Apropos of Nothing v.3

Happy Halloween everybody!!!

I had enough trick-or-treaters for all of us. 95! Good Lord, it's a good thing I go insane when buying Halloween candy- we gave out a truckload!

Here's a pic of our decorations- didn't have the money or energy to get real fancy, but the kids all loved them. :)

All of those cobwebs looks like our front porch, except we didn't decorate! Oooh, ick. Seriously though, nice decorations, Pony.

LOL Lynn!

I find it ironic that real spiderwebs freak me out, but I love the fake ones. hehe.

How is Traci doing?
Are you going to be in the Piggy Swap (Cottage Gardens Forum)? Pony, you will have a blast and get probably 200+ packages of seeds. It starts tomorrow, and I think there are 1 or 2 spots left.

Tracy's doing good. :)

I'm not doing any piggy swaps- I already have more seeds than space.

Sharon & Julie so sorry to hear about your break in the EWA. It would be so easy to feel picked on.
Cute Halloween dogs
Several years ago one of our neighbors moved so I went on a rescue mission and rescued a number of plants including hardy cyclamen. 2 years ago I moved 3 very large tubers and am still surprised about how big they can get. Anyways I do have quite a few of them and I would be happy to share. The seem to spread rather prolifically (with some help from me of course)

Cute pumpkins! I always forget to try carving turnips. Those were the original 'jack o lanterns', I believe. I think they would look so cool hanging from the trees with candles in them. Alas, I always completely forget and so whatever souls are passing closeby my house don't have their way lighted in to the afterlife, unless, of course, electric lights count. LOL!

Worked 12 hrs yesterday and came home to the neighborhood being invaded by hordes of trick-or-treaters. We forgot about buying candy because last year we only had about 6 kids come to our door. I was trying to put out the light of our motion detector so kids wouldn't think it was a lit porch light and scared a bunch of teenagers as I moved away from the light..lol. They were good though when I told them I had just gotten home from work and didn't have the treats this year...just said no worries and Happy Halloween and went on their way. They didn't seem too interested in the real spider web I fought off while adjusting the light....
We went out for pizza and, yes, I did feel a bit grinchy.....
Happy November, everyone! I am back on night shifts tonight.

There were a lot of trick-or-treaters in my neighborhood, but no as many as last year. One of the mothers said the schools were discouraging trick-or-treating to reduce the spread of flu. Two little boys came to the door with some kind of super hero costumes and sewn into the faces were surgical masks - how clever! But the best part is I still have some peanut butter cups left.

There was no activity in my neighborhood (though there aren't that many small kids around, I don't think). I went up to the neighbors' to have dinner and watch a movie and they had the single trick or treater of the evening. Dan was so happy to see him that he loaded the kid's sack up. Then we spent a bit of time reminiscing about trick or treating when we were kids. They were both from families of 7 without much money growing up in Minnesota in the 1960's. I was the child of frugal parents growing up in the 60's in Alaska.

We used paper sacks to get candy and our costumes for ghosts were sheets because you could put them on over your jackets and boots. Remember how the plastic masks didn't really fit and you couldn't both see out of them and breathe out of them at the same time? I remember that the neighborhood was full of kids wandering around and there were very few parents with us. Ahhhh, the good old days.

I had a few Trick or Treaters while I was doing surgery so I invited them in . None took advantage of it. It is remarkable what a little blood will do to the vampire, witch, and goblin. LOL

Sofer, that is so mean! I know you are not really trying to scare those kids!
My sister and I used to spend the better part of the day on Halloween decorating our trick or treat bag. It was always a paper grocery bag. We'd go out on our rounds and then lay all the candy out to compare loot. We'd group all the candy by type and then commence to trading.
I remember when McDonald's came out with the plastic jackolantern happy meals. I think that was the demise of the hand made trick or treat bag. I also remember that when I hit about 12, I felt too old to go trick or treating. I took my little sister and watched while she did it. Now I see kids that are clearly bigger than their parents going from house to house with pillow cases. I don't really mind when they have manners about it, but I am curious about this shift in Halloween etiquette.
I think most of the kids around here go trick or treating at the mall. Somehow, the idea of that is very depressing. Allegedly it's about safety, but I wonder if it's really about marketing. How sad is it when parents would rather take their kids to the store to trick or treat than walk down a neighborhood street? In our old neighborhood, we used to get all kinds of families from other parts of town bringing their kids to go door to door. I was glad to see them. (Although, I did think it was nice when the parents parked the car and walked with the kids rather than slowly following them from behind the wheel.)

Halloween SHOULD be scary. It should be terrifying. It's a pagan holiday that acknowledges all the evil & all the bad in the world; Halloween embraces death & remorse.

But ... we've Americanized it. We should have crossing guards for the trick-or-treaters & require licenses to pass out candy.

Er... "all the evil and all the bad in the world"? I thought it was a Celtic celebration of the new year/death of the old year, with the understanding that the veil between the living and the dead was thin on that night and that all kinds of spirits had access to the earthly plane. Some would be bad spirits and some would be good spirits. Bad spirits would need to be kept away, thus the use of costumes to confuse those spirits who might have evil intentions, such as possessing a body for the coming year or ruining crops. Lanterns lit the way to the afterlife for the spirits who needed help in that passage. Because the veil was so thin, the dead and the living could have contact with one another, so fortunes were told, etc. I'm pretty sure it's not completely focused on evil, even while it acknowledges death, since the terms are not synomymous. I believe I remember somewhere a reference to celebrating ancestors, also. And I'm positive it wasn't focused on things like chain saw massacres and serial killers.

And so many "holidays" that we have now are a combination of traditions of multiple cultures and religions.

I remember once that a friend told me that she was sad that we'd lost touch with what Christmas truly meant. So she was not going to put any decorations on her tree that didn't have to do with the birth of Christ.

I asked her why she had a tree . . .

I guess each holiday means something different to each of us.

I like the Easter Bunny, Jack O' Lanterns, Turkeys to eat, and Santa Claus. Father Time, fairies, and good spirits. Non-alcoholic.

I agree Willow - but I like the spirits as well. Folks should just relax and enjoy themselves and do what they feel like doing about all the holidays. Chill, people!

Pix, love your accounting of Halloween. All those spirits wandering about!

My MIL used to say, "If you get mad at me, you'll have to get over it."

Another one I like is, "Your opinion of me is none of my business."

LOL, Willow - I like them both!

I will have to remember those, Willow.

I was lucky I had lots of parent and grandparent volunteers show up for my classroom Halloween party last Friday. There were plenty of people to help serve food and assist the kids do Halloween activities and crafts. It was consequently very mellow and fun. I had no idea I was following an ancient tradition when I got out my crystal ball (a small glass globe) to tell fortunes after our costume fashion show. The fortunes went as follows: For 'Superman', Ah I seeee....You will leap tall buildings in a single bound and save people in distress, and you will be very happy! For the 'Fairy Princess', Ah yes....You will live in a fine castle made of seashells and emeralds and race through the fields on a fast horse, and you will be very happy! I was a little bit stumped by 'Darth Vader' having very little knowledge of the Star Wars movies after the first one. I said he would be very powerful, live in a space station, and one day he would meet his son and be very happy. The kid informed me that Darth Vader's son killed him. Aaack!

OMGoodness, I didn't know that either! What did you say?

I said, "Ooops I didn't know that" Then I said, Darth Vader might have been proud of what a good fighter his son was with a light saber. I think this went right over his head however.

I could never be a teacher - I'm so out of touch!

Holly, I wish i could be in your class! A real cool halloween party! And a crystal ball! I love it completely. Too bad you didn't know about Darth Vader's demise, but actually, Darth sacrifices himself for his son, as I recall. A real true anti-hero. I hope I'm remembering the story correctly, but I think so.

Katie: "I asked her why she had a tree." ROFLOL!!! Wonderful!!

I agree, people get to decide how and why they celebrate holidays. I love the idea that spirits are closer to the earth on Halloween, so I'm with Portland on that. But I have always been interested in the history of holidays. Just another one of my little forays into the intersection between earth based religions and Christianity. It's the many layers of symbolism that I love.

I love that we can't keep track of our "pure" beliefs. They all just morph into one another. That's how it's supposed to be!

Indeed! I say take the best of all of them.

Bwahahaha! I just learned that my truck can and will fit past the house and into the back yard. Wheee! That was fun. :D

Good News!

The bad news is that Tracy's truck died.

We just got home from going $19K deeper into debt buying him a Jeep.

What did you get? Post the picture!

Ack... um, I'll have to do it tomorrow- too dark! It's a black 2005 Wrangler Unlimited. Nice looking jeep, but ouch, we so didn't need that kind of hit to our finances. *sigh*

The cost to drive is absolutely ridiculous.

No kidding. Yikes.

Pony, what fun to know that you will have a much shorter haul for stuff to the back yard! Opens up all sorts of possibilities! Bummer about Tracy's truck, but sounds like you chose a good rig to take it's place.

We have too many vehicles at my house, and to be good to the earth it would be better for me to ride a bicycle as I did all through my twenties. However, I have become attached to my creature comforts not having to get soaked to get around in the Winter. I wish I could afford one of those new electric cars and a solar panel to charge it with.

Pixy, you can come visit my class anytime. We will soon be learning about festivals around the world, beginning with Thanksgiving, and moving on to Diwali (India), Loi Krathong (Thailand), Las Posadas (Mexico), Hanukkah, Christmas, Kwanzaa (U.S. African American), Chinese New Year....It will take me all the way to February. This should cater to your interest in the history of holidays, though I admit I do focus mostly on cultural practices and children's stories. We will have another party in December with samples of food from these different traditions, as much as I can muster up the parents to make.

Holly, I wish you were my teacher when I was young!

It sounds like such fun, Holly! The kids in your class are very lucky to have you as their teacher. Makes me want to go back to grade school!

Tracy's new Jeep: