame it on alcohol.

Go, brain.  Run away, you're fucking DRUNK.

Why?

No answer, except, "just because."  A piss-poor answer, but it'll have to do because nothing else will fit.  Damn you, Tao of Why.  You're right.

"Ours not to reason why, ours but to do and die."  Well, thanks, Lord Tennyson.  What I'll do is take some Nyquil and hope I get some sleep tonight.  Maybe the next blog will make much more sense.  Never write when you're tired, folks.  It makes Alice in Wonderland look like frickin Ghandi.

To sleep, perchance to dream...just not about tsunamis and gummy bears, please.  Sweet dreams, all.

-- Becca

9/11. Never Forget.

Today is Patriot’s Day.  Those of us here at FarCrutchProductions want to take this time to thank the members of our military, fire and police forces.  Thank those you see today, and remember those who lost their lives that fateful day, be they of the groups mentioned above, or one of the innocent civilians lost in New York, Washington, or Shanksville.  And remember those who have lost their lives in the ensuing wars since.

Fourteen years after this despicable act, our nation still bears the wounds.  It will be a long, long time before they heal enough to be called scars.  Until the threat of global terrorism has ended, these wounds need to remain open.  Their pain needs to be fresh so that we can still draw on that source and bear the resolve necessary to continue to fight.

We Americans are a loud, mouthy, opinionated bunch...always have been, and always will be.  But that is not a weakness.  We are more likely to stand up for ourselves, let our opinions be known, and tell you the things that you may not want to hear.  We do not always agree with each other – that is human nature.  But when it counts, we stand together.

There is truth to the phrase – “when the goin’ gets tough, the tough get goin’.”

We are tough.  We are proud.  We are free.  And we are unapologetic about it. 

So never forget those who have given their lives, and never turn your back on these who are still willing to do so.  They do this for you, for me, for everyone.

God Bless America!
--Rya