Early in my career, I moved from California to Illinois.  I soon realized that I needed an MBA to advance in this market.  I enrolled in Loyola University.  Two years later I had my diploma in hand.  My coworkers decorated my office with streamers, balloons and a banner that said ‘Congratulations!’  That day, my boss, Roger, walked into my office.  He looked around and asked if it was my birthday.  I said no, I just received my MBA.  He said, ‘You got your MBA?!’ I said, ‘Yes, you’ve been signing my tuition reimbursement papers for two years!’  He congratulated me and continued to discuss the reason he had come into my office in the first place.  When we were finished, he got up and walked out, throwing his head to the side and saying ‘Happy Birthday!’

It’s not like he had a lot of direct reports, maybe five or six others.  He had literally been signing my paperwork for the program for two years.  Months later he told me he had come home late from a business trip.  He walked into his house and when he closed the door there was an echo.  He turned on the light and the entire contents of the house were gone.  That included his wife and children.  As he’s telling me the story, I was reminded of my Happy Birthday experience with him and really could feel no sympathy whatsoever.

There were other instances at that company that fall under the same category (callousness, lack of empathy, narcissism).  When I first started, I was in a meeting discussing bids that I had received for a project.  I wanted to go with the middle one because I felt the quality would be better overall.  One of Roger’s colleagues incredulously said, ‘You are obviously not Jewish!’  Some one had to explain to me later what that meant.

And one more story from that chapter of my life.  We were a subsidiary of another company.  The President and his entourage were coming to tour our facility.  The week prior to the visit, the place was humming with vendors bringing in rented plants, painting the hallways and bathrooms, etc.  The carefully orchestrated preparedness had the facility looking bright and shiny.  After the visit, vendors came back to take away the plants and other décor.  It was at this time that I realized they had painted only the areas that the visitors would see.  The women’s bathroom remained untouched.

Ok, one more story.  I was organizing a trip as an incentive to our sales team.  The event would be held in Nassau, Bahamas.  I had much of the planning completed when I got a call from the corporate president’s office stating that they had a yacht in Nassau and would like for us to use it for one of the parties.  It was irritating that they would force me to do this given that much of the planning had already been done.  With one of my vendors, we flew out to Nassau for a final site inspection.  I needed to see the yacht to figure out how to incorporate it into the event schedule.  At the harbor, I couldn’t find it.  The slip was empty.  I went to the harbormaster and was told that it had burned down several months earlier.  Can you imagine?  The corporation was big enough that the people forcing me to have an event there, didn’t even know.  What if I hadn’t done a site inspection? 

After three years in Chicagoland  I decided I wanted to move back to California.  Just before the move, I received a call from a headhunter for a position in the City.  I interviewed for it and narrowly didn’t get the job.  So, I called the moving company and with my future husband and two dogs in tow, headed west.  About a month after I was back I got a call from the same headhunter.  The company I had interviewed with wanted me to come back and do the marketing for their international side.  It would require a lot of travel overseas.  They would pay to move me back to Chicago.  I spent a sleepless night debating.  I had just got back to California, I didn’t like Illinois in general (there were a lot of people like Roger there) and I was somewhat sick of travelling.  The only thing tempting was the international travel, I hadn’t done very much of that yet.  Alas, California won over international travel and here I still am.
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Roger that.  Over and out.

My husband’s job had been very stressful ever since the world stopped spinning in March 2020.   Being a work-a-holic, he had accumulated too much unused vacation hours and was forced to take time off.  He asked me to find a place that was secluded and somewhat nearby so that he could just relax.  I scoured the internet and found the perfect spot.

A school bus that had been converted into a small house.  Complete with bed, table, kitchen and shelving.  It was located on 20 acres on a plateau near the top of a mountain in the Sierra Nevada Mountain Range.    I presented him with my exquisite find and he was reluctant.  Where was the toilet, where was the shower, he asked.  Both were  on other parts of the property, along with a trampoline-type apparatus to lay on and star gaze, 3 hammocks, a swing wide enough for two, a yoga perch complete with a bowl that made mystical sounds when you swirled a ladle thing around the rim, and a campfire area.  Time was running out and he hesitantly agreed.

The 1 ½ hour drive up was uneventful until we got to the dirt road.   Deep potholes peppered the one lane road (actually, it was more like a path) that hugged the edge of the mountain.  Our SUV did fine, we were glad we hadn’t brought our smaller car.   We were also glad that we hadn’t met another vehicle coming down.  The directions included ‘veer left at the fork, after you pass the stream’ and ‘turn left at the sunflower sign, if you pass the abandoned house, you’ve gone too far.’  Rounding the final bend, we saw our Magic School Bus.  Adorable.  It was the perfect place to relax for a few days.  Like children, we explored the property and the amenities, deciding to sit on the swing and look out at the mountain range and cities below us before unloading the car.   The owners had made it very clear that they were stranded in Europe and had no idea what shape the property was in.    Being seasoned campers, we were undaunted by their warnings.  I was feeling smug at my amazing find.  We ate, built a campfire and watched day turn into night with tiny twinkling lights emitting from the cities and stars sparkling from the sky.

When we decided to sleep, we doused the fire and turned off the Christmas lights that were strung on the outside of the bus.   As soon as we turned off the inside lights, we began to hear rustling sounds.  We fumbled around for our flashlights and turned them on.  Nothing.  We turned them off and laid our heads back on the pillows.  Again, rustling.  Faster this time, we turned on our flashlights and caught a glimpse of a rodent.  We thought it was an adolescent rat based on its size.    We got up and moved all of our exposed food to the SUV or ice chest.  We got back into bed and turned off all the lights.  Again, sounds, but now closer.  When the flashlight went on, the rodent froze as if we wouldn’t see him if he didn’t move.    I declared that he would leave once he couldn’t find any more food.  I turned on my side and fell asleep almost immediately.  My husband stayed up until 5 am battling the beast.  It never left, never gave up and tormented my husband all night. 

The next morning, we drove into the nearest town and bought mouse and rat traps.  In all my years, I’ve never camped without traps, yet for some reason, it didn’t even occur to me to bring them this time.    We set them with peanut butter and strategically placed them in the bus.  That night, we built a campfire and expectantly waited to hear the traps snap.  Later, I went in to inspect, assuming they had snapped and we hadn’t heard them.  I was irritated that the devil beast had eaten the bait on all the traps without setting them off.  My engineer husband took over the operation and reset the traps with bacon tied to the traps with dental floss.    We went to bed, turning off all the lights.  We could hear the rustling, but no snaps.  Late into the night we decided to pack up and go home.  We weren’t going to spend another sleepless night (at least for my husband, I had no problem sleeping with a rodent nearby) in the bus.  We were just about to get up and pack when we heard the snap.  We immediately turned on the light and the very large mouse had the steel bar of the trap firmly across its neck.  He was looking at us with surprised eyes and his long tail was straight up.   I grabbed my phone and began taking pictures of him.  When we were sure he was dead, we took him outside, still in the trap.  We left the remaining traps where they were and turned off the lights.  Snap!  Another mouse was caught.  This one was normal size and a different color.  We took him outside as well.  Then, finally, we were able to sleep the remainder of the night and subsequent nights.
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This entire psycho mouse experience reminded me of another camping experience from a few years back.  As I’ve said, I always bring traps.  We were in a cabin and I had set the traps in the kitchen.  When the lights were turned off, the traps started snapping.  Before we left for home, we had killed several mice.  Because they had been so prevalent that year, I took the traps to campers who had just arrived.  They were very young and I was sure they were inexperienced.  I told them about the mouse problem and offered my traps to them.  The woman incredulously stated, ‘I would rather the mice ate all my food than kill one of them.’   I smiled and said, ‘Enjoy your trip.’  On the morning of our last day with the Magic School Bus, I thought about that exchange and wondered if she had been remorseful about turning down the trap offer.    For the second time, I felt a bit smug.

When I was told that I would be spending an entire month in Virginia, I had a meltdown.  Afterall, it was going to be in July, and this would turn my vibrant social life into a nothing life.  I sulked, argued, begged, attempted negotiations, anything I could think of to get out of having my summer ruined.  My parents wouldn’t budge.  It was 1976 and the nation was planning a big celebration for our bicentennial.  My Uncle lived in Virginia and was stationed at the Pentagon.  It would be a perfect base camp for us.  The day we left I wasn’t speaking to them.  When we landed at the Dulles International Airport, we discovered that the super-sonic Concorde would be landing soon.  My mother found a great spot to watch it and signaled for me to join her.  I refused.  I sat away from the crowd arms and legs crossed with a scowl on my face.  My mother ignored my silent protest and continued to beckon to me until it was less embarrassing to just go stand by her than to be part of the scene she was creating on my behalf.  Not going to lie, it was pretty cool seeing it land, although I don’t think to this day I’ve ever admitted that to her.

On July 3, 1976 we drove into Washington DC for the Constitution Avenue Parade.   It was amazing. Vice President Rockefeller started off the procession of famous people such as Johnny Cash and Telly Savalas.  I find it funny now that the person who stands out the most in my parade memory is Kentucky Fried Chicken Founder Colonel Sanders.  There were an estimated 500,000 parade viewers on hand for the Capital’s Bicentennial Parade which included 50 bands and 90 marching units.   It was the largest crowd in Washington history besting previous record holders Gen Douglas MacArthur’s return home, President Kennedy’s funeral and a Vietnam demonstration. 

The parade had been carefully thought out.  First up was the Drum & Bugle Corps dressed in redcoats.  Historic depictions followed highlighting America’s varied past and multi-cultural influences.  There were Navajo code-talkers (which were used in World War 2 for coded messages), Latin musicians, German dancers, Koreans in stovepipe hats, Chinese jostling dragons, Scottish pipers, Dutch dancers in wooden shoes and the list goes on.

On July 4, 1976 from the Capitol steps, we watched the fireworks at the end of the National Mall over the Washington Monument.  One of the top three fireworks displays I’ve ever seen.   What I remember most about that day is trying to find a parking place.  My Uncle had a Cadillac and we circled and circled looking for a place to park.  He finally spotted what must have been the only space left in the entire city.  It was too small for his car, but he was undaunted.  He whipped that car into that spot as if there was plenty of room.   Of course, he is a pilot who lands jets on Navy aircraft carriers in the dark, so why were we all surprised.  I’m still impressed to this day.
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We had many, many experiences on the Eastern Seaboard that summer.  It truly was a trip of a lifetime that can never be replicated.   So, I will grudgingly thank my parents now for dragging me across the country kicking and screaming with the intent of making their lives miserable.  It would have been so much easier just to leave me at home to bask in the sun and enjoy my friends.   Thank you, Parents, and Happy 244th Birthday, America!

We have two families that we share our home with.  One family is living in the front yard, the other in the backyard.   The backyard family had babies.  They all quickly grew up and left to begin their own lives.  All but one.  We call him Baby Blue.  He has an unusual chirp, especially when he’s hungry.  He is uncomfortable flying.   He really wants to leave like his siblings did, but he knows (and his parents know) he’s not ready.

Every day Baby practices flying.  Mom and Dad coach and encourage him.   Two days ago, Baby was stuck in the bushes and called for help with his pterodactyl sounding chirp .  His parents came flying over, but stood on the fence watching for predators as Baby tried to work it out for himself.
Due to his hard work, Baby was able to fly up to the top of the fence yesterday.  Mom sat next to him on the fence.  Dad stood at the very top of a nearby roof, calling for Baby to join him.  Baby was nervous and didn’t have confidence.  But Mom gently nudged him.  Finally, Baby gathered enough courage to attempt the feat.  He made it half-way up the roof but couldn’t get to the very top where Dad was.  Mom arrived right behind Baby and pressured him to walk up the roof to get to the top.  Baby screeched and screeched.   He didn’t want to walk up the steep roof, but he did.  Once he reached the top, Mom and Dad flew to a nearby tree and signaled for Baby to join them.  Baby was up higher than ever before and terrified.   There was a lot of loud talk between the family members.  At last, Baby spread his wings and glided to the tree.  He made it!  A milestone.

Today, Baby is in his own backyard again.  The family is resting right now.  They have a nice nest in the rain gutter and a sprawling maple tree provides the nest with shade and cover.  Baby is hopping from one limb to another with his Mom.  Dad found a nut and has it on the ground, trying to crack the nut with his beak.  Maybe he’ll bring it back for Baby’s breakfast.
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This would have all gone unnoticed were it not for the quarantine.  A small, sweet silver lining.  Well, maybe a small, sweet blue lining.

Our family was having dinner recently and I asked if they missed our home on Skansen Street.  That was our boy’s childhood home and we decided to sell it in 2014.  Up until then, it was the only home they had known.  They both, without hesitation, said ‘no!’  Surprised, I asked why they didn’t miss it and they began telling us about all the frightening things that had happened to them there.  They were happy when we decided to sell it.  Below are the collective memories of events that happened there.

Here’s where it started.  In 1996 we built our home on land that was previously farmed, probably with grapevines.  I was pregnant with our first born, RJ at the time.   We were somewhat settled in when my husband and I went shopping.  When we returned, the kitchen and living room were covered in flying ants.  They were everywhere.  We assumed they had come down through the chimney and perhaps this used to be a favorite spot for them.  The only way we could think to get rid of them was to vacuum them up.  Somewhere, I have a video of this event. 

According to our youngest, Michael, the back bedroom had the most activity.  He said that he would wake up in the morning and his closet door would be open.  We always kept the closet doors closed.
He also stated that sometimes he would wake up in the middle of the night and our dog, Catahoula, would be in his room standing there staring at him.  This was unexplainable because Cat slept in our bedroom on the other side of the house and all of the bedroom doors were closed at night.  For Cat to get into Michael’s room, our bedroom door would have to be opened, then Michael’s door open.  Both doors would then have to be closed.

RJ’s rendition was even more disturbing.  When he was a toddler he was sleeping in his crib.  We heard a loud, shrill cry and ran in to see what was wrong.  He was standing up in his crib sobbing.  He pointed to a stuffed cow that his daycare provider had bought him at the local thrift store and said, ‘Evil cow!’  We removed the cow from his room and got rid of it the next day.

One night when he was a little older, we heard him screaming in the middle of the night.  We ran in to his room, picked him up and held him.  He continued to scream uncontrollably for what seemed like a very long time.  He finally settled down and we placed him back in his bed.  The next morning he had no recollection of the event.

One evening he was reading in the master bedroom.  The lights flickered and he saw a green hand reach around the corner from the closet toward the bed.  Then the door slammed shut.  He ran out of the room to yell at us for scaring him.  We didn’t know anything about it, other than that we heard the door slam and had assumed we were being too loud as he read.  His little brother was asleep at the time.

One night he was sleeping in our bed.  The light beside me had a creature wrapped around it and was looking at RJ.  He cowered under the covers with the hope that if he didn’t look at it, it wouldn’t be real.
The boy’s rooms were on the west side of the house and our room was on the east side.  They would often end up in our bedroom.  When they were very young in the bed with us and as they got older, they would sleep on the floor.   On a night when RJ had woken up and was heading toward our bedroom he looked outside in the back (we didn’t close our backyard blinds and much of that part of the house was windows.  There was an alley separating our backyard from the neighbor behind us.  As he was walking toward our bedroom, he saw a disc-shaped object hovering over the neighbor’s house.   There was no noise and no color.  He ran to our room and woke us up to look.  When we did, there was nothing there.

He was playing a video game in the back bedroom.   As he was playing, a birdhouse that was on top of a terrarium flew across the room, narrowly missing him.   There had been no one else on that side of the house at the time.  He ran out and had us come in to see where the birdhouse had landed.  We had no explanation for him.  He said that it had made a sound like someone pulling something out of the refrigerator and that it had been twitching and then flew in an arch, not a straight line, across the room.

His closet door would periodically open and shut on its own.

One day RJ was kicking a soccer ball against the corner of a wall near the master bedroom.  He would kick the ball into the corner and it would come back to him and he’d kick it again.  One day as he was doing this the ball didn’t come back, the room was dark.  Then, after the hesitation, it came back with more force, like someone had kicked it.  No one else was in that area.

In the front bedroom, RJ and Michael were going to sleep after a late night of gaming.  RJ was playing a 10-song playlist.  There is a song called ‘Rain’ and the lyrics include the word ‘devil.’  The devise began looping on that word.  They had kept the light in the hallway on, as they always did, and RJ noticed that a shadow had crossed in front of his door, which he could see from the bottom of the door.  Then another, then another and then several.  They were all heading towards Michael’s room (the back bedroom).  He describes the event as ‘shadow after shadow while the song is repeating the word ‘devil’ on his device.

Other than the flying ants when we first moved in, the only other strange thing that happened to me was when I was cleaning two rings in the kitchen.  I placed them in a cleaning container to let them soak.  When I opened the container a few minutes later, the rings were gone.   I was the only one home and hadn’t left the kitchen.  My mother came over and tried to help find them.  They were just gone, and I’ve never seen them again.

My father lived with us for a few months.  He slept in the back bedroom and often commented that the battery-operated toys in that room would start-up in the middle of the night and then stop as suddenly as they started.

At one point I was writing an article for a magazine on ghost hunting.  I had three supernatural experts come to our home before heading to the haunted spots in the city.  While there, I asked if they could take a look at our property.  One of them was a producer for History Channel’s ‘Ancient Aliens’ show.  They walked around inside and outside of the house.  They said our house was not haunted but that the house next door, to the west of us, was.  They said it was a male and that he wasn’t violent but was mischievous.  They said that he craved attention so if things were happening in our house it was probably because the neighbors were away, and he was bored.
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We were aware that the boys were scared but never really gave it any credence.  Perhaps we were in denial, or perhaps they just had very active imaginations.  We’ve lived in two other homes since then and haven’t had any disturbing events since then, thankfully!

Our family was having dinner recently and I asked if they missed our home on Skansen Street.  That was our boy’s childhood home and we decided to sell it in 2014.  Up until then, it was the only home they had known.  They both, without hesitation, said ‘no!’  Surprised, I asked why they didn’t miss it and they began telling us about all the frightening things that had happened to them there.  They were happy when we decided to sell it.  Below are the collective memories of events that happened there.

Here’s where it started.  In 1996 we built our home on land that was previously farmed, probably with grapevines.  I was pregnant with our first born, RJ at the time.   We were somewhat settled in when my husband and I went shopping.  When we returned, the kitchen and living room were covered in flying ants.  They were everywhere.  We assumed they had come down through the chimney and perhaps this used to be a favorite spot for them.  The only way we could think to get rid of them was to vacuum them up.  Somewhere, I have a video of this event. 

According to our youngest, Michael, the back bedroom had the most activity.  He said that he would wake up in the morning and his closet door would be open.  We always kept the closet doors closed.
He also stated that sometimes he would wake up in the middle of the night and our dog, Catahoula, would be in his room standing there staring at him.  This was unexplainable because Cat slept in our bedroom on the other side of the house and all of the bedroom doors were closed at night.  For Cat to get into Michael’s room, our bedroom door would have to be opened, then Michael’s door open.  Both doors would then have to be closed.

RJ’s rendition was even more disturbing.  When he was a toddler he was sleeping in his crib.  We heard a loud, shrill cry and ran in to see what was wrong.  He was standing up in his crib sobbing.  He pointed to a stuffed cow that his daycare provider had bought him at the local thrift store and said, ‘Evil cow!’  We removed the cow from his room and got rid of it the next day.

One night when he was a little older, we heard him screaming in the middle of the night.  We ran in to his room, picked him up and held him.  He continued to scream uncontrollably for what seemed like a very long time.  He finally settled down and we placed him back in his bed.  The next morning he had no recollection of the event.

One evening he was reading in the master bedroom.  The lights flickered and he saw a green hand reach around the corner from the closet toward the bed.  Then the door slammed shut.  He ran out of the room to yell at us for scaring him.  We didn’t know anything about it, other than that we heard the door slam and had assumed we were being too loud as he read.  His little brother was asleep at the time.

One night he was sleeping in our bed.  The light beside me had a creature wrapped around it and was looking at RJ.  He cowered under the covers with the hope that if he didn’t look at it, it wouldn’t be real.
The boy’s rooms were on the west side of the house and our room was on the east side.  They would often end up in our bedroom.  When they were very young in the bed with us and as they got older, they would sleep on the floor.   On a night when RJ had woken up and was heading toward our bedroom he looked outside in the back (we didn’t close our backyard blinds and much of that part of the house was windows.  There was an alley separating our backyard from the neighbor behind us.  As he was walking toward our bedroom, he saw a disc-shaped object hovering over the neighbor’s house.   There was no noise and no color.  He ran to our room and woke us up to look.  When we did, there was nothing there.

He was playing a video game in the back bedroom.   As he was playing, a birdhouse that was on top of a terrarium flew across the room, narrowly missing him.   There had been no one else on that side of the house at the time.  He ran out and had us come in to see where the birdhouse had landed.  We had no explanation for him.  He said that it had made a sound like someone pulling something out of the refrigerator and that it had been twitching and then flew in an arch, not a straight line, across the room.

His closet door would periodically open and shut on its own.

One day RJ was kicking a soccer ball against the corner of a wall near the master bedroom.  He would kick the ball into the corner and it would come back to him and he’d kick it again.  One day as he was doing this the ball didn’t come back, the room was dark.  Then, after the hesitation, it came back with more force, like someone had kicked it.  No one else was in that area.

In the front bedroom, RJ and Michael were going to sleep after a late night of gaming.  RJ was playing a 10-song playlist.  There is a song called ‘Rain’ and the lyrics include the word ‘devil.’  The devise began looping on that word.  They had kept the light in the hallway on, as they always did, and RJ noticed that a shadow had crossed in front of his door, which he could see from the bottom of the door.  Then another, then another and then several.  They were all heading towards Michael’s room (the back bedroom).  He describes the event as ‘shadow after shadow while the song is repeating the word ‘devil’ on his device.

Other than the flying ants when we first moved in, the only other strange thing that happened to me was when I was cleaning two rings in the kitchen.  I placed them in a cleaning container to let them soak.  When I opened the container a few minutes later, the rings were gone.   I was the only one home and hadn’t left the kitchen.  My mother came over and tried to help find them.  They were just gone, and I’ve never seen them again.

My father lived with us for a few months.  He slept in the back bedroom and often commented that the battery-operated toys in that room would start-up in the middle of the night and then stop as suddenly as they started.

At one point I was writing an article for a magazine on ghost hunting.  I had three supernatural experts come to our home before heading to the haunted spots in the city.  While there, I asked if they could take a look at our property.  One of them was a producer for History Channel’s ‘Ancient Aliens’ show.  They walked around inside and outside of the house.  They said our house was not haunted but that the house next door, to the west of us, was.  They said it was a male and that he wasn’t violent but was mischievous.  They said that he craved attention so if things were happening in our house it was probably because the neighbors were away, and he was bored.
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We were aware that the boys were scared but never really gave it any credence.  Perhaps we were in denial, or perhaps they just had very active imaginations.  We’ve lived in two other homes since then and haven’t had any disturbing events since then, thankfully!

Tortie was purchased by Grandpa on July 5, 2006 as a birthday gift for his Grandson, Michael.  He was a 3-month-old Sercaia Tortoise with a green stripe on his belly.  Grandpa paid $150.00 for him.

Tortie had a glass terrarium and a hollow trunk to hide in.  He grew very quickly and before long, he didn’t have enough room in has habitat.  We decided to place him in the back yard instead of buying a bigger cage.  He was so small that we had to place pieces of wood along our back gates to keep him from escaping under the 4” gaps at the bases.  When he began living outside, he grew even faster.   He ate the grass and we would give him treats such as bananas and strawberries.  If you had red polish on your toes and you were barefooted, Tortie would try to bite them.  We discovered he didn’t like carrots or radishes.  It wasn’t long before he was too big to escape under the gates and we were able to remove the logs. 

Outside, we had two major concerns.  1) We had a swimming pool.  We were concerned that he might get too close and fall in.  He would probably sink to the bottom if that were the case.  However, he never got too close.  2) We had pool maintenance and lawn maintenance services.  We were concerned that someone would leave a gate open and Tortie would escape.  Fortunately, that didn’t happen either, at least not until much later.  As he grew, he could no longer walk under our patio furniture.   He began lowering himself to get under the lounges and then raise himself and walk with a lounge on his back.  It took me awhile to figure out why our patio furniture kept getting rearranged.

In the winter, he digs a hole that covers part of his body and basically stays there unless the sun is shining.  If there’s sun, he’ll find a place to sit and soak it in.  He won’t eat or poop while he’s in this state.  He’s not completely hibernating, but not fully functioning either.   He walks very slowly barely putting one leg in front of the other to move himself.  I know he’s ready to come out of this state when I see him eating grass in the spring and his movements are more fluid.  

He's very fast when he’s on a mission.  He recognizes people and voices.  He’s lived in four places.  At one location he dug under a chain link fence that separated the backyard from the orchard.  He was racing through the orchard and preparing to dig under the fence next to the street when caught.  We had to get a wagon to place him in and wheel him back to his area.  At another location he was preparing his winter home and dug so fast that there was a plume of dust in that section of the backyard.  His finished product was so deep and expansive that we couldn’t see where it ended.  It definitely qualified as a tortoise mansion.

For much of his life, we thought Tortie was a girl.  However once puberty hit, and we did some research, we discovered that she was a he.  We’ve also observed that he becomes more aggressive during the mating season toward the end of summer.

Four years ago, we moved into a different house.  We waited until everything was moved before bringing Tortie over so that no one had to worry about leaving a door or gate open.  Later in the afternoon Michael and his friend decided to explore the new neighborhood and left via the alley gate.  Each boy thought the other had closed the gate.  About 45 minutes later, we realized that Tortie was gone.  The boys began searching the neighborhood for him.  About two blocks away, they heard a commotion and horns honking and headed toward the sounds.  Sure enough, Tortie had reach a major street and was crossing it.  A motorist stopped her car and began motioning for others to do the same.  Traffic had virtually stopped, and people were getting out of their cars to help.  They got Tortie to the sidewalk as the boys walked up.  A neighbor let them use their phone to call me.  Tortie was too heavy for even two of them to carry all the way home.  I brought the SUV over and we got an annoyed tortoise into the car and back to our new home.
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He is now almost too heavy for two people to even lift.  We tried to weigh him for this story but couldn’t do it.  I can say that as of February 2020 he is 23” long, 15” wide and 12” high.

​When it first came out, I was able to see the Broadway musical Cats in New York City.  I liked it so much that I saw it again when it played in San Francisco.  Before seeing it in San Francisco, I read the book it was based on, Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats by T.S. Eliot.   The grandeur of the set and the beauty of the music were my favorite parts in New York.  After reading the book, my second experience was deeper.  I now had an understanding about what the songs meant and who the characters were.

Fast forward to now and I was thrilled that they had made the musical into a motion picture.  In anticipation of the movie, I found my T.S. Eliot book and reread it.    I got busy and couldn’t attend the opening night.  My family was aware of my enthusiasm and broke the news to me gently.  The reviews, both from critics and viewers were terrible.  I was undeterred because I often don’t agree with the reviewers of movies I enjoy.

However, I have never read so many bad reviews on any movie.  I made the decision that I would wait until it came out on DVD.  In the meantime, my family would periodically read me the latest reviews.  I’m now enjoying the creativity of the reviews very much.  Have you read them?  It’s like there’s a competition for who can trash the movie in the most strenuous way.   When I have a few minutes to spare, I now find myself reading the reviews to brighten my day.  They are incredibly funny.  It’s too bad it’s at the expense of something I really like, but I’m very good at compartmentalizing and thanks to Cats, I now have another source of entertainment.

Someone should really publish a book with many of these reviews.  I’ve never seen anything like them.  Here is a very small sample:

“Meowch! This film is litter-ally a cat-astrophe.”

“Lacking any of its nine lives: abysmal.”

“Hellicle Ball.”

“Who let the cats out!  I got a case of cat scratch fever watching this hairball of a movie.”
“My eyes burn and my soul feels like it’s being ripped out by the devil himself.”

“Cats is a once in a lifetime movie, not since the legendary birdemic have I been so absolutely bamboozled by the cinematic catastrophe that is this film.”

“I am in so much pain right now.  Do not watch this under any circumstances, this movie is dangerous to your mental and physical health.”

“Keep a good stack of holy water around if you wanna watch it.  This is what Dante saw in one of his dreams.”

“In the Little Box.  The movie is ugly to look at and is an assault on the ears.  I thought Hudson was trying to cough up a hairball.  She should have.  It would have been the highlight of the film.”

“I’d rather spend two hours watching a dirty litter box…from inside!”

“I inadvertently hammered a 6" nail into my hand. Yet that was more enjoyable than watching this disaster of a movie.”

“I almost put my cat up for adoption.”

“Turned me into a cat serial killer.”

“The only way this could make sense is if cops play it in interrogation rooms.”
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I’m looking forward to watching it on DVD when Redbox releases it.  I know, curiosity killed the cat.  Wish me luck.  Hopefully, I don’t stab my eyes out with a knitting needle.

When the boys were in 4th grade and 9th grade our family went to La Paz, Mexico on a mission trip.   We went with a group of people who all but one, we did not know.   Years later, the boys continue to talk about the experience.  It completely changed their perception of the world. 

They learned what true poverty looks like.

They learned that what we take for granted, others see as luxuries that are out of their reach.

They learned that having very little creates a creativity on how to use the things you do have.

And, most importantly, they learned that helping others is one of the most gratifying things a person can do.

I think all families should experience a mission trip to another country.  I’ve been asked, ‘why another country?  There are enough people to help in the U.S.’ My response is that going to another country and immersing in another culture amplifies the experience to a greater level. 
Fundraising was a part of our process.  I was uncomfortable with this, however, being there because other people paid for you to be there added to the seriousness of the trip.  There is conscious obligation to the ‘senders’ to fulfill their expectations. 

Not all mission trips are religious.  There are organizations that go without the Christianity angle.  Either way, it is an experience that has changed the fabric of our family’s viewpoint for the better.   Taking children opens their minds to influences they would not have had otherwise.
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As a side note, I do know someone who went with Peace Corp and their mission was to empower women to work outside of the home.   Before children I would have thought that a noble goal.  However, now I see it as an afront on other country’s cultures.  I think we should go in to embrace and better their circumstances, not try to change them for what our culture thinks is ‘right.’