Thriller Thursday6

"Ray"

I asked my "make each other laugh until one of us has to pee" coworker to share some of her supernatural experiences and she kindly did so...

Her house was built in 1851 and still has a number of original old features in place like the wide hardwood board floors, stair railings, shed connected to the house, fireplaces, afterthought pocket kitchen with the sink in the hallway that used to be a pump. Ray was the owner before her and he lived there for a long time with his visually impaired wife. She told me that the couple was known to be rather eccentric and a bit paranoid.

She said when she bought the house after he died, she found double and triple locks on all the outside doors. She also found many of their things still in the home: rugs in bad condition, wood, flour sifter, "old weird" dishes, and the bed he'd died in as well as a huge mess she had to clean up before she could move in. She decided to keep the sifter and the dishes, but the bed just plain creeped her out. She and her husband stored it in the shed for some time while they decided on how they were going to get rid of it.

Eventually they threw the bed on a friend's bonfire.

Some of the strange happenings:

1) Once she was taking a shower when the bathroom light that was on went off. It was off for about a minute when she decided to shout "Ray" and the light went back on. She yelled "off limits" to get her point across that haunting her in the bathroom was NOT OK and it never happened again.

2) There were two fruit baskets hanging on either side of the microwave in the kitchen. When she got up very early one morning at 3am to go pee, she saw one of the fruit baskets swinging back and forth. She said there was no breeze and if there had been the 2nd one would have been swinging as well but it wasn't.

3) She was falling asleep in her bedroom with her cat when she heard a hissy whisper that said "Chrisssssssssss". She said she "whipped around and told Ray to leave".

4) One time, she was coming down the stairs and walking into the first living room when she saw what she thought was the flick of a white towel going into the second living room. Like a white towel swinging behind her husband which she thought happened. So she called her husband and he wasn't there and there definitely wasn't any towel.

Her husband swears the house has never had ANY supernatural activity just as emphatically as she swears these things happened. She said things slowed down after the birth of her daughter and now that she's a toddler, #4 was the last thing that's happened.

She said she's never felt threatened or scared, but that sometimes she was being watched and she'd tell Ray to back off and leave her alone, which he always did.

Most likely the two huskies, one kitty, one toddler, and two parents have been enough to convince Ray there's no more room for him and that's why things have all but stopped. He's probably exhausted with trying to compete with them!

Last Photo Class

So my last class was tonight. The high school was locked becoz it's school vaca this week and we had to migrate to the town's public library community room where the librarians went all Wicked Witch of the West on us because we weren't READY to leave right on the dot of 8pm. We all had to present our most recent work and have everyone critique it, which took some time.

I was told that I am "most innovative", "have a great imagination", "have a surrealistic eye", "my abstracts are disturbing and sinister at times but we're drawn to them", I "am always showing them something different but still within a theme", they "look forward to what I'm going to bring to class", and that if I "don't have a show in a gallery within a year, my teacher and classmates - who will be invited or else - will hunt me down and smack me upside my head".

Here are their top 5 picks out of the 10-12 I showed tonight.

The other pics are easy to see, this more abstract one is me - my camera - my hand in that order.

I'm seriously thinking about a show. Gotta lot of work ahead of me if I do, but I have some great contacts now: my teacher wants me to keep in touch while I do this, he's willing to help with the critique end of things, and he has ideas of where to show, one classmate is going to help me with PhotoShop Elements 2.0 and knows a lady who has a printing business that might be willing to not only print my stuff but post my stuff on her website to sell, and another wants to be my cheering section so that I will share the wealth once I become rich and famous. Hah.

So I have my work cut out for me in pushing myself forward and staying enthusiastic even when it seems like I'm getting nowhere.

Monday Minutiae

For those who like itty bitty details...

It was another busy weekend.

Saturday:

Up at 8:00am, fed cats, showered, went to one of the local drugstore/pharmacy/magazine rack/beauty aid/as seen on TV product sellers to transfer a buttload of pics from my memory cards to CDs, got walked thru the process, DooBee left me on my own, they told me it would take about 15-20 minutes, time which I spent delightfully in Borders browsing for much MUCH longer than 15-20 min, came back, picked up my CDs, merrily drove home to check them before going out to take more photos, turned computer on, loaded first CD, 5 fucking pictures, unloaded it, put 2nd CD in, 5 fucking pictures, jammed CDs back in cases, slammed out of the house, drove fast back to drugstore, waited steamily in line, explained the 5 fucking pics on each CD, turned out DooBee left at an important juncture not fully explaining a very small but very vital step that I did NOT do, they redid my CDs and did not charge me, I spent the next 15-20 min in Fashion Bug being thoroughly appalled at horrendously fugly tops the industry apparently thinks the "everyday woman" actually wants to look at much less wear, got my CDs, went directly to my streamlet to take photo class pics, spent about an hour and a half doodling around taking many godawful photos, came back home, didn't stop for anything to eat because I got all ADD and decided the yard needed my immediate landscaping attention, raked dead leaves and tops out of the beds (wheelbarrow full), picked up ALL dead branches that fell into the entire yard over the winter (more than a wheelbarrow full but I MADE IT FIT), removed the wheelbarrow's worth of pine needles from around the hydrangea, came back inside to play with just-taken-pics forgetting to eat yet again, got frustrated, finally ate late lunch/early dinner, fed cats, and dropped into Chair of Death and read my book.

Sunday:

Up at 7:30am, picked up clutter, vacuumed all rooms (carpets and hardwood), shook out throw rugs, dusted all living room/kitchen/dining room surfaces, cleaned bathroom so it sparkled, co-worker and his daughter came over, daughter met Moomin who did his best to sniff as much of her as he could, we all went out back, I took some pics of her in the big Kscope and some action shots of her with the big therapy balls I have, they left, I played with the photos just took, got hungry and was about to make soup when Mom called to invite me to Chinese food lunch, YES, ate lunch with Mom and Dad, Riley in car, Blizzard for dessert, then 7 loads of laundry with mixed hanging to dry and dryer loads, watched bad non-TV and Rock of Love Reunion (when did the Headbanger's Ball ex-video jockey, Ricky Rackman, get all frenzied, yelly, and crap - like a cheesy game show host?) while laundrying, separated undies, matched socks, folded Tshirts, put all dry clean clothes away in respective places, brushed teeth, got in bed, and read til sleepy.

Monday:

Got up for work, did the grillion (grooming-million) things have to do to get ready for work, reassured cats I would be home to feed them dinner, arrived at work, showed co-worker the pics of him and his daughter, did work, went to 10am meeting, came back to email from co-worker telling me I took fab pics of his daughter and that I'm quite the photographer, glowed, ate lunch, went to 1pm meeting, from there went to 3pm meeting, after that went grocery shopping, came home, put groceries away, fed cats like promised, prepared homemade chicken soup with ingredients just purchased, while that simmered I cut up and steamed yellow and purple cauliflower for my lunches this week, then messed with several photos in prep for making prints tomorrow for my last photo class, went pee (FINALLY, what's wrong with me that I completely forgot to do THAT?), whipped up some noodles, had bowl of soup, watched non-TV, landed on Nemo, and now I'm ready for bed.

Whew!

Last photo class tomorrow. I'm gonna miss the assignments and the pushing me to push myself.

Thriller Thursday5

These excerpts are from the book Real Ghosts, Restless Spirits, and Haunted Places by Brad Steiger.

Route 666: The Southwest's Devil's Highway (pg 408-409)

"Although US Route 666 is now officially known as US Route 491 or 393, the legend of Camino del Diablo, 'the Devil's Road', will be long remembered. The original naming of the highway had nothing to do with the Number of the Beast, or Antichrist - 666, as given in Revelations, the last book in the Bible. The highway was so designated because it was the sixth branch of an interstate route then known as US 60. The section linking Chicago to Los Angeles became the legendary Route 66. And the Four Corners detour from Route 66 was renumbered 666 in August 1926. But some say labeling the road with those numerals made it Satan's own road to perdition. The 190 miles of the former US Route 666 starts at Gallup, New Mexico, wends it way through 70 miles of Colorado, then ends in Monticello, Utah. According to numerous eyewitness accounts, on nights of the full moon, a black 1930s-vintage Pierce-Arrow roadster has appeared and run scores of cars, trucks, and motorcycles off the road. The ghostly automobile has been linked to at least five deaths. Dr. Avery Teicher of Phoenix spent ten years documenting reports of the phantom Pierce-Arrow and the howling hellhounds that materialize to terrorize anyone foolhardy enough to pull off Route 666 and admire the desert landscape. According to Dr. Teicher, two members of a biker gang had both of their arms chewed off by the fiendish ghost dogs, and a third biker had 90 percent of his face eaten away. The least threatening of all reports from the Devil's Highway are those of a phantom female hitchhiker who vanishes whenever someone stops to give her a ride. On January 21, 2003, New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson stated his support to change the name of US 666. The change became official in may 2003."

A Vanishing Restaurant Outside of Amarillo (pgs 440-441)

"In the early summer of 1987, Sam and Clara were traveling to Amarillo, Texas on a business trip. Shortly after midnight, they decided to stop to eat at a quaint, rustic-style restaurant that neither of them had ever noticed on previous trips to the region. They remembered that the food was prepared in an excellent down-home country style, and that the waitress, the cook, and even the other customers were so friendly in a sincere manner that Sam and Clara truly meant their promise that they would stop back again. 'And we tried to do exactly that on our return drive,' Sam said, 'but that great littl down-home restaurant was nowhere to be seen. We even looped back a couple of times, thinking we might somehow have driven on by. We even got into an argument, each of us insisting that we remembered exactly where it was. We just couldn't find it, and since the hour was getting very late, we drove on.' Because their business required a number of return visits to Amarillo, Sam and Clara traveled that route on three consecutive weekends, each time keeping a watch for the restaurant with the wonderful cooking, but it seemed as though it had simply vanished. 'Since then, we have driven that route a dozen or more times,' Sam said, 'but we never again found that friendly little restaurant.' Indeed, Sam and Clara may have been extremely fortunate. What if the 'friendly little restaurant' appeared and disappeared every few years? A kind of Texas-style 'Brigadoon'. They might have been lost in time and space for decades. But at least the food and the company would have been good."

Someone Fuzzy Is Going to Cut Their Tongue

I just came back from class all high on oodles of praise and visions of showing my pics and selling them and just feeling SO GOOD and CREATIVE when while typing this I hear...

Clink clink clink clink in the kitchen.

It's Doodle trying her damnest to lick any chz remnants off the knife I used to cut a small bit of chz off a wedge for a pre-bed snack (as all my bananas are currently TOO green to eat right now and my stomach was eating itself, cornflakes for supper doesn't last very long). And it's a sharp knife too.

So I had to go and wash it off to make sure there is not even a hint of a scent of chz still on it.

The visions of her tongue cut in half and it being my fault have quite deflated my big ego balloon.

Assignment for next week is to take pics with "intimacy, action, interaction, and/or emotion". Any one, two, three, or all of the above. Should be interesting. Hopefully the sun will be out this weekend so I can take pics, it's hard to take them after work, not nearly enough light.

Yes, I am whining!

Some Photos for Class Tomorrow

I was told at last week's class by the guest speaker/presenter that I had "native talent and a good eye". And this from a guy who does simply amazing stuff with his camera and PhotoShop. My teacher wants to be "surprised" by me this week. Hopefully these will do the trick. They're my favorites out of a whole slew of pics of water, reflections, mirrors, and different settings.

I've Been Project-ing

Sorry I haven't posted pics of the big Kaleidoscope but I got a bee under my bonnet and decided this weekend was now or never for this project.

I didn't make anything, I de-constructed something.

I took up the carpet in my bedroom and spare room.

So this is what my weekend looked like:

Saturday: get up at 8am, feed cats, procrastinate a bit by reading and falling back asleep, waking up to move all the stuff out of my bedroom, vacuum the carpet, rip carpet up, roll it up, loft it out the window (accidentally breaking several branches on the azaela bush OOPS), rip up the padding, loft it out the window, tackling the tack strips (a whole lotta fun, let me tell you), carefully digging the staples out of the hardwood floors that the installers went crazy putting in the padding, vacuum the hardwood floors, scrub them with Murphy's Wood Soap on hands and knees, move all the stuff back in the room with some rearrangements, then fall into my Chair of Death to zombie-watch TV while every muscle group located in both my upper body and my butt region aches like the dickens.

Sunday: get up and get moving at 8am after feeding the cats, move all the stuff that can be moved out of the spare bedroom (leaving the empty husk of bunkbeds and the computer table (with computer still on it coz if I unplug or unhook anything - it ain't going back together right), vacuum carpet, rip out carpet (manuevering it under the table and bunkbeds - that took some creative double lifting and rolling, and pushing and swearing on my part), safely lofting it out the window onto the driveway (no bushes injured this time around), rip up padding (easier then the carpet to get under the beds and table), loft it out the window, tack strips which were even more uncooperative than my bedroom, even more staples (apparently the carpet installers were under the impression they were putting in permanent carpeting, NOT), vacuum hardwood floors, wash them on hands and knees (what can I say, I'm old fashioned and like to get up close to know I'm getting the dirt), put everything back but with changes and rearrangements, sometimes rearranging several times, only to fall again into the Chair of Death with same muscle groups severely stressed out.

I watched Fifth Element and Rock of Love 2 - nice non-brain functioning TV with three very exhausted cats on my lap. I'm not sure exactly what made them exhausted, they slept thru the entire process. Maybe it was because they didn't sleep yesterday and today it was old hat. Been there done that heard that hammering isn't for us let's sleep. Only Moomin would check in every now and then to see if the hot air register hole was still there and try to fit his head into it, when that didn't work, he shoved his foreleg in.

Thus a major project that has been years in the wings is completed. And the rooms look great! It will be so much easier vacuuming up the cat dust bunnies that will be multiplying now that spring is officially here.

Thank goodness.

I'm going to bed.

The BIG Kaleidoscope...

I promised you pictures of the Kscope but dangnabit, it was extremely cloudy on Sunday and as a result all the pics I took of it were blurry and useless.

And I spent the day in my PJs.

But, I did some more experimenting with low light.

I promise, promise, promise to post pics of the Kscope itself as soon as I can. I'm sorry I didn't take pictures of the making it process. I always forget to do that until whatever I'm making is complete and untakeapartable, like with recipes. But I do have the components which I can take pics of so if you want to make one, you can print them off and show the parts to the nice friendly DoBees at Lowe's.

I Made Something Incredible

I had a thought. A very big thought. A huge creative thought.

So I went to where one can buy things to make huge creative thoughts become reality. Lowe's.

I got a cement tube. 3 slim long rectangular mirror strips. Clear packing tape. Big-ass cable ties.

I made a big kaleidoscope. And, really, I mean BIG. The cement tube is 10" diameter and the mirrors are 8"x36".

I put the mirrors in a triangular form, cable zip-tied them solidly together with no gaps between them. Then I slid the form into the cement tube, securing the ties with packing tape. I made a "viewfinder" and taped that onto one end and then made a rim on the other so it won't slide out.

Yes, it's gosh-darned heavy, but I'm not thinking of lugging it around much, it's meant more for stationary pictures and timed shots. It's definitely not pretty. I will take pics of it tomorrow and share the glory of it's hugeness!

I've been experimenting all night. Here's some of my favorite shots. I tweaked the brightness on the second MM shot, makes it looks sort of painted or Warholish.

I couldn't resist doing some self-portraiture. One of our photo class assignments is to play with light. These are kinda dark, but I think it suits them. Click for bigger to really get their effect.


I'll be playing more with it tomorrow to see how natural cloudy light works...