Orbs & Other Heavenly Bodies ...Happy Hauntings!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN & HAPPY HAUNTINGS

I was working on a crossword puzzle last night & needed a three letter word for 'Heavenly Body.'
The word was ORB.
I got the word then ran to my 1970 Random House Dictionary of the English Language. Sure enough...

orb-n. 1. any of the heavenly bodies, such as the moon or a star.
2. a sphere or globe

Now a couple of months ago, I caught a glimpse of some TV show about ghost-hunters & they were using special cameras to photgraph a house propounded to be 'haunted.' They photographed the house & came up with a handful of photographs that contained what they called an 'ORB' or two.

They pointed out how the 'orbs' were not perfectly round, how they were of various colors & found only in certain areas. They beleived these 'orbs' to be ghosts, spirits, hauntings.

Now, let us jump back to nearly a year ago. Halloween night, 2005. Here, in my neighborhood... an old mill village, with houses...such as mine, dating back to 1903. Houses that now accomodate one family used to accomodate 4 families. Houses with fireplaces in each room. Houses that have, over the years, been updated to include bathrooms and electricity. My house has a clawfoot tub where the backporch used to be, did not have kitchen appliances until 7 years ago when I bought them, had electrical added in the late 1960's and seems to constantly be throwing marbles out at me.

Anyway....Halloween night last year, as always, is a big hoo-ha. We usually average between 150 and 300 trick or treaters. We spend 50-75 dollars on candy & we always run out before the parade of children call it a night. We go all out. My neighbor walks on drywall stilts and wears all-black, painting his face like the Crow & carries a 5' tall sickle. My husband is the ghost, suspended from the old oak tree in a body harness...which descends upon the walking masses. My neighbors wife, with her Janis Joplin hair, wears all white & under her black light looks umm... eerie, as she hands out candy. I install theatrical fangs & usually go white while wearing all black. We have a pile of leaves that the older kids nestle into, to rise up out of as the children run away with their candies. We have fog machines & tombstones, rats that run with glowing eyes, bats that fly with squeeling noises, gates that squeek open & warn passer-bys. The list goes on & is ever-growing.

Last year, we had a new neighbor who was blown away by our theatrics & she hung out until the end. She went on to say that she wondered if her house wasn't haunted.
We laughed & asked why? She said her cabinet doors opened on their own. OK, well it's like these houses are as old as the hills, weren't originally built to accomodate cabinets and are forever settling...so we all have that happen. Get tighter interior latches. She has mysterious puddles of water that appear in the middle of the floor in rooms with no water. Hmmm....get a dog or a cat, then you can blame it on them. She hears strange sounds in the house & it has cold pockets. With 10' ceilings, there are going to be cold pockets, old houses make strange sounds.
Finally, she said, 'Well I guess maybe my house isn't haunted, this kind of stuff happens to all of you?' There was huddle of about 5 home-owners and we all cracked up laughing. I said 'The whole neighborhood is rich with spirits.' One neighbor said, 'No, all the houses are haunted.' Another 'We all have that ... and some.'

Now, I don't know if our houses are really haunted, per se, but it was the only thing that made sense at the moment, talking with this woman about her house. Before she left, she told us our yard looked great & that we should take a picture. Duh! Year after year we busy ourselves so much, that we invariably always forget to take pictures. So I ran inside & grabbed my camera. I asked a neighbor to snap a photo & this is what I got.

So, if 'orbs' are heavenly bodies...I guess we are surrounded.
(oh, having just uploaded photos 7x to actually get them here, they just doesn't do justice...the 'orbs' are in every color, layered one upon another...shades of blue, pink, purple, red, green, white & none are perfectly round) Top photo is original & unedited. Bottom photo has been lightened & if you want to right click & open in Paint, I have added comments explaining various things such as the flood lights and lanterns....or you can just click to enlarge. Either way, Happy Hauntings to you!