Halloween recap

Well, I didn't feel like posting a blog moaning, groaning, crying, praying, shouting, celebrating, chortling, crowing, or even frothing at the mouth today. I wanted to say not one word about how I felt about the events of yesterday.

Yet I wanted to publish something, and so I went in search of a topic. I found one!


I know Halloween is over, but Slate's post of two days ago (which I just read this morning) describing Halloween in New Orleans, reminded me of when I lived there in the mid 70's. I have a neat story to share with you.


I was playing a lot of duplicate bridge at the time ... was, in fact, doing a whole lot of things besides working for a living ... and one of my favorite bridge partners was a fellow who lived in the French Quarter. It is he who told me this story, actually. It's about him.


It seems that this one morning he woke up, belatedly realized it was Halloween and he didn't have a thing to wear! (Now this might sound utterly ridiculous to some of you who have never known a native New Orleanian. Read Slate's post to get even more of the background.) He thought, "Oh my God, I won't be able to leave the house. I'm a disgrace!"

And so, in a frantic search for a costume (he wouldn't be 'caught dead' on Halloween without a getup of some sort) he came across his almost long-forgotten grandfather's long flannel nightie with matching 'cap'.

He grabbed a toothbrush, donned his favorite slippers, and out he proudly went!

Fun on election day

"Whaat?!?" you say. "Yes," I say. "Let's have a little fun."

The following is from an e-mail I received months ago from a bridge friend of mine. I've been saving it for just such an occasion.


Do you like Robin Williams? (Sometimes I do. Sometimes I don't.) However, this one is definitely on my "I do" list.

Picture him wearing a t-shirt that says (in Arabic) "I love New York." (pause for you to get a mental picture) Ready? (Sure?) He's holding a microphone and addressing a crowd ... ...


"I see a lot of people yelling for peace but I have not heard of a plan for peace. So, here's one plan:

1 - The US will apologize to the world for our 'interference' in their affairs, past & present. You know, Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Tojo, Noriega, Milosevic, Hussein, and the rest of those 'good ole boys'. We will never 'interfere' again.

2 - We will withdraw our troops from all over the world, starting with Germany, South Korea, the Middle East, and the Philippines. They don't want us there. We would station troops at our borders. No one allowed sneaking through holes in the fence.

3 - All illegal aliens have 90 days to get their affairs together and leave. We'll give them a free trip home. After 90 days the remainder will be gathered up and deported immediately, regardless of who or where they are. They're illegal!!! France will welcome them.

4 - All future visitors will be thoroughly checked and limited to 90 days unless given a special permit!!!! No one from a terrorist nation will be allowed in. If you don't like it there, change it yourself and don't hide here. Asylum would never be available to anyone. We don't need any more cab drivers or 7-11 cashiers.

5 - No foreign 'students' over age 21. The older ones are the bombers. If they don't attend classes, they get a 'D' and it's back home baby.

6 - The US will make a strong effort to become self-sufficient, energy wise. This will include developing non-polluting sources of energy but will require a temporary drilling of oil in the Alaskan wilderness. The caribou will have to cope for a while.

7- Offer Saudi Arabia and other oil producing countries $10 a barrel for their oil. If they don't like it, we go someplace else. They can go somewhere else to sell their production. (About a week of the wells filling up the storage sites would be enough.)

8 - If there is a famine or other natural catastrophe in the world, we will not 'interfere'. They can pray to Allah or whomever, for seeds, rain, cement or whatever they need. Besides, most of what we give them is stolen or given to the army. The people who need it most get very little, if anything.

9 - Ship the UN Headquarters to an isolated island someplace. We don't need the spies and fair weather friends here. Besides, the building would make a good homeless shelter or lockup for illegal aliens.

10 - All Americans must go to charm and beauty school. That way, no one can call us 'Ugly Americans' any longer. The Language we speak is ENGLISH ... learn it ... or LEAVE ... Now, isn't that a winner of a plan?

The Statue of Liberty is no longer saying 'Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses'. She's got a baseball bat and she's yelling, 'You want a piece of me?'"


I haven't voted yet. Have you?? However, I must say that I have been inspired to get my 'you know what' off of this chair and get out there!

Fun with word games ... #3

Well, I'm way behind on publishing some of these, so I'll just begin by telling you that I am introducing in this post "Cryptograms", which one solves by substituting letters for those already given. Generally speaking, there is no particular author to whom the saying can be attributed. But, if there is, I'll acknowledge him/her.

I have previously published #1 -- September 20th, which has detailed explanations of how the puzzles were solved, and #2 on the following day -- a continuation of same, in which I state that you really don't have to know how the puzzles were solved in order to appreciate some of the truisms/humor.

SO, with all that in mind here we go ... #3.


Cryptograms ...

You can tell that your kids are finally growing up when they stop asking you questions about where they came from and start refusing to tell you where they're going.

Listening is even more important than talking. When people think you're a good listener, they will likely consider you a good conversationalist.

The pursuit of truth and beauty is a sphere of activity in which we are permitted to remain children all our lives. __ Albert Einstein

Half the world is composed of people who have something to say and can't, the other half who have nothing to say and keep on saying it. __ Robert Frost

The idea is to write it so that people hear it and it slides through the brain and goes straight to the heart. __ Maya Angelou

A well composed book is a magic carpet on which we are wafted to a world that we cannot enter in any other way.

I must say acting was good training for the political life which lay ahead for us. __ Nancy Reagan

A politician is a person who approaches every subject with an open mouth.

Never fear shadows. They simply mean there's a light shining somewhere nearby.

The only way to entertain some folks is to listen to them.


Syllacrostics ...

Money speaks sense in a language all nations understand.

Tact is the unsaid part of what you think. __ Churchill


Crostic Puzzles ...

One of the oldest spices used in cooking, the mustard we buy is in fact a mixture of both black and white seeds. The black seeds give the well-known mustard aroma. The white seeds provide the pungency. __ Audrey Burns, Herbs and Spices


PS. This is for you, Tammy! (And for any other Sudoku fans out there.) Check out this site. I play it every day.

Bits & pieces

Honorable mentions ...

Steven honored me yesterday with a recommendation in his post. Seems he'd been "tagged" by a fellow blogger, but didn't want to follow all of the tagging rules, so I am under no obligation whatsoever to do the same. Goody! (I'm not real big on following all of the rules, either!)

I've recommended various of his posts from time to time and have been known to occasionally/frequently make comments. One of his really strong points (imo) is that he will usually respond, sometimes at great length. Makes me feel like my comments/opinions matter. I like that.

If you'd like to catch that particular post -- and let me prepare you for the facts that his capital letter key does not seem to be working and his 'favourite' spelling might look a bit odd -- here's the link.


Sunday morning ...

I almost didn't watch Charles Osgood's show this morning -- just 'knew' there would be a ton of political stuff on there -- but I'm so glad I did!

Have you ever heard of Rabbit Hash, Kentucky? I never had!

Well, it seems that they're having an election this coming Tuesday. "So what's new about that, Goldenrod?" you might well ask. "Ho hum."

What's "new" is that the only 'human' entered in their mayoral race has received a total of two (2) votes!! Quite a few dogs, one of which -- the 3-legged one -- is leading the vote tally with 1773 votes.

In a fairly close second is Lucy Lou, a Border collie, with 1660. Third place is held by Higgins, a miniature donkey, whose rallying cry can be heard far and wide ... ... "Why not vote for a jackass? You know you're going to have one in office, anyway!"

I smiled a whole lot during this segment of the show this morning, and then Googled some information for you. You can easily do the same for yourself. One site in particular, this one, you should probably catch in a hurry because they warn that the contents may change as the election approaches. (Then try it again tomorrow and again Tuesday and a third time Wednesday to see if charges of election fraud have been filed.)

What else is new about this election is that you can vote online. Note that online voting ends tomorrow night at 8pm EST. Only fair, I guess. Read more about the individual candidates here.

Oh! I almost forgot to mention that all of the candidates are flagrantly trying to buy your votes! Each vote costs $1, and all proceeds go to the Rabbit Hash Historical Society.


Take that, Charlie Brown! ...

Tammy's latest venture into watercolors produced this magnificent pumpkin! Isn't it just great??

Love

Mary and her husband Jim had a dog named "Lucky".


Lucky was a real character. Whenever Mary and Jim had company come for a weekend visit, they would warn their friends not to leave their luggage open because Lucky would help himself to whatever struck his fancy.

Inevitably someone would forget and something would come up missing. Then either Mary or Jim would go to Lucky's toy box in the basement and there the treasure would be, admidst all his other favorite toys. Lucky always stashed his 'finds' in his toy box, and he was very particular that his toys stay in the box.


One day Mary was diagnosed with breast cancer. Something told her that she was going to die of this disease. She was sure it would be fatal.

A double mastectomy was scheduled. The night before she was scheduled to go into the hospital, Mary snuggled with Lucky.

A thought struck her ... "What would happen to Lucky?" Although the 3-yr-old dog liked Jim, he was really Mary's dog through and through. "If I die, Lucky will feel abandoned," she thought. "He won't understand that I didn't want to leave him." That thought made her sadder than the thought of her own death.


The double mastectomy was harder on Mary than even her doctors had anticipated, and she was hospitalized for over two weeks. Jim took Lucky for his evening walks faithfully, but the little dog just drooped, whining and miserable.

Finally the day came for Mary to leave the hospital. When they arrived back home, she was so exhausted that she couldn't make it up the stairs to their bedroom. Jim made her comfortable on the couch and left her to nap.


When Mary woke, she didn't understand what was wrong. She couldn't move, and her body felt heavy and hot!

Panic soon gave way to laughter, however, when she realized what the problem was. She was covered -- literally blanketed with every treasure Lucky owned! While she had slept, the sorrowing dog had made trip after trip to the basement to bring his beloved mistress all his favorite things in life. He had covered her with his love.


Mary forgot about dying. Instead she and Lucky began living again, walking further and further each day. It's been 12 years now, and Mary is still cancer free.

Lucky? He still steals treasures and stashes them in his toy box, but Mary remains his greatest treasure!

M&Ms

Here's a Halloween story, of sorts, for you. Thought you might get a kick out of it.


There's a dance studio here in Houston that's pretty good-sized, several rooms, lots of classes each year, dances, sponsored cruises, etc. Well, they've got their annual Halloween party coming up and I just read in their newsletter a story from a Halloween party ten years ago that I'm going to share with you.

It seems that they go all out for their 'Haunted House' with ghoulish creatures of every sort, Dracula in a coffin, the scene from Psycho, scary music, and all in very darkened rooms with hanging black drapes and many twists and turns. Takes hours to set it all up and sounds like a whole lot of fun.


Ten years ago a couple came dressed as M&Ms. Appropriately, she was carrying a little basket full of M&Ms. As they were walking through the blackened maze, he was quite taken with a ghoul and remarked how lifelike it was. She laughed and moved forward to give it a little poke. When the ghoul stepped toward her and made threatening sounds, the basket of M&Ms went flying and her screams could be heard all the way out to the street! Turns out the ghoul was one of the dance guests and would, from time to time, just stand quietly in a corner to see if he'd get a taker. He did, big time!


In order for dance classes to be held the next day, takedown and cleanup is scheduled the morning after the big party. The Maze has to be dismantled, and although the drapes come down a lot faster than they go up, it still requires two hours of four people working together to finish the job.

(I'm going to switch to the first person here because the rest of this story is best told by the person who experienced it, one of the cleanup crew.)


"As I took down the curtains, I couldn't keep my eyes off those M&Ms laying on the floor. The longer I worked, the more my desire grew. Pretty soon I was certain they were talking to me.

We know you want to eat us. We taste so good and you are so hungry! mmmmmmm

Yeah, yeah, I know they had millions of germs on them blah blah blah. Let me tell you something -- if you get hungry enough, those germ arguments lose a lot of their power! I fought the urge, but the charms of the M&Ms continued to weaken my resistance. Their siren call grew louder and louder. Finally I had to have one. Making sure that no one was looking, I reached down and grabbed one off the floor.

I ate it! That's when I discovered it had a peanut inside!!

Uh oh! That did it!! Those M&Ms had nuts in them. Now I was completely helpless.

You know how you spill something in the kitchen and you call the dog to come eat it up? Well, that was me. My resistance caved in and I became an M&M tramp. I spent the rest of the morning carefully ridding the floor of all M&Ms by eating them. Yum!!!

What a marvelous cleaning technique!! I had so much fun I even took a picture of them. Such wonderful memories. By the way, for all you germ experts, please note that ten years later I am still alive and doing fine. So put that in your bonnet and figure it out!"

Here & there, up & down, roundabout

A couple of things I should update all y'all on ... ...


Biopsy results ...

I received an e-mail late last night from Dr. Bauer's office that (supposedly) contained the results of the biopsy on my left cheek.

I say 'supposedly' because I was unable -- yet one more time -- to hack through 'security' clearances to read the results.

Those of you who have read any of my posts in the past know how much time has been wasted in trying to clear this matter up. As I told my daughter in an e-mail earlier this morning, I have no intention whatsoever of calling Dr. Bauer's office to try and ascertain the results. I repeat, none whatsoever!!

Doctors' offices do not send you bad news via e-mail. They call you, right? And so, I'm 'assuming' that the biopsy read 'benign'.



Passport application ...

I was told that all I needed to present was my original birth certificate, driver's license, passport photos, and proof of current place of residence. Oh, yes! And a check in the amount of $100.

SO, I went to the nearest passport office (actually, I went to a Post Office) with all in hand.

We hit a few 'snags' on the application. I'd been married 'how many' times?!? (3) My maiden name was? (OK) My mother's maiden name was? (OK) My father's date of birth? (OK) My mother's date of birth? (OK) My father's place of birth? (I didn't know) My mother's place of birth? (I didn't know) My last ex-husband's date of birth? (I didn't remember) Place of birth? (You have got to be kidding me!) The street address of my daughter? (I didn't have that with me.) My travel plans? (Whaat!?!) Date of marriage to my most recent spouse? (Give me a break here!) Divorce date? (Same comment.) Did I have the divorce decree with me? (Are you kidding??? This was over twenty years ago!!!)

Fellow who was taking my application assured me that all this really didn't matter -- that if there were any problems, they would mail my application back to me with notations of any questions that still needed to be answered. Ye Gods!

Then he asked me for $75. I thought, "Whaat! Thought it was $100!?!" I wrote the check out (I'd only brought the one). All was fine and good. Then he asked me for another $25 -- post office's fee charges, or some such.

Well, I told him that I'd have to go back home and get another check. He said he'd hold the application, no problem.

Did all that. Got a receipt.

When I arrived back home 2-3 hours later, there was a voice mail from the fellow at the Post Office saying that I'd left a copy of my birth certificate there, and could I come back and get it? They'd hold it for me. Ye Gods and little fish hooks!!

Well, yeah, I could, but meanwhile the Post Office was closed. Couldn't do it until the next day ... maybe that'll teach me to leave the house without my phone, huh?!?