Kitchen Costuming

Flies are some of the most disgusting pests I can think of in the insect world.  Although in some cultures, the presence of a fly can be a sign of good luck.   I had been dodging flies outside since the end of May, but I hadn’t seen any good luck come my way in my effort to refinance my house.  Actually it was just the opposite.  Since St. Patrick’s Day, I had been working with my local bank loan officer to get my monthly home payments reduced.  Considering the state of the economy, the banks, and the real estate market, it was amazing anyone at the bank was even talking to me.  Without going into a lot of detail, let’s just say that there were a few set-backs in getting this thing moving. Finally after many delays, a title company officer came to my house to have papers signed.  Unfortunately, she left me with the impression that there was still an “if” about the loan closing.  Geez God, just send me a sign already, I thought.

Two days later, I noticed a couple of my indoor cats hovering around the back end of the arcadia door. I shooed the cats away to see about ten flies flitting around on the inside of the glass door.  I grabbed the can of insect spray and blasted them.  The cats had now found something else to grab their attention in the nearby window.  As I pulled the blinds away, there were several more flies.  What is going on here?  Where are all these flies coming from?  There were lots of flies outside, but how are they getting into the house?  With this many flies in the house, I would think I would have seen one buzz by me.

When my son, Todd, came home later that day, I told him the creepy story of the flies before I went to lie down.  My head never hit the pillow when I heard, “Hey Mom, come here and see this!” As I rounded the corner, I could see my son over by the arcadia door.  I couldn’t believe my eyes!  There were about twenty more flies crawling on the glass.  As the last fly succumbed to the insect spray, I cautiously moved towards the living room window.  The wooden shutters were closed with a couple of slats open.  A scene from Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds crept into my mind as I slowly opened the shutters.  I slammed the shutters closed and ran for the bug spray.  When the toxic fumes cleared, I had annihilated over thirty flies just in the living room.  We estimated the body count was somewhere around sixty plus altogether.

So are flies lucky?  Well obviously not for them, but the next day I received the papers in the mail telling me the loan that I had tried for over fours years to refinance was now paid in full.  Somehow through all the goofs and delays, I managed a five percent interest rate.  My monthly mortgage payment has almost been cut in half.  Along with the papers was a big check I wasn’t expecting.  A week later, I got another big check from the escrow account.  Where did all the flies come from?  We never found out and they never came back.  Be careful when you ask God for a sign, you just might get one (or sixty).

Strange occurrences at the places I live have become the norm in the last thirty years.  I recently came across a book that I hadn’t seen in twenty-five years.  It was one of those things I should have gotten rid of years ago, but yet here it was thrown in a forgotten box collecting layers of dust.

In September 1977, there was a book published called “The Amityville Horror.” I wanted to read this book, but with daily care of a young child, that seemed impossible so I passed on buying it. By 1981, my oldest son was two years old and I was pregnant with the second one. I found myself often tired and not wanting to get out of bed much, but it was around the holidays so I eventually needed to go shopping for Christmas items.  It was now a couple of years since the book was published in paperback and it was no longer prevalent on the store shelves, so I had quite forgotten about it. As I was standing in line at the cash register, I caught a glimpse of the book on a bottom shelf and decided to buy it.

George and Kathy Lutz moved into the house in Amityville on December 23, 1975.  This was close to the time I had actually bought the book…just a coincidence perhaps.

With my son playing quietly beside me in the bed, I was able to find some time to read.  As I was making my way through the chapters, I thought about the unusual stuff that had happened to us in our own house.  I kept thinking that if this Amityville story was true, then these people went through some weird experiences. One chapter talked about the house being plagued by flies despite the winter weather; another, about the Lutz’s five year old daughter who developed an imaginary friend, a demonic pig-like creature with glowing red eyes; and then, the priest who blessed the house would run a high fever whenever he would think about the house.

Naturally, these incidences made for an interesting story, but they didn’t really make an impression on me until the crisp December morning when I walked into my kitchen and found dozens of flies congregating on the inside patio doors.  It freaked me out to say the least as I managed to swat to death the last fly, only to come back an hour later to more flies.  A week or so later, my two year old told me he saw a pig looking in his bedroom window. I never talked about this book to my young son.  By now, all I could think about were the strange demonic happenings in the Amityville house.  I began to run a fever and got very sick with flu-like symptoms.  This lasted about 24 hours and no one else in the house got sick.  I wasn’t sure at this point whether I wanted to finish reading the book, but continued on.

One of the last lines of the book read, “On January 14, 1976 George and Kathy Lutz, with their three children and their dog Harry, left 112 Ocean Avenue leaving most of their possessions behind.” As I closed the book, I realized that the day’s date was January 14, 1982.

As this is Memorial Day, I wanted to write a tribute to my Dad because he passed away three weeks before I was born and I never got to know him.

James Marion Winter was in the Army during World War II and the Korean War.  The only stories I have of him were through my mother and I’m sure her memories became sweeter with time, painting him bigger than life for me. I know he was a captain and at one point used to run cable lines ahead of the troops for communication purposes.  There was a time during WWII that he was doing his job high above the ground when a mortar shell exploded nearby knocking him down.  He managed to live through that but sustained injuries from vertebrate crammed into his brain.  He either had a benign tumor already or developed one from his injuries.  He lived for years until the headaches became so severe that doctors at Fort Simmons Army Hospital in Colorado decided to operate.  Unfortunately, the doctors in 1953 did not have the skills and resources for delicate brain surgery like they do today.  My mother was nearly nine months pregnant with me and had an eighteen month old child back in Arizona.  It did not surprise me that she wanted to keep his memory alive as her knight in shining armor.

I had no real emotional connection with my Dad until Saving Private Ryan came out.  The opening scene took place at a military cemetery.  My thoughts were flooded by a similar memory of my sister and I in our twenties roaming the cemetery in Denver looking for my Dad’s grave.  From that moment in the movie, I began to cry.  Tom Hank’s character became the image of my Dad and the tears were non-stop as I held my son, Shaun’s hand, through the entire movie.  I found the emotional connection with my Dad that day as I literally sobbed for another two hours when I got home.  I have never been able to see Saving Private Ryan again.

The horrors of war take a toll on everyone.  Please be grateful for all of the men and women who serve this country so we can live the lives we have.  Savor your memories of those who have fallen and never forget that they did this out of love for this country and their families.

I have spent quite a bit of time working on one of the pages to this blog.  Please take some time to check out “My Family” page as it has lots of interesting information about my two sons (and a couple of their small video projects).  Thanks!

Ugly witches, bed-sheeted ghosts, and ghoulish zombies are on the prowl again.  There is a chill in the air and…wait a minute, wasn’t it in the low nineties today approaching 100 degrees by this coming weekend?  It’s not Halloween?  Oh! I know!  There are lords and ladies, gypsies and pirates swinging swords and turkey legs. The Renaissance Festival is commencing!  But of course… now that I think of it… Ren faire just ended about a month ago.  Let’s see…the stormtroopers are out in force along with the X-men and Ghostbusters.  It must be Comicon! No…hmmm…we already did that… or, are we going to do that?  Now I know I saw Batman, Catwoman, Scarecrow, and the Joker.  I guess that means it could only be one thing…

FREE COMIC BOOK DAY

www.freecomicbookday.com

AZspidey and friends are really trying to get some mileage out of their Halloween costumes this year. (continue reading…)