Preemptive Spooky

What part of a line of zombie cats says “jolly”? Maybe it was a hurry-up-I-want-to-go-home cut and paste from a Christmas card by the artist. The cats sort of look like morphed demented elves. Squint: stockings in hand rather than pumpkins… (USPD/Commons.wikimedia.org)

Horror beyond belief. Torment undeniable. (So I have been told…firmly…followed by “I saw those eye rolls!”)

The dark, chilly winds rattling the loose wind turbines on the neighbor’s roof add to the shivers.

Although Staff feels inappropriate table linens under RC Cat’s meals fails to criteria of terror.

Seriously. It’s a paper towel. So it’s not folded exactly into a plateau flat, perfect six inch square. You managed to survive “living primitively rough” (HRH’s words) for a few days. No, it is not a stain on the Realm’s reputation…maybe a cat food stain on the ledge… (Sigh)

Hey, Staff is not going to look kindly on retaliation. The liter box, sorry, the “facilities” (can’t slip into uncouth language of the Lesser Creatures), is right where it’s always been – and you darn well know it is. Sigh.

Nope. Not gonna happen. There is a limit. (Hopefulromntic21)/ Commonswikimedia.org)

Into every world a little weird must intrude.

Ever live near an ancient graveyard or positive you felt the touch of an ancient relative long gone?

People call those more observant, more aware, more open – or snickering: “sensitive” with an over-active imagination, a creative soul – or just silly and foolish. But those who know, quietly know (yet rarely tell.)

But as the curtains are drawn, fires lit, and lights fight the short days and long nights, time seems right for a few spooky stories you may have missed.

“Ah, yes, Hansel. I think this one is just plump enough.” Think of original fairy tale versions as “controlled scares” like “controlled prairie burns”: rattled nerves, sweaty scared, but growing strong afterwards. (USPD//Commons.wikimedia.org)

“Beside her”. (2012.) “A light touch. Or was it? Had she been sleeping?…” (O. Henry would be proud.)

“Dark and stormy night.(More than two sentences)”  (2013) “It was a dark and stormy night.(She always thought Snoopy as a writer was underrated.) No way they could force her out now. Not with this downpour. They know she’d fight the only way she could: dead weight…”

“Rocky end. Interrupted” (2014) The beginning is a rough draft of a story/novel being written at the time, but then it unsettlingly rolls into something else…

“Dark, stormy, and spooky, Mommy!” (2015. OK. Here’s the graveyard one.) “Again. Standing at the back door. Completely dressed. Neatly. She couldn’t have managed all those buttons herself. What’s with that child?…”

“Life on the way out” (2016) “People are always stopping by on their way out. If you’ve grown up around really old people, you know they do what they want…”

“Gentleman mist missed”  (2017) “Dogs can tell whether the one in front of them is OK or not…”

I relish the end of October. The brisk and chill do energize as well as stir fright.

How many days until Christmas? (Serious fright. Now available for purchase: inflatable yard decoration of Cousin Eddie’s RV from National Lampoon Christmas Vacation show…)

And then there’s some of our fine elected state legislators once again using “Do it for the Children” as an attempt to slip in some real horror: a state income tax. Nope. (Story here) We know that trick. Last time it was “Hey, we’ve got to have a state lottery – to fund the schools! “Do it for the children!”…Years ago. Sadly/oddly the majority of Lottery money went into to the state’s General Fund – and once it’s in there, it’s gone faster than a rattlesnake’s bite – and not where it was supposed to go. So no.

Happy to scare up votes FOR Proposition 5 to amend the Texas constitution in order to provide dedicated funding for state and local parks and historic site because it means ALL of the money from existing taxes on sale of any sporting goods automatically goes directly to parks and historic site…not into the state’s General Fund where the revenues are currently disappearing into everyplace except where it was meant to go. (Grrrrrr. Insert angry werewolf face here.)

Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice…

Doesn’t get much scarier than that.

Phil, the Philosopher Mouse of the Hedge

Once again, odd. An early attempt to merge holidays: Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and Trick or Treat. (1910 greeting card/(USPD/Commons.wikimedia.org)

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