True ghost story

 The spouse and I were looking for a house to rent in ga when our friends told us a house right down from them would be vacant in a month. Their landlord who was mayor of the town told them we could have it if we wanted it. It was a nice house, built in the seventies, two bedroom two bath on a nice quiet street. I remember the first time stepping inside it, what a shock.....the walls were painted hot pink, green lavish but rotten drapes hung from the picture windows, hideous wallpaper in the kitchen, very garish. Anyways we asked the landlord if we could repaint, refurbish, remodel and he said he would be more than happy to pay for the materials. He knew that it hadn't been kept up with in several years and the last renter just left it as they found it except for a few windows they broke. After we moved in we started on the refurbishment of the house. We painted the entire interior in an off white, replaced worn out fixtures, had the original oak floors resurfaced ect ect. One day while the spouse was off at work I sat down at the computer in the den and started to look online.All of a sudden I hear what sounded like the front door slam with a bang ! I was so startled, thinking why would the spouse come home unexpectedly through a door we keep double deadbolt locked since we use the entrance in the kitchen to the carport for going in and  out...I got up walked into the living room expected to see her and no one was there and the door still dead bolted shut. I didnt know what to think, but I was sure of what I heard and couldnt account for any other outside noise comming from the neighbors. I sat back down uneasy and continued to my work online. After sitting there about 15 minutes I hear what sounds like keys clanking against one another comming from the kitchen where we had a rack hanging for keys....again I get up and head for the kitchen. No windows were open and the keys were still hanging from the rack silent. I am uneasy at this point but chalk  it up to my imagination.

The next weekend the spouse and I come home from shopping and I am putting away the groceries the spouse calls from the living room to come here. She asked me if i am playing a trick on her by turning all the pictures on the bookshelf backwards to the wall...I look and sure enough all framed pictures were facing the read of the bookcase. I assure her I did not touch them, and think for a moment that someone had been in the house playing a prank ...but we had changed out the locks  on the two doors with two key deadbolts and hadnt given anyone a key, even the landlord. We checked every window and each one was locked shut. Nothing else in the house seemed to be disturbed...thats when we both had a sickening feeling in the pit of our stomachs that something wasnt right.
That evening we sat down in the living room to watch tv...we had those external rabbit ear antennas that you sit on top of the tv. suddenly we see the antennas started to sway left and right. We for a moment though we were having an earthquake only it wasn't...the rabbit ears got rocking more and more until they fell off the tv.We thought about a  breeze but the ac was on and windows were shut. Then the spouses diploma flew off the top shelf of the bookcase onto the floor...............................................stayed tuned for the next chapter

After we witnessed before our own eyes the tv antenna and the diploma flying off the bookcase we were both scared. We didn't know what was exactly happening or what to do about it. I decided to look online for some help. I found a ton of pictures of what people were calling "ghosts or spirits" so I decided to check our own photographs of the renovations we had done in the house, sorta before and after photos.What I found shocked and scared me to my core. There big as life was a picture of the living room with the book case and this large white cloud formation with what looked like orbs within the trails of white mist, just as others had posted online as to what paranormal activity looked like.There was no mistaking this as smoke or any other anomaly....something was there.Not knowing what we could do besides move i contracted a local paranormal ghost hunting group to ask for help.I was contacted by the  group's leader and asked a few questions about the activity, and i would like the premises to be investigated. We made arrangements for the group to come to the house, and she explained what would be taken place while they were there.And not to speak openly in the house about their upcoming visit.
In the week prior to the investigation,one evening after we had gone to bed we were both awoken to murmured voices coming from what we thought was the living room.My spouse asked me if i had left the tv on and I knew I hadn't. We lay there trying to discern what was being said, too frightened to move. All I can do to describe what it sounded like is the background noise like on tv when your watching a football game, crowd noise..only whispering above it but so low its impossible to make out what is said. We lay there to what seemed an eternity till it stopped then tried to go back to sleep.The next evening after going to bed I woke up and wanted to get a drink of water. I started into the living room and saw against the kitchen door to the outside a large moving shadow on the door. At first i thought it was my cat since we leave the light on above the sink through the nite and the light was casting a shadow from the cat, then i realized the light is on the same wall as the door,plus my cat was in our bed. I froze....this dark grey cloud was moving like a mist upon the door, I went back to bed grabbing my spouses cigs off their nightstand and smoked my first mentrol cigarette..I didnt care at that point, I wasnt going any place till morning.When we both awoke my spouse asked me what on earth were their ciggarettes on my nightstand, then suddenly realized that something must have really scared me. I told them what had happened.
I went to work with my spouse the rest of the week because i did not want to be alone in the house. Then the night the investigators arrived, and I was apprehensive as to what they might uncover..................

We were anxious the evening the investigators arrived. We weren't sure what the investigation would exactly incur, although I had read some of the procedures they might take on the web from other various paranormal groups. It was a nice early fall evening, temp was about 70. First to arrive was Cheri the groups leader and another assistant. Cheri was a pleasant young woman in her thirties, very pleasant personality. She asked us if we could answer a few questions and we happily agreed. Questions were basically seeing if my spouse and I weren't on drugs or had mental condition I think, just getting a feel for who we were and if we were legit, although the questions really were about the paranormal things happening in the house but it gave her an idea of who she was dealing with. Next came three other cars with investigators carrying all kinds of equipment. We gave a simple tour of the house to Cheri, leaving on all the lights in all the rooms, showing her the pictures we had taken inside the house showing the anomoly in the living room. We were introduced to each member and they had explained the equipment they were going to use throughout the house. One set up a motion camera in the dining room ( a room we did not use that was empty of any furniture, just a crystal chandelier. One investigator had a thermal temperature gun, others cameras and EMF meters ( registering electronic surges.pluses or unusual readings) and recorders. My spouse and I decided to let them do their work and sit outside. Once everyone was done inside they came outside and went around the house in the backyard ect taking pictures.Cheri then explained to us that all the EMF readers reported normal, and that the video camera had two malfunctions which were very common with paranormal activity, which was two fully charged batterys going dead immediately but that a third one worked and they got some activity on film. She took us into our living room to show us the video. In the dining room no one was allowed to enter focusing   the camera against wall....in the video you see our cat wander in, stop, then quickly turn around and run out, then a dark mist cloud shadow moves into the frame against the wall, the chandelier begins to sway and the could moves towards the window on the side wall seeping in the crack between the frame of the window and the glass casing, disappearing into the crack, then the video shuts off.Cheri asked us how exactly we felt knowning their was some sort of presence in our home. We told her it really frightened us and we werent the type that welcomed and were comfortable with this presence.That we didn't feel as though it was a non threatening presence, even though it had posed no harm to us and we wished it would move on if that was possible. She suggested she could try "smudging" the house to encourage the spirit or entity to leave. We agreed.She explained to us that indians used this method for spirits for protection.She lit the sage stick  that was wrapped in thread and it began to smoke. She then told us to think very positive thoughts for the spirit to go into the light and she began to waft the smoke with a feather into each corner of the house. She then spread salt on the floor of each entry to the house. She then told us that she would get back to us in a week or so with the report and results of the photographs that they took. We thanked the members and Cheri for their time and professional manner which they conducted themselves. After they left we didnt know if we felt relieved or apprehensive. Did the smudging work? Time would tell............................

It was almost Halloween so the week after the investigation we decided to decorate the front yard. We made a pumpkin man sitting in a lawn chair, and we took a picture of it. Our friend Linzie came over (she knew what had been going on) and asked us if we wanted to go with her to a graveyard to take some pics. We were apprehensive but she insisted so we went.We took some disposable cameras gotten at CVS, and a tape recorder. We had read on the paranormal websites about EVP'S electronic voice phenomena, which was suppose to be voices from ghosts/spirits. We drove to outside Atlanta to a very rural area where a graveyard was that was not near any houses or buildings. We placed the tape recorder at the very corner of the cemetery on a child's grave and said "that if their are spirits here would you please try and communicate with us" and walked far from the corner to start taking pictures randomly. In about 30 minutes we went back to the corner of the cemetery to retrieve our recorder.At no time during our visit to the cemetery did we even see one car drive by , smoke any cigarettes, or make any sounds, even whispering to each other. We did not want to contaminate any findings we might have with non paranormal activity.On our way home Linzy insisted she wanted to hear the tape, she couldn't wait, so we pulled over and rewound the tape and pressed play. For about 15 minutes we only hear the static sorta white noise a mechanical tape recorder makes...only slight hissing...............then all of a sudden you hear what sounds like a trap door opening..then a man's voice screaming " Jesus, save me !!!!!!!!" then nothing...we sat there, so shocked and scared, not believing what we just heard.We looked at each other mouths agape and someone said "play it again" so we rewound it and played it one more time..we had not misunderstood what he was saying...it was clear, but if I had to describe the agony, the utter desperation I heard in his voice I couldn't...To this day thinking about it the hair stands on the back of my neck. Never have i heard literal words screamed such as that. We drove home in almost silence, with those words going round and round in our heads. We waited to hear back from Cheri and wanted her to hear the tape. I never wanted to go on a ghost hunt again.

Two days later Cheri called with the results of pictures her team had taken. She wanted to know a good time to come and show us, we told her this evening if it was convenient for her, she agreed. She hadn't told us what the pictures entailed so we were anxious to see what if any they produced. Cheri arrived alone and we sat in the living room, Cheri asking us if we had any paranormal activity since the investigation. We said no but told her about our cemetery trip and played her the recording. Cheri's reaction to what she heard was nothing short of shock. She told us in all her investigations where they used EVP'S she had never heard such a clearer voice or such depth of desperation in a voice, it left her chilled. She asked if she could take the tape and put it on a computer file and send it to a prominent paranormal EVP expert she knew . We agreed and she put the tape in her purse.She then brought out the photo's and told us to be prepared. The outside photo of our front door you see two what is called shield orbs. One on each upper corner of the door. These orbs are in the shape of like a badge or shield. Cheri explained to us that the paranormal theory is these are protection orbs. The next photo showed our roof of the house. There you see two black images crouching near the edge of the roof, very similar looking to a black hooded something. In the same photo you see the sky with black streaks pointed to the roof. Cheri said that these anomalies were thought to be very bad, meaning a evil presence. The third picture she showed us was of the backyard and one of her investigators using a thermal infrared temperature gun pointed at an orb clearly shown over the birdbath with a temperature reading of - 28 degrees Fahrenheit. No pictures taken inside the house besides the video produced any anomalies. She couldn't tell us what exactly we had but hope that the smudging worked. She then asked us we would object to her publishing the photos/investigation notes online assuring us that our location, names, ect would be protected. We agreed. We thanked her for the pictures and again all her team for their assistance. Cheri left and we sat their hoping that whatever was there wasn't anymore. But what we had witnessed, wasn't our imagination but fact, one you could feel, see and acknowledge, perhaps not understanding what or why, but knowning existed...and forever changing our beliefs. So was it really gone for good???

We decided we needed to get away from the house to re-evaluate our options if the activity resumed. We decided to take a trip up north to see my son and his family. I went next door to ask our neiighbor to keep an eye on the house while we were gone. Our neighbor Judy was an elderly retired woman but spunky, with all her wits about her. I has asked her if she knew the owners of the house we were living in before our present landlord owned it. She told me that two gay men were the original owners and bought the house new when she bought hers new in the subdivision.She said that they considered their home their castle and one of them was very flamboyant and had showed her one day inside the house. He had decorated it lavishly in very expensive drapes, garish wall paint, chandeliers, And was very proud of his landscaping that he spent hours on in the backyard. She said that Tom had died of aids, and that he had died in the driveway while his partner Dave was trying to rush him to the hospital. She knew Tom had been sick for a very long time but was shocked to see the ambulance next door. Then she said the strangest thing happened after that. Dave sold the house and moved away. Apparently our landlord that we have now purchased the house and used it as a rental. One day a young woman knocked on her door. She said she was a friend of Tom's and Dave's and wanted to know if they still lived there. She had knocked and gotten no answer.Judy explained to her that Dave had sold the house after Tom died. The woman said " that is impossible ! I just saw Tom at the Marta station standing there as my train passed!" Judy said the women turned ashen white and shaken.Judy said "you had to have been mistaken". She thanked Judy and left.
Upon returning home we got our film developed from our vacation. We had purchased those throw away cameras that you have to physically  turn the winder to advance the film on every frame. We scanned thru the photos on one roll and there was this mist again with orbs in a shot we took inside the motel room This ecto trail as they call it was very strong compared to what we had noticed in the living room picture, it was stronger, very pronounced. We also had a roll of film developed that we had taken at Halloween of our scarecrow man...there is was, in front of the front porch that white orb mist again only this time there was a shape of a heart and some other symbol we could not make out. Last roll of film showed all 12 frames of the same thing, the interior of our car, like the camera button got stuck and took 12 photos of the same thing. Now since this was a manual cheap camera that did not advance itself something had to have advanced with winder. So it appears that we had company on our vacation. Two weeks had passed since returning home and I had not noticed any activity. I remarked to my spouse what they thought about nothing happening in the house but just our vacation pictures. They gave me a funny look and I said "what?" "I hate to tell you this but every morning they've been playing with the lights, turning them on and off while I sit here with my coffee before work" they said. My heart sank.I decided then and there we were moving. THE END

existing in the margins

I found a new comic this evening..someone who I didnt know existed. Hannah Gadsby...She was on seth myers tonight and I laughed hard enough to need a new a depends...I guess she has been around for quite a few years unbeknownst to me.I miss so much without cable.Anyways I had to look her up on the internet and I came across this short little article on her show "Nannette"

THINK

There's a moment in Hannah Gadsby's new stand-up special Nanette that will stay with you long after the hour-long show. It comes just before the 20-minute mark when Gadsby reveals she's planning to quit comedy.

The Australian comic has been in the game for more than a decade, sharing her insights on the world as a tired, quiet lesbian, who is occasionally mistaken for a man. Her observations are searing, scathing and very, very funny. They are also frequently self-deprecating, which is fine when, like the majority of comedians, you're a straight, white male.

But Gadsby isn't. And neither are the people who identify with her or her comedy.

"Do you understand what self-deprecation means when it comes from somebody who already exists on the margins? It's not humility. It's humiliation. I put myself down in order to speak, in order to seek permission to speak. And I simply will not do that anymore."

It's an epiphany that has changed Gadsby's life – and will go on to affect thousands more as they share this excellent, insightful and thoroughly thought-provoking comedy special.

Stream it immediately on Netflix.

That Quote caught me off guard and really made me think...its a heavy thing to realize about yourself, how you treat yourself and how I recognized myself in it.

"....living in the margins" I can really relate to that. How often I think about my life and how little I seem to matter to anyone, anyone outside of my partner in life. No friends, not gay or straight, no family, just my animals that give me unconditional love. I  thought about the people I use  to communicate with online..for years and years some of them, them knowingly my sexuality, my sarcastic  humor (self deprecating at times)  ..and that was perhaps my wanting to be heard..wanting to be part of "them"....Its funny now because I want no part of "them"..I've learned how they talk behind your back, how they say one thing to your face and another to everyone else when your not around, mostly because I'm different..a lesbian.fear what you don't understand...I don't fit in to their group..their religion..whatever, but finally I did not need them anymore, my sense of self was enough to sustain me living in the margins, it's quiet here.

Its so complicated..

How sad to hear about all these suicides happening..but sometimes I can surely understand it in a way..I read the news and its gotten so depressing. I think to myself I might have lived too long.The changes I see,the future I predict, hard to find cheerfulness and hope in that. But taking your life, I just can't see how bad it has to be to do that.Why do we cling to life?What makes us have hope for tommorrow? What makes life worth living? There must be something that gets us though the day.I cannot fathom the desperateness of being in a place that is so devoid of hope that the only answer is taking your life.Life..its so complicated.

I've often wondered who ate the lonely turnip raw like I do.After all rarely do I run into anyone who knows what a turnip is, least alone the young checker at my local grocery store. " No, its not a beet, it's a turnip" I tell her as she looks up the number to punch in off her vegetable chart. Do these young people even know what a vegetables are I wonder ? Do they even  cook? I don't recall the first time I ate a raw turnip. I do remember my grandmother cooking them in a pot with bacon drippings and I loved them. Once my ex husband told me a story about him going AWOL in Germany and hitching a ride on a turnip truck and eating them raw...perhaps that's where I got the idea to try them that way.....so I guess the old saying has merit,"... fall off the turnip truck"....
Sometimes I get a hankering for a raw vegetable bite of some kind, usually late at nite. Its like my body is screaming " put some real healthy food that makes that crisp veggie sound !". I've tried carrots, (they always seem to taste moldy to me) , celery (those strings can really get stuck in between your teeth) plus have no flavor, and radishes (my second favorite raw veggie). But you can't beat a good turnip in my opinion. There they are, perfectly sized for your hand to clasp, not as spicy as a large radish but still retains that slight taste of a radish. Peeled or not peeled, easy to clean and definately has a satisfying crunch. What more could you ask for?