Mother In Law Suite

 Investigators could tell the room was haunted, if not out right cursed, because of the sheer amount of things in it that seemed to have a purpose but produced no discernible effect. Light switches that when flipped did nothing. Outlets painted over that after carefully sloughing off the paint, which ended up in rainbow sherbet clumps on the floor, drew no power. A side panel door to a sheer brick wall with maybe a half an inch of clearance. A composition notebook would barely fit in it. There were built in speakers to the blonde maple wood but when you chased the wire to what should have been the access panel, the wire just dove into a solid cube of cement. The drawers were cut at triangular angles so pulling one out also meant possibly topping all of everything onto one's foot. 

The main color was a had too much ice cream after dinner mint green with too much blue but still enough green. Then deep mahogany trims almost black for stark contrast. But under all that paint were dozens of layers in wilding hues. The walls seemed almost an inch thick with just paint, making the whole thing smaller and encroaching. 

The rest of the house? That seemed fine and quite dull. But, in the backroom, everything seemed amiss and annoying. In the middle of it there was a warm spot that seared from an invisible source while the rest of the room remain stuffy but tolerable.

One investigator tried to bring in some fresh air and opened a window to find that the wire window screens were just finely painted lines on translucent paper. He removed it and poked his head out the window to see the small backyard and then a broken floodlight glued right by the window. Broken in that each head drooped on exposed wires to the side. He told another person to flip all the mysterious light switches and nothing sparked from the flood light. 

They all stood in a circle while investigating, their backs to each other, as to make sure nothing slide out from behind a pulled door or curling floor board. But they just found more inconveniences, the angriest one being the tacks arranged like a punji board on the threshold of the sole closet. 

The owners, chatting with the group after the walkthrough in the room, asked what to do. The investigators suggested to board up the room and not bother. Whatever haunted it seemed content to form whatever needling grievances from that single space. "Make it a room to go in every one in a while and spook a visitor. A real mother in law suite, if you get what I mean!" The assistant then mimicked banging on a pair of cymbals. Ba dum dsh.

"Is this common?" The owners of the home demanded.

"No, not too common. Poor maintenance is one thing. Landlors who paint over things and decide to cut costs but a space like that, which seems to find something new and irritating upon each entry is not. A real mystery spot. Ever seen things run up walls in it?"

Jungle Room

At some point around year four of teaching Mariela became known as the "plant person" and her room became an ersatz greenhouse. The place where kids would store the overgrown bean plants trying to burst from their Solo cup bases and where anything left behind would end up. Year four was the year because it is where parents stopped sending kitschy mugs or jelly bean samplers and instead send a bag of potting soil and the sad five dollar starts from the floral section at Marc's. 

Mariela did earn this, albeit she didn't do this purposefully. Her first year she began simple with just a leggy Norfolk Island Pine in the far left corner and then a single Boston fern hanging planter. That she kept on her desk until year two when through a mix of union back and forth and some awkward flirting she got the custodian to anchor an eyelet into the ceiling. She then hung it from a netted rope holder.

Each year she would add more items, especially after her three year apprenticeship ended and she internally said "why not" and committed to the long term. At this point she dropped various cacti on the swollen wooden window frames.  The kids all loved the old man cactus which stood six inches from above a cornflower blue clay pot and had wonky modified needles that looked like a Rip Van Winkle beard. That is what she called it, Rip.

But in year four it exploded. Snake plants recovered from someone who retired, a pair dropped akimbo behind her desk. All the window wells lined with philodendrons and crotons and aloes. On warm muggy days, especially soupy days in early August or late May, the edges of the windows would briefly bead with moisture from all the back and forth transpiration of the plants. She had a defunct classroom phone that would only blared out mumbled public announcements lined with the clinging air plants that needed just a brief hint of mist every few weeks. 

"It really is a jungle in here!" That is what everyone said when they walked into Room 213B (At one point there had been a larger 213 that had a bright side with all the windows and then a dark side with wider floor, a short squat T shape, that was then, in the early 90s split into two with a wall. Mariela got the sunny side and the other side, which people guessed was the end of an old dance class space, became a pull out room for kids. Which needed to be illuminated by spindly halogen lamps) and Mariela had a canned response of "Yeah and Im Tarzan!" that got some laughs. The parent group insisted that the police do a walkthrough of the school to test for the horrifying yet always looming possibility of a shooting. Someone's  husband was a so and so lieutenant on the force so he found the time albeit the administration did argue to do this when there were no children in the building. Walking into 213 the officer, who internally acknowledged the performativeness of the entire event but it was overtime so why not, noticed the bramble vibes and hungry green of the space and asked Mariela "What would you do if you heard someone was coming in shooting?"

Mariela went through the canned responses of trying to bar the door and get the children as far away as possible. Her mother had actually bought her a rope ladder that could be draped over a window and used to escape. It would still leave about four feet of clearance at the end but her mother said better broken ankles then dying.

But she then added that she would just shove all the plants by the door and hopefully the tangle wire would slow down the perpetrator who would give the same frustrated guffaw of someone trying to weed out a garden. 

"I would clutch this barrel cactus in my hand and slaw it into their face, as a last resort, I guess." Mariela showed the officer the plump little malicious thing with half inch spines the color of pus. The office laughed maybe to be kind or maybe at the thought of Mariela, who was about 5' 2" and had 3rd graders who likely weighed as much as her, going Amazon in her own personal jungle to defend the homestead. 

When summer came, she arranged all the plants into a circle of magic on the floor. On top of a plastic shower liner and asked the cleaners if they would water them and just work around the space when doing the floors. Every plant but the air plants and the emerging trellised ivy plants on the tack board above the white boards in that square. And the pile grew over the summer because people would forget their own plants in their rooms and the cleaners knew just the spot. 

Rating Movies

As a tween I had a summer kick off ritual where I would write down all the summer blockbusters I wanted to see and then, as I saw them, noted how many stars I would rate them.

This was purely an internal document just for me that I kept pinned to my cork board.

Going to the movies as a tween was somewhat of a pain since I had no car and any friends with cars lived scattered across the metro area. And we had to check the times in a newspaper or call the theater. And even then no one seemed to have a newspaper subscription. I had to walk down the street to my titi's  house and get her copies of The San Juan Star. Then coordinate rhe rides to and from. See if we can catch everyone in front of the theater. Everyone had cell phones (lovely Nokia candy bar phones with interchangeable silicon skins) but this was when you had to time your calls. Don't call me until after 9pm and such.

This was the mid/late 90s and I specifically recall writing down things like Men in Black and Wild Wild West and Face/Off. No one ever noticed except my mom's long term boyfriend who would always ask what I would rate movies as, even into high school and early adulthood.

Witch's Weather

 On a muggy, soupy early July day the bright sky betrayed all predispositions and burst a brick rattling thunder boom. After it simmered away back beyond the horizon the day continued to shine and wisp as there wasn't a storm somewhere. 

This is the kind of weather my aunt called "witch's weather." When it rains while it is sunny that means a witch got married. Everything happening in the beautifully inverse. This storm would strike dry earth and flowers and baby cap mushrooms would pop up from the strike. Instead of primal obsidian glass, a tiny glade. 

I poke my head out the balcony to see if I spot the storm somewhere. This takes some effort as I need to dislodge the dusty box fan from the window frame. Nothing poetic about that especially the petrified starling poop on the window sill. I bat that with the tip of pen into the lost alley between the buildings. Once settled, I look for the deepening gradient of white to drowned blue to dusty grey in the clouds but nothing. Instead the only clouds are towering cotton blobs over the shivering trees. Over the apartment building is nothing but blue. The sky then follows up with a low grumble over the invisible horizon before it all just stops and shifts back to the muggy hurt of summer. 

It would be nice to rain. Wash away the starling shit and also drain the garbage from the alleyway. It would leave nothing but the pioneer plants settling there. Including the spindly ailanthus tree that reminds me of tree pollen and the time a coworker texted me a picture of her thigh after an allergy test. "This is why I am out. I am allergic to everything! Dust mites, tree, grass. Its crazy." I felt awkward and flattered. Witch's weather.