Creepy Crawlies

It's getting to be Halloween season. I think Halloween is my favorite holiday. I've come to the realization that I love spooky things, but I'm not exactly into being terrified. Creeped out, yes. Too afraid to go to the bathroom by myself, no.

Speaking of creeped out, I discovered that yes, indeed, ants can find their way up here to our elevated apartment. I found a catfood plate covered in swarming ants. Yuck! Yuck! Double-yuck! Well, it was by a window, so maybe one or two scouts found their way in and found the treasure, then called in the troops. Anyway, gross.

But back to Halloween. When I was little, I used to love to decorate the house for Halloween. We had a bunch of cheesy paper decorations, like a skeleton hand coming out of a black 'hole' in the wall, and I had made this big hanging skeleton out of paper plates. I loved all that stuff! If I had a house, you know our house would be decked out with pumpkins and cobwebs. Wait, let me amend that. When we have a house, it will be all decked out. I think we're going to do jack-o-lanterns this year anyway.

Growing up in Oregon, it was frequently cold or rainy on Halloween night, so we had to wear coats under (or over) our costumes. What a drag. I remember having this really cool witch costume one year, and having to wear a red turtleneck under it. Now, I ask you: what kind of witch wears a red turtleneck with her black dress?

There's just something about this season. The air is crisp and the colors are all just a little bit better somehow. I was at Long's today after yoga class (I went!) waiting around for a print job to be finished, and I got sucked into the Halloween decoration aisle. I really had to talk myself out of a haunted tree candle thingie and this really cool ghosty lantern. Some people go nuts for Christmas. I'm definitely a black-and-orange gal.

We're going to Boron, in the Mojave desert, right after Halloween (family trip). I was looking it up and discovered that the Calico Ghost Town is right near there. They have ghost tours every Saturday night. I wonder if we could convince everyone to go? I've always wanted to go on one of those ghost tours. Seems like the spirits would still be pretty stirred up, only a few days after Halloween.

When I was in San Antonio a few years ago, Shea and I contemplated going on a haunted tour of the Alamo. We decided not to, but I've regretted it ever since.

I just LOVE all things haunted. I'm not sure why, because if I ever saw a real ghost, I would be scared senseless. The house I grew up in is haunted. Everyone except my dad agrees (he's the only one still living there!). My room especially had creepy energy. I would frequently wake up and feel something in the room. This resulted, of course, in full-on terror. I usually ended up spending the night on the couch in the other part of the house, about once a month or so. My brother was reminding me of a scary phenomenon that happened in his room every so often: he'd wake up in the middle of the night and see the curtains flailing around as if animated by unseen hands. When he reminded me of this, he suddenly flailed his arms around and made this horrible scary shrieking noise and I actually screamed out loud.

However, this does not stop me from watching Ghost Hunters on the Sci-Fi channel, or being on the Bay Area Paranormal Society's email list. If I could get invited to go on a ghost hunt, I'd do it in a heartbeat.

As long as I didn't have to be in the house alone.