O is for Ominous Places

On the weekend, a group of us gathered and, after watching what was supposed to be a scary movie, went out Ghost Hunting.

Yes, I said Ghost Hunting, now move along.

Our first stop, somewhere around 11:30 or so, was the infamous Blue Ghost Tunnel. As we walked (and walked and walked) along the gravel path to the tunnel itself, we passed a young couple who were just leaving. They reported that there was "mojo going tonight" and that there was another couple in the tunnel already. On we went, though the now-largely-closed-up-though-not-too-effectively-since-there's-a-door-in-it opening and into the darkness beyond.

The tunnel is beautifully long, dark, and damp and some ways along, we met the lovely folk who were sitting there in the dark waiting for ghosts. They told us that earlier the metal gate on the door banged open and shut a few times without explanation.

During our time there, a trio of young folk (man, I'm getting old) arrived. They said they could hear footsteps coming up the tunnel, so I went out in the dark to investigate. (Oh yes, I'm a brave soul, folks.)

I walked a short ways up the tunnel and waited, hearing the footsteppian sounds, then proceeding up a bit further and listening some more. I realized that the sound was a bit behind me, so I came a short distance back towards the group. Finally, in the dark, I came to a place where the footfallyesque sounds were directly in front of me.

"This is where the footsteps are coming fom," I called out to the triad of strangers and they came with their flashlights. The sound was coming from one particular leak in the wall, falling perfectly to sound like footsteps! "Is this the sound you were hearing?" and they admitted that it was.

Of course, one of the guys didn't like me debunking his footsteps in front of his girlfriend. "Yeah, but it's strange how they sounded like they were getting closer," to which I responded, well, you're in a tunnel. Your ears will play tricks on you." His buddy was in complete agreement that, this time, the footsteps were easily explained away, but he still wasn't wanting any of it. "Yeah, well, who's to say if that was making the sound or not." (I wanted to say, "Um ... it's right there. I'm watching it drip and make the exact sound you were talking about in perfect timing..." but I didn't.)

Then things suddenly got weird.

"Jerome?" The voice came out of the shadows. It was the girl member of the trio. It was a friend-of-mine's daughter! Ha! I'm sure she was THRILLED to find a friend of her mom's out in the middle of the night in a supposedly haunted tunnel.

(For an alternative report on the tunnel, click here.)

A while later, we moved on (more teenagers arrived in the meantime) to the Screaming Tunnel. This tunnel, being quite short and well-lit by comparison was a bit anticlimactic, but hey, we were out being silly. Although they (the great, vague, illusive "they") say that if you strike a match at night in the tunnel, you'll hear screams and the match will blow out, nothing much happened when we did just that. Alas and alack...

From there, we went to visit Butler's Burial Grounds in Niagara-on-the-Lake. If you click on this link, you can see what it used to look like, thought the whole entrance to the tomb has now been covered with earth, and only the top of the crypt still shows above ground. The headstones atop the hill are still there.

Finally, we went for a brief visit at Fort George, though, being three in the morning, we couldn't exactly wander about the buildings inside. We did, however, chat with a friendly (and likely bored-out-of-his-tree) nighttime security guard.

In truth, although our evening was not exactly packed with paranormal experiences, it was a rather fun evening wandering about in the middle of the night with friends. Really, who wouldn't like to creep along dimly-lit and damp places in the wee hours of the morning?

G is for Gross

I've been away. Not from home, but from posting. Life = hectic. I apologize and move on. Again. And again and again.

Today I had a rather disgusting experience. Let me set the scene.

I try to be a good citizen and that extends, at times, to picking up errant litter and depositing it in the nearest trash recepticle. (As a tangent to the real story, it amuses me to no end that the garbage cans outside of the local Homesense Store say "Garbage - Trash" on them, as if that somehow makes them bilingual - bilangue. You see, "Garbage" is the way to spell that word both in English and in French, so do we really need "Trash" as a clarifying term or translation? Hmmm.) Yesterday, for example, a newspaper flyer was blowing directly across my path as I walked to the car at Canadian Tire (I was buying a filter for the furnace in case any of you desperately wanted to know) and so I scooped it up and tossed it. I admit, I probably miss infinitely more litter than I scoop, but I try and that's better than not.

Today, however, I had an experience that would make me second-guess my good intentions. I had just parked at the McDonald's (don't judge me, I just said I do what I can and know I have a ways to go) and got out of my car. There were about 20 paper-wrapped straws scattered between my car and the next, so I figured I'd scoop them up and toss them in the garbage to keep them from blowing across the neighbourhood. I bend. I scooped.

And that's when I realized what a mistake it had been.

There was something on the straws.

Something unidentifiable.

Something curiously like mucous.

Like dripping, oozing, transparent, slippery, slick, and altogether unpleasant mucous.

I dropped the straws into the garbage, carefully extracted my key from my pocket (so as to avoid getting the aforementioned mystery substance on my clothes and car) and unlocked the door. I was VERY grateful to have the bottle of hand sanitizer inside the door and I used it liberally. At the first opportunity, I washed and washed and washed my hands until I felt safe, secure, and free again.

I shall never know, for certain, what the substance was. I believe that's for the best. But I must wonder why, when I was simply trying to be a steward of the earth's parking lots, must these things happen to me?

Running Silent

Just in case you both were wondering, I have received no response whatsoever from the people at the shopping channel regarding their 300% claims. Hmmm. Disappointing.

I'm Such a Spaz

All day long, I've been having tiny muscle spasms on the inside of my right arm, just below my elbow. It's that strange mix of creepy and intriguing. The kids were fascinated by watching it quiver now and then. (Right now it's going nuts.) It's been happening on and off now for more than 12 hours. Why do you suppose that is?

Well, according to Medline Plus, this could be "common and normal" nerve firing, which is kind of vague, or it could be a nuerological disorder, which is kind of alarming. WHAT?!?!

So, let's go down the list of potential causes, shall we?

Benign twitches (not caused by disease or disorders)
Often affecting the eyelids, calf, or thumb
Normal and quite common, often triggered by stress or anxiety

Hmmm. Nope. Not my eyelids, calf, or thumb. It's my arm. And let's be honest, wouldn't my years upon years of stress and anxiety have produced something by now? My entire body from tip to toe should be twitching!

A diet deficiency

Okay, I won't lie. I suppose that's a possibility, although another site specifically identified a potassium deficiency as a cause and I ate plenty of bananas in the past week.

Which brings us to:

Drug overdose (caffeine).

Curiously enough, I think I've had less caffeine than usual lately. Could I have a drug underdose?

Drug side effect (such as diuretics, corticosteroids and estrogens)

Again, I'm not thinknig this is an explanation. As far as I can tell, I'm not hopped up on estrogen, unless I'm starting to absorb it from the all-female staff I work with every day!

Exercise

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!

Maybe that leaves "neurological disorder", but I still have my suspicions that it's really best explained by "hmmm, isn't that odd?"

I'll let you know if it continues or grows out of control.

Finally, and basically for Keltie and her hair-fixation, here's a wee link.

Fact

My CD player has a rewind button where the stop button should be.

A Case for the X-Files

Whilst I was preparing my wee office at home in order that I might actually "move in", I came across a Papermate Comfortmate Stick pen which had been residing in silent patience on my desk. (Do you like how I inserted a link to Papermate's site, just like Keltie does?) It had been sitting there for some time, amidst all sorts of schnazzum and frazzum, for some time while I put together some Flarkes from IKEA and unloaded box after box of books and movies, took a trip or two, and was otherwise lazy and procrastinatious*.

Upon picking it up today, however, I immediately realized that something. was. not. right.

It was covered in some sort of mysterious sticky residue. My first instinct was to scream, flush my hands with water, induce vomiting (which would have broken my legendary record for vomitlessness), and call the centre for poison control. Instead (and, in retrospect, rather curiously) I decided to rinse the pen off. After all, these Papermate Comfortmate Stick pens aren't a dime a dozen. (Apparently they're $7.06 a dozen at Staples Online.) Upon washing and drying the pen (why on earth did I wash and dry the pen?) I noticed that most of the comfort had worn off. Yes, the slightly rubbery surface texture which makes the Comfortmate so darn Comfortmatable was reduced.

Which begs the question: Was the mysterious residue actually the comfort itself, having metamorphosized while basking in the summer heat of my upstairs, or did the mysterious residue somehow take up residence on my beloved pen and eat away at the comfort like an insidious parasite? If the latter, where did it come from?

Needless to say, I may have trouble sleeping tonight.

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* procrastinatious (pro-kras-tin-A-shus): though not officially recognized as a word, it is my belief that this term, being an adjective to describe the state of mind in which one puts off some task until an indeterminate later time, should be. Consider its uses, such as "He was a rather procrastinatious individual." Or "As the demands of life began to overwhelm him, he grew more and more procrastinatious until at last he put off the one thing he couldn't afford to delay: the application of the brakes on his 1979 Chevy Nova." Please begin using this word immediately and in a variety of social and professional spheres until it gains in usage and becomes a recognized word.