You know how this works, but as always, a gentle reminder:
Pooties are cats; Woozles are dogs. Goggies are dogs, too, and moggies are cats. Birds...are birds! Peeps are people. PWB Peeps are Pooties, Woozle, Birds People. No trolling the diary.
- If you hate pootie diaries, leave now. No harm, no foul.
- Share any and all pootie/woozle photos or issues that you would like .
- If you have health/behavior issues with your pootie or woozle, feel free to bring it to the community. We just may have someone whose experience can help.
- Whatever happens in the outer blog STAYS in the outer blog. This is a place to relax and play; please treat it accordingly.
- There are some pics we never post: snakes, spiders, creepy crawlies, any and all photos that depict or encourage human cruelty toward animals. These are considered “out of bounds” and will not be tolerated.
- There is no such thing as stealing a photo around here, but if you would like a pic from the comment threads, please ask the poster. He/she may have a copyright to those pics. Many thanks!
- It should not need to be said, but ANY/ALL photos that imply or encourage human violence against an animal will be considered verboten! Whether it is “comedic” or not
Previous Neighborhood Stories
Jack’s Pet
Larsson Helps Out
The Golden Goose
The Diet Contest
Martha had her doubts about going to a Halloween party, especially one a week before Halloween, but she also had her opinions about how to be neighborly, and it was Amy and Fred, the new couple on the block, who were giving it. She figured if they wanted to invite her, she’d go just to be nice, even if they were so new to the area that they didn’t know better than to invite the Transoms. Not that she wasn’t a bit curious to get a look at Mr. Transom. So far nobody seemed to have seen him up close.
Jack was watching her as she combed her hair. He was stretched out on the bed, tapping the tip of his tail very slowly on the afghan. “Do you think the Transoms will be there?” she asked him,
Jack yawned. “Will there be drinks?” he said
“Maybe punch,” Martha said. “Oh, I see what you mean.”
“Precisely,” said Jack. “She’d disapprove of that. And for some people, disapproval is the greatest joy in life. So, she’ll be there anyway.”
“Well,” said Martha, “I suppose I can stick with Frieda and Horace and pretend I don’t notice her.” She put the comb down. “Jack,” she said, “how come you don’t talk to anyone but me?”
“How do you know I don’t?” Jack said.
Martha winced. “I don’t think I want everybody to know you talk,” she said.
Jack said, “Remember I’m a cat. I’m naturally very cautious. So don’t distress yourself unduly. My discretion will keep the tabloid reporters off your lawn.”
“Well, time for me to go,” Martha said. “Your video is set up.”
Jack yawned again. “Later then,” he said. “Let me know what the food is like. Pinch some for me if it’s worth the trouble.”
“OK,” said Martha.
Amy and Fred’s house was only a few doors away and the people in between knew how to rake
leaves so Martha got there in a couple of minutes. She took a couple more minutes to check out the jack-o-lanterns on the porch and the plush black cats in the windows and the witch sitting in the porch swing. Those must have taken some work, she thought.
Horace and Frieda and Kemp and Mitzie were ahead of her, and so were Harry and Ellie. Amy was running in and out of the kitchen with bowls of chips and dip, cheese and crackers on leaf-shaped plates, and a platter of cookies with orange and black sanding sugar on them. Fred was stirring something scary-red in a big glass punch bowl. There were cobwebs hanging from the ceiling and broomsticks propped up in the corners of the room. The dining room chairs were arranged in a semi-circle in front of the TV. Roy, the ten-year-old from around the corner, was doing something with a DVD
player perched on top of the TV.
“Why, Roy, what are you doing here?” said Martha. Then she realized that Candy, Roy’s usual babysitter, was hovering by the punch bowl. She and Roy both had their coats on. That meant he wouldn’t be here long.
“Oh, hi,” Roy said. “I’m setting up the DVD player. Can you believe,” he whispered, “some people don’t even know how to work one of these?” Then he said, louder, “How’s Jack?”
“You know Jack?” said Martha.
“Oh, sure. I talk to him sometimes when he’s sitting in your front window.”
“Oh,” said Martha. “How did you know his name?”
“He told me,” said Roy. “I said What’s your name, kitty, and he told me. He also told me not to call him ‘kitty.’ Didn’t you know he talks?”
“Oh,” said Martha. “I sure did. But I think that had better be our secret, don’t you?”
“You got it,” Roy said. “Jack said if I told people he could talk, he’d never speak to me again. ‘Scuse me, I have to start this DVD.”
When the picture appeared it was a fireplace with fancy andirons and a fire burning and sparks popping up now and then and some wisps of smoke that looked kind of like tiny ghosts. Amy came over to look.
“Isn’t it beautiful?” she said. “It’s the original Christmas Yule Log. But I thought it would do just fine for Halloween too. Can you hear the fire sounds?”
“I turned ‘em on,” said Roy.
“Oh, yes, I can just hear them,” said Martha.
“Maybe make them a little louder?” Amy said to Roy. Roy turned up the sound. “Wonderful!” said
Amy. “And thank you very much.”
“You have to go now,” said Candy. She had a handful of chips but, Martha noticed, no punch cup. Good for Fred, Martha thought.
“I don’t wanna go yet,” said Roy. “Uncle Cal might be coming.”
“Then you really have to go,” said Candy. “You’re not supposed to hear the stuff he says.”
“I wanna hear everything he says,” said Roy.
“Well, you have to go,” said Candy. “My friend Brandy is gonna ya’ know kind of call me in like ten
minutes and you have to be ya’ know like asleep instead of buggin’ me. Come on!”
“Oh, OK,” said Roy. Hmm, Martha thought. Once Candy is on the phone he’ll be slipping off to the computer and onto Cal’s Facebook page.
“Thank you again,” said Amy. She handed him a bag of miniature KitKats behind Candy’s back. “Your Uncle Cal couldn’t make it. I’m sorry.”
“Whew!” thought Martha. She’d already heard some of what Cal had to say. Candy pulled Roy out the door just as some more people were coming in.
Wow, Martha thought. Jack was right. Mrs. Transom did come. Now, who is the man behind her? I thought Mr. Transom would be pretty grim looking, and kind of shabby too, but I didn’t think he’d be that skinny and pale. Maybe he’s in costume, but then he’d be the only one who is. That struck her as odd too, but then she remembered that no one was as young as they used to be.
Mrs. Transom handed her coat to Fred with what a really gullible person might have taken for a smile. Then she sat down in an armchair and stared balefully at the punch bowl.
I should never doubt Jack, Martha thought. She noticed the unknown man had sat down across the room from Mrs. Transom. He was looking around as if he didn’t know anyone there but figured he’d size everybody up. Guess it isn’t Mr. Transom, Martha thought.
“Now,” Amy was saying, “has everybody got something to eat and drink? Good! Now I thought since this is a Halloween party, we might do a traditional Halloween thing.”
“Stuff ourselves and get crunk?” someone said. Martha looked around. Oh, she thought, Cal did make it.
“Well,” said Amy, “to each his own, but what I really had in mind was telling ghost stories. That’s why we had Roy set up the fireplace.”
“Why, that’s a fun idea,” said Frieda, but she didn’t sound quite convinced.
“I’ll really try to think of a story,” said Ellie.
“Let’s all sit down around the ‘fire.’” said Amy. Everybody did, and then everybody was very quiet for a while. Finally, Millie said, “Well, I heard that Captain Pabst appears in his mansion on his birthday.” Martha noticed that the stranger was leaning forward. Millie didn’t say anything more.
“Is there a story in there?” the stranger said.
“They say Charles Pfister walks through the hotel lobby sometimes,” said Horace. “And sometimes he has his ghost dog with him.”
“And what does he do?” said the stranger. “There’s no story in there either.” He was looking even grimmer than before.
Frieda took a deep breath. “I heard that when the grade school kids were on their museum trip they
were in the washroom and the water in the wash basins kept going on and off and it was really scary because no one was turning the water on, and somebody told them it was the ghost of the museum director who died years ago who does that sometimes.”
“Right,” said the stranger, “a guy with a PhD decides to spend eternity scaring grade schoolers in a washroom. Sounds likely.”
“My cousin said it happened to her and her kids too,” Frieda said. “And it’s also supposed to get cold around his old desk.” The stranger snorted. Now he was looking grayer and more wrinkled.
“There’s the one about the farmer’s daughter in the hay loft,” said Cal.
“No!” said Harry. “Please!” He and Horace each gave Cal a poke and a hard stare. Cal shrugged and drifted back to the punch bowl.
“Aren’t there supposed to be ghosts in the Randolph Hotel?” said Kemp. “I mean before they tore it down.”
Amy said, “The real estate agent told us we’d hear stories about this house being haunted, but she said not to listen, so we didn’t. “
The stranger was leaning forward again. “So what did you hear?” he said. It sounded like a challenge.
“Oh,” said Amy, “just some things about the attic and the back yard and noises at night. And an actual monster under a bed. But it all sounded made up.”
The stranger stood up suddenly. He was red in the face and waving his arms. “You people!” he said. “You don’t know a thing about ghosts! I’ll tell you a ghost story, OK?” Nobody moved.
“OK,” said the stranger. “There was this house, see? Just a regular Milwaukee bungalow. And there was this guy, see? who lived in it for forty years, and he had this garden, see? that filled up the backyard. He had vegetables, and apple trees, and a grape vine, and a prairie garden and lilac bushes, and roses, and seven kinds of peonies. And then he died. One day he just got too old to work in the garden any more and he lay down and died under the lilac bushes. And the house was empty for a long while and then some other people bought it. They didn’t know anything about him, but they found out. They sure did. Because the only thing they ever did in that place that wasn’t totally boring was they dug up the garden! They even cut down the lilacs for crissake and killed ‘em dead. There was nothing left in that yard! Nothing! They never even spread grass seed!”
The stranger was waving his arms and getting louder and from where Martha was sitting his eyes looked pretty red. He wasn’t done either.
“And after that there wasn’t a pipe in that house that didn’t leak. And there wasn’t a mouse in the neighborhood that didn’t leave tracks in the laundry baskets. And there wasn’t a shelf that didn’t fall off the wall or a window that didn’t rattle. There were raccoons in the attic and centipedes in the basement. There were cobwebs in the dresser drawers. There was a heavy-metal band that played in the backyard every night even if the neighbors swore it wasn’t there. There were toadstools growing on the inside roof of the car and a double-trunk ailanthus tree coming up in the living room. There was a seven-foot boa constrictor in the bath tub and a clown with Trump hair looking out of every mirror. There wasn’t another quiet moment in that place until they moved out. And now there are other people in here and they don’t know anything about that gardener either, but I’m gonna tell you something. I’m gonna tell you that if they know what’s good for them come spring there will be some serious planting! Especially lilacs!”
The stranger finished up pretty loud. Then he waved his arms one more time and vanished.
The party didn’t last long after that but everybody remembered to thank Amy and tell her that the dip was great and so were the punch and the cookies and the pigs-in-blankets and they hoped she and Fred would love their house, especially after they got a garden in.
When Martha got home, Jack was lying on the davenport staring pointedly at the DVD player. “Oh, ” said Martha, “I did set it up, didn’t I?”
“And, as you may remember,” Jack said, “it sometimes needs to be started over.”
Martha was still feeling a bit shaky, but she started the video as fast as she could. Then she sat down and scratched the backs of Jack’s ears.
“Jack,” she said, “what do you think of ghosts?”
Jack yawned. “Oh,” he said. “Mostly I just ignore them.”