On This Day: Your History

[Paquita]

October 13, 1995 Ever wonder if you've accidentally summoned an evil Hindu goddess?

I was at Brian's apartment and saw he had a vinyl record from the special collections at his university's library, and when I asked what it was he said it was a rare recording from the early twentieth century of 2,600-year-old ritualistic chants to the goddess Kali the Destroyer. He added that these were chants associated with human sacrifice.

When I told him I wanted to hear, he put it on, and when the needle touched the record a loud crackle was followed by a long hiss of static, and then something I would never have expected: the sounds coming off the record proved instantly disturbing.

I told myself it was supposed to, what else would worship of a death goddess sound like? It was simply old noise captured, nothing more, it couldn't hurt anybody. Still, the chants were clearly not friendly, the keening Sanskrit words seemed to come from the priests' throats in animalistic growls, the same phrases, whatever they were, ripping loose again and again like whiplashes, as jarring instruments unknown in the west banged along percussively.

Brian looked at me and asked if I was actually getting creeped out, and asked if I wanted him to turn it off. I said no, which was only true for the second question, so he played the entire recording, which seemed to only grow darker and more intense, more frenzied, more violently fierce and angry, like hatred itself spat out from it.

When it finally ended Brian sat quietly for a moment, the silence loud, and finally said, "Do you have the feeling I shouldn't play that record again?"

"Yeah," I said. What we'd heard had come straight out of nightmares.

He joked, "And I have to sleep in this place tonight." Then he threw out the detail: "I was the first person since 1977 to check that out."

I asked, "I wonder what happened to the person from 1977?"

He kind of laughed and seemed to shake it all off, but I kept thinking that those chants calling a cruel goddess into the world were something we shouldn't have heard, and wondered if I'd want to know what its words actually meant. Nothing good I was sure.

And that was it, as far as I could tell nothing bad happened in the short term because we played that, but to this day it remains the most disturbing music I have ever heard.

I used to be really freaked out about Kali because our names are similar and I first heard about her from the Temple of Doom movie.  I thought anytime someone said my name they might be invoking Kali and then could just rip my heart out.  I am by no means a scholar on Hinduism, but I did learn a bit about Kali, possibly not on good authority, but my understanding of Kali is that she is the goddess of many things, not just death and destruction.  She is called the Mother goddess so all of her other powers I take as being cycle of life related, creation, time, death, destruction, etc.  I also heard that her "death and destruction" qualities are more towards those that would do harm to those she considers her children. So, in that regard, her being adorned with the mutilated body parts of her enemies seems totally relatable.

Sorry this response is 12 days late.

[ER]

^ Well hey, Paq, nice to see you back! Doing well? Twins, wasn't it? 

[ER]

October 26, 1996 Brian was off in Argentina, or maybe Israel by that time, seeing to his seemingly dying father's medical treatment, and to my later shame I was selfishly annoyed about that, so I drove to Park Cemetery, in Fairmount, Indiana, with a French-born boy from my English class, to visit the grave of one of that boy's idols, James Dean.

Fall colors were at their peak and that part of Indiana was as flat as the planet gets. Finding the town, the cemetery, the grave, were no issue, since the fact it was James Dean's hometown (before he left it) was about the place's sole claim to fame, and signs were everywhere.

Dean's tombstone was not the original, which had been stolen, but the replacement was still surrounded by grave offerings, like flowers, an American flag, an unopened pack of the cigarettes Dean was said to have favored, some pictures, all regularly collected and disposed of unless deemed worthy of inclusion inside the town's James Dean Museum. The best item I saw by the headstone was a Zippo lighter with Dean's iconic image engraved on it, and the boy I was with really wanted to take it before I reminded him Anubis stalked grave robbers. (Then I had to explain to his dense self who Anubis was.)

Normally I tended to like cemeteries as long as I had no personal connection with anyone buried there, but there was something so exploitative in the starving little town's capitalizing on poor Dean's broken body a few feet under the trampled soil that it made me reticent to be there long. (Plus, honestly, I could take or leave the actor's movies and questionable sense of cool.) So we left a note on the stone and passed out of town without stopping, a long drive ahead of us.

It was an unexpectedly gloomy visit in a brief era of my life I don't always like to remember.

[ER]

October 27, 2019 Had a bonfire out back and roasted marshmallows, and at the end it got silly and my son Keagan threw in a pair of his old summer tennis shoes, and they smoked and melted and smelled terrible, and then everyone wanted to throw stuff in and we said okay one thing each, so Trin tossed in her phonics workbook from last year, my husband pitched in a worn-out basketball, I flipped in a kvetchy letter from my employers, and Daisy burned a whole unopened bag of Lay's chips, which to her disappointment didn't pop, just melted to nothingness and the chips sizzled and flamed like tiny slivers of wood. I do love bonfires, and that was a good one that burned through half the chilly autumn night, casting phantasmagorical shadow-beings to stalk among the glow on nearby tree trunks.

[ER]

October 28, 1989 My friend Gina's dad drove us to a haunted house sponsored by a radio station, and asked if we were scared and I said no (though I kinda was) but Gina admitted she definitely was, and her seven year old brother was so terrified he wasn't sure he was even going in at all. We entered as a group and the ghoul-faced lady at the door yelled, "Victims!!!"  Honestly I pretty much ran all the from the entrance to the exit and barely saw what was in there, only knew from somewhere behind me Gina and Mark screamed their heads off, so I figured they were goners and I was the smart one who'd live. When I got out though I told their dad how cool it had been and said I kinda wanted to go back in, but didn't. As a reward for surviving the peril, we were bought candy apples and got to navigate through a corn maze, only to be met by Jason buzzing a chainsaw in our faces. There was also a Freddy running around, and a little person (or child?) playing Chucky. In the car I asked everybody what they thought would happen if somebody wore a mask when inside the haunted house, and Gina and Mark's dad said monsters didn't attack other monsters out of professional courtesy.

[Alex]

28th October 2019.

We had an early morning appointment in Aberdeen and had to drag Ash out of bed at 5 to get him there in time. He did not enjoy the experience. We'd to take the bus rather than the train. The doctors told us that they'd give us exercises to do with Ash, but he was going to need surgery on his thumb (although a couple of years down the line we'd be told we'd done enough with him not to actually need surgery any more). On the way home some a***ole driver stopped his car several times in front of the bus on the motorway (equivalent to a freeway in the US I guess), forcing the driver to slam on his brakes. We were expecting cars to slam into the back of the bus and I was cradling Ash to protect him as much as possible. Eventually the driver went off down some turn off. We'd reported his registration as a suspected drunk driver. The bus had camera's filming the whole thing, but I gave my details in case they needed a witness.

28th October 2010.

Every day since arriving on 617 I'd attempted to come up with a list of 10 reasons not to quit my job. The highest I ever made was 6. On this day though, this day I just had nothing left. I felt worn down and depressed working there. No matter how many planes I fixed, the pilots just flew more sorties until the jets were broken. I never once felt like I was winning. I wasn't really learning anything about the aircraft, it was all just "Oh that fault normally means this box needs replaced. If that doesn't fix it then replace this other box instead." A trained monkey could do that and it was much less technical than all the jobs I'd done before. I think I'd been on the verge of depression since things with Bev, and that my experiences on the sqn would be what tipped me over. A couple of friends around this time told me the fun just seemed to have gone out of me. It would be another two years before I'd get my career back on track to where I wanted it to be, but a lot longer than that before I'd realise what was wrong with me and get that fixed. Although this 3 year period was the only part of my job I didn't enjoy, it was bad enough that I would never quite get back to loving it in the same way as I had before.

[Alex]

29th October 2022.

We rented a hotel room just outside Inverness and went to watch the 20th anniversary rerelease of The Thing, one of my favourite movies. Seeing it on the big screen allowed me to pick up on some details I'd missed before (like someone having a nose piercing as an example). We went for a Nando's which we'd never done before and decided that while the food was acceptable we didn't understand what all the fuss was about.

[ER]

October 29, 2009 Woke up and watched the sunrise, then redeemed a gift card someone gave me for what was dubbed a Reiki "cleansing," though I read online the word for the process actually translated much closer to "exorcism." It involved the positioning of hands above supposed chakras and meridians around my body, the burning of cloying incense, and the rapid drawing of symbols in the air. According to the philosophy of Reiki, spirits are everywhere around us at all times, and I was told I had spirits of grief and anger trying to bore close to me, and was told these spirits knew my secrets and whispered them to passing strangers. (That's what the person said.) So, after the process was finished about fifty minutes after it began, I was told those spirits, some of which were natural entities, some deceased human souls who were "hungry," had been driven away from me, and for a time I would have a shield against them, but the practitioner stressed the importance of me coming back regularly and often....at a hundred-fifty per pop. Yeah, no, I thought, I liked my placebos to be free. It took two shampooings to get the incense smell out of my hair, but I admit, receiving a Reiki cleansing was an interesting life experience, kinda like getting splashed with holy water, or getting a henna tattoo on the arch of your foot.

[Paquita]

^ Well hey, Paq, nice to see you back! Doing well? Twins, wasn't it? 

Yes! Violet & Verbena were born Sept 25. I lost 2 liters of blood in surgery but stayed conscious the whole time and feeling pretty good now. The past month has gone by like a flash but I'm determined to make the best of the rest of my vacation!

[chefzombie]

congratulations , paqui! i'm glad you're feeling better!

[ER]

October 30:

1993: Found a box of Doctor Who episodes Mom recorded for Dad when he was away working in the '80s; watched several. Isn't Memory Lane a nice place sometimes?

1997: Dreamed I was naked in biology lab class but no one seemed aware of the fact. I covered myself with my arms but all around me it was business as usual.

1998: Jackie picked me up at the airport and drove me back to college after I'd been away many weeks working overseas, and had gone home before returning to our place near school.

2006: Lunch in Eden Park with the only nun I ever had as a teacher (she liked to say she loved me enough to tell me I was Hell-bound because of how I was living), then afterward I went to the library and read 1920s newspapers.

2011: To dinner with my Aunt Christie, her biological daughter, granddaughter, and adopted daughter; it overwhelmed me to wonder at the odds of my cousin Alba going from a Chinese orphanage for cast off girls to living with my aunt.

2012: Saw Cloud Atlas with my friend Edie. Interesting book, cool title, tedious movie.

2019: Wrapped our present for my cousin's upcoming conversion to Judaism party. Wow, amid the sea of Catholicism I was suddenly related by blood to a real-life Jew!

2020: In San Diego with my family and saw not a single Trump 2020 sign of the sort so ubiquitous all around us back home.

[ER]

October 31: My Halloweens through the years. (If you have a life, feel free to skip this.)

1989: Trick or treating with my friends Gina and Mark, and my grandma, and a black kitten followed us through half the subdivision.

1990: Gina and Mark went to their old neighborhood in Kenwood, Ohio, and invited me, but I said no and walked around alone, which sucked.

1991: Got to stay up late and watch The Shining after trick or treating.

1992: Went to a party dressed as a mermaid after a book and movie I loved.

1993: River Phoenix's death was huge news on the coldest, snowiest Halloween of my life.

1994: A week after almost dying I sat in my room in the dark and watched out the window, making things worse than they needed to be.

1995: Out with Mark and his girlfriend Amber, and Mark's friend Kai, which was short for Malachi, and said I wasn't trick or treating, just walking with them, but still felt too old.

1996: At a party dressed as a nun, but wore a bright yellow bikini underneath and flashed a few carefully-selected people. Some guy in pirate costume a had a fake sword and kept asking girls if they wanted a prick.

1997: Invited to a party which was more of a costumed drinking event, so I guess that year I went as a designated driver.

1998: Jackie and I threw our Halloween party and had a coffin made of black poster board and everybody put their car keys in as they got there, with the running gag being we were going to have a key party, which was a total joke, but what surprised me was some seemed willing.

1999: Gave out candy on the steps of our building with Ray, our fortysomething perv neighbor, who gave out sweet tarts and filched my mini-Snickers when he thought I wasn't looking.

2000: Watched shows about ghosts as I gave out candy, then went to a party dressed as a college student. (Um, I went as I was.)

2002: Chilly, cloudy, perfect weather, and while dressed as a fairy tale witch I went door to door with Dana and six year old McKenna and three year old Tyler.

2004: Dressed as a Goth with an addiction black eyeliner, I was hostess at Landon's party, had fun, and stayed up til dawn. (Also had to set our clocks to "fall back" that night, a sacrifice of our time to that dark lord who lives in a cave under the Pentagon.)

2006: The moon was partly full and clouds whipped past it, making a fine effect as I went out with Dana and her kids, and McKenna got miffed at me for thinking she was Paris Hilton when she was apparently "just some blonde model." I went in a white sweat shirt with a caricature Charles Addams on it, and while pretending to take in the image, some teen boys stared a long time at my breasts.  (Guys, we know where you're looking.)

2007: Went back to my dad's house in the neighborhood I grew up in and gave out candy with him. We got almost two-hundred kids.

2010: I was a pregnant druidess, the pregnant part not being a costume. Keeping in character I almost wore mistletoe in my hair til I found out it was a notorious abortifacient!

2012: Mostly a washout, cold, drizzling, damp. We walked Daisy a block on Landon's parents' street and called it a night.

2013: Dangerous storms canceled trick or treating across the city, so we sat in front of our fireplace and listened to the wind howl amid thunder, and let Daisy eat all the candy we were going to take for her grandma to give out.
 
2015: Seemed like old times at our party, me, sober, holding a friend's hair while she got sick, only with a twist, when Edie, the hurler, said, "Did I just throw up blood?" I looked and freaked because the bowl was full of it, but she was pranking me with a tube of fake blood. Even sick-drunk her Jewish sense of humor ran wild.

2016: A nippy night and took the children out collecting a good haul. When we got back my mother in law tried to get us to put most of the candy up, but Landon and I said no way, and let the kids eat til they were green.

2017: Trick or treating again in my in-laws' neighborhood on a nippy night after a mild day, but it didn't feel like Halloween, and the spirit just was not there for any of us for some reason.

2018: Sunny morning, warm and vernal, but strong rain canceled trick or treating amid dangerous weather around the nation.

2019: Howling winds, driving rain, and utter misery, branches coming down, and freezing drizzle. We still braved all that for an hour, and I didn't wear a costume because I explained I was a doppelganger, which went over a lot of heads.

2020: Probably the most beautiful moon I had ever seen in my life rising up golden in color, with a ghostly aura around it, huge and magical. Dreamed I dressed up as Alfred Hitchcock, but didn't do it.

2021: I think people were ready to celebrate after Covid deprivation, because the amount of candy my children took home that night would've made any dentist smile.

2022: Though it was a rainy night, we trick or treated in my in-laws' neighborhood and then made our way back wet and cold to Gramma Bee's for warm libations (i.e. hot chocolate) and it was a great evening. Not cold, mildly cool at most, but rainy.

2023: All geared up to go seek ghosts this evening...

(Good grief, if you've read all this, thanks; now go get some candy, you've earned it.)

[ER]

November 1, 1997 As it didn't take a fortune teller to predict, my roommate woke up extremely sick from drinking so much the night before. She wasn't a boozer very often but in the right environment, like a Halloween party, she could get swept along. She threw up repeatedly all night and dry heaved til she literally cried, and I tried to be supportive but she was so miserable she just moaned for me to go away, so I left her to her bottle-karma. By mid-afternoon she got up and swallowed a medicine cabinet of remedies and sat still as stone, pale as cottage cheese, watching a banal movie called Made in Heaven, and finally asked me why she'd done it. I had no idea, frankly, the activity having scant appeal to me. She felt bad the rest of the day. When I talked to Brian back home I told him about how Jackie was, and he knew too much about all that, having been through it with his father, and recalled being twelve and dragging his unconscious dad up the stairs to get him to his bedroom. It was one of the reasons he lived with his father over his mother when his parents split up, because even as a kid he was afraid his dad was going to die from his substance abuses, which he nearly did. (Well, that and other things he was into.) I tried to spin Jackie's predicament as a little bit funny, but Brian didn't see it that way, and it hit so many personal issues with him he got off the phone with me. (I was glad and still surprised he was talking to me at all after the summer just past, but like he said long ago, he couldn't seem to stop caring about me.)

[ER]

November 2:

1986: I made my dad a welcome home breakfast, and was so proud of myself that it was years before he had the heart to tell me I'd put yellow Crisco on his toast instead of butter.

1992: It was like a giddy holiday on the eve of an election that was going to give us the first Democratic President since I was a baby. Despite everything I still consider Clinton a top-five President of the 20th century.

1994: The doctor said I needed more sugar to recover from all that'd happened to me the week before, so I ate a half-dozen lil' chocolate donuts that morning, and to this day am still turned off by them.

1999: Boy from class showed me a website run by an Elvis mega-fan who wrote daily entries imagining what Elvis would have been doing if he were still alive.

2002: I think this was the first time I got up early with Landon and jogged across the Purple People Bridge over the river, into another state and back, in the dawn sunlight.

2009: Such a warm day I took my twelve month old out in her stroller through 150-year-old Eden Park on a sprawling hillside above the city, and she was giggly and happy and wonderful.

2010: Showed two year old Daisy Labyrinth for the first time and said, "That's David Bowie..." She went: "....owwie..." Proud mommy moment!

2015: The interns bought me drinks at lunch and I had to get my husband to drive me home. Never lived that down.

2019: Our pups, Bojack and Skipper, encountered frost for the first time, and Skip promptly bit it, only to get frost all over his muzzle, while more hesitant Bo sniffed suspiciously at it and walked verrrry carefully, not seeming to trust the crunch under his paws.

2020: I met a member of the US Space Force, something I wasn't sure really existed.

2021: Finished Dan Jones' book on the bloodbath that was War of the Roses, then sent him a copy of The Daughter of Time to counterpoint his closed-mindedness about Richard III. He never said anything back, so I guess he was speechless. Snob.

[Alex]

3rd November 2008.

I had a medical from a military doctor. Given some of the mistakes the medics had made recently, when he declared me to be alive I asked for a second opinion just to be on the safe side.

3rd November 2012.

One of the local bars (The Beach Bar) decided to not let anyone in with a tan in case they were part of the Regiment and had just returned from Afghanistan. The guys had just returned from an unusually tough tour and many of them had fresh burn marks on their faces from having to battle with insurgents in the middle of a raging fire when they managed to penetrate the wire. Another pub set itself up as an unofficial HQ for the guys and most of them blew their op bonus drinking in it over the next week and made an awful lot of money. I would consider it not great loss when The Beach Bar would burn down to the ground sometime after this.