Designs on Halloween

Here's a shot of the "meta-pumpkin" I carved last night. I should have stopped there because in a late-night fatigue-carving fest, I made the following mistakes: forgetting that pumpkin flesh is not cardboard, being surprised by the thickness of this pumpkin, and making the designs a little too big.




This was the original design. Mark accused me of making another klansman-style ghost; I thought ghosts were supposed to have pointy heads. Using circle sections probably didn't help. I tried a retro look with a Scooby-Doo phantom as a model. Um, no pictures of the finished product (nothing to see, here; move along...)





Scary kitty! I got the head a little -- er -- "off". Mark says this one looks like a Cubist style cat. I like it; I just need to put the head back onto the body. If we'd had another pumpkin and more time, I would have tried to carve this design.



I got a little compulsive on this one. I never could get the legs to come out right.




Yep. I used a compass to make this bat, too. (Background on loan by an artist-friend going through his Pollock stage.)




And... all our Halloween preparations have been lit by the comforting green glow of our Lava Lamp!

Lava Lamp!

Happy new moon ◯

I found my green Lava Lamp up in the attic. I plugged it in last night, and I guess it needs some cooking (or something) because it's not quite flowing the way it should be. Last night it seemed like the stuff at the bottom was a giant convecting blob at the bottom with no larger blobs reaching up to what looked like a floating brain at the top. Occasionally an oily drop would condense off of the brain. I'm not sure if the solution is too hot or too cold, and the web sites I've read suggest gentle heating and cooling to fix things -- if fixing is indeed possible. Resisting the urge to slowly turn the lamp upside down.

In shoulder news... man, my shoulders hurt. I think I woke up about five time last night because my left arm was in an uncomfortable position. Half of my scapular, trapezoid, and biceps want to stretch and the other half really don't. Which reminds me, I need to do my stretches...

Today will probably be one of the nicer days of Autumn; the rains and very cold weather are in the next days' forecast.

Off to the Corn Maze!