Everyone gets stuck sometimes. Stuck in ruts, stuck in habits, stuck in circular thoughts and indecision. I’ve been stuck in summer. Stuck in short-sleeves, stuck in the house, stuck in cold drinks and sweat and flipflops. When you’re stuck in a writing rut, you can unstick yourself with goal-setting or creative prompts. When you’re stuck in a bad mood, a phone call from a friend or a cuddle with a cat can often do the trick. But when you’re stuck in summer, you don’t have many options. You watch the calendar turn, ticking away the days and weeks and milestones that mean nothing when the temperature refuses to drop. Who cares about the first day of fall if it’s still 95 degrees outside? How can you celebrate the coming of October when it wafts in like a hot breath on your neck? You put pumpkins on your porch, wear skeleton t-shirts over your shorts, and fantasize about your favorite autumn treats, but even the thought of hot chocolate makes you feel feverish. Summer in Texas is a seasonal prison sentence, and this year we were denied parole.
Until today.
Fall blew in through my open window last night, sending me snuggling under a pile of blankets and filling my house with a crispness it hasn’t felt in months. I put on jeans, slipped my feet into warm socks, and pulled a hoodie over my head before going outside to feed the animals, who were romping in the morning’s chill, kicking up their heels and savoring the sudden change. I smiled as I wrapped my hands around my coffee mug and let the steam warm my cold nose.
This is not a tease, not just another single day’s respite. I feel a shift. The wind liberated leaves from trees and detached decorations from my yard, but that’s not all it freed. The cold front loosened summer’s hold on us. We’re all coming unstuck.
Fall has arrived, finally. I welcome it with open doors and open arms.
The things that make me nostalgic for my teaching days are not always the things you might expect.
A few days ago, I woke up to find that my home had been invaded by ants. They were coming up between the wooden boards of our kitchen floor in multiple places, as well as through cracks in windowsills. We’ve had ants in our house before but never in this quantity or with this sort of initiative. These ants were organized and determined. They’d already made it into the bottom of the pantry and inside the bags of cat food and dog food. Of course, I didn’t realize this until after I’d fed the dog and the cat, thus transferring several of the ants to new locations. It wasn’t until I was feeding my dog Uno his kibble with one hand and holding my indoor cat Indie back with the other hand* that I saw the ants. At that point, they were hard to miss because they were crawling up my arms. *Note: Uno is twelve-and-a-half-years-old and sometimes decides he’d rather eat from my hand than his bowl, whereas Indie is one-year-old and will eat anything from anywhere at anytime.
I couldn’t find our ant traps, so I put the bags of kibble in the freezer to kill the ants inside them and called my mom, who lives next door and brought over some ant traps. (Mom to the rescue!) The ants ignored the traps, however, choosing instead to carry pieces of cat food to a crack in the floor where they realized the food was too big to fit through the hole and then congregated to have a meeting about it. While they were meeting, I sprayed them with some Windex that was handy. It didn’t kill them, but it made them mad, which was somewhat satisfying. Then I used toothpicks to make ramps into the ant traps to try to make it easier for the ants to get inside, but they didn’t fall for that either and just kept carrying kibble around the floor and being mad about the Windex.
Then I remembered that I hadn’t fed our half-wild fox, Finley, so I went out back with some dog kibble and fruit for her. Our outdoor cat, Meow-Man, followed me and started eating Finley’s food. She let him. I chased Meow-Man off because he is a well-fed cat who gets two meals a day, plus treats, and I suspect he is probably the reason why I found a squirrel head in my carport TWICE this week. (Yes, just the head. This isn’t the type of headcount I’m accustomed to. Either Meow-Man is killing squirrels or someone is sending me a very confusing and gross threat.) So, I guarded Finley while she ate her breakfast, then made sure Meow-Man followed me back to the house. Then I went inside, Windexed some more ants, and finally made my coffee.
As I stood there, impatiently waiting for the coffee to brew, I realized that the morning’s events had made me feel more like a 7th grade teacher than I have in a long time.
Unexpected/unpleasant surprise that disrupts the day’s plans? CHECK – ant invasion
Differentiation? CHECK – hand-feeding the dog
Borrowing supplies from a co-worker? CHECK – Mom brings ant traps
Accommodations? CHECK – toothpick ramps for ants
Discipline? CHECK – kept Meow-Man from bullying Finley
Strange messages that may or may not be threatening? CHECK – squirrel heads
Dealing with multiple crises before 8:00 a.m. without adequate caffeine? CHECK
Hats off to all my teacher friends still showing up every day for the students. You’re superheroes. I wish you a week of well-behaved animals, few ants, and absolutely no severed squirrel heads.
When I talk to people about my Spooky America books, one of the most common questions they ask is, “Have you ever seen a ghost?” The answer isn’t as easy as a simple yes or no. Have I seen, truly seen, without a doubt, a ghostly spirit? No. Have I experienced strange sensations that felt otherworldly, which I can’t definitively explain away? Yes.
For instance, I grew up with lots of creepy things in my backyard, and not all of them were my family, but I don’t have 100% proof that the shed in my backyard was really haunted. And maybe I just dreamed the ghostly encounter I had in my cabin at the Highlights Foundation in Pennsylvania, but maybe I didn’t.
The thing is, as much as I want to believe in ghosts (and do, in theory), I am also very science-minded, and I try to rule out all other possibilities before I jump to the supernatural. Which is why recent events have me a bit on edge. You see, I didn’t see a ghost, but I’m pretty sure my cat did.
On August 25th, I went to three estate sales with my husband and my dad. I didn’t buy anything, but I think I still might have brought something (or someone) home with me.
When I returned home from the shopping trip, I sat at my desk for a couple of hours working. During this time, our cat Indigo was sleeping on the couch. Then I went to take a nap, and when I woke up, my husband showed me the following video.
Some things to know before you watch…
Indie is a little over a year old. We adopted him when he was less than two months old, and he’s been an indoor cat ever since. He is the friendliest, least skittish cat I’ve ever owned. He greets strangers at the door, lets everyone pet him, and is not afraid of dogs or vacuum cleaners. Loud, unexpected noises will make his tail fuzz, but usually just for a moment. He almost never hides from anything. This is what he looks like right now:
The room in this video is my home office. It’s technically supposed to be the dining room, which is why it’s open to the kitchen. This house was built in 1930, and we have lived here a little over a year. Nothing in the room is new. The desk, chair, pillow, shoes, and rug have all been here for the cat’s entire life. Most of them I’ve owned for much longer.
Lastly, the video is over five minutes long, but Indie was acting this way for five minutes before my husband started recording and continued to act strangely for several minutes longer.
Here’s the video:
The following day, everything seemed to go back to normal. Indigo entered my office without concern, played with his toys, slept in his bed, and jumped on my desk as if nothing was wrong. However, on September 3rd, he started acting strangely again, staring at the same spot in the room, this time from all the way on the other side of the couch in our living room. The wooden chair wasn’t there anymore, and the dog was sleeping on the rug by my desk, and it was a different time of day than the last time he saw something, but his reaction was very similar. He stayed away from the room for a couple of hours, keeping an eye on it from afar.
Indie keeping an eye on the spooky spot in my office from a safe distance.
I’m trying not to let Indie’s strange behavior bother me too much. Even though it’s pretty weird. Even though I spend a lot of my time sitting right next to whatever he saw. Even though I’m sitting there right now. After all, who knows what goes through my crazy cat’s head? Our dog Uno has no concerns about my office, and my husband and I haven’t felt any uncomfortable presences. Still…
In my book The Ghostly Tales of Austin, I mention that some cultures believe spirits can follow the living home after a funeral. For this reason, they bury their deceased quickly and take an alternate path home. Maybe the next time I visit an estate sale, I’ll ignore my GPS and take the scenic route back to my house.
Speaking of my Spooky America books, I’ll be reading stories from The Ghostly Tales of Dallas at Interabang Books on Friday, September 29th at 4:00PM. Bring the family for some spooky fun! I’ll try not to let any uninvited guests tag along…
Carie Juettner 