Random Halloween Memories

The Longest Night. When I was 11 we had one of those warm Halloweens (unusual for Canada) and also a full moon. My best friend and I were out for more than 3 hours, walked for miles and got bags and bags of candy. However, I was scarred for life when I saw my least favorite substitute teacher in her underwear while we were sneaking around her house trying to decide whether or not to risk soaping the windows.

Window Soaping. I was good friends with the daughter of our high school principal. So one year I thoroughly soaped her windows. I got in such trouble! Even though I said I wasn't soaping the principal's windows - just my friend's house. Never soap the windows of a high school principal, children. It's like a federal offense or something.

My Favorite Costume. When I was 12 I went as Barbarella in a costume made entirely of tin foil. I had many technical issues with the tin foil bra and my father ultimately insisted I wear a turtleneck under the bra - nevertheless I felt so very, very sexy and grown-up. I couldn't figure out why so many guys who drove by tooted their car horns at me, lol. Such innocence. I had on a pair of silver panties (from an ice skating costume) with a fringed miniskirt made of silver foil so the silver panties showed through, a pair of silver knee-high boots, and the silver foil bra. It's a wonder my parents let me out the door!

Favorite College Halloween. A bunch of us decided to move our Halloween party to a nearby graveyard. So there were jugs of apple smash resting on tombstones and some costumed kids making out on the graves. An old lady saw the party from her bedroom window and called the cops. Evidently, partying in someone else's graveyard is illegal and referred to as 'Desecrating Hallowed Ground'. Who knew?

Favorite Memory With Tom. He dressed as a vampire and I as a vampress and we went bar-hopping in costume. Many, many Bloody Mary's were consumed. We stayed totally in character and it was so fun. Tom made a great vampire - wearing a full length black cape lined with red silk over his best dark pin-striped 3-piece suit, shiney wingtip shoes and fangs. So handsome! I was all in red with way too much eye make-up on.

Surprise Halloween Weather Event. In 1991 I was in charge of the Halloween Party at my DD's elementary school. When we went into the school it was a lovely evening. When we came out 2 or 3 hours later we walked into a white world. Twenty-one inches of snow had fallen! We barely, barely made the drive home.

An Absolutely Untoppable Family Halloween Story. When I told my mom the apple smash/graveyard fiasco story she told me her college Halloween story:

Her father was the Coroner for Cook County (?) (whatever the heck county it is that Cleveland, Ohio is located in). Anyway, when her sorority decided to enter a Halloween Haunted House contest my mom, a lovely and well brought-up young lady decided to steal an unclaimed John Doe cadaver from the City Morgue to be part of the display. The body they stole was a young man who had been badly beaten and then shot in the head. And then autopsied.

The sorority's haunted house was a huge hit and seemed likely to win the contest until an off-duty cop went through the display. He knew a real body when he saw one, so he shut the Haunted House down and brought in the law. Much confusion ensued. Her sorority didn't win the contest and my mom had to promise to never steal a body from the morgue again, lol.

Tell me a story from your Halloweens past!

Not Much Today

1. Chickadees rioted on my deck. I put out some bird seed for the first time this fall and a horde of chickadees swarmed the deck. Their party was quickly crashed by nuthatches, then blue jays, then hairy & downey woodpeckers, then (of course) a squirrel or two. I guess the birdies were hungry.

2. I learned a new word on The Daily Show yesterday. FLILF.

3. Yesterday I finished off all my cheesecurds because Weltek reminded me of them.

4. Today is supposed to be the last great day of Fall. Again.

5. I guess my Halloween decorations are going to stay in the basement this year. Even Grizzelda, my favorite witch. I miss Grizzelda.

6. For New Year's I am going to Tough Love my daughter right out the door, or something like that. She is getting way too comfortable here on Easy Street where dad pays for everything.

7. For my next birthday I want an electric carving knife.

8. I lost my favorite necklace somewhere in the house and I can't find it for the life of me. It is a pewter medallion with two sculpted Celtic trout and some seaweed enclosed in a 2 & 1/2 inch knotted pewter circle. I found it one day more than 25 years ago, while walking down Hennepin Avenue with Tom and it's been my "lucky" necklace ever since. I would hate to lose it for good!

9. I am "watching" a bunch of stuff on eBay. I don't think I am going to buy anything, but you never know. I am watching some oriental art, some Breyer horses and some Christmas angels. If I had a place for them I would have a herd of about 125 Breyer horses. I love those things! I have too many angels already, but I like to put them all over at Christmas time.

Dead

*sigh*

We had our killing frost on Saturday night. No more pretty annuals. And my banana tree bit the dust as I knew it would. I killed it.

Last year I brought my baby banana tree indoors and it spent the winter in my living room, where I most definately did not have room for a banana tree that grew to 6 ft across. So this spring I planted it into the ground so I wouldn't be tempted to bring it back in again this winter. It grew even more when planted in the ground and looked quite lovely. Now it just looks dead. But it had to die because already I barely have room for all my house plants and house trees.

So RIP little banana tree. Minnesota was not the right place for you...

I Have Decided.

No turkey for me this year. I am going to make a crown roast of beef. With Yorkshire pudding. Yum!

Did everyone see the beautiful full moon last night? Our skies were crystal clear so the moonlight was just luminous.

Oh look - it's foggy outside.

Tippy Toes just tried to jump up on the computer desk and wiped out a little pile of stuff which went crashing to the floor with him. That will teach him to come after my morning bagel!

Tom wants to bring home Chinese take-out from some new place in St Paul called The Teahouse for dinner. I am always in favor of dinners I don't have to cook.

Perfection

Today is a perfect fall day. Just perfect! Sunshine, blue skies, about 50 degrees. I think I'll go shopping this afternoon. Kohl's has a sale with some things I need marked way down.

I want a new Playtex 18-hour bra. I only wear them 14 - 16 hours (usually) but they are such darn comfortable bras for me. There are sexier bras out there, but the 18-hour keeps the girls high, proud and comfy.

I also want a new fleece jacket. Like so many Minnesotans I tend to dress in layers. In fact I rarely wear a winter coat. As the weather gets cooler I go to long-sleeved, jersey-type tops under my unlined windbreaker jacket. When it gets cold I add a fleece top over the shirt, then the jacket. On the rare occasions when it is really REALLY cold I put on a full length down coat - but that may be only 8 or 10 times per winter.

Also perfect? My cleaning lady comes today!

Word of the Day, Uruguay.

For some reason all my dreams lately have either centered on Uruguay or relocated to Uruguay. I have no idea why this is. To tell the truth, I would have trouble locating Uruguay on a map! This is some of what I have dreamed so far:

1. Turns out my mother, who died in 1999, has actually been living in Uruguay since then.
2. Uruguay has fantastic rain forest pulley rides. (You know, those cables strung between trees and you hang on to handlebars below the cable and slide down really fast to the next tree.) Way fun! I rode them for hours.
3. The rain forests of Uruguay have never burned. You can ride the giant parrots who live in the forest.
4. I intercepted a phone call from my MIL who was calling her husband Phil who died about 10 years ago. She told him she had fallen and couldn’t get up but she wasn’t ready to die yet because she had never seen Uruguay!

It’s starting to skeeve me out. Why Uruguay?

Damn Duck Hunters

Every day at one minute after dawn (or one minute before - I forget which) they are allowed to start shooting. So every morning I am awakened at dawn. Boom! Boom-boom! Pop! The ducks passing through my backyard are never safe.

This is the downside of living by a navigable river - any fool with a boat can motor up into your neighborhood and shoot stuff with guns. They are not supposed to shoot towards the houses and there has never been any incident that I know of. But I just don't like it!

Plus, I figure "my" ducks are my guests and I don't want them shot.

Home Made Tortilla Soup Is...

...simply divine. Food of the gods. Soup AND a fresh salad, in one bowl of deliciousness. Why has no one told me this before? I plan to make it every week all winter long!

On another food topic (so-called food, actually) my DD's BF makes his "signature" dish quite often at my house, usually late at night. It smells like dog vomit and wakes me up every time he makes it. Yuck. When he made it at 4 a.m. this morning (he and the DD arrived long after Tom and I went to bed) it made me feel all itchy too - so I had to get up, take a shower and wash my hair!

So. Which recipe would you like?

Swami is Here. Swami is fine.

And evidently Tom is keeping you all amused. I guess he was a Bad Boy on Bravie's blog, lol. I never did see what he wrote.

Knee therapy is a pain in the ass and takes forever to do. And as much as I enjoyed having my older daughter & grandson here for a nice long visit it is nice to be alone too! Yesterday was the first full day I have had all to myself since the surgery! I thought I might restart blog rounds then, but I wound up just enjoying the no-pressure solitude and watched a bunch of shows I had DVRed over the last month.

I am fine walking on flat ground but stairs remain a PITA because I don't trust the knee yet. Also riding in the car is freakishly uncomfortable after about 15 minutes.

It has rained here every. freaking. day. for the past month and I am beyond sick & tired of the gloomy doomy grayness outside my window. This weekend I may hang some of our Halloween stuff outside--that will go well with gloomy-doomyness. First I need to delegate Tom to go down into the basement and fetch things upstairs. He's cleaning the gutters right now.

Well, this has been a dull post. I'll try to come up with something more interesting soon. And I need about 85 hours to catch up on my reading...

Thursday Thoughts

1. Hung won Top Chef. Yay!

2. My oldest daughter is coming for a quick, almost drive-by visit from Sun - Tues. She is bringing the World's Most Perfect Grandson and their new little dog, a tea-cup poodle puppy who weighs about 2 lbs. I am worried that my alpha female cat will consider the puppy "prey" and hurt him. I sure hope not! Cats don't kill itty-bitty puppies, do they? (Daughter is in Milwaukee on business.)

3. The Knee is feeling much better. I forgot my cane a couple of times today, so that's a good sign.

4. I had my stitches and staples taken out yesterday. There were seven sutures and 37 staples in my 9 inch incision. I still worry as I flex the knee past 90 degrees that the incision will split open like a ripe peach. I know it won't, but what if!?!

5. We are having an absolutely lovely fall but I can't go sit on our screen porch because the 2 steps leading down to it are hugely steep. Steps are still a pain.

6. About a week after my surgery I got all constipated. I don't remember being really constipated before so I now have an appreciation for the poor folks who have this problem regularly. I mean irregularly. Whatever.

7. Yesterday I walked around in a grocery store with Tom for a little while. We bought a few needed things and also a couple of boxed lunches which we ate while sitting at the edge of White Bear Lake and watching the sailboats. (I got a chicken salad croissantwich.)

8. I am going to keep going until I hit no. 10 because that makes Boo happy. Or is it Nutz?

9. Speaking of Boo, the way I eat pot pies is to turn them out upside down onto a small plate, use the side of my fork to cut the pie into 8 even wedges and then mush & stir the wedges together. Looks awful, tastes great!

10. Tom has to work late tonight so another thing I bought yesterday from the deli was a serving of Chicken Tikka Masala with basmati rice, channa dahl and spinach with fresh Indian cheesecurds. Very yummy!