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Call 1 877 856 WILD and order your call – mention “panty special” and you’ll be enjoying a handwritten note from mommy and her panties in a few days!

Today my sister left her son Billy with me to babysit. He’s going on 6 years old but he just can’t give the diaper up.  He says he loves the way it feels on his butt and his pee pee and he loves to wet his diaper and get that hot sensation all over his private parts.  When Billy is over – I treat him like the baby that he is.

Auntie Bunny is every one’s favorite Auntie.  I spoil them with lots of hugs and kisses, lots of cookies and milk, and tons of attention.  What more could you want from an Auntie?

So I tried to get Bill to put on his big boy undewear but he cried and threw a tantrum and refused to go potty until I put a Pamper on him.  I finally gave in to the temper tantrum and laid him down and put a diaper on him.  Almost instantly he went potty in his diaper – peeing and then messing in it.  I laid him back down and had to clean up his messy bottom, powder him, and try to get him at least in a Pull up training pant – but he wanted his diaper.

I always give in to diaper lovers – whether they are 6 or 60.  Auntie Bunny has no problem putting on diapers, cleaning messy bottoms, powdering, and re-diapering you.

I’m used to it afterall – I’ve dated several Adult babies who loved their diapys and having a loving and nurturing Auntie to take care of them.  Call me and let’s explore your diaper loving / adult baby side.

Toll Free 1 877 856 WILD  Only 99 cents minute!

http://aphonemommy.com

A few hours ago, I returned back to campus from my last break as a college student. Come December, I’ll be a graduate, and heading out to the real world, which, as of quite recently, could be very rewarding.

Tuesday: night when I got home, I spent the night at my friend Travis’s house. I learned how to insert hyperlinks and add my site into search engines! yay! I just checked out google, and my site was there! I obviously need to work on adding more tags and more posts to get more views to my page, but at least it’s now out there on the internet, where people will hopefully find me.
Then we watched the end of GoodFellas, which is DEFF a movie I need to watch and pay attention to from beginning to end, cause from what I’ve seen, it was fucking awesome.

Wednesday: It rained, all day, but I had a very eventful and productive day. Travis took me to the eye doctor (I need a new prescription for contacts) and the people there were SUPER nice. As I am writing this, I am remembering that I need to call them back with information about my last prescription, so the doctor can finalize my script, and I can get new contacts! After my appointment, which only lasted maybe an hour, Travis and I went to the used book store in the plaza. He score some great deals on books about computers. I purchased a small book, for only $1.32, on circus themed paintings, which I’m going to give to a friend of mine. All of her work lately has had circus elements in it, and it made me think of her, so I’m going to give it to her.
That night, I went bar hopping with my friend Erin, which was pretty exciting.

At one of the bars, we watched her brother play in his band. I knew that he played guitar, but this was the first time I’d seen him play in his band. The lead singer reminded me of an ex/good friend of mine, and you could tell him and the bassist were brothers.  It was like “heavy metal/screamo/hardcore/rock” night, so if you’re into that music, you should check them out HERE. DRH is the name, and if my school was more into that kind of music, I could hook them up with a show or two, but frankly, it’s all reggae and jam bands up here at GMC. Although, I have some connections in the field, and I’m going to do what I can to find them some shows.

Thursday: Happy Turkey Day! Wow, and what a Turkey day it was..This year, it was just my mom, my brother, his friend Mark, my mom’s friend Terry, and myself. My mom bought Turkey dinner this year from Market Basket, and for $55, you get thanksgiving in a box: Turkey, mashed potatoes, squash, stuffing, cranberry sauce, gravy, and even rolls and a pumpkin pie. Everything was surprisingly pretty good, minus the potatoes. They were just a little funky to me..

So I experienced a first that day.  I got home early in the morning, feeling pretty good, and wanted to sleep for a little but before turkey dinner. As the morning hours passed, I just felt worse and worse. I knew I was going to have to throw up, I just knew it. I really didn’t want to make myself do it, and I didn’t have to. I sat down at the table, and tried to eat, and my mom noticed how sick I looked. “Honey, you are so pale.” I told her “I know, I don’t feel good at all, I think I’m going to go upstairs and do it.” I left the table, and as soon as I got to the bathroom, it happened. I felt SOO much better, and went back downstairs, ate dinner with my family, and went back to bed.

Friday: I’m officially an auntie! Welcome to the world Trystan Scott Ouimette. He’s 3 months premature, and only 2 lbs, 1 oz, but he’s doing very well! My brother sent me a picture of him on my phone. He’s got the longest legs I have ever seen on a baby that tiny.

Other than the birth of my nephew, my day really sucked. I was in some kind of vehicle from 9 a.m. till 5 p.m.

Although, I spent the night at Travis’s house, and my dearest friend Mia, who currently lives in Idaho, called me at 2 a.m., raving about how she found the PERFECT job for me! (more to come on this topic)

Saturday:  I got home early afternoon, and got some things done, like laundry and packing and cleaning up my room. I didn’t want to rush around Sunday morning, packing things up for my big adventure back to VT.

Sunday: I hung out with my mom for the afternoon before I headed back up to VT with Michelle. We left at about 3, and got back a little after 7. It was a really nice trip back up, with Dunkie’s ice coffees, and a beautiful, long lasting sunset, and some great tunes on the radio.

I didn’t get to take as many pictures as I would have liked, because as always, things didn’t work out like planned, and I left my camera at Erin’s for a day, but I do have some good shots that will be posted shortly, and hopefully people will start to check out my page.

I interrupt my regularly-scheduled broadcast……to bring you this very important breaking news update.

Today I found out my uncle is sick and in the hospital.

Our entire family is praying for him – that he will recover – and have many more years to celebrate life. Hearing this news from my mom this morning started me thinking about a “moment” that my Uncle Wes and I had together during my wedding in may.

I was showing him the video I had made for John and my Uncle became visibly touched. Now, you have to know my Uncle Wes to know, this just does not happen!

Uncle Wes is my favorite “tough-guy” uncle, replete with tats and would probably have a Harley if my Auntie would let him. He has this gruff voice that lumbers in the air far after he leaves the room. When I was a kid, if Uncle Wes got mad, you had better leave the country because you were about to get a lickin that would keep on stingin for months!

After watching the video, my Uncle Wes shared some wisdom and encouragement with me about marriage that I bring to remembrance daily as I navigate these new waters of “one-fleshness” with John. My whole world stopped as I stepped into that “moment” with my Uncle Wes and just soaked in it. Of all of the “moments” during my wedding day, it is that one that I will cherish in my heart forever.

This is my Uncle Wes at the wedding…

And this is my Uncle Wes, my mom & step dad, and my Auntie MaryKay… ain’t they cute!

So before we move on, could you lift my Uncle Wes and Auntie Mary Kay up in prayer today for God’s healing touch?

It has been said that…Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.

The older I become, the more I realize this to be true. It is those captivating moments that I look back on that I can point to and say “in that moment I learned something… became something… gained something… in that moment I was defined…or in that moment life took on a whole new meaning for me…”

Those moments have no monetary value but yet they are a treasure no amount of money can buy.

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With this comic, my younger nephew, Zereth (age 5) makes it onto the site.  One evening during my visit with my brother’s family, I was in the middle of my shower when I heard a tap-tap-tap on the door.  Then the doorknob began to rattle.  I hear this little voice saying “Aunty Lola, let me in!”  (Yes, they have trouble with the name Arloa as do many adults!).  His response when I told him I was in the shower had me giggling for days!  Children can be very tactful!

Baby Kingston!

6 lbs 10 oz! And 20 inches of cuteness!

i can see it already... daddy's little girl!

dob: 10/23/2009 (post is delayed b/c i was in nepal…)
time: 09:04pm
weight: 8lbs 1.7oz
height: 19.5in (will probably be super tall, look at her dad)
to: proud 1st time parents… papa jim + mama esther

can’t wait to see you when we return!
love,
auntie viv + uncle george

Basket Case

“They kept us hidden. We were the ‘big family secret’. everybody hated us”

Basket Case is a story about love. Honestly. It’s a story about one man’s love for his brother. It’s also a story about jealousy, passion, revenge and the trauma of separation anxiety manifesting in homicidal vengeance. However, most of all Basket Case is the story of a little mutant that lives in a wicker basket.

I’ve read some awful bollocks about this film in the last few days (one of the worst offenders was actually in the Special Features on the DVD), and that preceding paragraph is my parody of the utter nonsense that people write about this film. It isn’t “seminal”, it certainly is not “one of the most important horror movies from the period”. It is, however, a fun little romp with a hideous and, I believe unique, monster. Seriously, we’re not talking about Alien or The Exorcist here. We’re talking about a low budget little shocker with a disgusting beast killing people. It didn’t exactly spawn a load of imitators, even if it did birth 2 sequels of varying quality, and so where the rubbish about this film comes from is lost on me completely.

Plotwise, this is a simple little film. Duane and Belial are Siamese twins. Duane looks normal (sort of), but Belial is a hideous mutant growing out of Duane’s torso- the only person that understands the brothers is their (frankly loopy) aunt. Their father is a bit of a bastard, so has the brothers forcibly separated (a truly wince-worthy scene). However, Belial doesn’t die. Rather he develops telepathic powers and persuades Duane that they need to go on a revenge spree.

So off the brothers go to New York to stay in an utter dump in a very, very shitty bit of town.

The rest of the film can be very quickly summarised- the bodies mount up, Duane falls in love, Belial is less than impressed at this and hops aboard/ murders Duane’s girl- ungrateful little shit that he is. The brothers fight, and then attempt suicide by jumping out of a window.

To be absolutely honest, this isn’t a classic. It is not even the best of the Basket Case Trilogy. However, it is highly original and thoroughly entertaining. It’s also the only one that could be remotely classed as experimental, and I’m pretty certain it’s the only pure horror film of the 3. I know that sounds like a silly thing to say, but I feel justified in saying that 2 is a horror comedy and 3 is absolutely a comedy- veering as it does into the downright farcical. That’s not that there aren’t laughs to be had (watch out for Duane feeding Belial) but it’s essentially a horror movie with a few chuckles.

Needless to say, though, Basket Case isn’t scary. I can’t stress this enough, it just is not remotely frightening because it’s about a homicidal mutant that lives in a basket (for fuck’s sake). It’s meant to be, and there are moments that are unsettling- most noticeably the separation scene- but the actual kills themselves are just not remotely scary- and the rape sequence at the end is fucking ridiculous.

I do have to give them credit though, because they really did try their damndest with this film, but pretty much the entire reason that it isn’t frightening relates to this. They just tried too hard with Belial. The central premise of the film is about a small mutant living in a basket. However, they realised that it would be pointless to make the able bodied brother the killer, so therefore they had to find a way to make Belial not only a grotesque monster, but also one able to move around and rip faces off. This was a mistake- and a huge one. They did, to be fair, learn from this mistake and not repeat it in the sequels, but Belial is a major problem for the film.

Firstly, the design of the monster is, well, crap. He’s minging, true, but he is also obviously rubber. There was an easy fix to this- don’t show him as overexposure will rob him of his power. To tell the truth, the first time I saw him I was reminded of a crappy 80’s rubber toy called a Boglin.

To illustrate, let’s play a game of spot the difference:

Boglin

Belial

Sigh,- this is precisely what I mean about trying too hard. If you’ve got an obviously rubber monster with serious limitations, then you hide it. You do NOT under any circumstances construct several bizarre stop motion animation sequences (full marks for effort though) where Belial climbs around the hotel room honking like a tugboat being molested. You also don’t place him on a naked chick’s mid section in a vague effort to look like a rape.

Secondly, the acting is (as it to be expected) atrocious. Kevin Van Hentenryck is suitably dopey as Duane, which is fair enough, because Duane is clearly not the brains of the outfit, but his drunk scene is bordering on wretched. Terri Susan Smith is rubbish as the love interest, though, and she really drags the film down. The supporting cast of degenerates in the hotel are all entertaining and all fairly well acted. Auntie is superbly insane, but she’s in it far too briefly.

Overall, would I recommend this film? Yes, but not as happily as I recommend its sequel. It’s a clever, twisted, fucked up little movie, with giggles aplenty. My quibbles are really just hair splitting, and also down to me comparing it to its sequel.

Highly enjoyable, but not the best of the series.

Basket Case 2

“I think it’s time we really confronted your feelings about your *separation* from Duane. To you it was more than losing a brother. You also lost a piece of yourself.”

Huzz-fucking-ah. Now we’re talking. This is a film that not only understands the golden rules of horror sequels but also revels in them. The ethos of this film is make it bigger, make it dumber, make it messier, and above all make it more fun. It’s mad, gross, obscene stuff- the cinematic equivalent of asylum art, except not drawn in human faeces on the wall of a padded cell. Because that would be nasty.

I fucking love this film.- this is everything the first one could have been, and I have to admire Henenlotter for it. Basket Case 2 is simply a demented monster of a film, a tour de force of stupidity and grossness. He said that he wanted to originally call it “House of Freaks” but wasn’t allowed to. Lord knows why, it isn’t as if this could possibly be any more offensive as (just in case you don’t know) this is the notorious mutant sex film.

However, the studio (for want of a better word) did allow him the freedom to make his house of freaks film, and once given the chance, he grabbed it with both hands, let his imagination run riot and produced the most entertainingly fucked up cast of characters ever seen on screen outside of a cartoon. They’re fucking hilarious and quite rightly the stars of the show. Even the human characters are freakish on the inside; what with them all being ludicrous one-dimensional caricatures. This “ugly on the inside” point is made with the subtlety of a frat house gang bang by the delightfully insane Granny Ruth (a frankly hilarious performance by Annie Ross, but more on that later).

So, I bet your wondering what the plot is- well, it’s fucking nuts. Completely and utterly nuts. I would have loved to be in that writing meeting as the drugs must have been free flowing, and no idea too outlandish. Anyhow, Basket Case 2 takes up the story immediately at the end of Basket Case 1. Our heroic brothers have taken a nosedive out of the window and are bleeding to death on the concrete when they are rescued and taken to hospital. Inexplicably Duane is more fucked up than Belial, but neither of them are going to be swimming to Tahiti any time soon. Cue some Belial crawling on the wall, a bit of glowing red eye nonsense and the usual telepathic shenanigans. Duane is possessed by Belial and forced to rescue him in a trolley and escape from the hospital. Once outside, they are picked up by Granny Ruth and Susan (a fetching Heather Rattray- but don’t even think about it any onanistic degenerate that may be reading this, she is certainly *not* wank material. Well, not if you don’t want traumatising and really putting of your stroke.) and transported back to (via a fake freakshow for a quick murder) Granny’s sprawling pad.

Once there, Duane is nursed back to health, and Belial is introduced to the other residents of the house. Wow. Freak after freak after freak. It’s like the clientele of many a Weatherspoon pub in a grim northern city late on a Friday night. I won’t go into details, because a picture tells a thousand words so:

Anyhow, Belial has a purpose here, there is another separated Siamese twin, and he’s to make friends with her (that’s not fucking loopy or anything). Admittedly, this scene is a bit annoying, what with Granny’s interminable monologue about all the special skills her pets lodgers have.

In the meantime, a sleazy reporter is hot on the trail, desperate to find Granny Ruth and Belial while Susan nurses Duane back to health- with the inevitable romantic consequences.

The stakes rise, the brothers kill several people, and then in possibly the most horrendous juxtaposition I’ve ever seen Duane declares his love to Susan while Belial makes not so sweet rubbery love to the other mutant. Needless to say, Susan is a mutant, and this sparks Duane to accidentally throw her out of the window. A touch of an overreaction, admittedly, and he was warned, but it is totally understandable. I mean, look at it from Duane’s point of view: he’s finally going to pop that cherry and his dream woman has an unborn baby (that resembles a cross between a chestburster and a penis) living inside her that pops out for air every now and again. As I say, understandable. However, reasonable as his reaction clearly is, it isn’t so logical to go completely fucking loopy and sew your homicidal mutant brother back on to your own side.

Cue credits. What a film!

The acting from all the characters is competent, Kevin Van Hentenryk even seems to be having some fun this time- even if his part involves the thankless task of wheedling dialogue addressed to a wicker basket. However the star of the show is Annie Ross who puts in a performance that fluctuates between Maggie Smith in full Miss Jean Brodie schoolmarmish flow and the outer reaches of demented scenery chewing. It’s one of the finest schlock performances ever- this isn’t hyperbole, it’s that good.

The design and makeup/ monster effects are greatly improved from the first film. To begin with, they don’t show the freaks in harsh light. Secondly there’s no stupid stop motion of Belial shuffling on his ass around the walls like fuck knows what. A lesson well learnt there.

The script is downright hilarious with lines like “He’s a bit nervous, it’s his first interview” punctuating ridiculous monologues and frankly daft attempted hard boiled dialogue. Granny Ruth, predictably, gets most of the best lines, but there’s more than enough goodies to be shared by all.

And now for the whinging: this film is a creatively demented gem. It’s simply superb. However, it’s short. And not only is it short but a fair whack of run time is devoted to the separation scene from the first film (which is, to be fair, the most frightening thing in either film). Why, you lazy buggers, why did you do this?  I know it’s a sequel, but for the love of the flying spaghetti monster, did you really not have enough material for another quarter of an hour? You’ve got a guy with half of a surfboard growing out of his face, are you honestly trying to tell me that you couldn’t come up with another 10 minutes?

That’s it, though. That’s my only complaint. Some may complain about the cheesiness and some may complain about the horrid mutant sex, but really, go in with an open mind and you’ll laugh until you hurl.

Highly, highly recommended- Simply unmissable. Ignore the pretentious drivel about it being the spiritual heir of the classic 1933 Freaks (it isn’t) and ignore the bollocks written about it on the internet (Says he without the slightest shred of either irony or self-awareness). It’s just a great time- a creature feature with a bawdy sense of humour and a well defined sense of the ridiculous.

Basket Case 3

“You’re an animal, Duane, but I’m an animal, too, and I know how to handle animals like you.”

Oh dear. I can’t tell you how much I don’t want to do what I’m about to do. What is it about horror series? They always take it too far and produce an absolute load of rubbish at the end- Leprechaun did it with the wholly underwhelming Back 2 Da Hood, Halloween did it (the remakes do not exist in this dojo), Friday 13th did it as did Nightmare on Elm Street before being partially resuscitated by New Nightmare. Many is the film series that ends with a whimper. I really wanted this to be the exception, for Henenlotter to make a trilogy that gets better with each one, but they couldn’t do it.

In the beginning there was Basket Case, a fun little film that was reasonably well made and quite entertaining, then there was Basket Case 2 which took a chainsaw to sanity resulting in one of the most stupendous gigglefests that I’ve ever seen. Then they decided to push their luck and make Basket Case 3: The Progeny. The warning signs are clear- there’s a colon in the title (colons invariably are attached to terrible films: AvP: Requiem, for example), it’s a part 3, and it was released a full decade after the original. Yet, I ignored the alarm bells ringing in my head and decided to push through and complete the trilogy.

The thing is, and I know this is going to sound nuts, but there was a sort of thematic logic to Basket Case 1 and 2. The story of the homicidal Belial and his somnambulant brother Duane made sense in a twisted sort of way. Even Basket Case 2 which cannot see sanity with a telescope kind of made sense. This, on the other hand, is almost completely incoherent, and worse than that, is stuffed with more slapstick garbage than a Three Stooges marathon.

It is not a total loss, which I’ll come back to in a bit, but it really is the stunted rubber dwarf of the series, and deserves to get cornholed by another stunted rubber dwarf.

Picking up from the hilarious end of Basket Case 2, this sequel carries on with the story of the brothers, Granny Ruth, and her freak troupe. It turns out, apparently, that mutant rubber toys can give birth if molested by another mutant rubber toy. However, understandably, the field of mutant rubber obstetrics is filled with risk and unpredictable obstacles. Therefore, Granny Ruth has decided to decamp the whole brigade, and drive across America to the only doctor that she feels comfortable with. It’s pretty obvious what’s coming, and there are absolutely no prizes for guessing why Granny Ruth only trusts her old friend Uncle Hal.

Anyway, poor old Duane has been written off as a nutbag (wonder why) and is currently in a straight jacket. As if that wasn’t bad enough, he’s being dragged across country with the freaks and Belial won’t talk to him any more. Apparently, Belial is still a bit upset about the whole stitching incident, for some reason (he has completely forgotten things like, say, raping Duane’s girlfriend), and more than a little stressed about the state of his mutant rubber bride.

Our less than intrepid gang arrives at Uncle Hal’s where it turns out, surprise surprise, that Little Hal is a freak and also Granny Ruth’s son. Anyhow, Duane breaks out, gets arrested before being sexually tormented by the Sheriff’s daughter Opal (probably the best bit of the film), Eve gives birth, the cops kidnap the progeny, and all out carnage ensues.

This shouldn’t be too bad, really, and looking at that plot it seems to fit in with it’s far more illustrious predecessors. But it doesn’t. The script is as ropey as always and the acting is again supported by Kevin Van Hentenryk and Annie Ross who aren’t bad at all. KVH is on fine form as Duane giving comfortably his best dopey performance of the series. However, it just doesn’t. It simply sucks- and this is why:

Basket Case 3 is an unfunny, cringe-worthy comedy. Henenlotter was clearly into the Columbian marching powder, or at least I hope he was, because he’s finished his series with an annoying, slapdash, careless little film that I struggle to think of many good things about.  Not to mention the fact that there are continuity errors all over the place, and really stupid ones as well.

There is just so much of it that is painful. The song and dance routine on the bus, for example, was probably a great idea on paper. On the screen however, it falls flatter than Holland. But the real pain and suffering is all down to one man: Jim O’Doherty. He’s simply dreadful, and he runs unchecked like a river of sewage in full flood. He isn’t helped by his diabolically bad monster costume, but I’m not going to make any excuses for him. He simply sucks the life out of the film- I could pick many examples of his terminal awfulness, but I’m just going to pick on two. When he is first reintroduced to Granny Ruth, there is the most atrocious “Mommy” scene that merely manages to scale the heights of painfully embarrassing. He wails, he gibbers, he’s a twat. Secondly, and far worse, Henenlotter was clearly convinced that he’d unearthed some kind of unpolished comic diamond here, and let the goon off the leash. Thus resulting  in a painful, obviously improvised, performance during Eve’s birth scene. It’s harrowing for all the wrong reasons.

Now I’ve got that off my chest, I’m going to talk about the other stupid little errors that make this film so irritating. For example, Eve is a small rubber thing like Belial. She’s about (give or take) one and a half feet tall yet manages to spawn about 12 little ones. I’m not the worlds greatest expert on rubber mutant physiology, but unless she’s got a womb like the fucking TARDIS then this is just bullshit. I’m positive that it was done for laughs, but it just isn’t funny, it’s retarded and not in a good way. To make matters worse, after the cops kidnap one of the offspring, it’s dropped and the cop falls on it, killing it with his arse. That’s the level of comedy we’re talking about in this film.

Is there anything positive in it, I hear you ask? Well, yes there is- leaving aside the pitch perfect performances mentioned above there is one genuine moment of comic genius in the film- it comes when Duane is in the slammer. When Opal breaks out her S&M gear and attempts to whip Duane into shape I started laughing. However, when her father comes in and grounds her I started howling, and when he finishes the speech with “and you are not going to get that pony” that was it for me. He’s lecturing a teenage nymphomaniac dominatrix with a fetish for convicts and the best threat he can come up with is taking away her pony? That is truly inspired. It is a real shame the rest of the film is not up to this standard.

Overall, would I recommend it? No. It’s just a bad film. However, it is worth watching to complete the series, but if you do decide to miss it, then you will not be missing out on anything. Basket Case 3 is proof that you can have too much of a good thing, and as there is far too much lame comedy and not enough proper Basket Case gorgeousness then I can’t help but wonder what could have been.

It’s a highly entertaining trilogy and this ending just lets it down.

A real shame.

Pokrovka, Kyrgyzstan. Winter 2005.

Part 1: Old Fakey

Old Auntie sniffed the air. Drizzly rain coming, the best time for bogeys and spooks.

Her favorite had been Old Fakey, a wisp of congealed bad dreams who’d lived in the root cellar and sung his dreadful tales of horror at all hours of the day and night. A regular person wouldn’t hear nothing but the wind. But Auntie heard beneath that, beneath the chomping of worms and crackle of growing grass.

And the girl heard it, too. Auntie knew it. Her big sisters walked over that cellar as blithely as if it were filled with angels. But not Gilly. No, the littlest girl shied away from Old Fakey like she smelled him.

And it was her fault he’d been banished. If the sniveling little girl hadn’t gone running to her daddy, the best bogey in this part of the forest would still be down in the deeps, feasting on dark thoughts and haunted dreams.

There was the girl Gilly now, staring out her window into Auntie’s wrinkled eyes.

“What do you see, girlie?” Auntie asked under her breath. “What haunts lie in the shadows?”

Auntie had something Gilly didn’t: time.

She’d already lived and died  77 times. Each death was more brutal and astonishing than the last; each life drawn from the power of the death. Last time it had been a bear that done her in. He ate her insides and roared for more, but Auntie was already faded into her next life, relishing her somewhat younger and much revived body and mind.

Next time it will be a shark, Auntie decided. A Great White, if possible. That should give me another 25 years at least.

In all that time, Gilly will grow up. She’ll fall in love. She’ll forget things that go bump in the night. He Daddy won’t be nearby any more to work his do-gooder magic.

“I’ll get you, my pretty!” Auntie cackled at the window, just loud enough so the little girl would be sure to hear.

The shadow is swallowing her big sister. Gilly reaches out, a scream trapped in her throat—

­—and blinks. It was nothing. Fern is safely on the other side of the puddle. It was just another fake vision.

“Go away, fakey!” Gilly shouts, stomping in the dark mass of water. Somewhere deep in there, something still lurks.

“Gilly!” Fern whirls around, her clean white shirt spattered with mud. “Now I have to change and we only have ten more minutes!”

Ten minutes until Dad comes back. Ten minutes, after a whole two months of waiting. Two whole months of Gilly and Fern and their middle sister June living by themselves in the trailer by the woods, across from the old Auntie’s cabin.

They’d done fine on their own, just as Dad told them they would. His business was important—one day his daughters would follow in his foot steps, and they needed to learn to be independent.

Fern pushes open the door and Gilly peers out under her sister’s elbows into a scene of utter chaos. June  perched in the middle of five huge, bubbling pots of sugared milk. White ooze covering the counters, chairs, and floor.

“It boiled over! I just wanted to make a special pudding cake, and…” June shrugs, a delighted grin on her face. “Look, the whole kitchen is like a winter wonderland!”

Gilly sticks a finger into the mess. “Yum! It tastes good!”

“That’s it! You two are certifiably insane.” Fern steps gingerly over the ooze and into the bedroom. “You two are on clean-up. I have to change.”

Gilly peers out the open window, watching for Dad’s car. The long dirt road was empty, but the Aunties are out, cackling to each other and gazing up at the sky.

“No rain no more. Nope, we done stopped it,” says the fat one.

“You mean I done stopped it. You ain’t done nothin’ since that angry old grizzly ate you up.”

“A grizzly’s a more honorable way to go than getting’ kicked in the head by a grumpy donkey!”

Gilly had heard the fight before. Each Auntie claimed to have been done in before, and it didn’t make much sense. Her sisters told her she was making things up—those batty old ladies were their Dad’s mother’s sisters. And that was that.

But now the ladies are peering into the puddle. The same puddle that maybe tried to eat Fern. Gilly leans farther out the window, sees them stirring up the water with a gnarled stick.

“Ho there, bogey.”

“Hey there, bogey.”

“Gilly!” June spins around with a bowl of brightly colored frosting. “Let’s just build the cake right here on the counter! We’ll just bathe it all with frosting, and no one will know any better!”

Ten minutes later, the door opens and Dad walks in. Gilly gets the first hug, just like always.

He looks the same as he always has; he smells the same and hugs the same and smiles the same!

“I love what you’ve done with the kitchen!” Dad tastes the pudding coating a chair. “Lovely! But we’d better get it off the floor before the guests arrive, hmm?

June nods enthusiastically. “Look. I’m building a counter-cake!”

“You’re ALL crazy!” Fern whirls into the room, piling into the growing hug.

“The tent’s here,” Dad says. “Let’s help them set up.” Gilly lets arms be unwound from around her Dad’s waist and troops outside to see the structure arriving on a truck. Two men get out to help set up.

Fern takes charge, grabbing a toolbox and directing the men around the back. Gilly follows, her eyes squinting slightly for that shadow from the puddle. Something isn’t right with the wooden frame the men are carrying. No, it isn’t in the wooden frame. The not-right thing is in the ground. In the old root cellar dug deep into the back yard.

They put the frame down square over the old cellar. “In case we need to go down to get a refill of last year’s cider,” Dad explains.

“Well, we’ll have to go down and make sure it’s got a strong ceiling,” says the shorter man.

“Ok, I’ll go down first with a light.” Fern runs inside for a flashlight.

“I’m going, too,” says Gilly, trying to feel brave. She’s the only one who could feel the fakey-thing. That much is for-sure.

Inside the cellar, it smells like old apples and fat, happy worms. The men lay a ladder against the side and poke around. Fern holds up her flashlight, looking important. Gilly wraps her arms around her chest and waits. It’s in here with them. The fakey thing.

She blinks, and sees: there’s no way out. The ceiling, the walls, the whole underground room has no exit – it’s all just black, black, and Fern is panicking. The men on the ladders don’t understand. The trap door was right there! Where has it gone?

“Heyyyyy!” she screams.

“Gilly, what’s wrong? Are you scared?” Fern swings the flashlight at Gilly’s eyes.

The vision is gone. There’s the trapdoor, right over their heads.

“No, not scared. But we need to go up.” Gilly tugs her sister’s arm. The men shrug. They’ve seen what they needed to see. With a couple bottles of cider and wine under their arms, they head up into the afternoon sunshine.

At the top of the stairs, the old Aunties are whispering back and forth, back and forth. Gilly eyes them closely, squints to see the feathery bogeys hovering around their feet like old smoke.

“Away, fakey!” She shouts at the top of her lungs.

Fern laughs, but Dad is coming out of the house with the first of the family guests. He only smiles at Gilly, and nods. “That’s right, my girl. Nice work.”

The Auntie’s scowl as Dad’s fingers flash in a complicated pattern. Gilly watches the smoke scramble for cover. Gone. Back below the earth where it belongs.

This post was based on an elaborate dream I had last night.

Well, I am all holidayed out now! Had my 2 holidays (in a row!) which sounded like a great idea at the time, but was really exhausting and mental! I didn’t have time to unpack between Rottnest and Down South Road trip, nor did I need to. I kind of wish I could have had the holidays in reverse. Rottnest was very relaxing and so easy going. The Down South Road trip was only 3 days, 2 nights, a LOT of driving and trying to cram as much into every day as possible, while we were down there to be able to do it. We did Archery, Valley of the Giants Tree Top Walk, climbed (me: halfway) up the Bicentennial Tree, which is the tallest tree in Western Australia (as far as I am aware?) and visited my Uncle and Auntie who live Down South.

I did have fun though. They were both very enjoyable, but it is sooo nice to be back on my own house with my car again (an old Holden HQ Kingswood ~ love it to bits) and my own shower, and bed to sleep in!

Also I am back to work and College (fun!) and have an assignment due Monday that I haven’t even half done. So I ask myself yet again, why am I on here and not out there doing my assignment?

Eagerly
Seth

My very first niece, Janiayah Rhooms was born on the 22nd of the month and I love her already.

My big brother, Javon, newly proud father.

Proud aunties, me and my lil sister, she’s been a aunt for many many years but I’m a newbie aka Neyo