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Pendle Hill Witch #10-
It is irrelevant how I ended up staying at a ritzy hotel in New Jersey back in March of 1990. Suffice it to say, I was sick with a head cold and was ordere by a doctor not to fly back to California. My first night on the East Coast had been spent in a chain motel without incident.
So I was very sick with a severe head cold, sore throat and fever when I checked into the Victorian era, ivy -covered stone building. I was dizzy and fatigued and craved soup and sleep.
I was sharing a room with my mother. As we made our way down the corridor, I noticed the Laura Ashley motif covered everything from the walls to the seat cushions to the comforters on our beds. I ordered room service: duck wonton soup and lemon- lime soda for my throat. I took a hot shower, put on my pajamas and crawled into bed. My mother was concerned, but let me be.
In the darkness hours later, I awoke to find an old woman with long grey hair in an old fashioned night gown trying to smother me with a pillow. Behind her were four other women dressed in similar nightgowns. The look in this woman’s eyes was frightening. She seemed possessed. The women behind her were chanting “kill her! Kill her!” I struggled with the apparition and screamed “NO! NO! NO! NO!”. I knew my mother was asleep in the bed next to me, and when I screamed “NO! ” the third time, she turned on the light and rushed to my side . I pointed and said ” there was a woman in this room who just tried to kill me!” My mother shook her head and said “No. You were dreaming. You have a fever and a head cold.” I responded ” I know I am dealing with a head cold, but what I experienced was real.”
The doctor had explicitly told my mother I was not to fly for another four days. My step father was coming to meet us after attending a conference in Boston, which meant I had to move into my own room down the hall. I was scared. I told my mother ” this hotel is haunted.” She laughed at me. My new room in the hotel was decorated exactly like the first one; patterns of blue peonies and pink carnations were everywhere. My mother had told me I could order room service and watch cable T.V. News of the tragic Happy land Dance hall fire in Brooklyn, which killed several dozen people, was splattered on all the stations. I kept going back to watching music videos to forget what had happened the night before.
Maybe it had been a bad dream. Tonight would be better, I told myself. I turned off the T.V. and then the lights. I don’t know how long I had been asleep when I awoke to find yet more women with the same night gowns in my room. I quickly turned on the lights & the T.V. Splashing water on my face , I realized the next few ays were going to be rough. There was no way I was going to be able sleep without the lights on.
I asked someone in the hotel if the place was haunted. They just shrugged. I vowed that one day I would find out the truth.
Maybe I could discover it in Public Records, some kind of history of the building before it was a hotel. These were the days before the Internet . The incident never left my psyche. Someday. Someday.
Several years later I moved to the East Coast. I was living in Philadelphia and was at a church rummage sale. I noticed two older women who appeared to be in their early seventies sitting in a corner of the room. I went over and sat next to them. They smiled and said hello. I asked them where they lived. They mentioned the town where the hotel was located. I asked them if they had heard of the hotel. They nodded. I paused, unsure if I should tell them the story. But I knew what I had experienced had not been the result of a feverish head cold or a common nightmare.
I expected laughter to erupt. Instead the faces of the women had a look of compassion and kindness. “We believe you” they said in unison. The hotel had been a residence for homeless and mentally ill women at the turn of the Century. As they shared the history of the hotel, I felt myself go pale and my legs started to shake.
Several years later I moved to the suburbs. One of my neighbors was fascinated by the paranormal. I shared my story with her, and when I mentioned the hotel and it’s location, she got very excited. ” I have a cousin who lives in that town! I ‘m going to call her right now and find out if she knows anything about this hotel.”
For years I had tried to do research on the hotel. A well -known travel rating site didn’t mention the hotel being haunted , but it did mention the lovely rooms.. Ten minutes after my neighbor left to go home, she called me on the phone ” I just talked to my cousin”, she said. ” That hotel is VERY haunted.! It’s an open secret. Everyone who lives in that town knows that.”
Since that time, I occasionally google the hotel to see if anyone has mentioned if it is haunted. No on has. I toy with this idea of going back for an overnight stay at the hotel.
A few weeks ago, I created a series of witch paintings I dubbed THE PENDLE HILL WITCHES. The last witch- witch number ten closely resembles the apparition who tried to smother me with a pillow.
Happy Halloween.
May 8, 2012
All Things Taurus – Part 3
Several weeks ago I attended a riveting lecture by several scientists from the Monell Institute titled I SMELL YOU SMELL as part of the Philadelphia Science Festival. The Monell Institute is the world’s only independent non profit scientific institute dedicated to basic research on taste and smell. As a five planets in Taurus woman, smell ( and taste) are crucial to me. When I was little girl, I wished I could be the fairy of good smells. I’d wave my magic wand and make everything seem wonderful like fresh flowers. The lecture took place in a darken cabaret room at the Society Hill Playhouse. Three scientists talked about the power of smell and how it relates to relationships, attraction and illness. I ‘ve always been fascinated by the subject of pheromones. I learned that everyone’s scent is different. No two people smell alike. Our personal scent is like a fingerprint. It doesn’t change due to diet or hygiene. The scientists debunked the myth that a certain perfume or oil with attract a man ( or woman) to you. Maybe that’s true but I have been in some situations where the lack of hygiene has definitely a repellant. Smelling good has always been important to me. My favorite soap is Santa Maria Novella’s Melograno soap. Melograno is Italian for pomegranate. This soap is triple milled and is so gentle. You can use it on your face too and it last much longer than regular soap. Made by Florentine Monks for 600 hundred years, Santa Maria Novella products are a personal favorite. Heavenly!
From smells to tastes. The last few months I ‘ve become obsessed with the Korean dish- Bibimbap dolsot ( also spelled bibimbop). Bibimbap dolsot is basically a hot rice dish with meat and veggies. My obsession with Bibimbap began when I first had it at Giwa in Center City ( Philly). I had an OBE ( out of body experience) after eating it for the first time. I’m not joking ! I literarily got high and was floating out of my body for several hours after I finished eating. I tried the dish at several other restaurants in Philly after Giwa. There are many more restaurants I need to try bibimbap from , but so far Giwa is the best. The dish is served in a cast iron deep bowl which arrives all steamy and popping. The popping sound is from the bottom layer of rice cooking and getting brown and crunchy. A sauce made with red pepper paste ( called gochujang) is mixed in the dish as you eat it. As most of my readers know, when I get a idea into my head, especially when it comes to making a certain dish, I must make it and make it right. For several weeks I just thought about bibimbap. I looked online and at H-Mart for the same cast iron bowls I was served Bibimbap in at the various restautants. H-Mart does sell these outrageously heavy stone bowl for around $30 a piece to make bibimbap. But I ‘m a cast iron woman. I finally found a food blog that mentioned cooking bibimbap in a cast iron skillet. Hallelujah! I combined several bibimbap recipes and then altered them further. I have made this dish 3 times so far. Once with rib eye steak ( traditional). One with Chicken and once with pork. The first attempt with rib eye steak remains my most successful attempt. I was able to get the rice on the bottom crunchy. One of the ways in which my bibimbap differs vastly from the bibimbaps I have eaten in the restaurants & the recipes I found on line is my compulsion to season each component separately. Sadly, this need to have more flavor resulted in severe rice failure on my second and third attempts at making the dish ( the goal being a crispy crunchy layer of rice at the bottom of the pan). I put butter and Swanson flavor packets ( chicken and vegetable) in the rice water right before cooking the rice. The rice was bursting with flavor but I realized the butter made the cooked grains too moist to cook effectively . Egg was served on top of the Bibimbap when I ate it Tampopo ( raw which cooked as the veggies,rice and meat steamed) and Koreana ( cooked over easy) but not at Giwa. I decided to top my bibimbap with organic duck eggs I bought at the farmer’s market. By using duck eggs instead of regular eggs, a deeper depth of flavor was achieved. I also altered the sauce made with the gochujang by adding fresh grated ginger, more sesame oil and more sugar than the internet recipes listed. And while I have written previously about my attempts to become vegetarian, I have fallen off the wagon. I decided last year that my body functions better on a little meat. I only buy organic meat. Maybe someday I will become a vegetarian but not now.
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In keeping with this theme of this blog of ALL THINGS TAURUS, I highly recommend F for Fake 
The other Taurus I want to mention in this blog is filmmaker/writer/actor Lena Dunham ( May 13th). I really enjoyed Ms.Dunham’s first film Tiny Furniture 
Tiny Furniture
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More things related to my Taurus:
There are two films both available on dvd which deal with the subject of redemption and forgiveness. I love both these films. The first of these films is Flipped
Recently, I saw a powerful documentary which lingered in my head for days. Elephant in the Living Room
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I’ve previously mentioned I how much I love CBS SUNDAY MORNING ( airs Sundays at 9 a.m. EST). It is one of the few art & culture shows on a major Network Channel. I need to mention another fabulous arts & culture show called EUROMAXX ( Highlights). This 22 minute show airs on Comcast here in Philly on MINDTV on Saturday mornings at 7:30 a.m. MINDTV is the local independent Philly cable station. Euromaxx is a German produced show which features what’s hot and happening in Europe. Sadly, I’m either on my way to the gym or farmer’s market or thriftin ( yard sales, flea markets etc.) on Saturday mornings so I often miss this wonderful show. It would be great if MIND TV would air this show on Sunday mornings before CBS Sunday morning.
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And lastly- Thank you Town & country Magazine for printing my Letter to the Editor (May 2012) regarding the Ali MacGraw cover ( February 2012). Unfortunately, I don’t buy the editor’s response as to why they chose to put a photograph of Ms.MacGraw from 1969 on their cover while inside they have recent photographs of her looking fantastic at 72. I can smell B.S. a mile away. This may be a revelation to some people who think I’m naive. The truth is most of the time I keep my mouth shut because I have never been able to confront a liar and get the truth at the time I was confronting them ( I’m not implying the editors of T & C are liars). These days I bide my time and know that in time, the truth is ALWAYS revealed in almost every situation. That is the epitome of a Taurus being patient!