Okay. Super.

So, I'm moving to WordPress. You can find me here from now on:

http://octoberthoughtspdx.wordpress.com/

There's absolutely nothing wrong with Blogspot/Blogger. I know a lot of people who use it and are perfectly happy. In fact, I'm happy here, too, but I think I might be happier at WordPress. It seems to be a little more flexible with design and doesn't seem to have as many ads so I guess that's it.

Thanks, all.

Free speech, hatred and the Patriot Guard

I think we can all agree that Fred Phelps and his church members are some of the most vile people on earth, certainly some of the more disgusting American citizens there are. They do not spread the love of Christ, they spread only hatred. Their actions make me ill and embarrass me as a Christian.

Where we might disagree is over today's Supreme Court ruling that they are, in fact, afforded the right to free speech and can continue their protests at military funerals. Yes, that's right. I agree with the ruling. I wish the Court had imposed some sort of restriction regarding the distance they must keep from the mourners and the volume at which they might hold their protests and the size of their idiotic signs, but it is what it is.

That said, I would encourage you all to head on over to the Patriot Guard website, sign yourself up and get the contact information for your state's captain. You don't need a bike. You don't have to hold any particular political affiliation. You don't have to be a Vet to stand with these men and women in shielding the families and friends of our fallen soldiers from the hatred of Westboro as they lay their loved ones to rest.

Perhaps not all of you are biker-friendly. My experience with them has been limited, though my dad was a proud member of the Ant Hill Mob of Northern Wisconsin. In my experience, the vast majority of bikers are good people who love their families, their country and their bikes, pretty much in that order.

http://www.patriotguard.org/

State captains:

http://www.patriotguard.org/LeadershipContacts/StateCaptainsContactsPage/tabid/57/Default.aspx

I'm writing.

It's been a month and a half since I lost my job. In that time, I've sent out scores of resumes, done easily a ton of laundry, reconnected with some old friends I hadn't seen in an age and I've been writing.

That's the exciting part. Writing.

I hear myself say it like a grand announcement. Like other people say, "I'm getting married!" or "I just won the lottery!" I say, "I'm writing!"

Some people take it as just that, the announcement they've been waiting for years for me to shout out. Others, mostly those who haven't known me for decades or don't know me as well, don't seem to get the importance of this statement.

"I have something to tell you."

"What is it? Are you getting married?"

"No."

"Are you pregnant?"

"Still no."

"Ahh. You're a lesbian!"

"Wrong again. I'm writing."

"Oh."

I completed the short story for the competition and, once it was accepted by those folks, posted it on Smashwords. I'm working on another short and, when that's done, I'll work on a follow-up to the first one since the people who've already bought it are asking about what happens next.

The novel is still on my plate. It seems to have taken on a life of its own and I'm just along for the ride. The main characters seem to be doing things I didn't anticipate so that's turning into a bit of an adventure. It might be a series of novellas so heads up for those.

I'm writing.

The blank page is every writer's greatest adversary. We complain about not having a place to write, or time, or peace and quiet so we can think. We use these things as excuses not to write. "Oh, I've got tons of errands to run, dirty dishes in the sink, we're almost out of dog food, the back yard needs to be raked...."

But, when it comes right down to it, we're just scared of that blank page.

Here's the next part none of us will admit: when we do actually manage to get the words on the page, we're terrified that they're not good enough. That you won't read them. That the effort we put into getting them there in the right order won't matter.

Lemme tell you, I'm reading a book right now that's an okay book. Interesting premise, easy to read. Not great. Won about a gazillion awards. And, as amused and entertained as I am by said book, I can't help but thinking, "I could TOTALLY have written that."

So, I'm going to. Not that particular one, but another one. A better one.

NYC Midnight

As previously stated, I'm currently unencumbered by gainful employment. It was sudden, unexpected and now, here I am. I went from working 40+ hours a week and carrying a full load of college courses to being an out-of-work college grad in about twelve seconds.

What's that mean? Lots of spare time, hardly any money.

So, I posted on Facebook, jokingly suggesting that one of my wealthier (read: employed) friends might want to consider sponsoring my entrance fee for a short story contest that was coming up. Key word there was "jokingly". But my friends never cease to surprise me and I got a couple offers and, after considering the reality of it for about another twelve seconds, I took the cash.

I feel slightly guilty about taking money from friends, but my contest sponsor and I have a little bit of backstory that made me stop feeling guilty and start feeling flattered: he wrote for me back when I was going to be a journalist and was on the editorial board of my college paper. He's a phenomenal writer and, nearly twenty years after the last time he read anything I've written, to have him say,"Yeah, I think you're good enough to win this thing"...well, that means a lot to me.

So, cash changed hands and we shared a chocolate chip cookie at the Lucky Lab and I signed up for my first post-college writing competition.

I was assigned a genre (fantasy) and a kicking-off point (home improvement) last weekend and set off to write a short (2,500 words) story to be submitted no later than yesterday. I don't think I've written a short story since high school. Of course, I also haven't finished anything I've written since then, either, so this at least limited the damage I could do on the page.

I wrote. I avoided talking animals by morphing a dog into a minor Norse goddess. There's a wise old man who's lost his power and a young boy setting out to claim his birthright. There's a magic hammer. There are dwarves. I was well outside of my comfort zone.

The one thing it didn't have before I hit "send"? An ending. I'm assured by other writers in the competition that this is not the biggest fault a story can have. One of my fellow writers, when asked the premise of his story, answered with,"Four words: squirrel with a shotgun." You kind of get the picture of what the quality might be for some of the submissions.

No offense meant to the guy with the squirrel. I kinda want to read that one.

Now we all wait. The next round isn't until April, at which point, those of us who advance to that round will be assigned a new combination of genre/topic and will get something like 48 hours to write our next masterpiece. Should be interesting. I'd like to have the novel mostly done by then and I'm thinking about doing ScriptFrenzy (screenwriting along the lines of NaNoWriMo) in April, too.

I did about 800 words on the novel yesterday and spent today with a new pile of library books and haven't opened a Word file all day. Woke up thinking I need to get the idea for the Other Book sketched out, but I don't want my writing to wind up like my knitting: lots of stuff on needles, but no scarves to wear when it's cold out.

November and beyond...

November dawned and I started a new adventure. Or I revisited an old adventure. No matter.

I started writing again. Not that you'd know from looking at the blog.

I took up the challenge of NaNoWriMo, National Novel Writing Month. See, this group of folks from San Francisco that call themselves the Office of Letters and Light expect that writers actually write. Furthermore, they expect writers (even poor writers like myself) to write 50,000 words in the month of November.

Fifty. Thousand. Words.

As many of you are aware of my adoration for the month of October, I have an equal distaste for November. Dark and dreary, we take our Halloween costumes off and wait for Thanksgiving to hurry along so we can brighten our world with Christmas lights. But that in-between time, November, is awful.

But this past November turned out to be different for me. I picked up my pen.

I drank gallons of coffee, found myself in a half dozen coffee shops I'd never been in before, I learned to sort out the wifi capabilities of my laptop in pretty much every corner of Portlandia.

And I wrote 50,000 words. Actually, I wrote a few extra, just in case.

Then December dawned and I stopped. I had such great momentum, but I ran headlong into my last set of finals before finally attaining my bachelors degree. And then the holidays hit. And then I had a few dental issues of which we will not speak. And then I lost my job. And then I had more dental work.

It wasn't until about two weeks ago that I settled down and read what I'd written in November. It's not terrible. I started to clean up what's there and add to it. I sent it to a friend of mine who does a little editing on the side. She kinda likes it, too.

So, with all the free time in the world, I'm setting about the task of actually writing a novel. Admittedly, it's got a mind of its own. It seems that I almost have to wrestle the characters onto the page. I have to force them to speak. But if I don't, who will?

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.