Mysterious and spooky

Here's the obligatory Halloween-inspired post. I don't handle the supernatural well. Some people tend to have more paranormal experiences than others and thank goodness I'm not one of them. If anything truly, truly creepy ever happened to me personally, I'd just lose my mind. Like I'd spend the rest of my life in the fetal position with my fingers in my ears if I ever saw an apparition. I'm not saying I believe in ghosts...okay yes I am saying that. And I once quit a high school job at a diner because the building was haunted.

The worst I ever personally experienced were lights inexplicably turning on and off and a hair-raising sensation of being watched those on awful nights when I had to stay late to close up. Others swore they regularly heard the bins of dishes being shaken in the back room when there was no one else in the building. One day a customer even asked how we were dealing with "the ghost" - she had been a waitress there many years before, back when it was "Heidi's" instead of "B'Sghettis" (worst name ever!! No wonder that ghost hated us!) But the final straw for me was when Lianna and our boss were sitting at the take-out counter when suddenly the swinging kitchen door directly next to them flew open as though it had been kicked in from the other side. It hit the wall, rebounded, then eventually swung to a stop. No big deal, just someone playing a trick on them right? WRONG. They had been closing out the cash register - a task completed only once the building had been cleared out and locked. CHILLS! I quit the next day.

And a more recent scary story. This just happened. Jon and I were watching TV at night when we spotted a HUGE black spider up on our ceiling, out of reach. Nothing that a squirt of Bop to the face couldn't have handled, but no. Jon wanted to slingshot it to death with frozen marshmallows. I would have nothing to do with large falling spiders so I retreated to the bedroom. But by the time Jon had returned from the freezer with his ammunition, the SPIDER WAS GONE. And he never located it. I haven't slept since.

Happy Halloween!

out and about

Busy Saturday! We had planned to go snorkeling off Crook’s Castle but woke up to choppy water and cloudy skies, so we walked to the Botanical Garden instead.

On our way back, we decided to investigate an unmarked intersecting road. Turns out it led to the old English Quarter Plantation ruins (which I’d heard about, but never seen).

(For any history nerds out there)

A total dump, to be honest. The archway is cool but the rest has all been reduced to a couple of crumbled stone walls surrounded by vines and pigs.

That baby chick got eaten, guaranteed.

We took a video of the actual feeding of the fruit leather, but I wimped out at the last moment and just ended up tossing it into the food trough. Therefore the movie is pretty boring and only proves that pigs A) don’t have great eyesight, B) don’t understand the human gesture of pointing, and C) WILL indeed eat plastic wrappers when given the chance.

As we left, the pig reared up on the fence again for a moment and I thought the visual of a huge pig head with the ocean backdrop was hilarious, so I convinced Jon to go back and coax it back up with another fruit leather so I could get a good shot of it. An ill-conceived plan. I did get the photo…

...but then two things happened in quick succession. First, Jon accidentally dropped the fruit leather, which adhered to the poor thing’s back. Second , a disturbed loose pig came squealing after us and we got the eff out of there. It still makes me a little sad to think of that poor hungry pig with food stuck to its back (especially because pigs are supposedly smarter than dogs), but then I remember how close I was to being eaten alive by its baby and I feel a little better about the whole thing.

For Kellie :)

Jon's favorite car on the island.

He pronounces it "Damn-ass" (of course).

Then that evening we went to a school function at the park. (The walk there plus our walk earlier put us over SEVEN MILES for the day. Yay for legs!)

Pearl, Lianna, lizard.

Photo of the week.

kthxbai

Mrs. Krabappel and Principal Skinner were in the closet making babies and I saw one of the babies and then the baby looked at me.

Snorkel date! Jon and I took our gear to the beach (or should I say ‘to the rocks’) on Tuesday after his classes.

Silly ray! You can't hide from me!

And YOU aren't even trying. Dummy.

Sand dollar - too far down to dive for it :(

See the flounder?

NOW can you see it??

Okay best snorkel event ever! This entire next paragraph is going to sound like I’m just making stuff up as I go, but I promise it actually happened:

On our way back to the beach, we spotted a sharptail eel poking around the same partially-buried ray from before. Then there was a skirmish and THE RAY ATE THE EEL. And THEN it spat it out! AND THEN a big fish swam past and the EEL (understandably pissed off) struck at the fish like a cobra!!

Here’s the eel. This photo was taken after the commotion. In hindsight we should have been videoing the whole thing.

One last story, unrelated to snorkeling. Two days ago I flagged down a local guy and asked for a ride – there was a scary-looking pit bull on the road ahead and I don’t take my chances with dogs ever since Jon got bit. Anyway, he cleared me a spot on the front seat and as I climbed in I noticed a feathered wing on the floor coming from under the seat, and the cab was filled with the unmistakable odor of dead bird. I know all about dead bird smell – my dad’s a hunter. Anyway, that was my adventure for the day. I saw him the next morning, too, mowing grass on the side of the road, and when I said hello he replied, “You didn’t meet any dogs today?” then busted up laughing, grinning a jagged-toothed grin, so pleased with himself.

Oh, one more thing. After (too) much thought, I decided to enter the picture of the killy killy bird in the photo contest. I had it narrowed down to the picture of Jon jumping at Zeelandia, the sunset at the pier, the bird, and the fisherman. Then I decided that locals probably wouldn't respond well to a picture of someone playing in the water at Zeelandia (strong undertow keeps most people away). Then I realized I wanted to enter a picture with lots of color, so that eliminated the sunset at the pier. Then I had a REALLY hard time deciding between the last two, but finally picked the kestrel because it was taken with my nicer camera and was a better quality photo. I had a hard time pulling the trigger, though, because it only got a couple of votes in the poll.

kthxbai

Get your vote on

The local phone company is running a photo contest with "great prizes" for the winners! (I found out yesterday the prize is the resulting calendar for FREE and/or a discount on internet service. Yippee! Who needs a great prize anyway?? Not me!)

I can only submit one, so obviously I need your help. Please review the following pictures, then vote for your favorite on the poll. Click on any picture to view it full-size.

The contest ends in just a couple of days so timely voting is appreciated. Just because I procrastinated doesn't mean you should! Do as I say, not as I do.

Thank you thank you!

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She's going pro.

I borrowed these pictures from Lianna...she took them all except the first one (duh). They span the past five months and successfully sum up our time together so far.

Thanks for letting me post them!

Fun at Whitewall

(She won.)

Making 'sandballs'

Editing by me. Turns out I've had Photoshop Elements this whole time and haven't been using it. UNTIL NOW. So that's my eye at the beach. You can see the ocean and sky in the reflection. See? See??

Pearl's 2nd Birthday Beach Bash.

Dancing the way to Ocean View Terrace (if this was a video you could hear the steel drum band. But it isn't).

Me snorkeling

Sand massage

Maybe my favorite picture EVER

Second to this one