Monday, September 13, 2010

Lions and Birthdays and Ghosts...Oh My!

I commented a little bit about this last weekend on Facebook but had to share the goings on here in more detail.  I apologize for lack of portraiture as my "darling" hubby (read that as %@$!%!^!, LOL) hid my camera from me.  Well, okay, he didn't actually HIDE it from ME.  He somehow lost it in the car after I handed it to him to hold as I was driving.  So, no pictures of Tino's 10th birthday party...arggghhhh.

Anyway...I digress...and I need to back up a little bit so you can get the full impact of how exhausting this weekend truly was--exhausting but very fun, too.

It was to be the Big Birthday Weekend Extraordinaire--have I mentioned yet that we were celebrating a total of 4 birthdays on Saturday?  No?  Well, I shall now.  Yes, Tino actually turned 10 (September 9th) on Thursday but we waited to have his party until Saturday when all the family could be in attendance.  Roger's (hubs) birthday was Saturday (September 11th)...and my twin stepson's 20th birthdays are actually today (September 13th)...so we did what any certifiably crazy people would choose to do and decided to make it one big crazy day of birthdays. 

I was just finishing cleaning up my house when my daughter and her boyfriend arrived Friday afternoon for the festivities.  A couple of hours later my Mother-in-law drove in from Ojai and we barely had time to kiss her hello before dashing out to the grocery store for provisions (did I just say "dashing"?).  Thankfully Tino stayed with Grandma Rufee so Rog and I were able to get in and get out of the store in record time--arriving home around 9:30pm.  Then it was time to bake Tino's chocolate birthday cake.  I think I stumbled off to bed around 11:30 or so.  Not sure, really.  I was a bit delirious by this time.

This was the simplified version of our Saturday agenda:

9:15am  Tino's Soccer Pictures
10:40am Farmer's Market to pick up fruit, grassfed friggin awesome ground beef, and scrumptious sweet corn on the cob to go with the tri-tip BBQ going on later
11:40am Get the coach (Rog) to the soccer field late (oye) and back hatch of Mother-in-law's new car won't open...problem cuz thats where the balls are...
11:45am Hatch of car finally opens
11:50am Arrive on soccer field...it's getting hot...it's been really nice and cool for several days but Saturday it decides to get hot....look around and decide that it is going to be too hot for the older folks who are coming to see the game to sit out in the sun for the whole game...decide to go back home and pick up the umbrella stand
11:55am Leave and go pick up umbrella stand at home
12:00 Noon Arrive back at soccer field, game starts, family members start arriving and everyone is glad of the umbrella
1:15pm Soccer game ends...The Blue Torpedoes are  victorious for their first game...family and friends have all lost their voices from screaming and yelling.
1:30pm Everyone back at our house.  Time to visit and have a Fuzzy Navel before heading to Paso Bowl for Tino's birthday party
3-5pm Tino's party at Paso Bowl...7 boys, 1 niece, and a lot of family had a fun time bowling...eating pizza and chocolate cake
5:20pm  Everybody arrives back at our house for BBQ and the continuing birthday celebrations for Rog and Brett & Ryan

Oh, and around about nightfall, some of us got a crazy idea to go and check out a supposedly haunted house out on Santa Rita Road...and a hanging tree--you know just for good measure.  Santa Rita Road is quite a spooky, windy road that takes you way out into nowhere.  I mean, during the day it is a really pretty drive but at night...you feel like you are about to hear the banjo start playing right out of Deliverance--as soon as I find my camera I will have to take some pictures to show you. 

And yes, the girls got scared and we pretty much stayed in the car while the guys went and checked out the house.  But we did check out the hanging tree and you can see where the ropes left marks in one of the tree limbs high over head.

Anyway...Supposedly...the story goes...that a family with twin teenage girls lived in the house back in like 1950 or 1960 and one of the girls was messing around with her father's loaded rifle and ended up accidentally shooting her twin and killing her and then she turned the gun on herself afterward.  They say that you can still see the buckshot in the ceiling with bits of old blood and hair...and that workers had been working on the house years ago and something had scared them so bad that they left the house and left all of their tools and equipment behind and never returned.  Now, we are hearing all these tales from my daughter's boyfriend who also says that he had gone into the house a few years ago one night with friends and that he was the last one inside and that he believes that he was touched by something on his shoulder.  Now, I am not privvy to any knowledge of whether or not said boyfriend had been smoking some type of mind altering substances that night or not--he swears no, though. 

My brother-in-law, my sister and I did go back to check out the house the next day...yes, in the daylight, LOL...and managed to get in through a small window over the basement stairs.  The house is filled with old building materials but I did not see much in the way of tools--except for an old band saw on the front porch--BUT...there is a spot in the ceiling where there is either birdshot or buckshot (not sure what the difference is) embedded in it and the area looks spattered with a dark brown substance...old dried blood?...and something that looked a bit like hair?  Okay, it was dark...and it was hard to see cuz all the windows and door are boarded up...but....ya, we didn't stick around too long after that.  I did not get any bad vibes off the house--and I usually will in situations like these--and my brother-in-law who is Miwok Indian and very sensitive to vibes didn't feel anything much either.  Who knows...

And the rest of Sunday, after all the family went home, was pretty much about rest and recovery.  I miss them like crazy already, though.

And how was your weekend?  Any ghost hunting of your own?  Hope it was a great weekend for you no matter what you did.  Blessings...

1 comment:

  1. Wow, Dessa, that's a busy day: you're due for a nice Lavender bubble bath and meditation CD after that one! Happy BD to all.

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