Journal

Here There Be Tigers

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Home Turf

Name five things in your house that make it a home.

So are these five things that make my house a home material, spiritual are they those  little Anubis Knick Knacks I picked up all over the place when I was learning to be an embalmer?

Are they memoires? Dreams? Hope? Nightmares?

The First thing that makes my house feel like a home is the lack of mirrors.

I would have to learn three other languages just so that I could fully express to you how much I hate mirrors.  I hate their coldness, their lifelessness, I hate they way they hang there and though they don’t judge you, they make it oh so very easy to judge yourself.

Mirrors are demons.

And these demons are  not entertaining  and funny ones that are on shows like Supernatural or The Kardashians

My three black cats and my dog.

Hamish, my dog and Kolchak and Darwin and Micey are my cats.

I’ve always had a dog and cats, when I was living on my own and had no dog and no cats my house was empty and scary and I only showed up there to sleep.

And that was not easy to do for a couple of reasons.

My Grandma told me cats could see and protect you from bad spirits and angry ghosts. I used to suffer from sleep paralysis and it was worse when I didn’t have cats

I have cats, no sleep paralysis.

Problem solved.

As for the dog- well, they’re there to watch over the home. I always felt vulnerable with no dog in the house.

All of my dogs have been sweet and loyal and smart and  they’ve had big freaking teeth.

Just FYI.

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My Herb Garden

I used to have an herb garden.

I tended it everyday with my cat Wolfgang.

He enjoyed walking through the plants, he loved to chew on the cilantro and mint leaves, so he always smelled like a pizza.

It was OUR herb garden and it was an important part of our home.

And then Wolfie died and most of the garden went wild and I don’t have the heart to make it what it once  was, so I let it be what it is and that’s okay.

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The Ghosts

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Call them memories or reflections, but my house is full of ghosts.

I’ve lost a lot of friends and family members to death.

I’m not saying they walk my hallways and hide under the bed or stand in shadow choked corners ( it surprises me more that they do not ) but their presence is there.

I can feel it, sometimes I catch a wiff of perfume or a drink and I know they’re there.

Sometimes my cats and my one year old Lab Hamish refuse to sleep where Domino and Cerbie used to sleep. They’ll start to and then they’ll jump up like somebody just poked them with a pin and they’ll tear out of the room,  on other days they’re fine.

But these ‘ghosts’ are part of my home too and it would be less of a home without them.

So those are the things that make my house a home:

Memories, security, stories, people who have been there and have either moved on and some ( both living and dead apparently) come back sometimes for a visit.

My Home.

It is so much more then lumber, wires and stuff.

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Enduring Bones

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roots

A Storm Knocked This Tree Over, And A Skeleton Was Found Hanging From The Roots…. ( Full Story HERE )

We had a storm here in Washington state a couple of months ago.

All we got was no electricity for a couple of days, downed power lines, some downed trees  and all the food in my freezer went bad.

No skeletons in tree roots.

Rats.

Nan’s Picture

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Mouth Drop

In exactly 100 words creatively describe one moment when your mouth dropped open, chin hit the ground, and tears rolled down your face (figuratively or not). If you prefer to develop this into a longer post, that’s fine too!

When me and my husband and our kids moved back to Mountlake Terrace, I  only had two ‘valuable’ things to move.

One was my cat Wolfgang- and the other was a picture that used to belong to my Great Grandmother Nan.

Nan was a force of nature in our family- she was tall, red headed I’d seen her make grown men cry- and not in a good way.

I thought she was grand and one of my goals in life was to look like her when I grew up. Of course, that wasn’t going to happen but she and my Grandpa Bert ( her son ) would swear up and down that I looked like her.

The print was very old and the frame was delicate and I loved it. I hung it above the sideboard I’d inherited from her.

I packed it ( the picture, not Wolfie, I bought Wolfie a dog crate  that was designed to withstand blah, blah blah it was EXPENSIVE) and a special little crate for the picture.

When we got to Terrace we unpack the picture and it’s smashed to smithereens.

I was beyond angry.

I trashed it myself.

A few months later it was the end of Summer and we were pulling things out of our storage room for our Labor Day picnic- croquet set, babarque  stuff, pirate flag.

I was NOT looking forward to having my Dad and Grandmother noticing the picture was gone and having to explain how something that had been in our family for so long was gone and having to tell them it was pulverized and in a land fill now.

All  of the sudden two of my sons are not just calling me from the storage room,  they sound panicked.

Spider I figured.

I go into the storage room and the boys are pointing in a corner and I figure spider but instead  of a spider.

There it is.

Nan’s picture.

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Nan was a force of nature, like I said.

I picked the picture up without blinking an eye, hung it above the sideboard where it is to this day  and my husband and sons have spent years ignoring it.

I don’t ignore it.

Ever.