I've seen the light!

I'm sorry to tell y'all that it's kind of a slow day for blog material in my life. 

Last night I went to run several errands including going to Party City to try and figure out what I might want to dress up as for Halloween to go to the Little 5 Points Halloween Parade.  I didn't come up with any great ideas when I was in there, but then this morning I thought of something.  But I'm not going to tell y'all what it is yet because I might change my mind. 

So that got me thinking.  For those of you who are coming to the party on October 26th, do y'all want to dress up and make it a semi-Halloween party too?  Costumes would be optional because I know not everyone wants to go to the trouble of coming up with something, but we could make the food Halloween-ish.  I'm not bobbing for apples though because I'm a germ-a-phobe and don't particularly care for sticking my mouth all over apples other people have been touching with their noses.  I mean, I did buy Poizon wine the other night and it might be kind of weird to serve that to someone on their birthday, but not as weird for a Halloween-ish party.  If y'all think this is the stupidest idea ever, then say so.

I also stopped in the pet store because I can't get my cat to stop demanding that I feed her every single day.  She's really pushy about it too.  I could have just had a kid if I knew animals could be so demanding about a regular diet.

Then I decided to run into Trader Joe's to pick up one thing but ended up buying over $40 worth of things.  One of the items was this:

I don't even need whipping cream, but I've never seen any that is shelf stable before and I thought it would be nice to have on hand and try sometime so I bought it.  Apparently, it's pretty good according to a blogger who tried it.  But the problem was, it kept ringing up as pale ale at the checkout.  So a manager had to come over and people in line behind me got all huffy, and look lady in your bright red jacket, it's not my fault the computer thinks my whipping cream is beer so you just calm down and stop sighing loudly at me.

I also bought something else that I absolutely needed.  Yes, need.  Do not judge until you've tried it because then you will understand how it becomes a necessity in your life:

I've never had the crunchy version before so I'm looking forward to trying it.  Probably tonight.  I can't lie.  I have PMS and I WANT SWEETS!

I got home and had to deal with some ridiculousness with fake daughter (but it's not worth blogging about) and then I read until almost 1:00 a.m. because, as usual, I could not sleep.

I have motion detector lights all around my house and detached garage because, if I haven't already mentioned 945804580489 bazillion times, I live in the 'hood.  I also have an alarm system, security bars under all my doors, and a killer cat.  One of the lights, on the corner of my garage, goes on and off very quickly if something sets it off and last night I had my eyes closed trying to force myself to go to sleep but I kept seeing a flash of light.  So I would quickly open my eyes, pull back the curtains and look outside and the light would be out and I would see nothing.  This went on for a while.  Probably 45 minutes or so which helped my insomnia a lot.  And then do you know what?  I realized it wasn't the motion detector light at all that I was seeing flashes of when my eyes were closed.  It was push notifications popping up on my cell phone which was right next to my bed.  Doh!

It reminded me of a story from a few years ago, and if you are one of the few people here who used to read my old blog, you probably heard this one already.

I was at my family reunion one year and we have it in a state park in the blazing hot month of June near Puckett, Mississippi.  It's central for people y'all.

We stay in cabins that I'm pretty sure were built in the George Washington era and haven't been redecorated since then and have the original mattresses and sheets and bedspreads.  There is a small cluster of 6 cabins and we all cram in them because my mom is one of 8 kids and they all have kids and grandchildren so it's a lot of people.  A few people use their camper down by the lake and some people stay in the lodge which is kind of like a hotel, but most of us cram in the cabins.

I always end up in one of two cabins and they each consist of one bedroom with two beds, one bathroom and a tiny kitchen.

The one I was in this particular year has the doorway to the bathroom and the doorway to the kitchen right next to each other at a corner.  So from the bedroom you turn right and down two steps into the kitchen or go straight to get in the bathroom.  Just next to the door leading to the kitchen was a dresser and mirror.  The cabins are in the middle of the woods and they are pitch black, can't-see-your hand-in-front-of-your-face dark at night.

My mom and one aunt and I were in our cabin because a bunch of people couldn't make it that year so we weren't sleeping on air mattresses, etc. like we do sometimes. The first morning we were there, my aunt said as we were waking up, "I don't want to scare y'all, but there was something in our cabin last night."

And my mom and I peppered her with questions.  Obviously.

"Was it an animal?"

"It better not have been a snake.  If it was a snake, I'm moving to the lodge tonight."

"It wasn't one of the uncles trying to scare us, was it?"

"Was a stranger in here?  How did they get in?  We locked the door, didn't we?"

Every single question we threw out she responded with, "No," and she had an odd look on her face.

Finally I asked tentatively, "Was it a ghost?  These cabins are really old.  There's no telling what kind of stuff has happened out here."

And she looked at me funnily and said, "well, not a ghost exactly.  At least I don't think so.  But a spirit of some sort was in here and I am pretty sure God sent it to me."

And my mom and I looked at each other with a look like, "Oh goodness.  She's done lost her mind.  Bless her heart."

So I asked her what in Sam Hill she was talking about because honestly.  What in Sam Hill was she talking about?  God sent her a spirit?  Pfft.

She said she had gotten up to pee in the night.  "Yes, I know.  I heard you," I said.

And she said she was trying to find the bathroom door and was hoping she wouldn't accidentally fall down the stairs into the kitchen since the doors were right next to each other with only a corner in between them.  "Yes?  And?" my mom and I kept asking.

"As I was about halfway across the room, I thought to myself, 'a light sure would be good right now' and y'all?  God sent me a light.  It was a small green spirit looking thing and it was surrounded by smaller green lights in a circle around it.  About the time I made it to the bathroom door, the lights disappeared."

"NO WAY!" my mom exclaimed.  "Where was this light?"

"Right over by the door," my aunt answered her.

I sat there with my mouth shut, biting my tongue and was trying not to crack the heck up.

"So I made it to the toilet, and as I sat there peeing I said a little prayer.  I said, 'God, thank you for sending me the light on the way to the bathroom.  Please, God, send me a light again when I'm done.  Send me a light to get back to bed without falling down the stairs."

At this point, I was about to pee myself because I was suppressing my laughter and I thought I was going to burst.

"And y'all aren't going to believe this...." she started.

"But God sent you another green spirit surrounded by a circle of small green lights AGAIN?" my mom asked.

"YES!  I couldn't believe it.  Y'all, God sent that light. I know he did."

At this point, I could not hold it in and I started cackling and I could not stop.

Then my mom started laughing and she didn't even know what was so funny.  She was just laughing at me.

Y'all, I could not breathe I was laughing so hard.

My aunt said, "It's not funny.  It's completely true.  Why are you laughing at my story?  God sent me a light so I wouldn't get hurt.  I promise I'm not making this up."

I stopped laughing enough to gasp, "Oh, I know you're not making it up.  Because I know exactly what you saw."

"What?! You saw them too?  So you believe me, right?!"

I got up off my bed and walked over to the dresser which was right next to the kitchen door.  I picked up my cell phone and walked back over to my aunt and mom.

"God didn't send you a spirit light in the middle of the night for you to pee safely.  Verizon did."  And right as I said it, a green light that would blink every minute or two on my phone to let you know it was turned on, lit up.

"It was sitting on the dresser right in front of the mirror so when it lit up, it reflected off the mirror and made it look like a big light surrounded by a circle of smaller lights," I barely got out as I started howling with laughter again.

Then my mom started laughing.  Then my aunt joined in. 

And that was a pretty great way to start the day.