The Haunted Hospital

I could say that I'm surprised to see that the Halloween stuff has taken over the shelves at most stores in our area - but if I did I'd be lying. I saw some at the local dollar store in July. It made my brain feel a little funny, to see the red white and blue "You're a Grand Ol' Flag" banners next to the Frankenstein Paint-a-Piggybanks.

My six year old son, Bean, has a reputation for being terrified of pretty much anything which signifies the orange and black holiday. Last year, MacG brought our daughter into the Spirit Halloween Store to look for a costume. We all went on this little trip, because we decided to visit the Bounce House Patch after - to see if they might actually have some pumpkins there. Bean refused to enter the store. I couldn't blame him: Once you walk in, every terrifying animatronic/robotic statue in existence begins to gyrate, scream, shake and moan once the motion sensors have been activated.

The boy and I sat on the curb eating a bag of chocolate from the Sees shop, next door. Peanut left the Spirit store with a big bag of bloody gauze - she planned to use it to make her own costume.

Bean wouldn't allow the gory purchase to sit on the seat between them. He requested that it be locked in the trunk. I'm going to guess that out of the two children, he will not be my future horror movie-watching buddy. There is definitely hope for Peanut.

Although the things in the store are pretty scary, the only truly frightening place that I've ever been is the hospital. Now, I don't want to sound like your old Aunt Marge, who constantly complains about her various ailments. I know that with me, eventually my thoughts always returns to my wonky back. But this time it really does have something to do with the story!

I want to tell you about my time in The Haunted Hospital.

So, my spine surgeon is a talented guy. He builds things out of titanium and plants them in your body and you're able to walk, when once you might have had a lot of trouble getting around. But, he wanted to do my most recent surgery in a hospital that was about to shut down and change hands. In fact, I was the last living patient in the entire facility.

Okay, there was one Other Guy - but his family was just waiting for the doors to close, so that they could unplug him. I'm not being funny: This was actually the case.

The surgery was scheduled to be completed by mid-morning and I was supposed to be able to leave before dinner.

Didn't happen that way.

I ended up staying for FIVE DAYS.

The place was completely deserted. There was yellow Caution tape criss-crossed over the doors of the offices and rooms that had already been cleaned and sanitized. There weren't any doctors there, except one that was under contract to watch over me and the Other Guy. My own Doctor had left the country on vacation with his family, because he hadn't expected me to be hanging out there for so long.

The hallways were always dark, except directly in front of the room in which I was enjoying my stay. The same three nurses were always somewhere nearby and two physical therapists would visit daily and make me hobble around the eerie, shadowed halls with my walker.

The only people who visited were the Other Guy's wife, my family and our pastor. Everyone always looked very uncomfortable to be paying a visit, during my time at Casa de Creepy.

The night before I was able to leave, I had to sleep in a different room - because they were scheduled to renovate my room.

In the morning, there was yellow tape over my former door. Needless to say, I was thrilled to be given my walking papers. As I walked toward the exit, I passed the Other Guy's room. His family was saying goodbye.

If that hospital wasn't haunted when I got there, it surely is now...

October 17, 1985

On Tuesday it seemed like my house was haunted. We go to the front door and you can hear the television. when I opened the door I saw a flash and it was off. We herd footsteps and someone sliding on the loose carpet in the hall so we ran out to E's house. We got to her house and I said "let me lock the door". because I left it unlocked when we ran out, so we went back and it was locked!

Sounds like someone had been reading too much Stephen King...

Whoomp There it is

Because driving around in my car listening to Raffi is about as much fun as hanging out with Yours Truly after a week without thyroid medication, I decided to liven things up a bit with a mix tape. Wait - did I actually just say "mix tape"? What decade is this? What I meant was mix CD: which is probably just as bad, because I really should have moved on to an iPod by now. Right?

Anyway, I sat down with my good friend, iTunes, and decided to begin with a theme. Themes can be dangerous - just ask MacG. I made him a mix tape many years ago (that really was a tape), because he was going on a road trip with a touring punk band. I decided the theme should be any song that had travel words in the title: street, road, etc. Ask him how hard-core he felt, when the Disneyland Electric Light Parade song came up next in the queue. I hid that little gem somewhere between "Stepping Stone" and "Fascination Street".

So my theme for this week's mix is "weird songs". I thought the kids would enjoy hearing things that were a little off-beat.

Among songs that I included are:

Dead Man's Party (Oingo Boingo)

Turning Japanese (The Vapors)

Thriller (Michael Jackson, of course)

Dig That Groove Baby (Toy Dolls)

Yeah, I already know that my list gives away my age big time.

The last song that I picked was "Tootsie Roll" by 69Boyz (and yes, I did feel like a big dorky mom, writing that title/group name just now). I found it in our iTunes library and realized that I hadn't heard it in a while. Well, it turns out that I haven't listened to it in a long while.

A very. Long. While.

Did you know that that piece of musical genius starts out with:

"Yeeeeeaaaaaaaaahhhhhh 1994..."?

NINETEEN NINETY- FOUR??? That means it was from SIXTEEN years ago! How the heck did that happen? All I remembered about it was "to the left, to the left, to the right, to the right,to the front, to the front, to the back, to the back, now slide...".

NINETEEN NINETY-FOUR.

I was probably wearing a half-shirt and jeans with a cinched waist, the last time I heard that song! I think I was past the gigantic hair/bangs phase, but surely my belt was above my belly-button. I am certain that there was a pager somewhere in that glorious ensemble - I had to be able to send MacG a pre-texting era text, to find out the"4-1-1" for that evening's plans. Maybe watching a little "Life Goes On" to see what Corky was up to, or "Beverly Hills 90210" to check in with Brenda and Brandon?

Nineteen Ninety-Four.

Whoomp - there it is...

October 10, 1985

Today we told about our parents childhood. I told that when my father was little if something was neat they'd say twitchen! The fads were wide belts and beattle cloths. and the singers that were popular were the beattles and the beach boys. also gum costed five cent's and a candy bar costed ten cents. When my mom was young fishnet stockings, go-go boots, and psycadelic was in style, and everybody had had a skateboard. The singers they would listen to were the beattles and the beach boys and Twiggi the model was in style and gum costed one cent and candy bars costed five cents. also when she was camping with grampy and uncle paul a big bull came out bhind a rock and followed them when they were walking untill they got into their car and drove away. I bet they had an interesting childhood! They had fun it sounds like. I've heard them say other things they did.