This Is Halloween?

Mark claimed he was unable to resist devouring Halloween candy, so we didn’t have any the morning of Halloween. This necessitated a run to the local chain grocery — Mark insisted that I needed supervision buying Halloween candy — where we discovered a two-for-one sale on fun-sized Skittles and Twix bars. And aisles of Christmas decorations.

“Hmm,” Mark said as we went home. “We didn’t get fine chocolates for ourselves.”

“True,” I said.

He baked gluten-free brownies.

On the pumpkin front, this year is very low key. I gave the single pumpkin I impulse bought last week a jagged lid and carved a skull out of the pumpkin’s thick rind with holes for the eyes and nose. The teeth look a little like a car’s radiator grille. It’s very basic. Sometimes I like it, other times I’m dissatisfied with how crude it feels. In retrospect, I should have drilled holes around its brows and stuck in marigolds.

At least we have a ton of paper bats adorning the walls. Which I like.

Mark has put up the blower-powered Eldritch Horror: large, purple, inflatable, light-up tentacles. It’s under the front rhododendron and behind some plastic old-timey graveyard fencing. It looks very effective, and it’s the one Halloween Thing Mark seems to be into because he wants to order another one for more tentaclely fun.

I wasn’t sure what the night was going to be like, weather-wise. A dense (and possibly freezing) fog advisory for the morning meant a grey pall over everything. The predicted clearing came around 4:30 PM. At least there wasn’t a deluge. Or — thinking back to Minnesota decades ago — snow and dented parked cars.

I set up the long folding table, placed a green tablecloth over it, and set up the wooden skull, the ceramic jack-o-lantern my Aunt Joanne made, the light-up skull candles, the lava lamps, the spiky-winged siren-ladies crystal ball stand, the blue glass orb, and various tea candle votive ware.

I really wanted to set up a cauldron with an old copper punch bowl and our sonic fog machine, but after an hour of searching the garage and loft, I could not locate it. I am sure I saw it over the summer when we were reorganizing the bedrooms, and it is not in any of the places I recall seeing it. Undoubtedly I will find it this week when I’m tearing the house apart looking for something else.

I did find my RollerBlades (and wrist guards), so I threw on my large black-and-purple cloak, put on the RollerBlades, and swooped around the street for a quarter hour. Apparently, the Dragon Dancing I’ve been doing has been good for my balance: my muscle memory kicked in and it felt like I’d been RollerBlading forever instead of only once a year. Real bats did not join me as I glided up and down the street (as they did once, several years ago), but yes, Saint-Saëns’s Danse Macabre was playing in my head. (“Look, Aoife, John’s back. He didn’t need his cell phone to call the ambulance from the middle of the street at all…”)

Our first group of trick-or-treaters appeared shortly after six. Which was a little late; usually the little-little kids are making the rounds by 5:30 PM. “Oh. More Skittles,” one grateful little ghoul said.

Since Aoife was going a little nuts, I figured it would be a better night if the doorbell wasn’t rung too much, so I set up the square card table in the driveway, next to the garage and in front of the skull jack-o-lantern, with a white tablecloth, two white camping lights, and my tarot cards. (Setting up a flood-lit path to a tarot card reading booth in the backyard had been vetoed earlier that afternoon.)

I shuffled and shuffled the cards. I murmured the invocation to the circle and four quarters. I broke out The Book of Art and a pen. I shuffled the cards some more. I heard trick-or-treaters shrieking from several blocks away. I shuffled the cards and attempted to formulate a question. The night grew cold, and so did my hands.

I settled on a nine-card spread and shuffled the cards some more. This was probably a mistake, as the spread I chose is more suited for a yes-or-no answer with temporal cards filling in the why, and I was asking a “how do I” question about community. The most interesting aspect of the reading was that it started with the King of Cups (fire expressed as water) reversed, and ended with the Queen of Wands (water expressed as fire) reversed. Why, yes, The Chariot reversed showed up, too. And the Two of Pentacles, reversed.

I wrote the cards down in The Book of Art; all suits represented, three upright, six reversed. I will need to do more research, but I’m pretty sure the spread was pointing out that “you’re the common factor in all your failed relationships,” and that focusing on one thing might help. And possibly (looks at Seven of Pentacles sitting in the middle of the spread) I’ve confused “community” with “legacy.”

At some point I managed to coerce Cicero — who had managed to sneak out of the house, even though he’s a black cat on Halloween — into my lap and partially under my cloak. We both appreciated each other’s body heat. I gathered up the spread cards, noticed that they had a faint trace of condensation on them, and started shuffling the cards once more for a series of practice readings — two crossed cards over a line of three cards — to flex my cartomancy muscles.

Around 7:45 PM the second group of trick-or-treaters, three little girls, slowly approached the table. “Aw,” one said when Cicero leapt out of my lap and into the shadows of the neighbor’s shrubbery. They were very polite and effusively thankful for the candy loot, and somehow managed to scamper off before anyone could ask for or be offered a one-card tarot draw.

By 8:00 PM, it was clear that no other trick-or-treaters were going to walk by our house. I dismissed the circle and the quarters, pulled up shop, and asked Mark if he wanted to go looking at neighborhood jack-o-lanterns. At first he was happy letting me go by myself, but then changed his mind and we were walking up the hill.

Our street was dark. On the next block we passed by one house with a jack-o-lantern and orange lights, and another house with the resident dog’s dog toys dramatically lit up and hanging from a tree.

We continued to climb the hill and turned the corner onto a dark street. I was stunned. We passed the silhouettes of houses. In the distance, a railing glowed with white and orange lights. We passed an empty porch with a single smiling jack-o-lantern: the piece of its pumpkin grin had been split and stuck on the sides as ears (or horns).

“What the hell?” I asked. In my memory, this street had been Halloween Central, packed with teeming hordes of trick-or-treaters — light-up jellyfish, vampires, witches, Sith, ghosts, fairies, Mario Brothers, pirates, Minions, princesses, X-men, and the occasional sexy werewolf — and homeowners in lawn chairs holding block parties in their driveways. “It’s like someone sucked the Spirit of Halloween out of this town!”

“Well, the Y had a trunk-or-treat party from about five to eight.”

“Trunk-or-treat,” I scoffed. We turned the corner to the apex of the hill. The former Halloween Party Houses appeared to be mostly empty, although there was an axolotl distributing candy to two small trick-or-treaters at one front door. We turned the corner to another empty street.

“Well,” said Mark, “pumpkins aren’t very ecological and their transportation has a big carbon footprint. I could see folks deciding not to do jack-o-lanterns this year.”

“What the hell?” I asked the darkness. Aside from a giant inflatable pumpkin-headed scarecrow, we were the only ones on the street.

“You’ll have to sign up for trunk-or-treat at the Y next year,” said Mark. “You could decorate the car, and it’s a social event and you like people.”

“Ugh,” I said. “Trunk-or-treat is lame — Oh, look, they’ve got a good ghost projection.”

“Traditions change,” Mark said. “And so do neighborhoods; the closest neighbor kids are graduating from high school.” Mark pointed out a car that had been working its way down the street, pausing at any house with a hint of Halloween to disgorge three kids, collect them, and repeat the process five houses later.

“I guess the night peaked at seven?” I hazarded. We passed a house projecting a swarm of multicolored objects that turned out to be witches on broomsticks.

“Let’s go down this way,” I said, hoping to find more Halloween activity on a busier street.

“What the hell?” I said a moment later as the only thing lighting up were the street lamps. A car drove by.

“My poor husband,” Mark said. “People are probably at events downtown. The Eugene Ballet’s fundraiser party is at the Hult Center. And Halloween has become yet another holiday event for adults to drink, like Cinco de Mayo.”

“Win Money! Money! Money!?” I said in my best A Charlie Brown Christmas voice.

“Your decorations are the Most Sincere,” Mark said as we returned home.

I mused on trunk-or-treat to try to pin down exactly what my problem is with it. I vaguely remember it appearing in Octobers about ten to twenty (?) years ago, and thinking it was odd and anemic even back then. It seemed like it was a work-around for extra-rural families who literally lived five miles away from each other — which is fine and I get it — but in urban settings, the replacement of the trek from house to house to five steps to the next car’s trunk felt like an incredibly tame and domesticated consolation prize. A little more research reminded me that it started as a conservative American church movement to replace the folk tradition with something more Godly, transforming it from a mysterious interstitial period to a safe, sanitized, candy distribution event. And it’s occurring to me that trunk-or-treat would be a recommendation side-bar in any October edition of The Fearful Parent Magazine (Informing Parents On Ways Your Child Could Die In Seconds This Month, sponsored by the Baby-Industrial-Military Complex).

I want my Halloween to be a journey about choosing what masks we wear and what masks we take off, and a way to collectively examine our chaotic fears and wishes and desires — the tricks — and the ways we appease and order them — the treats.

And yes, when I was a child, a costume was a cool by-product of collecting tons of candy from the neighborhood (that I’m one hundred percent sure my parents did not pillage).

I suppose I’d do trunk-or-treat if I could do Sexy Trunk-or-Treat (cue Jeffrey’s dad from the movie Jeffrey woodenly saying, “That’s so hot.”).

---

“So,” said Mark. “Today is All Saints Day, right?” Then he brought out the gilt angels and put them on the mantel.

Cats, Books, and Dreams

Yesterday was a vet day:  I loaded both cats into carriers and drove them to the vet's for their vaccinations.  The theory was if they were both going at the same time, they'd keep each other calm.  Based on the syncopated caterwauling, I'd say it was a bogus theory.  

The cats eventually forgave me for stuffing them into cages and taking them to That Awful Place -- Smokey was over it about ninety minutes after we got home; but Cicero held out all afternoon and refused to come into the house, even when it was hailing.  To be fair, he had hidden under our bed when he heard Smokey wailing from his cage, but I had coaxed him out and then immediately thrust him into a small loaner carrier.  

That evening, I read the synopsis of Dion Fortune's contribution to Neo-Paganism in Ronald Hutton's "Triumph of the Moon," as a kind of counter-balance to some other readings.

So, naturally, I dreamed...

I was on an island research center.  The island was rocky and temperate -- there were fir trees instead of a jungle, and it wasn't icy.  A group of us entered the center, which was blocky and reminiscent of classical architecture.  The more I think about it, the more I am realizing that it was based on the architecture of the Lighthouse of Alexandria.

There was something about riding an elevator, which, paradoxically, seemed to be lowering (there was some sort of shuttling motion in the rafters of the elevator car as if a cable was being unwound), but we travelled up to one of the upper floors.  There was also something about entering a defunct part of a library -- in my dream's eye, I saw a floor schematic of the complex, and we entered a greyed out portion.  This had been under the prevue of an unnamed country, but they had withdrawn from the research center for reasons that were never revealed in the dream. 

Somewhere around here in the dream, Cicero was with me.  We were in a kind of card catalog hall, with lots of shelves of unread books.  The room was large and airy, but dim, as if only every third light worked.  Leaning up against a shelf was a pile of books which included Dion Fortune's "Moon Magic," "The Sea Priestess," some other books of her fiction, and some sort of book on antiquities that belonged to my parents (their names were written on the inside cover of the book.  The sense was that since this section of the research center was closed, if we wanted to, we could take some of the books.  I wanted some of the books I saw, especially the one that had been my parents' -- in the dream I supposed that the book had been left behind when they left the Mangla Dam Project, but I couldn't figure out how it had ended up in a foreign government's library.  I had a sense that this was my, or at least my family's, book, and that I had every right to it.

The ownership of the books didn't resolve, and the group left the library.  There was something here about going down a level or two to a kind of utility or engineering floor filled with lots of unused machinery.  At this point, Cicero got away from me (he'd been good up until then) and I had to coax him out from between collections of shelved tools and conduit that he'd crawled into.

There was probably more to the dream, but that's all I recall.  What strikes me about this dream is that it could have turned into an elevator anxiety dream, but didn't; it could have turned into a lost in a twisty, constricted place, but it didn't; and that it was set in a conflation of the Lighthouse of Alexandria and the Library of Alexandria.  

 

Snow Wishes

More snow this morning--not a whole lot.  No moon or stars, only grey clouds making the snow a dusky pastel blue.  The forecast for today is a tug-of-war between snow and rain.  I expect the day to become darker as the rain washes away the snow.

Yesterday the sun came out and turned the snow brilliant.  The light bouncing off of everything lifts my spirit, and makes for some fun photography.

The cats are hopeful that the snow will go away, and seem dashed when we open the doors to that cold white stuff covering everything.   They spent most of yesterday on tables and chairs, in the sunlight, waiting for the snow to melt.

The dog loves it, though.  Mark has been making snowballs for her and filling some of them with dog treats.  

Wrapping Up December 2021

  I envisioned myself blogging (and writing) much more this December than has actually happened.  Part of this is due to posting to social media more than actually blogging.  I suspect that I need to have add some time-keeping software to my apps to bring social media usage back into balance.    

To recap the last few weeks.   

Through a series of events, the Day Jobbe has expanded to full time.   It's mostly remote, and I drive in to work some days.  I am doing a combination of departmental intranet design and web site management.  It has been a reminder of how brutally insurance benefits are awarded (or not) to vested employees. 

 

Writing is going very slowly, which I find it tends to do this time of year.  

My extended family is doing mostly well and managing to stay healthy during the pandemic.  

The cats have crossed another threshold with the dog and are more likely to spend the night in the house (rather than the garage) with the dog.  The cold might have something to do with this.  They also seem more tolerant of the dog in general, and no longer zip out of a room whenever she appears.  

Smokey seems to have recovered from his earlier medical emergency.  He's still as fluffy as ever, but--whether through the medicine he's taking or through the touch of age--he is bonier than he used to be.  

On the design front:  last November I sat down and decided to see about reproducing an Islamic design I've always thought was an interesting interlocking of circles, triangles, and hexagons.  As is usual with these sorts of designs, one can make it tile infinitely.  Other design projects include designing this year's family calendar and paper projects.

Friday Cat Photo

 

Cicero (and Smokey, too) is slowly working toward acceptance that there is a canine living (and sleeping) in the house.  Both cats will (mostly) put up with being sniffed by Aoife, but they aren't exactly happy about it.  

I'd say Cicero is further along with the process than Smokey is.  Smokey pretty much would rather sleep in the cold garage than in the house.  

Animals and Seasons

November is over a third of the way through and the dark season is upon us.  For real this time, although the ten days in early September when the smoke from the forest fires blotted out the sun were bad enough.  At least we can be outside without too much fear of breathing unhealthy particles... oh, wait, COVID-19.  Oh well.   

The damper, colder weather has driven the cats into a grudging acceptance that a dog lives here.  Some days are more grudging than others.  The other day, Cicero was sleeping on Mark while Aoife rested next to him; Mark slowly shifted his body until Cicero was resting, if not on, then at least next to, Aofie.  We think at this point Cicero realized how much body heat Aoife puts out.  I've noticed he's less likely to retreat to the bedroom window when Aoife enters since; and recently, Cicero ventured into the back yard -- something that hasn't happened since the Spring Equinox.

Mark and I notice how early the sun sets these days because all of the acres of the dog park we take Aoife are in shadow by 4, and the sun slides behind the hills by 4:15, and you can see Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn by 4:40, and by 5:00 it's too dark to see the Chuck-It Balls we fling.  If Aoife didn't have a mostly white head, we wouldn't be able to see her, either.   We used to be able to stay until 8:30.

The dog park hasn't turned into a total mud pit yet, but I expect the Big Storm that's supposed to hit us Friday the 13th will change all of that.  (The fist-sized gravel the city used to fill in some of the larger foxholes the dogs dug last spring is already dispersing into new geologic depressions.)

Smokey is more grudging than Cicero.  At least he has the next-door neighbors to run to (and they love him, so it's a win-win situation).  He's still likely to make a dash for the window when Aoife enters the bedroom, but there have been a few times where he's (noisily) tolerated being sniffed by the dog.   Aoife understands that the cats are part of our family, and unless she's previously wound up, she'll slowly creep forward to sniff them (instead of lunging at them) in an earnest attempt to initiate play.  

Smokey and Cicero had been sleeping in the garage over the Summer, but they've worked up enough courage to begin sleeping in our bedroom (and waking us up at 4 AM to be let out).  Sometimes Aofie sleeps in our bed -- when I'm feeling like indulging her -- but I find I sleep better when she's on the couch.  

Cats, Dogs, and Quarantine

Day something of self-isolation with the family.  We're doing fairly well, also I am a little stir-crazy.  I would very much like to go to a dance party right now.  Last weekend the sunlight made being in the back yard pleasant.   However, starting last Tuesday, the weather has been cold, wet, and overcast.  We need the rain, but I could do without sunless skies (and more rainbows).   I was also disappointed that the clouds hid a conjunction of The Moon and The Pleiades on Friday (and Thursday and Saturday) night.

Aoife, the new puppy, has settled into the house.  So far we've pretty much established that she's a stick dog, she's a car-ride dog, and she's a frisbee dog.  She loves us, and once social distancing isn't such a big deal, we'll work on socializing her.

The cats are still annoyed.  We've established our bedroom as the cat sanctuary, and Mark occasionally opens the door and stands with the dog while the cats furtively eat their meals.   Mark usually times some long-ish dog walks around meal times so the cats can come out of our bedroom to skulk and sniff.  The down side of all this is that that cats frequently want to leave the room at 3:30 AM and wake us to open a window.   If we're not stealthy enough, the dog hears us rustling around and wants to be let out of her crate in The Child's room.

It's slowly paying off.  The cat's aren't in a complete panic when they see the dog.  Aoife has always been mildly curious in a "let's play" kind of way about them, but is otherwise uninterested in the cats... unless she thinks they are intruders on the front porch, in which case they get an "intruder alert!" bark through the front window.   Smokey ventured out, took a strategic position on the table, glared with Great Glaring, then forgot that Aoife had fallen asleep on the couch while Mark and I were watching a Wooster and Jeeves movie.  I didn't see Smokey's face when Mark stopped him from jumping onto his lap -- which coincided with Smokey realizing that the brindled pillow was Actually A Sleeping Brindled Dog! -- but Mark said it was priceless.  Mark was also thankful he had avoided getting his lap shredded to ribbons.

Staying At Home With Cats and a Dog

Today is overcast and damp.  I had hoped that I might be able to write outside, but that's not going to happen--even with a deck umbrella.  Kate Brown, the Governor of Oregon, has issued executive order 20-12, which translates to Lockdown-Not-Quite-So-Lite-This-Time.  Still, pretty much everyone is being strongly encouraged to stay at home and not go anywhere if they can help it.

We're going on Day Three with a New Puppy Bull-Terrier Mix.   The cats have moved from full panicked “Oh My God, it’s a dog! Stand you ground! No—puff out to twice size! No—I’m outta here!!” to Irritated Bushiness (Cicero looks like a stereotypical Black Halloween Cat) and a low growled battle song (the lyrics of which are “When the Foeman bares his steel (ta-ra-tara ta-ra tara) We uncomfortable feel...").   Our bedroom is the Cat Sanctuary, and they've taken to fleeing the house through one of the windows.   Even Spencer, Cicero's brother, is on high alert, and performed his signature bound over the chainlink fence when I came out with Dog Smell on my Hands.  

Aoife pretty much wants to play with the cats.  She pretty much wants to play with other dogs.  She loves us, and is a leaner.  She's not quite so sure about other people, although she threw doggy heart looks at some guy in a Toyota muscle car and booming hip-hop (he actually pulled over, got out of his car, and said hello).   She has figured out the home is The Den That Must Be Protected, so there's some barking at the mailman.  When Mark commented on how cliché it was, I responded that Cliché would be a great dog name.  

In other animal-conflict news, there's a hawk or other raptor that's been hanging about and getting mobbed by the local corvids.  Just now as I was writing this, I saw a smallish--maybe a red-tailed hawk--be forced to land in a tree across the street by two crows.  I was too slow with my camera to get any photographs... although I did get a woodpecker in the same branches about fifteen minutes later.

 

Moon and Venus

The Moon is getting close to Venus.  It's supposed to be nearer tomorrow, but given the penchant for cloudy skies in late Winter, I figured I should take pictures now.  In a few more days, the Moon will sail past Aldebaran and the constellation Taurus.

While I was setting up, Cicero jumped up on The Fort and just happened to line up with the crescent moon.  I'm not sure why he was up on the very top rail of The Fort; maybe he likes to be as high as possible in an attempt to survey as much of the neighbors' yards as he can. 

On the Writing Front:  I've been cleaning up a 20,000 word manuscript.  Thank goodness for the computer's ability to speak text -- I've found a couple of phrase echos and a number of stupid clerical errors.  I also ran into a weird Scrivener bug where it would display one version of my text if I was looking at it on a scene document-by-document basis and an earlier version if I was looking at it on a pan-scene Folder basis.   I ended up having to create a new Scrivener file and copy-and-paste the scene documents in. 

On the Gym Front:  I went to the gym Monday (2/24) and did the Push-Pull Routine.  I went kind of late and felt tired the next day.  So tired, that I made Writing Day Hot Bath With Candles and Recordings of Singing Bowls Day and skipped the gym Wednesday. 

Friday Update

Went to the gym Wednesday night, did the usual routine.  Going consistently has resulted in some nice reductions, but it also means that I wake up around 9PM. 

On the writing front:  Got a short, detailed rejection for one piece -- mostly the story wasn't the editor's cup of tea.   I've been working on older pieces that have been languishing in draweres post-critique.  Taking a long break from pieces has been useful for spotting clunky writing (and excising it).

Oh, and the Autumnal Rains continue....

Dragonfly Rescue

Went to the gym Wednesday (8/21) and did the regular routine.  I suppose I should look up some hand stretches or other warm-ups because I've noticed my hands are sore now that I've returned to the gym routine after a vacation.

The other day Cicero caught a dragonfly.  I'm never quite sure if he's catching them on his own or if these have been disabled by birds who don't eat them after pecking them.

This one seemed to be in fairly good condition:  its wings seemed to be working and it only had a little dent in its side.  Cicero had mostly been batting it against the ground before I rescued it.  After appreciating it, I managed to place it on some horsebane growing near our deck and sprinkled a little water on the branches for it.  Cicero really wanted to play with it more, and, like a Disney cartoon wolf, took up a station at the base of the plant.

Wednesday and Thursday were grey, rainy days.  The trees and grass needed the rain, and I feel like much of the dust and pollen has been cleared from the air.  Of course today (Friday), I'm noticing the haze in the air is making the pines on a hill across Amazon Slough grey-green instead of the pine-green of their nearer counterparts.

Today (Friday) is a writing and marketing day.  My in-the-mail count is one and it ideally should be up to ten (or greater).  I've got a list of stories to send out... although one (fairly old) story has got some dated technology in it that needed to be cleaned up and the more I think about it, the more I'm wondering if I should run the story past some beta readers to see if I'm guilty of cultural appropriation.

Cats

Artsy Cat Shots

 I took some photos of the cats the other day.  Smokey's photos came out looking odd, and quite a few of Cicero came out out-of-focus.  But I got a few artsy cat shots.

Story prompt:  if you found the right link in a fence, what would it show you? 

 Story prompt:  the humans didn't know what was lurking under the deck.

Story prompt:  In my past life, I was a priest of Isis in Egypt, during the Fourth Dynasty.

Kitties Sleeping

 Before Cicero became part of our household, Smokey used to sleep with Mark and me.  Ever since that day about two and a half years ago when Smokey hissed and ran out of the bedroom, we've felt a little sad that the 16 pound older cat was displaced so quickly by a 4 pound kitten.

Okay... um, yeah, Cicero is a descended from barn cats and has no sense of boundaries.  

And, Smokey has been known on occasion to do a sumo-ninja move by rolling with a Cicero pounce, resulting with Cicero landing on his side instead of on Smokey like he had planned.

 Fast forward to this week, where I discovered them sleeping and actually touching.

And, of course, as soon as I typed this, Cicero went up to Smokey, who was on the bed, and started biting him.  Sigh.

November Jack-O-Lantern Prophecy

November 1, I hung the tiny jack-o-lanterns from the tree out back.  I think I'd like to fill the tree with about three times as many pumpkins next year (although they would be tempting for the stupid squirrels and I'd have to practice just accepting that a few of the jack-o-lanturns would be mauled for seeds.  

But having a tree filled with glowing faces and illuminated with flickering candlelight would be worth it, I think.  I keep thinking that I'd like to have an outside Tarot reading table for Halloween night, but the logistics of getting folks into our yard are tricky.

Cicero was uncharacteristically cooperative with the camera, and I got a few good black-cats-and-pumpkin shots.  Mark was unimpressed because A) what's the big deal about Halloween and B) yet another cat photo on the Internet.  Oh well.   

Now it's been a week and The Child was wistfully wondering if he could take a baseball bat to the hanging jack-o-lanterns, one of which has had its face gnawed off by squirrels.  I told him no because A) it's post-Halloween and B) beating effigy heads is for the uncouth and ignorant.

Besides, I think there's a kind of prophesy at work -- the first jack-o-lantern to fall off the tree was the one with the jagged smile, and the one with the mauled hole for a face looked like a knight, and will frowny one be the last?  There must be a meaning in there.  

 

I'm guessing that if this were one hundred years ago, the last jack-o-lantern hanging would turn out to be my husband.  It sounds like researching crow counting rhymes and other folk oracles may be in order.

Cats and Autumn

Cicero brought a rat into the neighbor's yard and started playing with it; this gave me a good opportunity to stop painting the side of our house and grab the camera. 

The autumn has been dry, so the yards in our neighborhood are still on the brown side. 

I'm recovering from the mandatory Autumnal Student Cold.  This has interrupted my return to the gym, which is delaying my attempts to shrink the bicycle tire around my abs. 

Snake Scale Details

Cicero keeps bringing snakes into the yard.  I think this may be the same snake that I've rescued about three or four times now. 

What I like about this photo is that you can see (when you zoom in) how the scales change along the girth of the snake's body.  The ones along the top are long and narrow, while the hexagonal ones on the side are more circular, and the scales along the snake's bottom look like shields. 

Also, the yellow stripe along the snake's body has scales in it that are half-yellow, half-slate colored.

After I photographed this snake, I scooped it up and slid it into a crack in the ground (we have a lot of those because of the high clay content of the soil).  Cicero can't get at the snakes, but he can smell them, and I suspect he spends much of his day standing guard over the cracks, waiting for serpents to emerge.

Gym and Dark Shadows

Went to the gym Saturday.  I've been advised to mix things up a little more than I have been to help with my shoulder and back (work the back to balance out working the front).  30 minutes and 300 calories on the elipitcal (while I did line edits to a story).  3x12x20lbs on the butterfly pull (a reverse pec-fly).  3x12x80 Lat Pull-downs.  3x12 Roman Chair curls.  3x12 bridges.  Also some assorted quasi-yoga stretches.  Pool-noodle spine stretches and thigh faschia stretches.  30 second planks.   3x12x20lb triceps pull-downs.  

After the gym, I managed to actaully get a flu shot; the closest pharmacy always seems to require two visits for anything, and this was no acception (I'd dont the paperwork yesterday).  The advantage to going early Satruday was that almost no one else was there (sometimes going to this particular pharmacy is like visiting the Emergency Vets on New Years').  

I spent most of the day working on a short story at Caré John, in the rain.  Cicero visited between sprinkles, mostly because I was warm and dry.  He's usually only wants to sit in a lap for about three mintues, but I think he curled up on my lap for about fifteen before a bird or a squirrel or some other defeceless creature lured him into the neighbor's yard.

Mark's been Binge Watching "Dark Shadows," a black-and-white Horror-Soap from 1966.  The premise is that a wealthy, influencial family with secrets is visited by a vampire (and ancestor) who has been released from over 150 years in a coffin, and vampiric hijynx ensue.   It's kind of slow, and extra cheesy.   I have a very vague recolection of seeing the opening or closing credits, but being unable to read the Gothic Script of the show's title.  

I think the Soap Genre demands that the characters connect the dots much more slowly than the viewing audience.  For example, it seems a little odd that a medical doctor with a patient who has inexplicably lost a dangerous amount of blood and whose injuries are only two puncture marks on the neck wouldn't draw some obvious conclusions.  We've amazed The Child on several occasions by predicting actions and dialog.  We've also been coming up with drinking games we could play while watching and pretending to drink whenever anyone says "blood," "Colins", "I'm busy," or "I'll call a doctor-"/"No! Don't call a doctor! I'm not sick!"

A some point, I decided that Smokey should be in Dark Shadows and started to intone a typical opeing:  "My name is Smokey Winters..."

"Smokey Winters!?" Mark said.  "That sounds like a stripper's name."

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Today (Sunday) feels like a slow day.  I think I'm fighting off whatever Back-To-School bug is going around, and I'm a little sore from the shot.   I guess this makes it a good day for marketing.  So I've submitted a short story and a flash piece.  The short, unfortunately, has been making the rounds and finding a good market for it is proving to be a challenge.  The flash is experimental, and we'll see if it sells.

Chapter Two in The Chronicles of the The Slayer

While we didn't catch him in flagrante delicto, we're pretty sure Dragonfly-Slayer Cicero damaged a Paddle-tailed Darner, (Aeshna palmata) late this afternoon.  I'd seen him pawing at something (I'd assumed a mouse) in the tall grassland next door, and discovered the darner on the walkway by our house a few minutes later.



At first I thought it was dead, but it had a very strong grip on the concrete.  I offered a dry twig for it to crawl on, and it pulled itself up onto my hand.   I didn't see any holes it its body, but I noticed as I was photographing it that it wasn't moving its lower wings.




The unrepentant monster was fairly certain I had carried off his prize, but wasn't exactly sure where I'd placed it.  Also, he didn't want to be photographed.




We're growing some corn, and I placed the dragonfly onto a stalk, flicked some fountain water onto it, and took some photos.









I checked on it after dusk, and it had climbed up under a fold in the corn leaves, so I'm hoping it will rest the night out and fly away in the morning.