My Ghost Story

The following is a recap of my own ghostly experience which I wrote up for a local site, HauntedHudsonValley.net. Even if you don't live in NY's Hudson Valley I still recommend checking out the site because it has some pretty interesting stuff on there.

For five years I worked part time in the gift shop at Mohonk Mountain House. Anyone who had worked there long enough had some kind of personal ghost story to tell, but I was always skeptical. But one early morning in the dead of winter changed my mind.

The hotel gets pretty quiet in the winter. Families stayed away and rooms were never sold out and the ones that were booked were usually with corporate retreats. This particular day I was working the opening shift, as I typically did. I arrived around 7:30 a.m. expecting to spend the next half hour alone preparing the store to open for the day.

The building is old, dating back to 1869 and the heat is hard to regulate. As I unlocked the doors I immediately started stripping off my winter coat and scarf, the closed up shop was unbearably hot. Before I could start my morning routine I needed a cold beverage before I started to sweat. I rounded the counter and bent down to slide open the old cooler. As I bent down to grab a bottle of water I heard a noise directly behind me.

A child giggling.

I immediately spun around, startled as I didn’t think anyone was there with me. And yet, I was more surprised to see that there was no one there.

I had worked there long enough to recognize the strange noises that the old building made. I knew the routines of my coworkers. I know that that noise was abnormal. It wasn’t a noise, it was a giggle.

Even though I know for a fact what I heard I was still skeptical. I checked under tables for the secret intruder. I checked the floors above and below the shop, the rooms were empty and locked. I finally checked the guest registry and I found what I expected. The hotel was only booked by a corporate group and there were no kids registered.

I never figured out who my ghostly giggler was. Was it someone related to the ghost who touches peoples shoulders in the parlour? The child of the woman who can be seen in mirrors. Was it the child who was rumored to be hanged in the attic? I have no idea. But I’m sure that child is still laughing somewhere in that hotel.

For My Non-Vegetarian Friends

Wouldn't you just love to celebrate the holidays with an Advent Sausage?

 

As pre Lovely Package: “The challenge was to increase the sales of Koenecke (a famous German meat and sausage producer), especially in the wintertime. As solution a special advent calendar was created that was made of a salami sausage-packaging with 24 indications to cut off a delicious slice every day.”

Life...and Death

I’ve been pretty cranky all week. Annoyed with little things at work. Nothing of real importance that should get me fired up, but mixed together they just put me in a foul mood and made me scowl at my nemesis, Chuckles McGee.

Yesterday I came back from lunch and checked my cell. I saw an old friends name pop up on my missed calls and I already knew what he would say on the message.

His mother had died.

She was a neighbor, lived four houses up the road and while P and I didn’t get to see each other as much as we should, our lives were still connected. My father does a lot of excavation work for his family so we stay connected. A few weeks ago my father had gotten the word that the doctors decided there was nothing left for them to do for P’s mother’s breast cancer.

My cranky mood instantly changed with the new perspective. The simple frustrations of a lack of communication in the company and annoyances of people not trusting my opinions were nothing in comparison to what P is dealing with right now.

I spent my hour commute last night and this morning reminiscing about P and his mother. We were great friends through school, living only four houses away from each other.

Riding on the pedals of my bike down his dirt, pot-holed driveway.

Playing Manhunt between the trees on their Christmas tree farm.

Getting my mother’s car stuck in the driveway of another neighbor and drinking hot chocolate at their kitchen table while all the boys tried to get it out of the snow, while still wearing their ice skates.

Dying my hair with kool-aid in their bathroom sink. (I wonder if she would have given me the hot chocolate if she knew I was the one who probably stained everything in her master bathroom with my kool-aid)

Practically breaking my tail bone on the back of their quad.

Getting as drunk as a skunk for the first time at P’s bonfire party.

I don’t really have a conclusion to this post. The words are failing me right now. Hopefully I will find something before I see her family at the funeral. I guess just a simple “she will be missed” is really all there is to say.

When Headaches Attack

I have a headache.

I've had this headache for about a week now.

Off and on. Low and dull and achy.

Somehow with all the crazy things I did last week I ended up drinking five days in a row (hells yes, momma's still got it...alcoholism that is) so I just figured this headache was something stupid like dehydration.

I was just starting to get a little concerned about it yesterday. This is just the thing you hear about from people who just drop dead at the age of thirty. "oh, she had a little headache for a while, but you know, it was just stress or something" and then they open her up in the autopsy and find a tumor the size of a watermelon in her brain.

I did a quick little diagnosis on WebMD because that is what us hypochondriacs do. It was either anemia or a brain worm. Awesome. I took some Advil and forgot about it.

A few hours later the Advil wore off and there it was again. A low, dull ache, right up in my forehead. You know, my forehead, exactly where I got a mosquito bite...about a week ago.

So don't be alarmed. I am not dying of a tumor or a brain worm. Just the mosquito bite that has apparently been pushing hard enough on my skull to cause me pain!

I am the coolest!

Rockin The Bowling Alley

So far this week has been kind of crazy and not only because I’ve been busy pretty much every evening, leaving me exhausted and maybe hungover (I swear it was only three beers, it should not have given me a headache)? But all this busyness has been out of the ordinary activities.

Tuesday evening my entire family hit up a local baseball game. My parents go all the time but I only go about once a year. We never actually watch the game, more often we just participate in the hype that the announcer tries to get out of the audience and all the good/ crappy food. But it is a fun time and there are beers, delivered to you. Perhaps it was the lack of movement that contributed to my hangover.

But yesterday was the strangest of all. I went to a concert, by a nationally known band…in a bowling alley. My favorite radio station was hosting a charity bowl-a-thon and got good friends The Sick Puppies to come and help entice people to come by playing an acoustic show.

They were completely awesome. So many bands can not hold up to the hype when they play live, but The Sick Puppies have real talent, and were even good in the acoustics of a bowling alley. While the skill was certainly there, the good angry rock song, You’re Going Down didn’t quite have the same angst in acoustic.

It was strange to see the rocker persona and style backdropped by neon colored walls and carpeting. You can see for yourself.



And don’t you worry, that “female” in the red shirt with the very husky scream…yeah we made fun of her the entire time. I swear that is really a boy.


Tonight I’m going to a bra fitting party. I think it’s like a Tupperware party, but for bras, so that should make for a good post tomorrow as well! Don’t you worry, if there is entertainment there will be a post.

P.S. We don't really need to talk about my lack of bowling skills. My best game was a 104 followed by a 64. Sad.

I don't care what his profile said, there is now way he was 5'8".