Getting Ready For Halloween

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I think we are all ready for the two or three trick or treaters we will have tonight. It sure isn't like it used to be when I was a girl and a whole bunch of us would get together in our little costumes our moms and grandmothers had made for us to go out and knock on doors to get extort some candy from our neighbors. Our tactics usually resulted in all sorts of candy...we didn't know it wasn't a good thing. Sometimes someone who didn't have kids would give us a candied apple. Those were such a waste on us...we didn't really like them, but were polite when they were given. We would nearly fill up a pillow case and it was sugar overload for us....but at that time we didn't know it wasn't good for us. We were too busy playing and running all over the place.

On the weekend before Halloween my mother would have a party for the neighborhood. It was great fun for those who loved Halloween. Everyone would get dressed up and the neighbors would come in costume too, for the Halloween party. She LOVED getting things ready. She would peel grapes to simulate eyeballs, a bowl of cold spaghetti subbed for a bowl of brains-you were blindfolded and had to stick your hand in the bowl and tell what it was. There was a wash tub with apples for bobbing, and there would be Mulligan Stew (a hobo dish from the Great Depression-that should be in style for this year) for everyone later in the evening. All of this would be set up in the garage since it is usually mild in Texas this time of year, and the adults would hang together and the kids with the kids. I've noticed lately that some of the ideas, from my mother's era are coming back to the Halloween parties.

For some reason, Halloween is no longer one of my favorite holidays. It is one of the oldest holidays in history and the name is a corruption of the Catholic Church's All Hallows Eve. Halloween is the day before All Hallows Day, also known as All Saint's Day. The Celts celebrated the end of summer on October 31st and it was called Samhain (pronounced sow-in). That being said I just love seeing the kids dressed up out with their parents "demanding swag" from the neighbors with their little bitty voices saying in unison....twick o tweet!

Btw-I'm eating the candy corn and leaving the good stuff for the kids.

Halloween Facts from googling about, but the Halloween Facts post is creepy...it would't let me paste the url about the Halloween Facts page. Oh well, it wouldn't be Halloween with out some spooky carring ons. I hope those teenagers who are 6'5" and loom over me don't show up tonight. It is pretty darn creepy to open the door to them. They are bigger than I am and probably twice as mean. We'll see. Old age and treachery might foil them for the evening. *evil grin*

People and Things We Don't Want to Lose

A while back Garrison Keillor suffered a slight stroke. We have listened to his radio show "A Prairie Home Companion" broadcast from St. Paul, Minnesota, for several years, off and on. I think the best years might have been the ones when we listened to them. The show is set in Lake Wobegone, Minnesota...a fictional place, but magical in the telling about the inhabitants. If you saw the movie it was true to the radio show, but the radio show is better. We used to listen while I was cooking dinner for us on Saturday evening. Garrison had a new story about what had happened in Lake Wobegone during the past week. They had performers who sang old songs and told stories, too.

There aren't many of us left who understand the joy of listening to the radio while stories are spun out. When I was a little girl I'd listen to some soap operas while my grandmother sewed on her treadle sewing machine. To make it even a little more difficult for her I'd be on the floor "helping" with the treadle. As I grew older I found "The Shadow", my favorite of all time. But in between there was "Amos and Andy", "Fibber McGee and Molly". But as I said "The Shadow" was my favorite and I really believed that Lamont Cranston "knew what evil lurks in the hearts of men"...and that he would do something about it. He was on the side of all that was right and good.

I guess that set me up for "The Prairie Home Companion", because it is based on the good folks who live in Lake Wobegone. There is the Lutheran Pastor Ingqvist and the Catholic Church, Our Lady of Perpetual Sorrow, and the Norwegian bachelor farmers and all the neighbors. It is a rich and wonderful auditory experience to not listen to anything but the radio for a while. The stories are so real sounding the little town sort of becomes real to you. A long time ago when we only had radio for evening entertainment we would sit in front of the console radio and listen raptly to whichever show was on. We faced the radio, too. There was no tv at that time. The people who live in Lake Wobegone have the same issues to deal with as we all do, GK just gives them a little humor as he tells their story.

I was very upset when I heard he had suffered a mild stroke and have been checking the news about his condition frequently. He says it wasn't that much of a big deal. He has been resting a bit after that happened. I know I would have to just lay down for a while, pretty long while if I have ever have a small stroke. Also, I've told my husband that if I ever do, to let me lay there for a little while and not to pull the plug too quickly. My sister and I have a pact, too. We will check each other for signs of life before we allow anyone to pull the plug on us. We don't trust our husbands all that much on the life and death thing. Once after I came out of surgery my husband and my aunt came back to intensive care to check on me. They went to someone else's bed. They talked about how bad "I" looked and Jeeze who knew if "I" might make it or not. The nurse finally steered them to where I was...but I still haven't forgotten that little mistake. My HUSBAND AND MY AUNT didn't even recognize me. That is just pitiful.

The show airs from 5pm to 7pm Saturdays on National Public Radio, and really is worth a visit, even if you just stay a while. The show is rebroadcast on Sunday at 11AM. I'll be checking to see what time the sun goes down, since Saturday evening is Halloween, too. Maybe, I'll have time to get it all in before the trick or treaters come out. The website says it is CST, but Saturday night is still CDT...so just check for an hour to see if it is on.

Oh yeah...just heard on the news about getting ready for the HUGE Rainstorm that is coming, but will be gone before Halloween, so the little ghosts and goblins won't get soaked or have to wear a raincoat over their cute costume. That would be dreadful for them.

Cloudy Days and Rainy nights...zzzz

Yesterday was a total waste of a gorgeous day. I slept nearly all day after sleeping a good 8 hours the night before. Everytime I woke it was right back to sleepy town withing 30 minutes. Today it is cloudy and it is supposed to rain between 1-3 inches later today. It is cloudy and cool this morning and while I was surfing around the sleepy feeling started again. I tried to get going, but I'm thinking it is not going to happen today either. I guess while I couldn't take the arthritis meds it sort of got a good hold again and I jsut feel so tired all the time now. I'm going to start back up taking again tomorrow. It has been nearly a week since I finished with the antibiotics. zzzzzzzz...see ya tomorrow.

Something Different for Christmas Giving

Since the fire at my neighbors' home the other day, I haven't been able to get much done in any direction. It has poured rain for days without let up except for a little while from time to time. There is flooding here in town, but I've hardly seen the news. I haven't been over helping my neighbors either. We drove by yesterday and the owner was on the front porch talking with someone who looked like and insurance adjuster...I don't know how an insurance adjuster looks but that was my take on him. We had to attend an AARP meeting so I could be introduced so when the time comes to vote for new officers they might remember my name. HA! They saw a new one come in that sorta might know what to do...you all know how that goes. Afterwards was when we drove by their house. I thought we might walk over later, but by the time we got home I was chilled and pretty miserable. We ate lunch and I put on my nightgown again and covered up hoping to get warm. I was still down all afternoon and evening. This morning I had to go to get blood work done...so still didn't get over. I'm a terrible friend. However, I will go tomorrow and leave messages all over the place until we hear from them.

In the meantime we got a catalog in the mail from Heifer International. I made a donation to some worthy cause and you know how your home address gets around after that. Well, They
have found me. When I picked the catalog up to read I was so confused. You can gift a heifer or share a heifer to provide milk for a family or a small village. This was after careful study and a lot of head scratching to figure out what this group is about. I'm familiar with what a heifer is...thank goodness. One of the perks of living in Texas...you pick up on terms regarding cattle and other farm animals even if you don't live on a farm. BTW-according to this catalog there are heifer goats. Heifer goats are less expensive than a heifer cow, I guess, or you can gift a Milk Menagerie for $1,000.00. That gift is comprised of a quality heifer, two goats, and a water buffalo. The animals can reproduce, give milk and the young traded for goods or brought to maturity and gifted to another.

This is the first time I've heard of this organization, but that doesn't mean all that much. Their goal is to give a helping hand up to families who need one. The main offices are in Little Rock, Arkansas. I'll bet Nit Wit 1, will know something about this organization. On their website is a lot of really good information and it might be something to think about giving this Christmas season. A pig can be gifted for $120.00 or share a pig for $10. Their website for education is:
http://www.heifereducation.org/ .



Sometimes it is just good to be a sucker for a good cause....and I didn't even tell you about the Knitting Basket (2 llamas and 2 sheep for $500 to provide wool to be knitted into clothes to sell or trade or milk for the family or community to use or barter) and how I sure wish I'd gotten in
on helping knit the world's longest scarf. That would have been such a cool thing to do on those days I don't want to think all that much. I had a lot of days like that lately.

This came at a good time for me and I hope it gives you something to think about when we are deciding on how many new toys our healthy, well fed children really need this Christmas. However, if our economy keeps going downward, we may be asking for help from them to help folks in our country. I've noticed an upswing in keeping chickens and some other small farm animals in town. I pray my neighbors don't get a rooster. None of my neighbors have any chickens, but I have thought about it. They eat mosquitoes like crazy. We have a martin house we bought at First Monday in Weatherford YEARS ago...that I have never painted or gotten it up on a pole. Due to my total dependence on the grocery store we are unable to care for ourselves. Oh yes..this afternoon while waiting for hubby to get back from his parents house I was watching a show where a community tried to eat locally grown food for 100 days. They found a store in the area that had wheat which they ground for their bread....this is a story for another day. It got pretty scary toward the end of this episode. Sort of ...well, not like anything Halloween...but finding chicory for coffee in the Pacific Northwest..well I just don't know.

Night Night, friends. We will finish this story another evening.

And Anil P. I am so sorry we seem to be getting India's monsoons this year. We needed some, but not quite as much as we have had this year. I won't go so far as to say we got too much. That would just jinx us for next year. Maybe next year your country will get the proper amount at the right time for your farmers, and we will get just the right amount for ours...and for my little garden.

One day we could have lived without our whole life long

Today has been an awful day. This afternoon my husband and I were working in the yard deadheading some plants and hoping maybe that will push them into blooming again. They have buds on them. Anyway, we finally reached a stopping point and came back in the house. It was hot as everything...really hot and humid. Hubby went somewhere and I walked to the front to see if something was on fire. We had heard a fire truck while we were outside, but didn't smell anything like smoke. I walked back into the house and was speechless when I saw what to my muddled mind appeared to be...fog. Anyway, it was smoke. My husband tried to drive around to the next street over from us, but was turned away by the fire department. We have friends who live over there so I looked up the address on Google maps...which is a whole other trip when you see your house in living color right there on the internet. Anyway, it was our friends' home that was on fire. The feed is not live so there was no fire or firemen on Googlemaps. Hubby walked around and could see the firemen and our friend talking, but he couldn't get onto
the street to talk to her. Later when he left to go to his parents house, I walked over and things had calmed down a lot. I was able to talk to her for a few minutes to let her know that we are here if they need helping hands or a place to stay....or whatever.

This is the couple who helped us negotiate with the other neighbors about the gigantic shed. I'd do just about anything for them. They are such a nice couple and they have two children. This tragedy brought the old neghborhood officers together again. I called them to let them know. We had gotten pretty close during that year of pure all out *HECK* negotiating with the oil companies to get the best price for letting them take natural gas from underneath our property. Back to the young couple whose home burned today, she didn't exactly know how much damage had occured, but from what I saw it is going to be bad. The enormity of it was just starting to hit her while we were talking. Thank goodness her mother came and was with her when the kids got out of school and came home to a nightmare. I think there were some paintings saved...there were some leaned against a tree. I doubt they got all the legal papers out....and pictures of the children when they were smaller. Oh..my heart goes out to them so much. They are such a nice family.

Maybe, she had everything backed up and saved somewhere safe. I have the pictures of my grandson on a thumb drive, but probably should put them at one of my kids' houses for safer keeping. We have a free safety deposit box with our bank and probably should use it for important papers that would be a hassle and a half to get a copy of.

The other down side to all this is...oh hell..it just keeps on going on as I remember. She works from home a lot so there might have been some of her client's papers around...hopefully not today. The winds were very high today and starting tomorrow evening we will be having very heavy rains again. They were going to get someone out to secure the house so hopefully it won't get any wetter. One of the other women from last year stopped by and she told me all the ceilings are gone from when the firemen poured water onto the house. I don't know where to start to help her...and oh yeah...when she walked in with the fireman she dropped her cell into the water and it is ruined. She uses her blackberry all the time keeping up with her kids and all the things she has going in her life. Maybe if she can get the phone apart and dried out it might work again, but I don't hold much hope for it.

This is one of those days when I REALLY want a cigarette again....even after all this time...and after a fire! I guess it is just so upsetting for bad things to happen to such a nice family. I'm sure their church will have rallied to their side by tomorrow and I don't think it could be any too soon.

"Little Boxes"

Today was a day for searching for two items that are "temporarily lost"....hoping they show up...soonish.

1.) I have a little case with cellophane/plastic windows that I keep credit cards in when I don't want to carry very many. From time to time it has been hidden around the house and now I have to admit I have no idea where it is. Hopefully it will reveal itself to me tonight while I sleep. I've been through every drawer in my dresser and you know what that led to...yes, tidying all the contents. Tidying was followed by a gigantic allergy fit. I might/would have been worth it if I'd found the case. The really wonderful part of it was I got caught up in the drawer that I keep all the cards and letters from my kids from when they were really young and letters from much older people. Letters are a rarity now when we send off an email or leave a message on their voicemail to let them know how we are, they are, the dog-cat-bird, etc. are these days.
I found a letter from my youngest, you know that really mean one that keeps everyone in line and minding their ps and qs...well, this was a letter to Santa about the loss of her stocking. We/she had no idea where it was, but had put up another on the mantle, and she just wanted him to know that the one with her name on it was temporarily "missing", but hers was the last one on the left hanging on the mantle. The missing items seem to have been going on around here for ages...and it moved with us when we came to this house! Santa did find the substitute stocking after all, so it worked out ok. That drawer must be bottomless. I found items from my entire married life in it. We have been married 45 years....you understand now how I began to wonder how many wonderful things there might be in that drawer. I found letters from my son while he was still living here that weren't on so happy a note. He was regretful after he had done some things that were hurtful. It got him in the habit of writing and the first year he lived in Georgia on his own we did get some letters from him from time to time.

I found my very special "spurs". They went on boots, like back in the 70s and had a little jingle bell on a chain that latched to the other side when the chains went around the boot. It sounded like I had on spurs. They have conchos on them, too. I probably won't try wearing them this year...but it was so cool to find them, and to remember how cool I thought I was when I wore them. I thought I was some Hot Stuff when I had those on. Or I would be Clint Eastwood in one of the spaghetti westerns. Oh my, we loved those movies....and my little fake spurs.

I found retirement party invitations and pictures from and of various friends and family from over the years. Also there were obituaries. I found one of my graduation invitations I had meant to send to my friend who died last December. I didn't get it mailed but she would have loved it. I'd written in it "Hey! I've gotten this far!" We didn't attend the same universities. She cracked me up...and still does when I think about her getting so mad after a Spanish test. We were both taking Spanish classes, but didn't have the same instructors. On her test one of the vocabulary words was "What is the word for floor?". She thought and thought and thought some more, for Barbara was a perfectionist, and finally put something down. She knew it was wrong, but alas couldn't bear to leave the space blank. FYI, the word is piso and you have seen that word a million times if you live anywhere in the southwest part of the US. Piso mojado means Wet floor and if indeed the floor has just been mopped there will be a sign in both English and Spanish telling you so and not to be a dummy and fall down. She nearly screamed when I told her. She was funny like that.

I found a little box I barely remembered that my aunt gave me when I was 15. It holds a mirror and a small lipstick. It has mother of pearl inlay on the top of the box. The lipstick is mostly still there, and will remain so, but that might have been during the time I was thinking of becoming a nun. I'd seen the movie and all and knew there wasn't that much to it and I'd look like Audrey Hepburn. The problem of becoming Catholic wasn't all that hard. I could be a tiresome and difficult child a lot of the time.

Somehow or other I've forgotten what the other thing was that had lost itself, but I'm sure I'll find it tomorrow. I'm pretty sure it wasn't that important. Sometimes I have help from my husband hiding things for me.

Hope you have a wonderful Monday. BTW-My sister watches "Weeds". I didn't get in on it at first and didn't much like it when I did try to watch a couple of times. She got so excited about the song that is sung in the opening. She was so enthusiastic about it, I hated to tell her that Pete Seeger sang that song WAY BACK when! Here is a link to Wikipedia about it all. I was in my Folk Music Period back then...well, a little later than 1962 when it was written. Now some thirty + singers have sung it on that show. I thought I'd taught her better, but there is such an age difference and she lived with my Dad's family...and was like maybe 12 years old when it was written. And OMG....Pete Seeger is 90 years old. Who woulda thunk it! Happy 90th, Pete.

What the day has wrought

Today was a little better...slept a lot, though. Haven't thrown my toothbrush away yet, but tomorrow is the day....48 hours after starting antibiotics The culture hasn't come back yet, either.

In laws are pretty much the same. Everyday she calls to tell us my husband's dad won't talk to her and she is very worried about him. She doesn't remember it two minutes after she hangs up the phone. She says he just wants to lay on the bed. (I made sure he was still breathing). My husband thinks his dad just doesn't want to listen to her anymore. He perks up and talks to my husband when he comes over every evening. But my fil has become very much different in the past few months. He is weaker and walks much more slowly now, in general he is slowing down like a clock that needs winding. He doesn't remember anything for long either. I think she is frightened of what is happening even though she doesn't remember talking with us about going into assisted living. The girl who comes in during the first part of the day is so very good with them, but we cannot afford round the clock care for them. It is terribly expensive.

The lady from the assisted living place called again the other evening wanting us to put up a deposit on a room that will be available at the end of the month. That sort of stirred up some anxiety on my part about what was going to happen to the person in that room at the end of the month. I guess it is sort of creepy to go missing around Halloween....doncha ya think?



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Anyway, on a lighter note I found this on LOL Cats. This is some serious armament. In my personal experience a wet cat can and will turn into a ball of claws at any time when they are wet or scared. They get ticked off by water...well, being in the water is what ticks them off so much. You will be sorry if you "make him use them" for sure.

I think that young man is from Texas...we say stuff like that a lot.