My parent’s ghost, Sue at the grounds of their 1886 Civil War battlesite home in VA.
Lately, I’ve been doing a fair amount of ghost-hunting. Most of it an occupational bonus, with my day job of historic renovations.
Yes, I’m serious. If you are a non-believer or already think I’m full of shit, I get it. There are websites for you and mine won’t be one of them. You are a left brain sort and you loved organic chemistry, excelled on the debate team, and currently work as a scientist at the CDC. And we need you. We do. You have gravitas.
And listen to me. It’s just a fact that I should have Dengue Fever, since the mosquitos find me to be a succulent human mojito with a type O positive blood. **Note to Scientists: the Universal Donor is a siren song to the hungry vampire/insect.
I may not have run “tests” on this theory about Type O blood, but it just makes sense. If my blood type goes with everyone else’s, doesn’t it mean that it would appeal to a larger contingent of blood suckers? Because I can be standing about, in a crowd of shorts-wearing people and all of them go unmolested, while I’m being noshed on by a swarm of thirsty mosquitos. And my skin is that olive color, thanks to my Italian mother. If not for my clearly delicious blood type, it would make more sense that the whiter, pastier people would get attention.
Of course, I will happily confess that I’ve never been attacked by a vampire bat.
I stood there for awhile trying to get a ghost-free photo for the portfolio. The client says that its the ghost of a cat.
But back to ghosts. I just love the concept of the deceased unrest.
Not that I wish that on anyone, particularly myself or my beloved peeps. Just sometimes, I wish I was one of those people that see dead people and have that fined-tuned crazy-scary sixth sense.
And now I’m likely talking total ffin’ smack.
Because I’m tucked into my soft red blanket, gas logs roaring their warmth into the room, ambient lighting glowing, flatulent beagle curled against my leg, nice red zin (from the deliciousness that is known as the Lodi Valley) poured into a vintage wine glass (with a cobalt stem and a gilded rim).
Let’s just say I’m comfy. And relaxed. And enjoying my surroundings
So, while I love the story and intrigue of the beyond, if some spooky dude-spirit strolled by my loveseat wearing a stovepipe hat, I would pee myself, soiling my soft red blanket and cuddle-beagle.
Also, Kate, my partner, gets sleepy early and has gone to bed, so I am alone (exception: beagle and sleepy house cats). Alone with ghosts=scary (which is a notch above spooky). And everyone knows that there is strength in numbers….
Except the Unabomber. But this is not his story.
This is the kitchen with the inexplicable teal mist in Grant Park, ATL.
But I own this renovation company and I’m the sole proprietor (or soul as the case sometimes is). And I take pictures. Lots and lots of pictures. Mainly in dusty spaces. Mainly with poor lighting. And the vast majority of my pictures are normal and just show rooms in various states of dishevelment and destruction/renovation.
But, occasionally, there are oddities, abnormalities. And apparently, I’m open to those–which does set me apart. I think it means I see with a certain weirdness, which may not be labeled psychic or sensitive, but maybe a little bit more open than the average lab rat. Maybe I’m closer to childlike, which explains why I can’t open bottles or cabinet latches.
I submit as evidence: last week, my subcontractor Glenn shows up at my house to get his check. He has an iPad and opens it to show me the finish pictures of this lovely kitchen that we remodeled in Grant Park. As he’s flipping through the shots, I notice a teal-tinged mist streaking through the middle of the shot. It’s big. It’s obvious. It’s rainbow- hued Casper, y’all.
I say casually, “Ahh, we have a ghost.” I frequently risk my professionalism with this sort of statement because I notice this shit. And my filter has some problems.
Glenn literally jumps back, like a foot.
“Why. Would. You. Say. That?” he stammers.
Not the reaction that I expected, which was more like smirky, superior, I knew you were off/batshit crazy type of look.
“Because of the large misty- teal streak down the middle of the kitchen,” I said. I pointed to it on the screen and he admits that he never noticed it. He’s clearly needs eyewear.
I flipped to the next image and there was a foggy purple haze with the outline of a human head in the middle. Casually, I pointed this out and asked him what that is?
This is the point when he comes clean.
His girlfriend, Christine, claims to be sensitive, but he’s never really bought into her talent. But, just this day, he has taken her into the dark, dank basement of this job (why, for the Love of Mike? I never got to the bottom of that, so to speak). It’s not a pleasant arena.
It’s filled with terrifying cricket spiders (one jumped at my face, making me scream like a tiny infant boy facing circumcision), wood mold and fungi, dank damp red clay, flattened, decomposing rat pancakes returning to the earth near the heating unit, and sodden wood. Christine walked into this hellish earthen basement and laughed a genuine laugh.
Ghost hunting in Savannah, this huge opaque mist manifested in the area where three women were murdered in 1905.
And he was so shocked that there was something funny to be had, he whipped around.
“There’s a funny older black lady that lives down here.” She said as if he’d asked.
“No one lives down here.” Glenn said. He spent enough time fixing rotted beams and leaking plumbing. He knew he was alone.
“’Live’ was a bad choice of words.” She replied.
“Huh?”
“She’s not living anymore, but she’s down here and she loves what you’re doing to the house. She’s so funny…she just touched me on the back.”
Glenn didn’t believe her. And until I showed him the strange photos, he was humoring his girlfriend.
