Replies

Kitty Litter Cake for Halloween

1 spice or German chocolate cake mix
1 white cake mix
2 large pkg vanilla instant pudding mix, prepared (I like Bird's® dessert mix)
1 large pkg vanilla sandwich cookies
green food coloring
12 small Tootsie Rolls®

1 new kitty litter pan
1 new plastic kitty litter pan liner
1 new pooper scooper

Prepare cake mixes and bake according to directions (any size pans).

Prepare pudding mix and chill until ready to assemble.

Crumble white sandwich cookies in small batches in food processor, scraping often. Set aside all but about 1/4 cup. To the 1/4 cup cookie crumbs, add a few drops green food coloring and mix until completely colored.

When cakes are cooled to room temperature, crumble into a large bowl. Toss with half the remaining white cookie crumbs and the chilled pudding. Important: mix in just enough of the pudding to moisten it. You don't want it too soggy. Combine gently.

Line a new, clean kitty litter box. Put the cake/pudding/cookie mixture into the litter box.

Put three unwrapped Tootsie rolls in a microwave safe dish and heat until soft and pliable. Shape ends so they are no longer blunt, curving slightly. Repeat with 3 more Tootsie rolls bury them in the mixture. Sprinkle the other half of cookie crumbs over top. Scatter the green cookie crumbs lightly on top of everything -- this is supposed to look like the chlorophyll in kitty litter.

Heat 3 Tootsie Rolls in the microwave until almost melted. Scrape them on top of the cake; sprinkle with cookie crumbs. Spread remaining Tootsie Rolls over the top; take one and heat until pliable, hang it over the side of the kitty litter box, sprinkling it lightly with cookie crumbs. Place the box on a newspaper and sprinkle a few of the cookie crumbs around for a truly disgusting effect!

Further notes: I had a reader write in saying this recipe only needed half the amount of pudding. I personally liked the cake with the amount given in this recipe. But feel free to use this as a loose guideline, use more or less as you see the need. Also, since the layer of cookies (with the chloropyll green specks, covers the top, you could really use any flavor or flavors or cakes underneath. Last but not least, you can also opt not to crumble the cakes, but rather layer them in the pan with the layers of pudding in between (much like you would layer a trifle into a trifle dish), sprinkle the top layer of pudding with a heavy layer of crumbled cookies. Same effect, different texture entirely to the dessert.

My parents had divorced when I was around 5 or 6. My mother got custody of us kids and my father moved to another state. As a result, we fell out of touch with my fathers side of the family and my contacts with my father was few and far between. When my grandmother died, I did not learn about it until two years after the fact when I went with my father to my grandfathers home to stay over for the weekend. I was about 13 or 14 years old at the time. My grandfathers house was a two family apartment house in the city. My grandmother and grandfather lived their entire married life in the apartment on the top and usually rented out the apartment on the bottom.

My grandparents apartment was shaped like a capital "i" The two bedrooms are back to back of each other in the back of the apartment (the top of the "i") the long hallway in the middle of the "i" Halfway down the hallway is the entrance to the only bathroom. The bottom of the "i" is the eat in kitchen and the living room (back to back just like the bedrooms). The living room and kitchen is seperated by a wall with two open doorways (no doors), one at each end of the living room.

After my grandmother died (she died peacefully in her sleep on the couch in the living room) my grandfather moved out of the master bedroom and moved into the second bedroom in order to preserve the master bedroom as it was when my grandmother died. A way of preserving a memory of her. On my first day at my grandfathers house, my father and grandfather filled me in on what has been going on with their side of the family. Among which, they both claimed that my grandfathers apartment was haunted by the ghost of my grandmother. I thought that they were both trying to have a bit of fun at my expense. I loved to read about true ghost tales, but I wasn't buying my father's and grandfathers ghost stories.

One such story, according to my grandfather, he took a nap on the couch in the living room (the same couch my grandmother died on). He awoke to the sight of my grandmother standing there, looking lovingly down at him. He got a very good and long look at her before she vanished right before his very eyes.

My grandfather also told me that, when she was alive, one of my grandmothers habits was during the night was to come out of the bedroom, go to the kitchen to get herself a cold drink from the refrigerator. The door to the master bedroom often got a bit stuck in the door jamb and if you were inside the bedroom, you had to pull it open with all of your might which created quite a bit of noise. (Indeed, I got to know what the sound was like because upon my arrival, my father showed me my grandmothers bedroom and he had to roughly push the door open). So, she'd pull the door open noisily, she'd shuffle down the long hallway (my grandmother always shuffled when she walked) and then she'd pull open the door to the fridge, causing the bottles in the door to clink against each other (when my grandmother was alive, and even after she died, they were still putting soft drinks in glass bottles instead of plastic). Then she'd have her drink and go back to bed. According to my grandfather, even though she was no longer alive, she still made the same trip from time to time.

My grandfather would be sitting in the living room in his favorite chair watching tv....he'd hear the distinctive sound of the bedroom door being roughly pulled open, the sound of shuffling feet down the hallway, the creak in the floor (the part of the hallway floor, directly in front of the bathroom door, would creak whenever someone would walk over it), more shuffling, then he would hear the fridge door being pulled open and hear the sound of the bottles in the fridge door clinking against each other.

Many is the time, he said, that instead of hearing these sounds from the living room, he'd be sitting in the kitchen giving him a vantage point of being able to look up into the hallway itself, the would start, but he would see nothing. Even though he would hear shuffling footsteps, he'd see no one walking down the hallway towards him. Even though he would hear the fridge door opening and the bottles clinking against each other, he would not see the fridge door opening even though he was sitting only a few feet away.

I refused to believe these stories. I had not seen or heard a ghost in my life (even though I was a believer) and I assumed that I would never experience a haunting in my lifetime. How wrong I was.

That night, my grandfather went to his next door neighbors house to play some poker while my father and I prepared to go to bed. Because my grandfather was preserving the master bedroom and had moved into the second bedroom, my father and I slept on the couch in the living room (yes, the same exact one my grandmother had died on) which opened into a double bed. My father went right to sleep while I stayed up to read.

I'm laying there in the couch bed alongside my sleeping father, the lights in the living room was off, but the lights to the kitchen was on and it was bright enough to shine through the living room doorways on both ends of the room which provided enough light to let me read.

After a while, I heard the distinctive sound of the door to my grandmothers bedroom being roughly pulled open, then I hear the sound of shuffling feet, the I hear the sound of the creak in the hallway floor in front of the bathroom, then I hear more shuffling, then I hear the sound of the fridge door opening and the sound of glass bottles clinking against each other. Thinking nothing of it (already I had forgotten about my grandfathers ghost story) and feeling a little thirsty, I decided to join my grandfather in a cold drink. So I hop out of bed, go through the living room doorway nearest my side of the bed and go into the kitchen only to find myself standing there all alone. At first I'm a little puzzled. I could have sworn I heard my grandfather come out of the bedroom, shuffle down the hallway (my grandfather also shuffled when he walked, but only when he got tired) and open the fridge door.

THEN I came to the realization that my grandfather was STILL at his neighbors house playing poker and had not yet come home. And on top of that I realized that the sound of the door being pulled open that I heard, was the door to the master bedroom, the bedroom my grandfather had not slept in since my grandmother had died. THEN I remembered my grandfathers ghost story. And then I started to get scared.

I had to work up the courage to move my legs, and then from the kitchen, I raced towards the living room doorway that was near my fathers side of the bed, ran into the living room, did a perfect 10 point leap right over the sleeping body of my father and landed in my side of the bed.

I laid there in bed for a while looking at my father, wishing he wasn't sleeping so that he could comfort me in my fright.

Soon after I pulled the covers over my head, (not out of fright, but because in those days it was my habit to sleep with the covers pulled over me completely, head and all) and went to sleep.

But that wasn't the end of this haunting. I always was a very heavy sleeper and could sleep through anything, but sometime during that night, all of the sudden, I woke up with a start, (laying on my right side, facing my father's side of the bed, covers still completely over my head) with a paralyzing fear going up and down my spine. A feeling that I have never felt before that night or since. I just laid there completely paralyzed with fear.

My brain was still in working order and I kept asking myself, "Why am I so scared? What am I so afraid of? Why can't I move?"

I decided to turn my head and then take the cover off of my face in the hopes I would find out what was scaring me. When I decided to simply turn my head, it was easier said than done, for it took me what seemed like several minutes just to work up the courage to turn it. I finally got around to turning my head to the left.....only to see a shadowy outline of a womans head and shoulders being cast onto the underside of my blanket (which was still covering my face and body). The shadow was kind of rocking from side to side. AND I could hear heavy breathing coming FROM the shadow. I know it wasn't my father because he slept soundly and he was laying down, while the shadow was in a standing positionand he was sleeping on the opposite side of me. The distinctive thing about my grandmother was that she had a beehive hairdo (One of the things I remember about her). Even years after it went out of style, she had a small beehive up untill the last few months before her death. (I know this because of the pictures taken of her that my grandfather showed me) This shadowy outline of a head and shoulders being cast onto my blanket, the top of the head had the distinctive shape of a beehive hairdo.

Then I decided to tear the blanket off from over my face to see what was casting that shadow onto me and my blanket. Again, this was easier said than done for, what with that paralyzing fear still with me, it took me several minutes just to work up the courage to move my hand to grab the blanket and pull it off my face.....only to see absolutely nothing standing there. And the paralyzing fear went away in a split second as if it was never there.

The kitchen light was still on and was shining through the living room doorways. I sat up and looked around at the rest of the living room and at my father (who was still sleeping peacefully). Everything was still in place. That wasn't the end of it.

I laid back down, pulled the cover back over my face. From underneath my blanket, I looked back in the direction from where the shadow came from and saw nothing there except for the bright light of the kitchen shining on me. No sound of any heavy breathing either. I somehow fell back to sleep, only to wake up again with a start, AGAIN laying on my right side facing my father, AGAIN with a paralyzing fear going up and down my spine. And again I had to work up the courage just to turn my head to the left only to find the shadowy outline of a womans head (with the shape of a beehive hairdo) and shoulders being cast onto my blanket. And yet AGAIN the shadow was rocking back and forth and breathing heavily. And yet AGAIN I had to work up the courage to tear the blanket off of my face only to find nothing there. I pulled the blanket back over my face to find the shadow gone, the heavy breathing gone, etc., and fell back asleep only to have the same things happen to me again and again.

Wake up on my right side paralyzed with fear, work up courage just to turn my head only to find myself staring at a shadowy outline of a head, with beehive, and shoulders, worked up the courage to tear the blanket off of my face only to find nothing there, pulled the covers back over my head to find the shadow gone.

That still wasn't the end of it.

It happened to me so many times that night that I lost count. Maybe a dozen or a dozen and a half, I don't remember. I do remember that after the fifth or sixth time it happened, I was angrily looking at my still sleeping father asking myself why couldn't he be awake and make all of this stop happening. I felt such fear of going back to sleep knowing that it was going to happen to me again and at the same time I had a fear of staying up because I did not want to see with my own eyes what was scaring me. Yet, I would fall asleep, hoping the last time WAS the last time, and yet it would happen again and again.

Finally the next morning, I confided to my father about everything that happened to me throughout the night...from hearing the bedroom door being pulled open, to the shuffling footsteps and fridge door being pulled open, to me going into the kitchen finding no one there and remembering that my grandfather was still next door, to going to sleep only to wake up paralyzed with fear, working up the courage to simply turn my head, to the shadowy outline of a head and shoulders (with beehive hairdo) rocking back and forth, to the heavy breathing, to the tearing the blanket off my face only to find nothing there, and the many repeat performances throughout the night, etc. I expected to be told that I was just seeing and hearing things, but instead he smiled and exclaimed: "That was Grandma!!!"

Creepiest Ghost story I know is of the LaLaurie Mansion in New Orleans.
THE LALAURIE HOUSE
1140 ROYAL STREET
MISTRESS OF DEATH: THE HAUNTED HISTORY OF MADAME LALAURIE

The haunted history of the LaLaurie Mansion in New Orleans is perhaps one of the best known stories of haunted houses in the city. It tragically recounts the brutal excess of slavery in a horrifying and gruesome manner because for more than 150 years, and through several generations, the Lalaurie house has been considered the most haunted location in the French Quarter.
Let’s just say this story is not for the faint of heart.... and not for the weak of stomach either.

The origin of the ghostly tale dates back to 1832 when Dr. Louis Lalaurie and his wife, Delphine, moved into their Creole mansion in the French Quarter. They became renowned for their social affairs and were respected for their wealth and prominence. Madame Lalaurie became known as the most influential French-Creole woman in the city, handling the family’s business affairs and carrying herself with great style. Her daughters were among the finest dressed girls in New Orleans.
For those lucky enough to attend social functions at 1140 Royal Street, they were amazed by what they found there. The three-story mansion, although rather plain on the exterior, was graced with delicate iron work but the interior was lavish by anyone’s standards. The house had been made for grand events and occasions. Mahogany doors that were hand-carved with flowers and human faces opened into a bright parlors, illuminated by the glow of hundreds of candles in gigantic chandeliers. Guests dined from European china and danced and rested on Oriental fabrics which had been imported at great expense.
Madame Lalaurie was considered one of the most intelligent and beautiful women in the city. Those who received her attentions at the wonderful gatherings could not stop talking about her. Guests in her home were pampered as their hostess bustled about the house, seeing to their every need.
But this was the side of Madame Lalaurie the friends and admirers were allowed to see. There was another side. Beneath the delicate and refined exterior was a cruel, cold-blooded and possibly insane woman that some only suspected.... but others knew as fact.

The finery of the Lalaurie house was attended to by dozens of slaves and Madame Lalaurie was brutally cruel to them. She kept her cook chained to the fireplace in the kitchen where the sumptuous dinners were prepared and many of the others were treated much worse. We have to remember that, in those days, the slaves were not even regarded as being human. They were simply property and many slave owners thought of them as being lower than animals. Of course, this does not excuse the treatment of the slaves, or the institution of slavery itself, but merely serves as a reminder of just how insane Madame Lalaurie may have been.... because her mistreatment of the slaves went far beyond cruelty.
It was the neighbors on Royal Street who first began to suspect something was not quite right in the Lalaurie house. There were whispered conversations about how the Lalaurie slaves seemed to come and go quite often. Parlor maids would be replaced with no explanation or the stable boy was suddenly just disappear... never to be seen again.
Then, one day a neighbor was climbing her own stairs when she heard a scream and saw Madame Lalaurie chasing a little girl, the Madame’s personal servant, with a whip. She pursued the girl onto the roof of the house, where the child jumped to her death. The neighbor later saw the small slave girl buried in a shallow grave beneath the cypress trees in the yard.
A law that prohibited the cruel treatment of slaves was in effect in New Orleans and the authorities who investigated the neighbor’s claims impounded the Lalaurie slaves and sold them at auction. Unfortunately for them, Madame Lalaurie coaxed some relatives into buying them and then selling them back to her in secret.

The stories continued about the mistreatment of the Lalaurie slaves and uneasy whispering spread among her former friends. A few party invitations were declined, dinner invitations were ignored and the family was soon politely avoided by other members of the Creole society.
Finally, in April of 1834, all of the doubts about Madame Lalaurie were realized.....

A terrible fire broke out in the Lalaurie kitchen. Legend has it that it was set by the cook, who could endure no more of the Madame’s tortures. Regardless of how it started, the fire swept through the house.
After the blaze was put out, the fire fighters discovered a horrible sight behind a secret, barred door in the attic. They found more than a dozen slaves here, chained to the wall in a horrible state. They were both male and female.... some were strapped to makeshift operating tables... some were confined in cages made for dogs.... human body parts were scattered around and heads and human organs were placed haphazardly in buckets.... grisly souvenirs were stacked on shelves and next to them a collection of whips and paddles.
It was more horrible that anything created in man’s imagination.

According to the newspaper, the New Orleans Bee, all of the victims were naked and the ones not on tables were chained to the wall. Some of the women had their stomachs sliced open and their insides wrapped about their waists. One woman had her mouth stuffed with animal excrement and then her lips were sewn shut.
The men were in even more horrible states. Fingernails had been ripped off, eyes poked out, and private parts sliced away. One man hung in shackles with a stick protruding from a hole that had been drilled in the top of his head. It had been used to “stir” his brains.
The tortures had been administered so as to not bring quick death. Mouths had been pinned shut and hands had been sewn to various parts of the body. Regardless, many of them had been dead for quite some time. Others were unconscious and some cried in pain, begging to be killed and put out of their misery.
The fire fighters fled the scene in disgust and doctors were summoned from a nearby hospital. It is uncertain just how many slaves were found in Madame Lalaurie’s “torture chamber” but most of them were dead. There were a few who still clung to life.... like a woman whose arms and legs had been removed and another who had been forced into a tiny cage with all of her limbs broken than set again at odd angles.
Needless to say, the horrifying reports from the Lalaurie house were the most hideous things to ever occur in the city and word soon spread about the atrocities. It was believed that Madame Lalaurie alone was responsible for the horror and that her husband turned a blind, but knowing, eye to her activities.

Passionate words swept through New Orleans and a mob gathered outside the house, calling for vengeance and carrying hanging ropes. Suddenly, a carriage roared out of the gates and into the milling crowd. It soon disappeared out of sight.

Madame Lalaurie and her family were never seen again. Rumors circulated as to what became of them.... some said they ran away to France and others claimed they lived in the forest along the north shore of Lake Ponchatrain. Still other rumors claimed the family vanished into one of the small towns near New Orleans, where friends and relatives sheltered them from harm. Could this be true? And if so, could the terrible actions of Madame LaLaurie have "infected" another house in addition to the mansion in the French Quarter?

Whatever became of the Lalaurie family, there is no record that any legal action was ever taken against her and no mention that she was ever seen in New Orleans, or her fine home, again.
Of course, the same thing cannot be said for her victims.....

The stories of ghosts and a haunting at 1140 Royal Street began almost as soon as the Lalaurie carriage fled the house in the darkness.
After the mutilated slaves were removed from the house, it was sacked and vandalized by the mob. After a brief occupancy, the house remained vacant for many years after, falling into a state of ruin and decay. Many people claimed to hear screams of agony coming from the empty house at night and saw the apparitions of slaves walking about on the balconies and in the yards. Some stories even claimed that vagrants who had gone into the house seeking shelter were never heard from again.
The house had been placed on the market in 1837 and was purchased by a man who only kept it for three months. He was plagued by strange noises, cries and groans in the night and soon abandoned the place. He tried leasing the rooms for a short time, but the tenants only stayed for a few days at most. Finally, he gave up and the house was abandoned.

Following the Civil War, Reconstruction turned the empty Lalaurie mansion into an integrated high school for “girls of the Lower District” but in 1874, the White League forced the black children to leave the school. A short time later though, a segregationist school board changed things completely and made the school for black children only. This lasted for one year.
In 1882, the mansion once again became a center for New Orleans society when an English teacher turned it into a “conservatory of music and a fashionable dancing school”. All went well for some time as the teacher was well-known and attracted students from the finest of the local families.... but then things came to a terrible conclusion.
A local newspaper apparently printed an accusation against the teacher, claiming some improprieties with female students, just before a grand social event was to take place at the school. Students and guests shunned the place and the school closed the following day.

A few years later, more strange events plagued the house and it became the center for rumors regarding the death of Jules Vignie, the eccentric member of a wealthy New Orleans family. Vignie lived secretly in the house from the later 1880’s until his death in 1892. He was found dead on a tattered cot in the mansion, apparently living in filth, while hidden away in the surrounding rooms was a collection of antiques and treasure. A bag containing several hundred dollars was found near his body and another search found several thousand dollars hidden in his mattress.
For some time after, rumors of a lost treasure circulated about the mansion.... but few dared to go in search of it.

The house was abandoned again until the late 1890’s. In this time of great immigration to America, many Italians came to live in New Orleans. Landlords quickly bought up old and abandoned buildings to convert into cheap housing for this new wave of renters. The Lalaurie mansion became just such a house.... and for many of the tenants even the low rent was not enough to keep them there.
During the time when the mansion was an apartment house, a number of strange events were recorded. Among them was an encounter between a occupant and a naked black man in chains who attacked him. The black man abruptly vanished. Others claimed to have animals butchered in the house; children were attacked by a phantom with a whip; strange figures appeared wrapped in shrouds; a young mother was terrified to find a woman in elegant evening clothes bending over her sleeping infant; and of course, the ever-present sounds of screams, groans and cries that would reverberate through the house at night.
It was never easy to keep tenants in the house and finally, after word spread of the strange goings-on there, the mansion was deserted once again.

The house would later become a bar and then a furniture store. The saloon, taking advantage of the building’s ghastly history was called the “Haunted Saloon”. The owner knew many of the building’s ghost stories and kept a record of the strange things experienced by patrons.
The furniture store did not fare as well in the former Lalaurie house. The owner first suspected vandals when all of his merchandise was found ruined on several occasions, covered in some sort of dark, stinking liquid. He finally waited one night with a shotgun, hoping the vandals would return. When dawn came, the furniture was all ruined again even though no one, human anyway, had entered the building. The owner closed the place down.

Today, the house has been renovated and restored and serves as luxury apartments for those who can afford them. Apparently, tenants are a little easier to keep today than they were one hundred years ago.

A few years ago, the owners of the house were in the midst of remodeling when they found a hasty graveyard hidden in the back of the house beneath the wooden floor. The skeletal remains had been dumped unceremoniously into the ground and when officials investigated, they found the remains to be of fairly recent origins.
They believed that it was Madame Lalaurie’s own private graveyard. She had removed sections of the floor in the house and had hastily buried them to avoid being seen and detected. The discovery of the remains answered one question and unfortunately created another. The mystery of why some of the Lalaurie slaves seemed to just simply disappear was solved at last..... but it does make you wonder just how many victims Madame Lalaurie may have claimed?