Lemmy brings out the old internet!

1. You are no fun.

2. Yes!

2a) The Manitou islands in lake Nipissing, Ontario, Canada are haunted by a Wendigo. Everybody knows it. Nobody but the very brave or foolish go there. It’s a malevolent spirit. Watch the film Ravenous with Guy Pearce, Robert Carlyle and David Arquette for a pop-culture feel of it.

2b) My daughter’s current bedroom. The previous owners of the home was a pair of school teachers from the mid 1950s to late 1980’s. She was an English teacher, he taught shop classes. I bought the house off the couple’s son who moved out of town. He said the husband died of old age at the neaby hospital. The wife died in front of her computer in the second bedroom. Before my kids, I used that room as a home office.

The haunting only manifests occasionally and only when a computer is in that room. When it does, the haunting itself is that the computer turns itself on and a game of solitaire is played. On very rare occasion, a text editor is open along with solitaire with gobbledygook written. Short illegible garbage like a pocket dial/text. “Pbb2bblll0eerrrt2tt8” kinda crap.

Frequently, I would go to bed, and wake up to see my computer was on all night, despite distinctly remembering to turn it off. I also never play solitaire. I also lived alone at the time, I wouldn’t meet my future wife for another 6 mos. I was curious and checked for things like “wake on lan” in the bios or a virus, but I couldn’t figure out what was causing it.

Without a computer in that room overnight, we would never know that anything extraordinary happened. But 3 out of 4 of the family have experienced the “Late night solitaire”, two adults, one kid.

We say the house is haunted, but we are ok with it. We are happy here. The ghost of the old lady was just a warm caring teacher whose unfinished business on earth was apparently just completing her game of solitaire. We always wondered if the text was a message, but could never infer anything about from the messages.

2c) At a Portuguese winery in the Douro Valley where Port wine is made, we stayed at a winery, B&B style, in a very old on-site dry-stacked stone building that was somewhere in the historical designation registry and was in the registered process for restoration/modernization as a B&B for guests.

The winery’s manager, during a private dinner for a VIP party, told us the building was very old. Pre-Medieval. Its original purpose was a brothel, out of sight for a nearby village and the vineyard workers all up and down the valley for a ways would come in busy seasons.

On the second night we stayed in the dry-stone stacked house, I woke up with Insomnia in the middle of the night and went out for a cigarette. Outside, I’m eventually greeted by a young boy of maybe 12y. We chatted about mundane small talk, weather etc… I asked why someone so young was up so late. He said the mothers were working, and the kids got to stay up late, but sleep in because of it. I thought it made sense, because the winery tour spoke about the seasonal labour.

My revelation came the next morning, when during breakfast, I spoke with our host about the numbers of families with children that come to work here and he told me no. It’s not allowed for insurance reasons. “No non-employees on the farm property. It’s a liability”. The non locals who work on the vineyards leave their kids in their home countries with family, and work here alone in season. Locals leave their kids at home for the same reason. It’s forbidden. He assured me there were no kids on the winery. I asked with whom I may have spoken with that night. Perhaps another guest family? He confirmed there were no other guests but us. He suggested I was either dreaming, or was speaking with the ghosts of the bastard children of the brothel who are a local myth amongst the vineyard workers. The workers say they hear children playing and giggling and arguring. On rare occasion they talk to them. The myth was that the nearby villagers got angry with the brothel and formed a violent mob. That mob set fire to the brothel and killed a few brothel workers and some of the bastard children.

He laughed, then saw in my face that I was serious, then his face fell somewhere between a mixture of resigned and relieved, as if to say “You saw them too.”

I’d be a Karen too if my mom could nag me from beyond the grave.