October 31, 2010

Halloween will be here in a few short minutes. It's about 11:40 as I write this and I'm incredibly disappointed in my television viewing choices for this evening. Watched Hilary Swank in "Amelia". One of my other options was "Titanic" for the umpteenth time. Where are the scary or semi-scary movies?

Where are all the Draculas and their daughters? Where are the Frankensteins and their brides?Where are Bela Lugosi and Vincent Price and Christopher Plummer and Lon Chaney? Where is Hitchcock? Where is Murnau? Where ARE they?

They, my friends, have been replaced by brooding Bella Swan and her sparkling vampires. Incredibly, not even they are on t.v. tonight. The only vaguely-Halloween thing on is something starring Bette Midler. Seriously. And the scariest things I've seen for weeks have been campaign commercials.

Now, I know there's yet another installment of the Saw franchise out there, in 3D no less, but that's not what we want, is it? We want suspense. We want fear. We want something that isn't just gross for the sake of being gross.

Wasn't that the appeal of "Blair Witch"? We never actually saw the witch. We just saw a bunch of kids in the woods who'd gotten the crap scared out of them. And the classics like "Dracula's Daughter" relied not on gore but on long pauses and deep shadows to set the viewer on edge. Hollywood, are you listening? We're not all 14-year old boys. Nor are we all 14-year old girls. Keep your sparkly vampires and your crazy clown things to yourself.

Unless it's Pennywise from "It". We'll keep him. But we'll read the book instead of trying to stay awake through the four-hour miniseries with John Boy from the Waltons and a kid I went to high school with. I wonder if they still get residuals.

Anyway.

This has turned out to be a fairly complete October. I acquired some fresh cider from a local producer, went to a pumpkin patch, decorated a pumpkin, wore an awesome costume for almost an entire day, ate a big pile of caramel and have had the opportunity to reconnect with some friends I haven't chatted with since last October. I've even managed to spend a little time with a Druid and a couple pagans and got myself invited to a Samhain ritual. I know, right? Shocking to some of you. Not sure if I'll go, but the invitation included info about a vegan/vegetarian potluck. I do like a good potluck, but what does one wear to such a thing?

I was reminded over and over of things from my childhood: Elvira and Vincent Price, the voices of Halloween, of the Frankenstein coatrack that I avoided for years, of a series of orange plastic pumpkins used to tote trick-or-treat candy home. I was reminded of costumes of years past, mine and those of my friends and family, including my mom's collection of witch costumes over the years. I was reminded that we were gluing plastic spiders to our faces long before Martha ever considered doing such a thing.

And I'm reminded of the magic and mystery that surrounds Halloween. It's been said a million times that this is when the veil between the worlds is at its thinnest, when the profane becomes the mundane, when we may be offered a glimpse at what came before and, quite possibly, what lies ahead.

Thanks for coming along on another October journey. You're all what makes October well, October for me.

Cheers.

October 30, 2010

I sent most of the day wearing a green wig and night elf ears. And purple fuzzy boots and tiger-striped leggings and a red tabbard and a purple cape.

I had a good time with it, those silly ears and that silly wig and the spectacular costume my mom worked so hard on, feathered shoulder pieces and all. But it wore me out. I'm exhausted. My real ears hurt. My real hair is a hot mess. I'm still wearing the boots mainly because it seems like so much trouble to try to take them off. I'm just not good at costuming.

I am, however, very good at eating candy and decorating pumpkins. I'm not sure where these talents came from. Other people can play the violin or carve things from deer antlers or run really fast. I can decorate a pumpkin like nobody's business.

Anyway.

I had a conversation yesterday with someone I don't particularly care for. He's a vendor at the hotel and I see him nearly everyday. And nearly everyday, I find some reason that would justify my strangling him with my bare hands. But yesterday, in the inclusive spirit of October, I had an actual conversation with him.

And he told me, in not so many words, that he's a sort of medium. He can read people. He can easily identify other mediums and reach out to them with his mind. If he'd told me this in, say, April, it would have confirmed what I've believed for nearly a dozen years: he's a real whack-job.

But he didn't tell me in April. He told me in October. Somehow, this makes it more believable. So, yes, I believe him. He told me he didn't grow up with this gift, but after a near-death experience when he was in the military, he realized something was different.

Well, of course he did. He came near to the borderlands between the worlds. He was close to crossing over. That changes people. He came back with a gift. I'm not sure how useful it is to him, but it's still a gift.

He told me a story of going to a psychic fair with some friends of his who wanted to test him out. He knew immediately which of the psychics there was most powerful and focused on her. She was in the middle of a reading with someone else, he wasn't even near her. But when he focused on her, her head popped up and she nearly knocked her chair over getting to her feet. She marched over to him. "You!," she pointed a finger at him. "You have a gift and you're not using it properly!"

Regardless of what our talents are, we should all ask ourselves if she would call us out the same way. Are we using our talents properly? Are we even able to identify what our talents are?

October 29, 2010

Okay, so at the last possible minute, my workplace decided that we will, in fact, be holding a pumpkin decorating contest.

Poop.

I'm ill-prepared. I had an idea months ago but can't possibly pull it together in time for a noon judging - TOMORROW. This could get very ugly.

I know I can put something together, but I doubt that the quality will be to my usual pumpkin decorating standards. I mean, how do you follow the infamous Phyllis Diller pumpkin? You have to be better and better each year. Feathers and sequins, people.

And rumor has it that the maintenance department has already wired theirs for electricity. I'm not kidding.

So, sometime tomorrow morning when I should be working, I'll drag our my bag of rhinestones and glitter and see what kind of magic I can work. That's just what I do.

And I will remember that the jack-o-lantern was once a turnip, not a pumpkin, that held an ember from the Flames of Hell - the only light poor Stingy Jack would have to navigate an eternity on Earth, for he had tricked the Devil into not taking his soul, but was too much of a sinner to be let into Heaven. Man, we have some complicated Halloween lore, don't we?

October 28, 2010

So, my friend Sarah downloaded a bunch of Christmas music for her iPod today. She's ready to move on.

But we have a couple more days before we leave October behind. And about three weeks worth of October-ness that we haven't yet covered.

Does it seem to anyone else that there's more creepiness this year than there has been in the past? Everywhere I turn, some other creepy thing happens. For those of you on Facebook, the evidence of this is posted there - the giant knife, the pile of wheat. Unfortunately, I wasn't quick enough to get a picture of the guy with the chainsaw at school tonight.

I think, with Halloween looming on the horizon, maybe I'm just more open to seeing, identifying and pointing out the creepy in the mundane.

One of my bosses received a balloon arrangement today that scared the hell out of me. I'm hoping it deflates before I go in tomorrow. I know it's just a few balloons lashed together, but I don't want to be in the same room with it.

What's creepy in your world?

October 27, 2010

The end days of October are filled with monsters. They're everywhere. This is the point at which we normally talk about vampires and werewolves but, thanks to Stephanie Meyer and the entire Mass Media World, I'm kinda over them.

What I've been thinking about for the last week or so is the zombie. Unfortunately, I missed the ZombieWalk last weekend here in Portland. And there was a headline on OregonLive about the students at U-Dub playing some sort of zombie-tag between classes. There seems to be a real resurgence of zombie activity so I want you all to be prepared. Pretty mush all I know about protecting oneself from zombies is to keep salt around. Throw the salt on the ground and the zombie will stop chasing you and start counting the grains of salt - hopefully long enough for you to get away. That's all I got, kids.

Thankfully, my friend Sean had some spare time whilst serving his country and wrote the following, which I've stolen and reposted here for the good of the group. With apologies to Sean, I've taken the liberty of editing a bit for our decidedly mixed audience.

Be prepared:

If zombies were polite enough to come at you one at a time and waited while you changed magazines, killing them wouldn't require much thought. Unfortunately, they simply lack the higher thought processes required to contemplate things like the Law Of Armed Conflict. However, the Geneva Convention says nothing about eating your enemy so maybe they do have the law on their side.

We respectfully submit that the perfect zombie-killing weapon is something that kills them while they are way the F over THERE. Artillery is always your best option. If you happened to be so armed, APERS rounds are a good choice. Next in line would be an HE round with an air burst, preferably using a high angle trajectory. White phosphorous is a good choice too because you get obscuring smoke to confuse them plus the satisfaction of knowing they are getting burned to s**t. However, it will stink.

In the absence of the Noble Artilleryman (who could bring refinement and sophistication to even a zombie fight), you are forced to employ the tactics of the Brave, but None-Too-Bright Infantryman.

First and foremost, always take the high ground when possible. If you can sit and pick them off from a cliff, building or other high spot, always use that to your advantage. However, the old football analogy about the chicken being involved in breakfast but the pig is committed bears remembering at this point. If they surround you, you are the pig. Literally and figuratively. Always protect your means of egress.

The most basic infantry tactic is to use suppressive fire (translation: shoot like a mofo) while another team works themselves into place to assault the objective. Against the living, this works fairly well because most living people want to stay that way and a s**t load of bullets coming their way is definitely prejudicial to living.

Zombies don't care. They won't keep their heads down. They'll just keep coming at you. The obvious problem here is if you are in a tactically weak position and they get to you before you run out of bullets, you are F'd.

However, suppressive fire as a tactic does have its uses against zombies. Pretend you have two teams. Team A is in a tactically ok position. This means they can hold their own for a while, but will need to exfiltrate if things get too heavy. However, there is a tactically superior position some distance away. Team A can lay down suppressive fire while Team B maneuvers. Team A isn't really suppressing the zombies so much as killing them and keeping their attention while the other team moves.

Once Team B is in position, they can cover Team A's exfiltration, or both teams can commence to shooting because now you have them flanked. A good flanking maneuver is always fun because now the enemy has to deal with fire from two directions instead of one. Makes the whole situation a bit more manageable.

The important thing about choosing another position is the directions of fire for both teams should be perpendicular or close to it whenever possible. If the good idea fairy says he thinks he should take a team behind the horde of zombies so you can attack them from the opposite side too, kill him first because he is a fool. That configuration is stupid. Don't do it.

The question has been raised regarding the use of smoke against zombies. Smoke is a good way to hide what you are doing from the enemy (hopefully to their detriment) or to just confuse the s**t out of them because they can't see what is going on.

Also, smoke coming out of smoke grenades has a very strong smell to it, so it may confuse whatever sense of smell they have. Artillery rounds probably do too, but the author makes it a point to never get close enough to artillery smoke rounds to smell them. It's just bad practice.

The most convenient means of employing smoke is with an M203 Grenade Launcher. If you don't happen to have one, find the person who can throw the farthest and the most accurately. That big dumb dude who claims he was a quarterback when he played high school football may be your only bet.

You will want to place your rounds close enough to the zombies that you can't see them anymore, but your view of the world around you is otherwise unobscured. The smoke screen may take from a few second for grenades to a minute or so for artillery smoke to build. Don't spend much time thinking about this, just move like hell once you can't see the zombies. Best if you can be quiet at this point too. Smoke doesn't do much for hearing.

Another tactic that bears consideration is explosives. You can throw them, drop them or leave them in place until the zombies chance upon it. You can also rig booby traps to protect a position. Explosives and the knowledge to use them is a convenient thing to have. They are highly effective and very entertaining at the same time.

If you can get your hands on some Claymores, do so. Or you can improvise them with a few materials. We won't go into details on improvising claymores here. If you have the materials, particularly the explosives and the knowledge to use them, you'll know what to do. If you have the materials but lack the knowledge, best to leave well enough alone.

There are three important things to remember employing claymores against zombies. First, they should be placed about head level. If you place them low, you'll just have a bunch of zombies with missing legs coming at you. The second thing to remember is the claymore is marked "FRONT TOWARD ENEMY". Point that side at the zombies. The final thing is the claymore does have a back blast area of about 50 meters.

The importance of fire discipline cannot be overstated. If you have a s**t ton of ammo, you will probably be ok for quite some time. However, if ammo is limited or the zombies are many, you'll want to ensure you maintain some degree of awareness over how many rounds you have left.

Whenever possible, employ the one shot, one kill strategy. If you can manage more than one kill per shot, even better.

If you can, change magazines after the last round has been chambered but before it has actually been fired. Sometimes there may be a pause in the action. Check your magazine. If you are down to a few rounds, change out.

If you are using a weapons such as a lever-action rifle, re-load whenever possible. Those two or three rounds you jam in while hiding behind that wall may mean the difference between life and death.

And finally, break contact before you run out of ammo. If you run out of bullets before you run out of zombies and can't exfiltrate, you are F'd.

It pays to plan ahead. Happy hunting. Or defending. Or whatever.

October 26, 2010

Fall has finally really hit us here in the Pacific Northwest. 'Bout time.

The winds picked up yesterday. Aside from a drop in the temperature and a color change for the leaves, the wind is how we know it's official.

Where I am, in lovely Portland, Oregon, the winds come in from the east, down through the Columbia River Gorge. They sweep away what's left over from summer and bring us full on into autumn, heading swiftly toward winter.

We pull on our sweaters, tug our hats down around our ears and wonder where our gloves went after the last time we wore them. We start to settle in for the winter. We eat soup.

This is late October. Welcome.

October 25, 2010

I made the mistake of going to the bookstore today. I was looking for a copy of Irving's Sleepy Hollow. Somehow, I didn't have one. I'm not sure how this happened.

Well, now I have one. And I also have Syrie James' novel Dracula, My Love, which I'm hoping is not a trashy romance. It's supposed to be the secret journals of Mina Murray Harker, one of the main characters in Bram Stoker's Dracula, chronicling her love for both her husband and the Count.

And because I just couldn't help myself, I picked up Dracula: The Un-Dead. I didn't realize until I got it home that it was co-written by the great-grandnephew of Bram himself. It picks up 25 years after the original and follows the story of Mina's son Quincey as he discovers the Dracula story (and his parents' history) for the first time.

It's dangerous to mess with something considered classic. Elizabeth Kostova did fairly well with The Historian, but she did something unique in that she took the Count and reminded us that his history is anything but fiction. And she good tepid reviews.

There's tons of vampire fiction out there right now. The Books of Which We Do Not Speak Because the Vampires Sparkle have sold a bazillion copies (thought the movies continue to get worse). Another little young-adult series, The House of Night, has its eighth book due out in January. I looked briefly at Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. I don't know that I'm ready for it. Maybe after I get through the ones I bought today. Variety says the movie's already in pre-production with Tim Burton's name attached to it. What's more October than a vampire movie with a Tim Burton credit?

The vampires once relegated to a couple weeks at the end of October, are everywhere. Year-round, they're everywhere. True Blood, Vampire Diaries, the American remake of "Let the Right Ones In". You can't get away from them.

This all brings me back to where I was twenty years ago. I hadn't yet read Stoker and was just starting to read Anne Rice. I didn't see it coming just yet. I didn't imagine the nights when I would read Dracula on my break at work and then have to run from my car to the house when I got home because I was so freaked out. I didn't foresee my world filling with vampires.

I've been writing them for years now. Quite poorly, mind you, mostly because I haven't ever really put my heart into it. I think I'm finally ready. After all the vamp-schlock that's been unleashed on us over the last, what, five years? I'm ready. And I've got an angle I finally feel good about.

I'm reclaiming the vampires. Watch out, Edward Cullen. I'm coming for you.

October 24, 2010

We're a week out from All Hallow's Eve.

I spent most of today in a Celtic Myths class. Lots of talk of ancient warriors, of ghosts, of druids. Lots of talk about how one culture borrows from another to make itself more palatable. The Christians borrowed from the Pagans and the Celts and the Druids. Now the Pagans and the Celts and the Druids borrow from the Christians. It's all very confusing.

What's not confusing is that there's a little darkness to it all.

Joe sent me an email today with the lyrics to a song one of his bands did yeeeears ago. It was based on the Legend of Sleepy Hollow, but seems appropriate here. Thanks, Joe.

Hallows Eve 
Advisary 1990

The black vail of night surrounds you its a quest to survive
Something wicked this way comes to deprive you of life
His evil presents, a cry in the night
The dreaded omen of doom
Running through your imagination and from the truth
Your heart is pounding, there's a chill in the air
Don't get excited
His pounding hooves, enticing your despair
Better get ready, he's commin

I can hear their voices call to me from so deep in the wood
I can hear there cries o how they howl
I can feel there screams of pain 
I know they'd run if they could
But there is no place that I don't prowl
Timeless voices, familiar screams
Their blood on my hands
Can't get away on hallows eve
There's no escape from the damned

Shadows creeping deep into my soul
From this chaos of death
Stealing life and light from all I see
Smell of death the taste of fear
The things that should not be
No morbid glare at the defeated souls
Passing judgment, over me

The dark shroud of night engulfs you
Take your final breath
Its a whisper ridding on the breeze
The fridged whisper of death
The bridges boundaries are all that save you
Make a run for it all
Fragmentation of his face in the morning
To the ground they fall 

October 23, 2010

Okay, so you all suffered through my Warcraft Brewfest story. Well, the next WoW holiday is upon us: All Hallow's End. I won't bore you with all the details, but I will tell you that one of the tasks is to drop a pumpkin onto the heads of each of the current ten Warcraft races.

That's what I just finished. however, in the middle of it, I also managed to drop one on my own head so for the next 45 minutes or so of game time, I'll have a jack'o'lantern in place of my normally green-haired night elf head. I guess that's the risk I took.

Anyway, the whole thing reminds me terribly of our dear friend Ichabod Crane. Would it truly be October without the Legend of Sleepy Hollow?

We watched the cartoon version every year on t when I was a kid. I remember covering my eyes until I was at least nine.

There are a dozen versions out there, my favorite being the 1999 Tim Burton/Johnny Depp piece. It's not terribly faithful to the original Washington irving short story, but the horses are gorgeous.

And, in reading up on Ichabod and his many forms, I'm seeing he was played by Jeff Goldblum in a 1980 tv movie. I'm gonna need to find that. Seriously. Who could possibly be more perfect as Ichabod Crane? The IMDB page says Dick Butkus plays Ichabod's rival, Brom Bones. I'm not kidding. Jeff Goldblum and Dick Butkus. Why is this NOT on Netflix?

October 22, 2010

Carrie emailed me this morning before I was even awake. Dunno if he's usually up that early or if the mere thought of October brought him out of a deep sleep.

He wanted to remind me about the leaves. October is the change of color in the leaves on trees all around us. I hadn't forgotten, it's just that it seems the leaves here are taking their time in turning.

I gauge the change in weather here not in the daily temperatures, but in the color and number of leaves left on the tree in my next door neighbor's yard. A week ago, it was still entirely green. Monday, there was a hint of red. Today, it's half red. By Sunday, it will have added a bit of orange, I imagine, as the weather is turning colder. I heard one local weatherman ask if yesterday was the last 70 degree day. I kinda hope so. I like gloves and hats and scarves and sweaters and wool socks.

The leaves are just starting their turn here even as we're running out of October. How are the leaves where you are?

October 21, 2010

October, above all else, is about the changing of the seasons. The weather grows colder, the leaves turn and fall from the trees.

And the birds fly south for the winter.

I left work a little early today. Well, a lot early, actually. Couldn't be helped. I had an appointment to keep elsewhere.

But as I was driving out, I saw those birds flying south. They were too far away and I'm not terribly good with bird identification anyway, but I would assume they were Canada geese. They were flying in a V formation.

Anyone know what that's called?

Well, I do. It's called an echelon.

And do you know why one side of the V is sometimes longer than the other?

Wait for it.

Because there are more birds on that side. Duh.

October 20, 2010

Apparently, our friend Steve is an actual urban legend. Maybe this is super-lazy of me, but I'm just going to cut and paste what he sent me today.

I actually was the recipient of a razor blade in the candy bar. It was a bite size snickers. Someone had unwrapped it from the end so you couldn't tell and slid the thing in flat through the end of the bar so unless you were really checking, you wouldn't catch it. But those bastards didn't know my Mom. Her Halloween Rule (She Who Must Be Obeyed) was that you did NOT eat any collected candy until you got home and SHE checked it out. Nada. And she always made sure there was at least one snitch in the group if you were trick or treating with friends. So, you didn't cheat. I was about nine I guess. Got home, dumped the haul on the dining room table and she went to work, checking for anything untoward. I remember the gasp from her and her telling my Grandmother, LOOK AT THIS!! Sure enough. There was an actual mini Snickers with a razor blade slid right into it. I still remember how evil that thing looked all covered in chocolate. Just waiting for some me to bite down.....

Mom called the police but I'd gone to so many houses, I had no idea where it came from. The cops took it and I guess did a search to see if they could find where it came from. I never heard anything else about it. But I had a lot more respect for my Mom's caution after that.

This is not one of those Snopes deals that can be looked up and disproved because it came from a friend of a friend of your next door neighbor's college roommate's girlfriend's boss's cousin. This is from Steve. Steve is One of Us.

And kudos to his mom.

October 19, 2010

Okay. So, two of you eat the black jelly beans. And I should have known which two. You know who you are.

I'm guessing you're the same people who ate those little sesame seed hard candies that I've ever truly understood.

Me, I like Smarties and SweeTarts and Bottle Caps if I can find them. I've only recently come into my own with my love of chocolate. I think this comes as a result of being a child in the desert - chocolate melts and makes a big mess, Smarties do not. As a young trick-or-treater, I preferred Pixie Sticks and the occasional Bit'o'Honey.

Of course, I'm also old enough to remember when people would give you homemade popcorn balls (which were IMPOSSIBLE to stuff into the bright orange trick-or-treat pumpkin we were carrying). And there were those other granola-slingers who wanted to give us apples. Because, in addition to the nine pounds of candy we were toting around, we needed four pounds of apples. Those people were just asking for flaming bags of dog poop in their porches (not that I condone that sort of thing).

This is your warning bell, homeowners. You have one more weekend before the Big Day to do your Halloween candy shopping. Don't disappoint us.

October 18, 2010

Sometimes, it's the small thing that make October what it is.

Somewhere over the course of this month, you will go somewhere, maybe a bank, maybe someone's office, and you will find a candy dish.

This dish will not be filled with the usual Starlight mints or Hershey's Kisses. It will be filled with orange and black jelly beans.

And the orange ones won't taste like orange or pumpkin. They'll just taste like...sweetness. And the black ones? Well, no one knows what they taste like because no one ever eats them.

October 17, 2010

I survived the family pumpkin patch outing but managed to come home sans pumpkin. Go figure.

That was not my biggest disappointment of the day, though. I wanted a caramel apple and I didn't get one. I kept thinking, I'll go get one when the line dies down a bit. It didn't and I didn't.

Happily, I know that if I feel totally desperate for caramel apple, I can head down to the grocery store for T. Marzetti's apple dip.

Mmmm, caramel dip. Crisp, tart apples. Fall. October.

October 16, 2010

I'm preparing for the annual family pumpkin patch outing.

I'm hoping it will be better than the ones of my childhood. Those memories are filed with mud and tears and the overwhelming desire to go home.

For years, I didn't go. I boycotted the entire affair. I eventually found myself in possession of a drivers license so I went on my own (usually to the closest grocery store) to get my pumpkin. Then I found my way to the closest pumpkin patch, choosing a nice, dry day.

Recently, I've found better and better pumpkin patches. I like the one out at Kruger Farms on Sauvie's Island. I love Bauman's in Gervais, near Mt. Angel.

This year's will be a new one for me, some place out in Sandy. I won't post the name until after we get back just in case it's awful. I understand they have some sort of hay maze and a pumpkin slingshot so it can't be all bad. If all else fails, I always have FarmVille.

Is there anything more symbolic of October than the pumpkin?I think not.

It's one of the last things still on the vine during the harvest. I grew a few a couple years back. I might grow more next year. Eventually, I'd like to fill my back yard with pumpkin vines and fig trees. And maybe a hazelnut tree. Still thinking about that one.

It's also a thing of fairy tales and wonder. Would Cinderella ever have made it to the ball without her pumpkin carriage?

October 15, 2010

I have this big pile of apples. I've been meaning to do something with them. What to do....

Apple sauce. The easiest apple sauce ever.

Peel 'em.

Chop 'em up.

Throw 'em in a microwave safe bowl.

Nuke 'em.

Maybe throw in some cinnamon. Maybe not. Maybe squirt a little lemon juice on them. Maybe not. My grandma used to toss in some of those little Red Hot candies - they add a little color and a little kick.

Stir 'em every couple of minutes.

Keep nukin' 'em until they start to fall apart.

Then you've got a choice to make. You can put 'em in the fridge and treat them like normal apple sauce.

Or...

You can take a big scoop of the hot apples, plop a big scoop of vanilla ice cream and maybe a handful of granola and eat 'em that way. I prefer this way. Takes less time. Sometimes I add a little caramel sauce.

And now I'm hungry. Great.

October 14, 2010

I'm amazed, as I think we all must be, at the rescue of the Chilean miners. This has nothing to do with October, I know, but I think we all need to take a moment and think of how wonderful this October day has been for them. Are we as thankful as we should be for what we have?

I'm thankful I live in a city with an amazing farmers market. Scratch that. SEVERAL amazing farmers markets.

My coworker Chrissy was telling me today about some soup she made from a squash she bought at the market a couple weeks ago. I would like to note that she did not bring me any of this soup.

She went to the market stall of her favorite vegetable wrangler and asked him which squash she should buy. "Which one would you buy?" she asked him. And he sold her something that looked like a pumpkin but wasn't, something he grew and harvested himself.

She took it home and pondered it for a while. Then she cut it in half, sprinkled with with olive oil and sea salt and roasted it.

She scooped it out, simmered it with chicken stock and turmeric and added a little sour cream. "To give it a little tang," she tells me. A little wrist action with the stick blender, some homemade croutons and a scatter of bacon bits and it was done.

Again, she did not bring me any. But she told me it was so good that she couldn't bring herself to throw away the half-cup that was left when she and her husband were done with their dinner.

That's October, friends. The harvest, the comfort of a homemade meal, a little time with a loved one.

Bonus

Word for the day:

SOCKTOBER.

October 13, 2010

Lucky thirteen.

Years ago, I bought myself a ring with the tiniest diamonds ever to have been set in a ring. They're so tiny, I literally have to hold the ring up to my eyeball to see them. I'm certain the jeweler must have been an elf or a sprite or something equally tiny.

Each little speck of diamond is set into a leaf that makes up the band of the ring. Thirteen little leaves with thirteen little diamonds.

Sarah would be proud.

Sarah Winchester was, above all else, an occultist. The heir to the Winchester Rifle fortune, Sarah consulted mediums and psychics and was told that she would be forever cursed by those killed by the Winchester Rifle (that's a fair few haunts, I'm guessing) unless she moved west and built a house. And kept building.

Build she did. For 38 years she built, often without the help of architects or engineers. Some believe the plans she drew by hand were dictated to her in her "seance room" by the very spirits she meant to appease.

The number 13 appears in the house's design over and over: windows with 13 panes, staircases with 13 steps, 13 bathrooms. Chandeliers that were originally manufactured with a dozen arms were reworked to have 13.

Thirteen is a magic number. We can speculate that the cultural significance of 13 comes from early cultures that relied on a lunar calendar. When followed, the lunar calendar offers twelve full months and one, shorter, bonus month.

Traditionally, there are 13 steps to the gallows, 13 players of a rugby team and there are a whole bunch of 13s built into the Great Seal of the United States. Conspiracy theorists always want to blame that one on the Masons.

Then there's that thing about the Pope issuing an order for the Templar Knights to be rounded up on Friday the 13th.

Here's a fun one from Newsweek's Charles Panati specifically about Friday the 13th, but I think we can use it here:

The actual origin of the superstition, though, appears also to be a tale in Norse mythology. Friday is named for Frigga, the free-spirited goddess of love and fertility. When Norse and Germanic tribes converted to Christianity, Frigga was banished in shame to a mountaintop and labeled a witch. It was believed that every Friday, the spiteful goddess convened a meeting with eleven other witches, plus the devil — a gathering of thirteen — and plotted ill turns of fate for the coming week. For many centuries in Scandinavia, Friday was known as "Witches' Sabbath.

Happy Wednesday the 13th.

October 12, 2010

'Tis the season.

I started thinking about Christmas today. I went to Target for DayQuil and Emergen-C and ended up looking at Christmas cards. I went to drop a daily events report at the coffee shop in my hotel and left with a mint mocha.

My apologies. This happens every year and I think I over-Martha'd yesterday and that triggered it. I want a candy cane and some gingerbread and maybe some cocoa.

I can do nothing to stem the tide (staunch the flow?) of fall and winter holiday commercialism. In fact, for every moment I rail against it, there is another moment I spend wallowing in it.

Does anyone know when Santacon is this year? I'm hoping sometime in the middle of November.

October 11, 2010

I'm watching the Martha Stewart Halloween special on the Hallmark Channel. Her co-host is Brendan Fraser. They're both completely ridiculous. She's currently wrapping him up as a mummy. This seems incongruous.

C'mon, Brendan Fraser. You won a Screen Actors Guild Award. For crying out loud.

Aside from the silliness of her show, Martha does Halloween right. She drills holes in pumpkins with actual drills. She glues spiders to her face (though my mom was doing the same some 20 years before anyone knew who Martha was). She makes fantastic costumes out of coffee filters and tin foil.

She makes pumpkin cookies and breadsticks that look like fingers. And I remember an episode of her show years ago where she made gigantic eyeballs that rolled around in her front yard while trick-or-treaters rang her doorbell. I couldn't find a pic of those, but I did find these other, horribly gross, eyeballs on her site.

Those front yard eyeballs would most certainly put Martha on our House of Crap Map.

Oh, the House of Crap.

Every neighborhood has one. There's one down the street from me. It's been lit up for weeks now. And, for those of you in Portland, you know my obsession with the True House of Crap, the one at 51st and NE Alameda. I have a friend that believes that those people just make up holidays to decorate for.

The other True Great House of Crap in Portland is, of course, the Davis Graveyard. Please, please, please check out their site. They have pictures of past displays, their event schedule (open house next Sunday!) and t-shirts and coffee mugs 'n stuff to purchase. I wholeheartedly encourage those of you who have seen their display to purchase something because I KNOW it can't be cheap to put on a show like that.

They also, along with none other than Rob Zombie, helped out with an episode of ABC's Extreme Makeover show with an episode filmed at the Oregon School for the Deaf. It'll air on Halloween.

And for those of you wondering what a House of Crap is, think Clark Griswold. Think "Deck the Halls". Think all-the-holiday-decor-goes-on-sale-the-day-after-the-holiday-and-has-to-wind-up-somewhere.

October 10, 2010

First off, I'm a little sideways. We're 10 days into October and I can't find my Concrete Blonde cd. No good.

But I do have Van Morrison. Van's good for a few October songs.

Moondance:

Well, it's a marvelous night for a moondance
With the stars up above in your eyes
A fantabulous night to make romance
'Neath the cover of October skies

And all the leaves on the trees are fallin'
To the sound of the breezes that blow
An' I'm trying to please to the callin'
Of your heart strings that play soft and low

And all the nights magic seems to whisper and hush
And all the soft moonlight seems to shine in your blush
Can I just have one more moondance with you, my love?
Can I just make some more romance with you, my love?

Well, I wanna make love to you tonight
I can't wait 'til the morning has come
And I know now the time is just right
And straight in to my arms you will run

And when you come, my heart will be waiting
To make sure that you're never alone
There and then, all my dreams will come true, dear
There and then, I will make you my own

And every time I touch you, you just tremble inside
And I know how much you want me that you can't hide
Can I just have one more moondance with you, my love?
Can I just make some more romance with you, my love?

Well, it's a marvelous night for a moondance
With the stars up above in your eyes
A fantabulous night to make romance
'Neath the cover of October skies

And all the leaves on the trees are falling
To the sound of the breezes that blow
And I'm trying to please to the calling
Of your heart strings that play soft and low

And all the nights magic seems to whisper and hush
And all the soft moonlight seems to shine in your blush
Can I just have one more moondance with you, my love?
Can I just make some more romance with you, my love?

One more moon dance with you
In the moon light, on a magic night
All the moon light, on a magic night
Can I just have one more moondance with you, my love?

October 9, 2010

This one's gonna go on for a while so get a snack if you need to.

Witches, continued.

Okay, so I should preface this by saying I'm Lutheran. That's where my theology is. Sometimes, when I wander off into rarely traversed territory, people wonder where I'm going so I think it's important to tell you where I come from.

But, aside from being Lutheran, I recognize that there are other systems of theology, other religions that are much, much older than Judaism or Christianity. Many of them are what I would term "Earth religions", those that have some basis in the elements. Many others have multiple layers of deities or, perhaps, none at all. There's just a lot of stuff out there with more being discovered (rediscovered) everyday.

So, I'm taking this class about the Goddess religions in pre- and early-history. It's taught by a woman who was raised Catholic, holds multiple advanced degrees in religion and theological studies and attended Mt. Angel Seminary, a Benedictine seminary here in Oregon. She's also a practicing Wiccan and helped to found a women's spirituality group here in Portland called SisterSpirit.

In my small group tonight, we spent a little time talking about the burnings of witches during the time of the Plague. Many of these women had been healers, offering herbs and whatnot as cures for common ailments. When the Plague came and, suddenly, they were unable to cure people, they were branded "witches" and put to death in a myriad of horrible ways.

Thankfully, enough of us are enlightened enough now to not burn people who prescribe herbal tea for our ailments. I surely would have been burned at the stake. I don't know how many times I've told someone to have a cup of tea when they get the sniffles.

But what is the link between witches and October?

Specifically, it's Halloween. Halloween has often been referred to as the "Witches New Year." Well, okay. When darkness falls on the evening of the Samhain, it's the beginning of the Celtic New Year. How did we get this mixed up? Honestly, I believe that it's because, secretly, everyone wants to be Irish.

No matter. It's the time when it is believed (apparently both by the wiccan-before-it-was-Wicca peasants of the british Isles and by the Catholic Church) that the veil between the worlds is at it's thinnest.

The Catholics, as was their custom, co-opted Samhain and named it All Hallow's Eve (Halloween) and followed it with All Saints Day. They all serve the same purpose. Where Samhain was said to be a time to honor one's ancestors, All Saints Day is, well, a time to honor one's ancestors.

Where does that leave us?

With an incomplete understanding of a religion older than Christianity.

With a holiday that seems to celebrate ghosts and demons, but was intended to honor our ancestors.

With a Halloween store that thinks that jars of eyeballs and bags of fingers are an accurate portrayal of witches.

Tomorrow, less politics and religion and more Octoberiffic goodness.

October 8, 2010

I ordered my ears today. I had to get them online since I couldn't find any at the store.

There. That's quintessentially October. Jar full of eyes. Bag of fingers. Ears you can buy on the internet.

I went to the Halloween store today after work. It was full of all sorts of supposed-to-be-creepy stuff. But no ears. Rather, not the ears I'm looking for. I'm sure they had other ears. Probably on the shelf next to the eyes.

Where did we come up with this stuff? And how did it become associated with October in general and Halloween in particular.

Witches.

More tomorrow...

October 7, 2010

We got started talking about superstitions today at work. Is there any time of year more prone to superstition than October?

Melissa says that her grandmother would look at her chipped nails and tell her that someone is jealous of her. She also says you shouldn't sweep with a broom after dark.

Branon wouldn't play football without a rubber band around his wrist. And he had a number of other little rituals for various sports he played.

Amanda says that if you hit your funny bone, it's bad luck to rub it.

In my house, we don't sew on Sundays. My mom tried once. It did not go well.

There are a billion others out there. Betcha don't walk under a ladder without thinking twice about it. No hats on the bed, no shoes on the table. Walking into a spider web, while sticky and problematic, is good luck.

What are your superstitions?

October 6, 2010

So, in June, one of my little internet friends talked me into trying World of Warcraft. Man, what a bad decision that was.

Now, I'm an uber-dork. I'm a level 65 Night Elf Hunter on Nazgrel and I've spent the last two weeks working on getting all my Brewfest quests in so I can become a Brewmaster. At level 65, this was no easy feat. It required the elf (who I've named Cascadia) to eat a big pile of cheese and sausage, drink a bunch of beer, ride around on a really big goat, catch and tame something called a wolpertinger (the name of that particular quest was "Does Your Wolpertinger Linger?") and, finally, talk five other level 80 players into helping her get to the final "boss fight", a fight that she was too little to gain access to on her own.

Tonight, with but 18 minutes left in the WoW Brewfest holiday, I reached my goal: I am now Brewmaster Cascadia.

Total, utter dorkdom. What on Earth could it have to do with October?

October, my friends, is when we start to turn to the darker, deeper, richer, maltier beers. Spring and summer are for hops and light, crisp beers. October is for me.

Give me a beer that carried the spices of the holiday season: the allspice, the nutmeg, the cinnamon. Give me those chocolately malt flavors. Give me, at the very least, your wheat beers.

Keep your hops.

No, actually, give me a pocketful of hops that I can carry around and smell. But when you give me a beer, make sure it's balanced with hops and all the Other Things.

That, my friends, is October.

October 5, 2010

I forget every year. The first Monday in October should be reserved for national pride for it is the day that the Supreme Court reconvenes.

But I always forget until I see something on the news about it. Oops.

Today was soup day. October is perfect for soup. The weather (here, at least) ha turned just chilly enough to start thinking about soup. I had some sort of corn chowder for lunch today. My mom had tortilla soup for dinner. It's time for soup.

Soup and the Supreme Court.

October 4, 2010

My feet were cold all day today.

You know what this means? It's time to get the wool socks out. And it's also a little past the time I should have started knitting them.

Here's a pattern you might want to check out if you get a wild hair (hare?) and decide to try: easy socks. This one looks pretty easy, too: more easy socks. I didn't create either of these patterns, nor have I tried them, so I accept no responsibility for how they turn out if you try them. Unless they're fantastic, then you should make me a pair as a thank you.

October is time for socks. Put your sandals away, for crying out loud. Nobody wants to look at your toes anymore.

I've started dragging my sweaters out, too. Socks and sweaters. That's totally October.

October 3, 2010

October is the time of the harvest.

Nowhere is this more evident than at the local farmers' market. I was lucky enough to have a little time today to spend at the PSU farmers' market. Tomatoes in dozens of hues, carrots the size of my arm and the first pumpkins of the season were displayed alongside every type of potato and onion you can imagine. And mushrooms! Mushrooms in shapes I've never seen.

Years ago, I worked at a hotel that, among other things, was home to a vineyard and winery. With the fall harvest comes the fall crush. This, I imagine, is how it has been all over the world for thousands of years. Fall lends itself to a hearty bottle of wine and an even heartier meal. Something with meat and potatoes. Something slow-cooked all day. Something with maybe a little rosemary in it.

Happily, this also helps us build up what I will politely call our "winter coat" for when it gets cold. Man, I feel sorry for the skinny people sometimes. They must get so cold in the winter.

October 2, 2010

In addition to all the things mentioned yesterday, apparently October is the time when men I barely know and may never have met in person profess their love for me over the internet. Three different ones today. You know who you are.

I mention this not to call them out for being overly October-motional, but because I feel the same way. I love everyone just a little more in October. And I especially love people who share my love of October.

Anyway.

I spent a lot of time looking at hotels and national parks lodges today. I guess most people like to travel in the summer. Something about "nice weather". I prefer the fall.

I've been to Minneapolis a couple times in the fall. Gorgeous. The original October Thoughts were born in Wisconsin on what I would call the ultimate road trip. Last fall, I went to Alaska. I look forward to a time in my life when I can take the entire month of October off to travel and write.

Until then, I'm content to settle for a weekend of traveling in October every few years.

For those of you who don't know, this is my last semester of college. I will graduate (officially) in December is a BS in Arts & Letters and Social Science with a minor in Film. I'm at 15 credits this term, most of them crammed into October. I'm in class five days a week. Last semester, I struggled to make it to campus one day a week so this is going to be an uphill battle.

But, somehow, I've managed to clear a weekend to go somewhere. The current plan is Seattle but it seems to be changing minute by minute so suggestions are welcome.

One of the places I'm looking at staying is the Arctic Club. I guess, as I look at my memories and my history through the lense of October, I want to spend a little time with someone else's history. Might want to hit the Klondike Gold Rush Museum while I'm there, too. I'll post pictures if it all comes together.

I'm rambling here.

I think my point is this: how I view October now is formed by my past experiences of October. What do you remember from years past that sets October apart from the other eleven months?