My parents moved into their house the summer between my freshman and sophomore year of college. They moved only two towns away, but in farm country that’s pretty far. The house isn’t anything fancy or special. It’s just a typical ranch house. My parents didn’t buy the house because they liked it or needed the 6 bedrooms or 2 kitchens it offered. They bought it because they liked what was outside the house. Namely the horse stalls, hay barn, acres for grazing, 52 fruit trees, private drive, and the buried trampoline.

My parents bought the house from a neighbor family that had moved out years previous. They had been renting it to a nice family who had eventually decided to buy their own house. The previous owners had kids relatively close to the age of the kids in my family, so there was a bedroom for all of us kids, with rooms to spare.

Since my sister was the youngest, she got the all pink bedroom; pink carpet, pink flowered wallpaper, pink curtains. It even had an extra large closet that was big enough to fit her dresser in it.

We were a little confused as to why this house had such a girly room. Since we knew the family who had built the house we knew they only had boys. After asking another neighbor about this we learned the original owners had a daughter but she had died a few years back from cancer. She had been 14 years old.

Understandably this freaked my little sister out a bit. Especially since she was about the same age of this girl. This dead girl who she had never met.

I choose the bedroom underneath my sister’s bedroom. Since I was college, I was only home on the weekends. I probably only stayed there a few weekends before I changed bedrooms again. The room seemed extra cold and dark. Not to mention it was dreary and moist feeling. I couldn’t put my finger on why I didn’t want to stay in the room. I just didn’t.

When I moved back home for the summer I decided I didn’t like living in the basement and moved my stuff upstairs to the bedroom next to my sister’s pink room. It just felt better to be upstairs. Plus, I felt so anti social being hidden in the basement. And that room was just…moist.

It was at this time that my sister admitted that she knew the girl who had previously lived in her bedroom. When I questioned her about this she said that the girl now lived in the bedroom below her. The bedroom that I hated because of its moisture content and all-around creepiness. Feelings that I hadn’t ever shared with any members of my family.

My sister wasn’t telling me this because she was frightened. She wasn’t telling me this to scare me. She was just matter of factly telling me that we had a ghost in our house. The ghost of a 14 year old girl. This wasn’t your typical ghost, this was a nice ghost.

My sister was so convincing that I believed her. She didn’t have anything to gain from telling me this. She was just doing that, telling me. I passed the information on to my Mom who told me she already knew this. Heck, she even believed it. For her own reasons.

My Mom proceeded to tell me of the experiences she had had in the creepy basement bedroom. The basement bedroom which had now become the storage room. She told me about the times she had been in there getting some wrapping paper or a game out and the door had slammed on its own. Or about the times she had been in the basement watching TV and had heard very distinct wailing coming from the room. Or even the time she had turned off the light when she left the room, only to have it turn back on. On its own.

This was not good.

But again, my Mom wasn’t really scared of this. She said she never got a bad feeling when she was in the room. Just a cold feeling. That could have been because, like all the other spare rooms in the house, that room wasn’t heated. Or it could be because there is a ghost in their house.

Slowly the rest of my family was told about the ghost. Basically we all believed it. We had no reason to doubt it. That is of course, my Dad. He didn’t believe. Any time we would talk of the ghost, my Dad would roll his eyes and tell us we were being over dramatic. We were smart enough to not tell our friends about it, and were repectful to not tell the original owners of the house either. I mean we weren’t 100% sure it was their daughter that was haunting the house. They hadn’t lived in the house when she passed away, so I guess it could have been someone else. We just assumed it was her. Actually, my little sister was pretty sure it was her.

(I can’t even type this without being thoroughly creeped out.)

None of us wanted to use the haunted bedroom so it became a storage room. It quickly became stuffed with our boxes full of high school reports and college memorabilia as well as all of my Mom’s Christmas decorations. The ghost didn’t like this. My Mom was always hearing banging around in the room, as if boxes were being moved. Then when she would go in there to find something, it wouldn’t be where she left it.

Again, my Dad never believed any of this. That is until one day when he was home alone in the basement. For some reason the ghost wasn’t happy that day. Maybe it was the cold weather, maybe she was mad at my Mom for going in the room earlier that day to get gift wrap. Whatever it was, the ghost was making a lot of noise. When my Mom finally got home that afternoon my Dad met her at the door. His eyes were huge and he promised to never doubt the existence of their ghost again.

I haven’t lived at my parent’s house for years. All of us kids have long since moved away. I don’t ever think of the ghost. But as soon as I’m there visiting and I walk in the room to get something, I’m immediately reminded. My stomach starts to turn and my nostrils flare.

And I get out of there as soon as possible.

I know my family can’t be the only ones to live with a ghost. So tell me, any of you ever lived in a haunted house?

This morning I wore my winter coat for the first time this season. I was even able to button it up. Which is more than I could do last winter. You know, since I was hugely pregnant. I headed to work with a spring in my step.

I love my coat.

I was also enjoying walking to work in the daylight. Which is something I haven’t had the pleasure of doing for quite some time. Stupid winter months and getting dark at 4:30 in the afternoon. Hate, hate, hate.

I walked by Sephora and dreamed about spending millions of dollars there. Getting new lip gloss and eye shadow. Love, love, love.

Wait, what’s that sitting alone in front of Sephora? A suspicious looking suitcase? Quick, is there anyone standing around who it might belong to? There isn’t?

Crap, crap, crap. What do I do? Do I get a closer look? Do I forget about it? Do I call 911? I can’t forget about it. Yes, I should call 911. I would hate for something to happen and me to be to blame because I could have stopped it.

Wait, why is it taking 911 so long to answer? Don’t they care about this suspicious suitcase? I must keep walking to work. I don’t want to be near this think if it blows.

Isabel: Hello, hello 911? Yes, there is a suspicious suitcase here in front of Sephora.

Operator: What makes it suspicious?

Isabel: It’s just sitting here. All alone. There isn’t anybody near it.

Operator: Do you see any wires sticking out of it?

Isabel: I’m not near it any more. I walked away. And to be honest I didn’t get close enough to see if there were any wires!!

Operator: Did it have a distinct odor?

Isabel: I didn’t get smell anything. But again, I wasn’t the close to it.

Operator: Please stay on the line while I dispatch a Unit to go and check it out.

Isabel: (getting a little nervous) Okay.

(Transfers me to a Dispatch Operator.)

Dispatch Operator: Were there any wires sticking out of it?

Isabel: Not that I saw. I wasn’t close enough.

Dispatch Operator: This was in front of Sephora?

Isabel: Yes. Near their front door.

Dispatch Operator: Thank you. We’ll get a Unit on that.

What a way to start my day. I kept looking out the window at work and didn’t see anything. It’s been over an hour and still, nothing.

That’s a good sign.

Sephora is safe. Phew.

Today we bring you The King’s latest post. We missed him last Friday. (He was too sick to post? He doesn’t yet know that us bloggers sacrifice our bodies for blogging.) If you missed his last post, go here.

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we’ve got a pretty limited budget, and about 5 nights on our hands in november. its time for a small vacation to give us a chance to recharge before the final push to finish the house.

see, i’m a better person when i’m on vacation. and you laugh at that, but its true. i need to get away and see things. but this time, i’ve been so busy with the house project that i haven’t had time to give this much thought.

so we need some suggestions. keep the following in mind:

- we have a baby. a 6 month old.

- we aren’t rich. we go budget all the way.

- we want to relax.

relax can mean have some fun doing some stuff and/or have nothing to do but sit naked on the beach and watch the wind blow. we actually stayed at this place in mexico that was basically a gilligan’s island grass hut about 30 feet from the water. there was absolutely nothing to do during the day except sit and cook in the sun. it was great. the food was great. it wasn’t crowded. you could even get naked on the beach. (it took isabel a little while to get brave enough, even though we were by far the best looking people there.) it was a little primitive, but awesome. check out cabanas copal in tulum mexico. if you have the chance, go for a few days. if you’re really ready to relax, stay a whole week. but don’t bring food into your hut. the mice/rats aren’t afraid of people and they WILL come looking for a treat.

we’ve also been over to europe several times. we’ll likely head over again in march 07. i don’t know if 5 nights is enough time to get all the way over there this time though. we like to wander around, and basically just see what the people that live there see. i’ve seen enough Jesus paintings to last a lifetime, so we don’t really do museums and stuff so much. just the normal life, eat out, shop and walk around town kind of stuff. berlin, paris, rome, milan… we’ve been around a little and know how to find out way. and we’re content with los angeles, san francisco, new york, stuff like that. just seeing what there is to see.

- we’re up for almost anything once.

so if you have had a great vacation recently, or just one that you will never forget, let us know. we’re open to suggestions. what’s it gonna be? hawaii? st. maarten? iceland?

let’s hear your suggestions. if you come up with the best idea, you win a prize.

Let’s just say that I live near a major construction site, okay? And this said construction site is not only loud, but is blocking my parking garage. And let’s not even (hhypothetically) talk about the temporary handicap ramp which has a slope of about 52%! (That’s high. Trust me; I used the level when factoring the slope. I mean, the hypothetical slope!) How is one expected to push a 20+ pound baby and stroller up the thing? While lugging around a laptop on my back?

And let’s just say that I am sick and freaking tired of listening to jack hammering and drilling and the usual construction noises. Especially when the stupid contractor forgoes the city’s noise constraint. I mean dude, do you really need to turn on the jack hammer before 7 am on a Saturday? Really?

And now you are going to turn the water off in the building for 14 hours? 14 hours in which I will (at some point) need to bathe myself and my baby. All the while I’m not even able to turn left after exiting my garage. The garage that I pay $200 a month to park in.

I mean, hypothetically.

To make matters worse, the construction workers aren’t even hot. Or under the age of 45. And while I do enjoy seeing a safety orange shirt, I much prefer it on someone a little closer to my own age. Or the age I was in high school. You know, whatever.

The King and I are hoping, nay praying, that management tries to up our rent before our new house is done. Then we can come back and be all “hey, we aren’t paying more rent because of all this crappy construction going on. We hate it. We hate you. This sucks balls.”

How crappy would this be, hypothetically, if it was my own company doing the work? So complaining would get me nowhere, except for maybe in the poor house.

This would be crappy, right?

I can’t smell the cat pee in the apartment. The King could still smell it this morning.

The King: Sniff around the place and see if you can find any more pee from Preston.

Isabel: (mouth drops. Thinking to myself:) does he really think I’m going to walk around and sniff out the cat pee? Because I’m not.

The King: There might be some more. I swear I can still smell it.

Isabel: (Still thinking to myself:) Seriously, I’m not sniffing around for no freakin’ cat pee.

I think it was a fluke. A one-time deal. I tried to ignore it when ShellyNoir e-mailed me and told me that Preston may be dying of some rare liver disorder. While I appreciated her offer to go with me to the vet, I just don’t buy it that he might be sick. Pretty much, I’m thinking he’s still mad about the fact that there is this little person around that didn’t used to be. Sorry Preston, the baby is staying.

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My cousin graduated from beauty school last Saturday. I was invited to go to her school to celebrate her last day with balloons and (free) pizza. Who am I to turn down the chance to show my support for family? I mentioned the free pizza, right? Because I will not lie, it was the motivator.

Did you catch that? My cousin is not a beauty school dropout.

I decided that since I was going to be at the beauty school anyway I might as well get a hair cut.

A hair cut that cost $8.50.

I have a hard time with an $8.50 hair cut. While I don’t enjoy paying $60.00 for a hair cut, I feel better knowing that a $60.00 hair cut is (most likely) better than one that only costs $8.50.

Am I right?

Plus I wouldn’t feel good about taking a fussy Babboo into a fancy salon. But I do feel good about taking him into a beauty school. I figure for an $8.50 hair cut he can be as fussy as he wants.

Am I right?

Babboo wasn’t fussy at all. In fact the lovely 18 year old student who cut my hair was so in love with him that she gushed “I want a baby so bad!” I replied a little too smugly when I said, “no you don’t! They are a lot of work and you are just too young.” I need to work at keeping my thoughts to myself.

I decided to treat myself and pay the extra $7.00 to have her style my hair. Mostly because I couldn’t attend my cousin’s party with wet hair. While I will admit that the $8.50 hair cut was just fine, the $7.00 style was not fine.

Alyse my stylist, was way too into the product she used. She was too busy talking it up to realize she was putting too much of it in my hair. Way too much. My hair ended up all greasy and stuck to my face. Never a good look. Well, never a good look for me.

I would go back. But next time I won’t pay the extra $7.00 for the style. What I will pay extra for is the Gray Magic that I saw listed in their price list. At $2.50 it sounds like something I can handle. I’m not really sure what it is but count me in.

I woke up Sunday morning and stretched my legs in bed. I immediately felt something down by my feet. It was wet. It was cold.

It was cat pee.

Preston, our sweet cat, had decided to not pee in his box for the first time in 6 years (not counting the times he has peed on our luggage when we go on trips). He slept at the foot of the bed all night and just must have been too tired to actually get up off the bed and walk the 10 steps to the bathroom where we keep his box.

Our pristine white down comforter was stained a horrible yellowish brown color. It stunk. It made me gag. As soon as we saw what had happened we jumped out of bed and starting ripping the sheets off the bed. The King made a mad dash to the laundry room with bleach and Febreeze in hand. I got on my hands and knees and started my vain attempt to ever so gently dab the urine out of the comforter. I doused it in Febreeze and called it good. I’m thinking that isn’t going to work.

The dryers in our building don’t work that great. We ended up with sheets and mattress pads all over the apartment, on top of chairs, on drying racks. Anywhere where they might actually dry in time to sleep in them that night.

Later when I was changing Babboo’s diaper before putting his pajamas on, he Bellagio’d all over his bed. What is it about little boys that they have so much pee in them, and can pee great distances? He got his belly, his legs, the changing pad, his clothes, his stuffed puppy and of course, his own sheets.

When I showered this morning I kept thinking to myself, damn girl, you smell like cat pee. It must be in your hands. I washed myself even more. I used my extra smelly soap, and scrubbed until my fingers were raw.

Um, then I realized it wasn’t me that stunk. It was the towel I had used to clean the comforter. I had hung it in the bathroom to dry before putting it in the wash. The steam from my shower caused the stench to permeate throughout the entire bathroom.

Now our apartment is filled with sheets. And stinky towels that were used to clean up the pee. I swear our apartment will forever be tainted with the smell that will never go away. The smell of cat pee is mixed in with the smell of bleach and Febreeze. That really isn’t a good smell.

At least the sheets are clean.  Anyone ever had a down comforter professionally cleaned?  Any suggestions?