Month: October 2005 (Page 1 of 4)

Happy Halloween!
I’ve always liked Halloween a lot, more so as an adult, since we really didn’t do a lot of trick-or-treating when I was little. I’ve gotten maniacal at times, carving elaborate pumpkins, and working up clever costumes. Some of my favorites include:

Wearing a wig, bathrobe, slippers, and carrying a martini glass. When people asked what I was supposed to be, I shrieked, “I’M YOUR MOTHAH! YOU DON’T RECOGNIZE YOUR OWN MOTHAH???” This costume came to be during the Great Halloween Blizzard in Minneapolis, since the weather hit with 36 inches of snow in a day & a half, and our shopping areas were rather limited.

Wearing a brown corduroy jacket, looking prim & proper, carrying a small basket with a tea towel in it. Again, the response to what I was supposed to be? “I’m Martha Stewart, and I’m better than you.”

All black, black feather boa, sign around my neck with “Nevermore” (and in tiny print, “You can quote me on that”.) That was when I first moved to Kansas City and was living in temporary housing without all my crafting supplies at hand. Hey, it was literary.

Then, the best costume I’ve done – I’ve done it twice, in fact. I won a contest in Minneapolis with the first one, and I won a $500 contest here in KC with the second one. I threw the costume out when I left the last job, since I was going IN A HURRY, and I have the knowledge that yes, I can make it again & again & it’s always a winner. Even though I am loyal to Colgate, this brand works better:

On the back, I did have the instructions, including “Squeeze from the bottom up”. Heh. I also think it’s a bit of a mixed message, to hand out candy while representing good oral hygiene. However, my dentist would be very proud.

You only floss the teeth you want to keep! Remember that after you swipe all the good chocolate tonight! :)

Twice a year, I have to get out my owner’s manual for the car to figure out how to change the clock. I’ve tried too many times while driving, to NO AVAIL, and I wind up being frustrated as hell, that two buttons outwit me every time.

I do love the fall time change, what with “getting the hour back” and waking up and it actually being early, but changing all the clocks is a pain in the butt. I am glad some things actually have figured out how to automatically change on their own, like the DVR, computer and the VCR. I felt old this morning, making that observation (“One less thing to do!”)

I’m off to spend the ‘extra’ hour cleaning out the garage – yes, I know how to rock it out on the weekends, party people. That and all my knitting! I’ve skipped middle-age & gone straight to geriatric excitement.

Shots of Metamucil with Geritol for everyone! I’m buyin’!

We went to Halloweekends last night, where they have several haunted houses/”experiences” and you can also ride all the amusement park rides & eat funnel cake.

My two favorite moments from the evening: after the first haunt (Camp GonnaGitchaWitchaHatchet), Kristin was yelling at me about how the scaring was all my fault, how I made her take this job, etc., etc., and THE ENTIRE TIME she is walking & talking & shaking her fist at me, THERE IS A TRICKED-OUT GHOUL directly over her shoulder, silently stalking her, four inches from her FACE. OH. MAH. GAWD. I was laughing so hard, I couldn’t warn her, and then GhoulBoy swooped in and much screaming ensued, and finally, to make the Ghoul leave her, I pointed ahead and said, “Hey, go get our friend Jimmi.” Which he did, even though I thought she was far enough out of the zone he wouldn’t be able to run up and scare the pants off her, which is exactly what he did.
Sorry, Jimmi.

Second favorite moment came around 9 p.m., when we were waiting in line, and I said, “Whoa. All my stress from this week is GONE.” All the laughing, screaming (I’m hoarse today, and I can only imagine how Kristin & Jimmi are doing) and walking was enough to drain all the tension & bad stuff from my body. We got home around midnight and collapsed – today is for puttering & knitting, tomorrow for cleaning, and then we get back on that horse & ride it again. Too bad Halloween’s only once a year. I could use the scream therapy a little more often….

We’re off to Halloweekends tonight. We were supposed to go last weekend, but the rain, cold and damp, and general exhaustion from the Yarn Dyeing Party prevented us from going. But tonight, we’re off to the haunted houses at the amusement park. We had a behind-the-scenes tour a couple weeks ago, and the photos from that adventure can be seen on my Flickr account – here and here.

Happy Friday, everyone! I figure after the insane week of work I’ve had, screaming my head off is probably cheaper than intense therapy, or a weekend at Two Rivers…..

Aragorn

Putting your appointed path ahead of any inner conflicts, you make your own rules for the benefit of all.

If my life or death I can protect you, I will.

Aragorn is a character in the Middle-Earth universe. There is a description of him at TheOneRing.net.

Click on the picture to take the quiz yourself!

thanks to the Knitting Cybrarian for this link!

JWo has a thing for Gwen Stefani. If she had big knockers, she’d be a serious threat to Jennifer Tilly in the JWo-Hotpants-DeathMatch.

It was a year or two ago, but I still remember it, because it was an awesome compliment…. I think I was whining a little about myself, and he just said, “But, Jennifer, you’re EXACTLY like Gwen Stefani! You’re just not blonde & skinny!” And knowing my hubby likes the bigger-boned gals anyway, that was the best compliment, ever.

Now I need to assemble my posse of Harajuku Girls. And find a drum majorette uniform.

James has Parent-Teacher Conferences today & tomorrow – long days for him, and every year, I have my flashbacks to PTCs of my own. I used to dreeeeead them. Dread, dread, dread. Sitting there with my parents (or sometimes, just my Dad), listening to everything about me, categorized, summed-up, and presented for consumption.

It’s not that I was a terrible child, or student. Quite the opposite – but I wasn’t perfect, and while perfection itself was never stated as the “goal” in our house, excellence, striving to do better, and outpacing everyone else were the desired accomplishments. To me, in those meetings, the things I was already doing well were in the “yes, fine, that’s expected” pile, and the areas of improvement were cartoon-like huge. I’ve spent a lot of years since trying to find a bit more balance.

Not surprisingly, there were always two areas that got addressed during my Tour of Duty through the public school system – but the surprising part was how much I actually didn’t care about them. Even in 4th grade. I felt terrible about being called on the carpet for them, the embarassment & fear I might be in trouble, but the actual behavior? PFFFT?! What-EVAH, bitches. That behavior being, of course, excessive socializing (talking, passing notes) and being unorganized/messy.

I laugh, remembering that particular 5th grade PTC. It was just my Dad, and Mrs. Haller, the disciplinarian from hell, who proudly displayed a paddle each year with the warning she WOULD break it over someone’s butt that year. Oh, and she did. She of the long fake fingernails that would dig into your shoulder, or grab your ear. (You youngsters today have no idea what you missed out on! LOL!) The topic came around to my desk. I can still see it. I have to laugh at the memory of that image: of course I would take a 12″ x 24″ space, meant to house just a pile of books & notebooks, and turn it into a Vortex of Chaos. Papers hanging out, everything about it said “disheveled”. So they started cooking up a threat for me, how could they make me more organized? And my father turned and looked at me and said, “We’ll have you wear a sandwich board that says, ‘I AM A SLOB’.” Of course, Mrs. Haller agreed whole-heartedly with THAT one, because I already had enough issues fitting in, surely this would be the motivation I needed to keep my desk clean.

Now, before you get too worried, I never had to wear a sandwich board. And it did worry me a little, though I think I looked at my father with eyes that said, “Are you fucking kidding me? SURELY not, dear father.” But mentally, I was already thinking about how I could possibly SIT in my desk chair while wearing a sandwich board. (Could I set it to the side at times? Hang it off the front of my desk?) And how I’d sit at the lunch table, or how I could play on the swings at recess with it. Because for me, it wasn’t a question of changing that messy-desk behavior, it was how I was going to adapt to these new challenges placed upon me.

Did I ever mention before that “stubborn” also came up a lot at these conferences?

Oh, yeah, that’d be me. Back in the day (when I lived in Minneapolis), I got completely screwed over by a TiresPlus store. You know, because you don’t have lumpy bits dangling betwixt your legs, it means that you should be subjected to talked-down-to instructions & it should cost a lot.

So we got in the habit of hissing like a cat at all TiresPlus locations. You know, teeth bared, hands up like claws (boy, don’t I have that theme going this week. Fits right in with all my knitting.) And a spit-laced back-of-the-throat hissing. Extremely attractive. Effective in making people stop and steer clear of you, though.

So, I’m having sortof a rough week – mostly large heaps of work & a rather strong disinclination to work every minute of the day. And I find myself wanting to just HISS at everything, as a stress-release. I did have a good reminder yesterday, though, to put it all in perspective. I thought about what I’d be doing in my old job right now? And it makes my current stuff look like prancing through gardens of flowers in springtime. Like a big clumsy tiger, that’s me!

SSSSSSSSSSS! So there!

Seriously. My hands are going to be permanently clawing at the world like Lobster Boy by the time I’m done knitting this jacket. (The Einstein Jacket by Sally Mellville, in the Knit Stitch book…) DAMN me for not being itty bitty! It’s acres of garter stitch that you knit, turn, pick up more stitches & magically you end up with a coat! Right now it looks like an afghan gone bad, in a heap on the loveseat, where I sit with it, each night. It’s been two weeks, and I’ve got the lower body done, the front & back panels & have just begun the first sleeve. Once that’s done, it’s collar time, and finishing! Good thing, because I’m refusing to wear a coat right now, and that’s rather stupid, since we slid from unseasonably-warm days, to freeze-your-face-off days with no in-between.

More fall leaves pictures to come, too.