The Haunted Library

Something strange happened this weekend. Our entryway/library was suddenly beset by mice.

And then the bats arrived. In droves.


I'm not quite sure how it happened, but our library seems to be haunted.

I'm hoping that at some point a ghost and perhaps a graveyard along the wall appears, but these things take time.

At least the bats are pretty quiet. No squeaking. Same with the mice.

***
Ok, so seriously. This has been a pretty good weekend. Saturday was spent running errands and then cutting mice out of black construction paper. (thanks to Martha for the idea). I also made some white ones, painted with glow-in-the-dark paint, for the baseboards along the wall. Those didn't photograph very well, but they're adorable for the five minutes they stay lit after I turn out the light. I have plans for the rest of the stairway but I have to plan it out a little better. Stay tuned. It's fun to just concentrate on this one room. I hadn't realized how well it would take decorations, so now I'm thinking of all kinds of possibilities...

Today one of Terri's sisters came over to celebrate Terri's birthday a bit early. She brought over amazing baked blueberry french toast, a gift for Terri and their old Playstation 2. I haven't played video games since.... um, maybe middle school? Which is 20+ years ago? Aside from a few car races or pinball games at the fair, that is. Anyway, I was totally sucked in within minutes. So. Much. Fun. One of the games has a bunch of old ones, like PacMan. I'm partial to Ms. PacMan, myself.

Anyway, after wrenching myself away from chasing those little ghosts and eating pac-bites or whatever they're called, I went to the library to stock up on October reads. I was very successful.

I located the Young Adult section of the library and hit the jackpot. I've got: I Know What You Did Last Summer; Bury Me Deep; a big volume of Lovecraft; Summer of Fear; The Mummy, the Will, and the Crypt; The Blue Girl; and The Lost Mind. I haven't read the Bellairs one in a really long time but I remember it's one of the better ones. I've never read Christopher Pike but it looks like good creepy teen pulp. Charles de Lint is always excellent so that will be fun.

I haven't ever read (or seen) I Know What You Did Last Summer but I always like Lois Duncan. They didn't have my old favorite, Down A Dark Hall, so I took what they had. I thought that I hadn't read Summer of Fear, but then I looked more closely at the cover. A little bell went off in my head, and I re-read the jacket... I definitely read this waaaaaaaaaay back in middle school or something like that. I remember it was very creepy. The cover is certainly creepy. It spooked me back then, and I'm still creeped out by it. Let's take a closer look:

I mean, seriously! That is a disturbing cover. Once I had it home, I had to turn the book over so the cover was face-down. I didn't want to see the cover any more. Ew.

Anyway. For some reason it is taking me forever to read Ghost Story. It's not exactly a fast-paced book... it's much longer than I realized, too. I'm enjoying it, but it's over half-finished and just now starting to get creepy. Sort slow to start. I'm hoping to finish it tomorrow and then I can get started on this stack of quick creepy reads. Depending on how quickly I get through them I might have to head over to Oakland or Berkeley to see their libraries as well. I love the Alameda library but it's a little small.

Yeah. That book is staying face-down. **shiver**