C Cleveland

A few friends and I went to see Paranormal Activity 2 last night and since it sucked so bad, we decided to try some of our own ghost hunting.

Our destination?

Franklin Castle. Just named one of the Most Haunted places in the United States by MSNBC.com.

Built by wealthy wholesale grocer, Hannes Tiedemann, the house located at 4308 Franklin Boulevard, has a colorful history full of buried bones and ghosts. It was built circa 1865 by the prestigious architectural firm, Cudell & Richardson, who designed the rock faced stone mansion.

Hannes and Luise Tiedemanns lost 4 children during the time they lived in the home leading some to speculate on their cause of death. To distract his wife from her grief, Hannes began extensive construction on the home which included a 4th floor ballroom and changes to the façade to make it more "castle" like.



Before you think that Hannes was a compassionate husband, he was said to have killed a servant girl who spurned his advances and murdered his mistress for wanting to marry another man. And his wife died in the house as well. Coincidence? You tell me.

The house has had a number of different owners who tried to make it a church, a doctor's office, a soup kitchen and a family residence.



None last for long.

In the walls of a small room in the back of the house, a pile of baby skeletons were found and their cries are said to be heard in the night.

A black figured woman was seen in the windows and even walking down the street. She disappeared after the bones of a man were found in the front turret. Was she looking for her lover and he was finally found?

The current owner purchased the home for $350,000 in cash when she 25 years old. She can thank a little company called Yahoo for her fortune. A native Clevelander living in Californa, she dreamed of turning the castle into a bed and breakfast but a fire less than a year later halted her plans.

Four years passed and another entrepreneur offered to lease the house from her and turn it into a private club. Needless to say, that never happened, but oddly enough, the website for the club still exists.

Sadly, because of the state of the home and the lack of repairs, the home has been condemned by the City of Cleveland and rumor has it that the current owner has plans to sell.












I wanted to post this video because it shows you how HUGE the house is.


Our pics from last night






Check out the orbs!

We weren't getting in even if our lives depended on it. Which in that neighborhood, it might have.

No chance of seeing a specter in the windows since they're all boarded up

While I was walking around taking pictures, someone was flashing a light at me from behind the house. I think that's the carriage house where the guy lives who tried to turn it into a private club. When that didn't work out, he tried getting rich by shooting porn movies. The owner has given him 30 days to vacate the premises. Douche.

I really hope someone buys the property who can restore it to its former glory. Anyone care to invest with me??

Haunted Cleveland

Okay, this is a Secondhand Friday in honor of Halloween. Hope it doesn't scare you too much!


Every town has it's own urban legends and in honor of Halloween, I'm going to tell you about one of ours.

This is the road that leads you to Squire's Castle.



Fergus B. Squire was born in Exeter, England in 1850 and came to America at the age of 10. He began as an office boy for an oil company and later realized the American dream by owning and operating his own refinery. By 1885, he had joined Standard Oil of Ohio with Frank Rockefeller, the brother of John D. Rockefeller.



Squire had originally planned for a large country home to be built on 525 acres. This "castle" was only intended to be a gatekeeper's cottage.

The legend has it that Mrs. Squire didn't care for the country. Mr. Squire was busy drawing up the plans for his magnificent castle and, against his wife's wishes, began spending more and more time on the isolated estate.

Mrs. Squire worried constantly about being away from the city and the loneliness of being forced to spend every summer at the cottage. In all of her worry and agitation, she developed insomnia and began walking about the house at night, carrying a small, red lantern to light her way.

One fateful night, Mrs. Squire wandered into the trophy room of the house, a place that she usually avoided. No one really knows what happened, but it's been surmised that Mrs. Squire became frightened of something in the room, or perhaps even the mounted animals peering at her in the dim light.

Regardless, she began screaming in terror over something and in her haste, she tripped and broke her neck. She was discovered dead a short time later.

Squire was distraught and blamed himself for his wife's death. He abandoned the plans for the house and went back to the city, never returning to the cottage again.

People who knew of his plans to build the grand summer home started calling the cottage "Squire's Castle".

Her ghost is believed to still wander the castle at night and people have reported seeing her red lantern and hearing her screams. In 1925, the Cleveland Metroparks purchased the property and removed the windows, flooring and any other items that might be attractive to thieves.













On this day, the only ghost I saw was Adolph Hitler.

Stripper Chick Wisdom

Chrissy's real truth about life that no one will tell you.


"It's far more important to focus on your own problems than to be socially conscious."

Do I look like a llama?

My sister, Lisa, has some friends who own an Alpaca farm so we decided to go to their Open House last weekend. We got quite an education about these adorable animals and I want to share what I learned with you.



The Alpaca is a member of the camel (camelid) family. It’s very docile in nature and is known to be inquisitive. It’s been domesticated for thousands of years in South America but it’s only been in the last 30 years that they’ve called North America home.


Hello....


You're tempted to reach out and pet their heads but it freaks them out because they can't see your hand. Instead you can pet their bodies or their necks.


She was so funny. She just wouldn't stop staring at me.

There are two different breeds: the huacaya (wah-KI-ya) and the suri (surrey). While physiologically the same, the main difference is in their fleece. The huacaya fleece is wavy and the suri fleece is straight. The fleece is sheared once a year and yields about five to ten pounds. The fleece requires minimal preparation before it’s ready to be spun into yarn.



The average Alpaca stands about 3 feet tall and weighs between 100 and 200 pounds. They eat about 1.5 to 2% of their body weight in hay per day, though some owners choose to supplement with additional grains. These sweeties were happy to supplement by eating out of our hands. And it tickled!





When we first walked up, we saw that there were about 12 in a fenced in enclosure and as we got further in, there were about 12 more in a separate area. We learned that they have to separate the boys from the girls or it would be like constant Jersey Shore smooshing without the alcohol.


The boys



The girls



Scratching her back like a dog


You'll notice that most are light in color but they do have one rare black Alpaca. I wish I would have gotten a clearer picture of her alone. You can see more of her here.










This photo helps to put their size in perspective.


THE softest teddy bear you ever felt!




Sad to watch the visitors leaving

Monday Morning Bernie & Vinny

Is he still behind me?

Is she still behind me?

Secondhand Sunday

Sundays are my Secondhand day. I'm basically too lazy to think of anything new to say so I re-post a "vintage" entry.

If you aren't in the mood for repeats, please feel free to change the channel.


"For this, I showered?"

Original Post Date, January 25, 2010

I tried to convince my doctor that I had become F-A-T from the medication that she had prescribed for me in the spring. She concurred that it may have attributed to my weight gain and so, she agreed that we could try switching meds.

I waited patiently for my medication to come from my new mail order prescription company. It arrived a little over a week ago, just as I ran out of my other pills. I read through the handout that came with the prescription and it listed many of the same possible side effects that the other drug had.


*fatigue

*muscle weakness

*chest pain

*headache

*itching/rash

*nausea

*feeling light-headed

*death

You know, the usual CYA list that drug companies utilize.

I was happy to see that Anorgasmia wasn't on the list however, lack of sexual desire was. So it looks like I won't have any trouble actually having an orgasm, I just won't want to.

The first few days, I felt fine. The third day, I was feeling a little light-headed and nauseous. My sister told me to call the doctor but I was sure that I could work through the side effects like I had the last time. At least I didn't have that catatonic Stepford Wife thing going on again.




By Friday, I could barely move my head without feeling like I was going to fall down and I would intermittently get that head rush feeling while sitting at my desk. But I was gonna work through it because hello.....I might actually lose weight on this drug!


Saturday, I was too afraid to shower because I thought I might fall down in the tub. You people who live alone know what I'm talking about. That fear of falling and hitting our heads or choking on food and not being able to perform the Heimlich on ourselves. No one will find us until the rotting stench of our corpse alerts the mailman that something is wrong.

Sunday, I felt even worse and I decided to take a shower in case I had to call 911. Well, I didn't want be stinky when the hunky paramedics got here...

I dropped the soap but didn't want to bend over and pick it up so I just kept kicking it until it finally looped high enough off the side for me to catch it. I safely exited, put on my robe and decided to lay down on the couch.

What happens next could be titled, A Day in My Life..

My cell phone beeped that I had a text message but I was too lazy to get up and answer it. Then my home phone rang and since it was on the coffee table, I reached over to answer it.

"Hi Christine, it's Jim!" (only close friends like you guys call me Chrissy)

For those of you who don't know, Jim is my next door neighbor.

"Hi Jim. How are you?" the pounding in my head got worse.

"Good! I just wanted you to know that I'm officially divorced!"

Oh dear God, I thought to myself, but I managed a "congratulations" and we chatted for a few minutes. Inevitably, Jim wanted to come over and chat some more.

"Sorry, Jim, this isn't a good time."

And inevitably, he mentioned that "if I ever wanted to get together for dinner or something, that would be great."

Now I felt dizzy and I hadn't even stood up. I fumbled through an excuse to get off the phone and was lying there holding my head when the reminder beep on my cell went off again.

It was loud and annoying so I got up to see who it was. It was from my old boyfriend Sparky's brother's girlfriend, Carrie. We had never met while Sparky and I were dating.

She explained to me that she had moved here a few years back and still didn't really have many friends and Sparky had said what a great person I was and how much fun I was and would I like to get together sometime?

Wha?

I called a girlfriend and read her the text.

"Isn't this odd?"

"Yes, but aren't you curious?"

"If I'm so fun and great, why isn't he dating me? Why is he setting up a play date with his pseudo sister-in-law?"

"Because you have that special gift for dating only emotionally unavailable men. It doesn't mean that he doesn't think you're great, he just can't handle you, so he wants to vicariously experience you through her."

I haven't responded back to Carrie yet.

I decided to go to the drugstore armed with my list of alternate meds that my insurance company had sent me because the Stepford Wife drug has become "non-formulary" which means three times the co-pay. I needed to see what my options were to switch drugs again.

I was sitting patiently in a chair, waiting for my pharmacy consultation when I glanced over at the woman sitting next to me in the cramped waiting area. She seemed to be taking great pleasure in the newspaper article she was reading when all of sudden she let out a chuckle and looked over at me.

Oh God, here we go...

"My goodness, would you look at this?", she leaned over and turned the page toward me. "Doesn't she look like the happiest, nicest person?"

My eyes went to where her finger was pointing and I let out a maniacal laugh at this culmination of my goofy day. She grinned even larger.


"Wow. She sure does.", I said,"I would love to hang out with her!" Maybe Carrie could come along.






She was pointing to the photo of a dead woman in the obituaries.

But I'M the one who's on medication...