...because surely this is a sign of an impending apocalypse:

Palin / Obama poll gap narrows to one point.

Halp plz, teh stoopid iz gaining!

From lupabitch:

On the twelfth day of Christmas, nehmet sent to me...

Twelve volkswagens drumming

Eleven iseums piping

Ten ghosts a-leaping

Nine altars costuming

Eight x-files a-singing

Seven cats a-writing

Six owls a-harping

Five ame-e-e-erican shorthairs

Four urban legends

Three new beetles

Two persian cats

...and a wica in a parapsychology.

Get your own Twelve Days:

Five American Shorthairs would definitely be excessive. One is almost more than I can keep up with.

Before just a few minutes ago, I'd never heard of the Kolbrin Bible. Having now been schooled, I'd like to get the innocence of half an hour ago back. This thing has all the current events hot-buttons:creationism, intelligent design-ism, 2012 paranoia, even the old Exodus storyare all on lurid display. WHAT is it about ancient cultures--and Gods help us, Egypt's in particular--that brings all the tinfoil-hatters out in droves? Shame be upon you, History Channel, for perpetuating this bullshit.

(Up next: something about Stonehenge, which probably won't be much better. Headdesk x infinity. At least I just laugh uproariously, in a cynical and disgusted way, at this tripe; it seems to just bitterly disillusion C. He's more sensitive to these onslaughts than I am, it seems.)

Our last ghost watch sleepover of the year was the best one we've had yet--at least, of the ones I've attended--and also the oddest.

Of the fifteen pre-paid (no refunds!) guests, only 13 showed up, and two of them left after dinner; they'd driven all the way from just outside Chicago, but one of them developed a migraine, and rather than stay they decided to leave. I'd personally think a quiet lie-down somewhere in one of our 25 available rooms would've been more conducive to migraine management than a five-hour drive, but it wasn't my decision to make. The remainder of the guests settled in comfortably after dinner and the tour, and that's when the timbre of the evening began to shift.

Ordinarily, people come to our sleepovers in couples or small groups, and over the course of the night they tend to stick most closely to those with whom they came. That was not the case this time. Within an hour or so, it seemed, the entire company had banded together and started methodically making their way through the house. It was a little disconcerting; the place would fall silent as the proverbial tomb, and we'd all look up and wonder where they'd all gotten away to; and then there'd be a sudden burst of sound as they packed themselves off to the next room. Then silence would descend again and again we'd wonder what was going on! It did make it easy on the staff and volunteers, at any rate; they looked after themselves so efficiently, and had no interest in any of our planned activities like scary-movie screenings or scavenger hunts, that we all ended up hanging out in the foyer having a slumber party of our own.

One of the couples were serious ghost hunters, and I think they might have become the unofficial leaders of the evening. They'd brought along cameras and EMF meters and other small equipment, and they managed to capture some anomalies on film and voice recorder. The photo anomalies were interesting, but I was disappointed when I finally heard the EVP they captured on the second floor. One of our reported apparitions is of a cat; it's a relatively recent innovation, but one that's been commented on by several people, some of whom have seen it and others who have heard and/or felt it brush past them. I know what cat-voices sound like, spectral or otherwise; unfortunately, their capture sounded very much like a playful staffer distinctly saying "MEOW." Save for the fact that we were all rolling around the front hallway telling tales and laughing our collective ass off, I'd say one of us was their ghost cat!

(But a good time was had by all, and they certainly got their money's worth. And did I mention that one of the guests was wearing a Three Wolf Moon t-shirt? That struck just the right note of awesome for the proceedings.)

Halloween season in general was great this year. Our haunted house numbers were up from last year, and adding the detour through the Mansion on the way out to the carriage house worked so well that we're discussing doing it again next year. Things went well overall; there were only a couple of incidents requiring patrons' removal by the cops that we keep on hand, and no damage to the Mansion was incurred (thank the various gods; a big part of what I was up to was keeping watch over the house and its contents). We had a few rowdy visitors, kids mostly, though none of them got out of hand or threatening. I did see the most cataclysmically drunk young woman that it's ever been my misfortune to encounter, and while fascinating from a purely sociological standpoint, her presence was nerve-wracking: it took two people to keep her upright. Is she going to break free of her handlers and crash into an artifact? Is she going to hurl all over the $30k hand-loomed wool carpet? Fortunately my counter-curse ("Do not barf on this rug. Do not barf on this rug. Do not barf on this rug.") was effective, and she was removed without incident to whatever fate awaited her in the carriage house. Why get obliterated before coming to a haunt? You're not even going to remember being there.

Next weekend, it's December, and time for holiday open house. After that, we close to the public until April. The state was talking about returning us to a year-round schedule, but then came the recession in earnest, so that change has been pushed back indefinitely. The 2010 season has potential for all sorts of changes, not all of them necessarily good; but only time will reveal them.

When I was very young, growing up in the mid-70s, I used to lie in bed at night listening to CBS Radio Mystery Theater. For the uninitiated, it's the kind of radio show that hasn't existed in a long time, dramatic scripts being enacted complete with dramatic sound effects and musical bombast. Something brought it to mind today so I exercised my Google-fu and tracked down some episodes available for download. There is a cheese factor, of course (all the overblown DUN DUN DUUUUUUN musical transitions, for example), but overall the acting and the scripts are solid and there are some genuine creeps to be had. Also a few in-joke giggles, to wit the episode I'm listening to now (Possessed By The Devil) features a villainous chap called Professor Azarak, who is presently berating an apprentice for invoking Ashtoreth. Everybody knows you don't put your Triangle of Manifestation INSIDE the protective circle with you. Duh. :D

Not Halloween-themed, but some of you will like it:



And thanks to everyone who commented on my 31 days posts. I'm glad you all liked them. Now I'm cooking up something for the 12 days of Christmas.

And here we are at last. Yesterday it was a balmy 80 degrees with fair blue skies; today it's 50, grey and blustery. Wind and rains came through last night, ripping most of the leaves from the trees, scattering a colorful damp carpet across the lawn. It looks and feels, well, like Halloween.

I'll put up a few more of these throughout the day. Enjoy!

So here we are, nearly to the end of the road. Tomorrow is Halloween. Am I happy about that? Do tricks treat? Do jacks lantern?

It's a bittersweet happiness, though, because the arrival of Hallowstide signals summer's end in earnest. The days here are already significantly shorter, and growing cooler as well. Tomorrow night we'll light a bonfire in the firepit out back, and kindle the first hearthfire in the house for the season; we'll carve the jack-o-lanterns in the morning, and they'll blaze a welcome to all who come to visit after dark. I do have a bowl of candy ready for any trick or treaters who eschew the church parking lot festivities in favor of more traditional ways; I'll place it on the porch in the lap of the life-sized stuffed witch we prop up on the bench there. I hope the little black and white cat from up the street comes out to visit, too. Two years ago we had a little black stray who spent a lot of his time at our house; that Halloween, we sat on the deck for a while and he curled up in my lap under my cloak. He lives with a friend of ours now and has grown fat and happy on a steady diet of all the love and mice he can handle.

My black cat Warlock is 13 this year. His black predecessor, Lilith, made it to almost 18; I hope he gets as long, if not longer.

Only two more days to go. Whatever am I going to do with myself come November 1st?

Back in my day, you could have openly atheist characters (Moonlighting's Maddie Hayes) or characters who had abortions (in Dirty Dancing and Fast Times at Ridgemont High) without demonizing them. Nowadays such characters simply do not, could not exist.

Also, we had really good music.

The cat and the owl collaborate in your downfall. Have you ever played a Halloween "trick" on anyone? Has anyone ever "tricked" you? I was personally a polite and non-vandalous trick or treater, and while I admire a well-executed caper, it's never been in my nature to attempt such myself. I am, alas, a bit of a bore. ;)

Fergus again. The board was designed by artist Kipling West and produced in a limited run a few years back by the now-defunct company Portals to the Beyond. (The artist actually found this pic while surfing Flickr and linked it in her blog, which I thought was very cool.)

Have you ever had a seance, or used a Ouija board? I have, although not with this particular board. Of course, ( you want to hear the story... )

The only thing truly nightmarish here is the creepy clown sneaking up behind the poor lady. Sure, yes, fine, it's a historical clown, call it a Pierrot or a Harlequin or whatever you want, it's still a freaking CLOWN and those are always the fuel of dreamtime terror.

Ever have a nightmare so profound it stuck with you forevermore? Want to share it with the class?

It's 38 degrees out there, so I'm in no rush to return to the 18th century. All I'm missing is morning service, and--oops, pagan! (Though of course, the safest place for a witch in the 18th century is in church.)

Moons figure prominently in Halloween imagery, with both full and crescent varieties in nearly equal abundance. The next full moon this year falls on November 2, so it'll look very fine and full on Halloween--the perfect backdrop for bats, witches, and owls as they take to their nocturnal flights.

Scale is never an issue in these old postcards; owls and cats stand as high as humans, witches sit in the curve of a crescent moon no larger than themselves. Perhaps supernatural beings are themselves not to (human) scale.

Have you ever seen a creature so bizarre as to seem supernatural? If so, what was it?

I'm spending my weekend in the 18th century, here. It doesn't get much curiouser than my weird, time-warped life.

A baby bat. Our local bat population has been smaller this year; I think it may have something to do with tree damage incurred both during Hurricane Ike last fall and the brutal ice storm earlier this year. It's a shame, because I love bats, and I love that they eat the bitey things that otherwise love to prey upon my tender tasty flesh (and my sweet, sweet blood). When I was a kid, on summer nights bats would skim the surface of our pool, which delighted me. My mother, not so much. And then my dad installed a big solar dome over the pool; it helped with heating the water, but that was the end of the bat flyovers. Alas!

What hides in the shadows? It's easy enough to spook yourself, this time of year. The last two weekends I've found myself upstairs alone in the dark in the Mansion, putting costumes away after the lights have already been turned off for the night. "Just turn them back on," you may say, but each floor's lights are controlled from a central panel rather than individual switches in each room; it was frankly easier just to trudge straight to my destination in the dark. I'm pleased to report that I know the place well enough now to be able to succesfully navigate it in the dark!

There was a time when I would not have done that--gone upstairs alone in the dark, I mean. I'm not the only one. The family's eldest daughter reports in her journal that she wouldn't go upstairs alone after dark, either, and that was when the house was new! (Of course, she was 10, and I am *coughcough* considerably older, but I daresay I have considerably more experience of weirdness than she had, as well.) People I know, and trust not to be liars or insane, have reported seeing things upstairs; I haven't, but I was never overly fond of the second floor (never mind the third floor), and found parts of it to be unpleasant at times--oppressive in feel and with the occasional lingering inexplicable odor. Since the restoration of the two bedrooms has begun, it has felt better up there, and whatever caused that odor has apparently been taken away. Knock wood, because now that I'm talking about it, gods only know what bristling horror might await me tonight as I innocently go about my spooking duties!

So light a candle, watch your step, and don't peer too closely into the gathering gloom unless you really want to know what lies beyond. What has been seen can never be unseen, after all!

She's got the mouse by the tail, and the kitteh seems to be voicing displeasure. Is the witch presenting the mouse to her cat, or taking it away? Is it a trick, or a treat? Often in life, it'a hard to discern the difference; and that's this morning's message.