Halloween

Our gap-toothed pumpkin face is carved and lit
And witches' squadrons ride our windowpanes
While vampires, devils, ghouls--in counterfeit--
Seek treats or trickery at our door again.
My children hold me tightly by the hand
As I escort their Halloween debut
And shrink from every boisterous beggars' band
Because they fear the trumpery is true.
So I explain and soothe and hold them close
And tell them all is clever-made deceit--
Each Frankenstein, a playmate grandiose
Each ghost, a neighbor child wound in a sheet
But yet--a sound, a touch, a shadow--hark!
I glance behind my shoulder in the dark

Plastic Pumpkins

The minute Fiorella spotted the orange Tide containers, she knew what she was going to do with them. Again, thank you, Mrs. Ruebright. May your name live forever in the annals of paper art.

Boo!

Trick or treat, but beware of the dog!  Fiorella went out early in the morning, barefoot and in her robe, and took a picture of her Halloween door, not realizing she'd be reflected in it, pumpkin head and all. 

F

Busy Bee

Fiorella and Husband had a wonderful afternoon in Austin with Brother and his wife, first at a very nice restaurant, and then at a clever performance of 17th century art songs.   Not only did Fio enjoy a tasty salmon dinner, but she also got a free dessert because it was her three-month belated birthday celebration. Next came the Early Music Project, hosted by the First Presbyterian Church. Of course, Fio and Brother, who took voice lessons many years ago and had actually sung some of the songs, were in their element.
Fio's singing voice is gone now, but it's all for the best. She's got too many irons in the fire as it is. One of those fires is putting up her Halloween decorations--wrapping the plastic skeleton around the mailbox, arranging her cardboard bats on the window, and sticking paper pumpkins around and about. And, of course, she needs to start on the fifth revision of Phillipa's story, clear the fallen branches and rotten limbs out of the south woods, and plow ahead on Spanish.
Too bad she has so much spare time.

Restored

Fiorella has been in a very stressful situation lately which has resulted in her boiling over with anger, not being able to sleep, running around like a chicken with her head cut off--the works--so today she took the afternoon off and put up her Halloween decorations.  A big metal jack-o-lantern went on the wrought iron table in the yard, paper pumpkins were stuck to her front door and selected side windows, and a swirl of cardboard bats were arranged so they moved from one front window to the next one. In addition, a small plastic skeleton now hangs from the mailbox (buzon) out on the road (camino).

And Fiorella is happy.

An Important Question

We have special candy for Christmas, for Valentine's Day, for Easter, and for Halloween.  But where, pray tell, is our Fourth of July candy? Our red, white, and blue candy canes, our chocolate Liberty Bells and Statues of Liberty?

Candy makers of the world, we're waiting for your answer.

Balance

Is it Tuesday already?

Fio's been far too busy, as usual.  Husband is sickish and the new-shelves-in-the-den debacle has not yet been settled.

The good news is that  Minnesota Son rewired all the electronics in the den and helped his father find a replacement recliner, that Fio's finally broken through the mid-story block that's had her writing and rewriting WHEN THE HEART SPEAKS for a month, that, at her request, Husband hid the remainder of the Halloween candy where she could never find it (she looked), and that the weather has turned, which means that Fio has to pull on  a jacket when she goes outside to haul in fallen tree limbs, chainsaw cedar, lay flagstones, or walk up to the road to get the mail.

All in all, it balances out

JollyJack

HAPPY HALLOWEEN TO ALL!

May your candles glow 

As you come and go

Begging swag and sweet

No tricks, all treat.

Artistic Appreciation

Fiorella was born with The Eye.  She absorbs shapes and colors and designs and arrangements as naturally as she breathes, then spews out drawings and paintings and house plans and decorations. Fio, is delighted with each one of her creations, but long ago, she discovered that most people will glance at what she has done, pat her on the head, and go on about their business.

So it was a thrill to her when Husband looked at the cardboard bats Fiorella has taped to the windows and front door, then said, "I remember sitting on the couch next to you last year and watching you cut them out so quickly that I couldn't even follow the scissors. I don't know how you do it."

Fio is in love all over again.

Nip in the Air

'Tis the season to be scary. Fiorella hung a plastic skeleton to her mailbox yesterday, then hauled out her cut-out pumpkins and cardboard bats and taped them to the windows.  Next week she and Husband will select their perfect pumpkins from the displays of identically perfect pumpkins in front of H-E-B--don't tell Fio those things aren't genetically engineered!  Then, last week of the month, they'll buy bags and bags of mini Milky Ways to sate the appetite of every trick-or-treater in the neighborhood and leave a generous  helping for themselves.

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Post-Halloween Trauma

All work and no play has made for Fiorella gaining about five pounds.  Yes, slumping on the couch in the den and working on the new book the whole day long means she has skipped those twice-around-the-driveway walks with Sonia Dog.  And, well, an overload of Halloween candy hasn't helped.  Yes, Fiorella's hips are currently all too well padded with miniature Milky Ways, and Husband has been finishing off the Butterfingers.  We are both into Halloween big-time--and Halloween is into us,  For about a week longer, I estimate.  Then the dieting begins.

Celebrating Holidays

Fiorella has decorated her front door with paper pumpkins and posterboard bats. And several more bats are flying on her front room windows.  And a pair of pumpkins and a bevy of bats are taped to her patio doors.  And soon she and Husband will come home from HEB with two real live pumpkins for her to carve into jack-o'-lanterns..

If Fiorella seems to be more into Halloween this year, it's because Friend Jeanell's characters in WHERE THE HEART LEADS will also be celebrating the holiday.  The story continues through to New Year's, so Rafe and Moira will get to celebrate Thanksgiving and Christmas too.

Nice of them to accommodate Friend Jeanell's plot.

Halloween Treats

Fiorella's favorite Halloween identity was that of  a majorette gypsy.  She started with the gypsy costume (complete with gold canning ring earrings and a colorful headscarf) that her mother had concocted, then rolled up the wooly tops of her house slippers so they looked like boots.  The heavy baton she used in second grade majorette practice completed the outfit.  Don't knock it--Fio won first place in the girls' division of the playground costume contest and still has the newspaper photo to prove it.
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Fio's been noticing a trend toward extending Halloween lately.  Instead of keeping their All Hallow's Eve identities secret until The Day, kids wear their costumes everywhere and about for the preceding week, and adults are following right behind.  It's a little unnerving to have your groceries checked out by a hollow-eyed zombie.
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Every year, Fio and Husband buy bags of their favorite candies--Milky Ways and Snickers--to give out to Halloween beggars.  Every year they have several bags left over.  But not for long.

Masked Identity

When Fiorella was a child, her father was the pumpkin king.  Every year he would spread newspapers on the kitchen table and carve a grinning face on the orange squash, then set a candle inside it and set it on the front porch.  So, with Halloween fast approaching, Fiorella packed her trunk with the makings for a classic jack-o-lantern and took them to her father's retirement home--a Marks-a-Lot, newspapers, a nice big pumpkin, and a sharp knife.  She really couldn't spare the time because she was driving a round trip of seventy miles each day to her job at a rural college, teaching a double load of eight classes, and had a husband and house to take care of, but she wanted to make better connections with her father, who was having problems with Alzheimer's.  Surely the pumpkin would do the trick.

But it didn't.  Dad looked at the pumpkin and said, "What's that?"  Then he refused to participate in the designing, the carving, or the cleaning it out,  "You do it," he said with a slight smile, the same indulgent "women are so silly" expression he'd used when Fiorella wanted to spruce up the rusted lawn lamp in his front yard before he sold the house.  So Fiorella made carved the pumpkin with him looking on and placed the final product on top of his window shelves, hoping it would bring him some Halloween cheer.  As soon as she left, he carried it downstairs to front office.

Fiorella, of course, was hurt, but  she understood.  She now knew her father better than he knew himself.

Halloween Tidbits

Fiorella pledges never to eat again. Last night she stuffed herself full of leftover Halloween candy and this morning she still feels sickish.
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Have you noticed how perfectly shaped the supermarket pumpkins have become in recent years? It's as if HEB molds them in the back room. Fio, who prefers a little individuality for her artful carving, searched until she found one that had more of a dumpling shape--like she does.
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Gone are the pirates, cowboys, and fairy princesses of yesteryear. Last night everyone was a zombie. At least the costumes were easy to put together.

Driving Forever

In the future, I think cell phones/tracking devices/watches will be implanted into our wrists at birth. And I think our movies will star people like Clark Gable and Marilyn Monroe through holographic technology. And I think cars, hover cars, of course, will be controlled by computers and guided to their destinations by magnetic stripes accessing every highway and byway in the country.

That means Dad won’t have to spend Saturday afternoon washing and waxing the car anymore because he won’t own one unless he is very rich. Instead, the family will lease a vehicle to be computer-summoned to their home as needed. Mom will program their trip to Grandma’s beforehand, and then she and Dad and Susie and little Johnny will step out the front door and into their shining new family cab.

The old paved highways will have been jackhammered and replaced with a smooth carpet of grass. Gasoline as fuel and a pollutant will be a thing of the past. Garages and carports will be left to their real purposes—storage.

Because cars will be computer controlled rather than driver-steered, they can travel at high speeds cheek-to-jowl without mishap, switching off through streams of traffic from time to time as the computer efficiently maneuvers them toward their destinations.

Of course, because the cars are so close, windows will be minimized for the sake of privacy. Who will need them anyway, with the selection of current games and movies (extra charge for new releases) available in every car? One window protected with a solar shade should be enough for little Johnny to look out of every now and then.

It will certainly be more than enough for whoever sees our family again.

Perhaps it’s a movie-weary traveler who, for a change of pace, zips open his own solar screen. He glances around the dark, lonely countryside. A battered old family cab catches his attention, mainly because he’s surprised something that antique is still in use.

He peers closer as the car comes up behind him. It‘s running quite fast, he notes, and its interior lights are burning brightly.

There’s something in the window. Is it a young boy? The traveler smiles and leans into his own window, prepared to wave and nod as the car passes.

The old car charges forward, riding alongside the lonely traveler for a few vital seconds.

The traveler’s face freezes into horror as he realizes what he has just seen: a vehicle which had somehow long ago become lost in the circuits of a misfiring computer. And trapped inside the battered old car, Mom and Dad and Susie and little Johnny still speed on.

But it’s a million years to Grandma’s house.

Addicted to Corn

Fio and Husband bought Halloween candy on Sunday--five bags of Snickers (Husband's choice) and five of Milky Ways (Fio's). One bag of each is in the freezer as decoys, and the rest, in knotted bags, is stowed in a hidden cupboard.

Then there's the small bag of candy corn Fio tossed in the grocery cart as a treat. Fio eats each kernel slowly--first the white, then the orange, then the yellow--and she swears each color tastes different. And she can't quit eating it. Yes, no matter how sick it makes her feel afterwards, Fio keeps on eating--white, orange, yellow.

Candy corn, the new crack cocaine.