White Lightning Axiom: Redux

Well, here we are, the day after and my dreams of 'live blogging' are all asunder. Honestly, I had started down the path, but then realized the futility (silliness) of the whole thing. No matter, here are the details:

5:45 - turn on LED lights in pumpkins
6:00 - send out Tyrants with Mrs on their T-or-T mission
6:15 - first kid walks by on her way to a party - cat
6:20 - second lurkers : unk costume and her mom
6:30 - first gaggle : witch, thug, 2 monsters
6:40 - second gaggle : pirate, monster, baseball player
6:45 - 2 little fairies
6:50 - lamb in stroller
&;00 - firetruck wends its way though development
7:10 - witch and rag doll
7:15 - teenagers : 7 girls (DIRTY OLD MAN OOGLES INAPPROPRIATE COSTUMES and shakes head in disgust)
7:45 - bloody bride, cheer-leader, Tyrants arrive at Manor
7:55 - 4 teenage boys dressed as eemo thugs ... when are teenage boys not eemo thugs?
8:20 - 6 kids scoop out booty ... nearly empty!

So, that was that. I did get the standard flat-top haircut for the occasion and spent my time sitting out on the front porch with the laptop the whole time. That bench we had assembled in the mid-summer was a great boon for me. All in all, it was a fairly uneventful evening. Not the same as when I was a kid, you know. I remember that our neighborhood would look a lot like that scene in ET where the street was MOBBED by lemming like hordes of kids ... dressed mostly in parkas. This was Minnesota though. Oh well. Funny thing, later that evening, Jake wanders out of his room around midnight and insists that he needs 'adult company' to sleep with him because he is lonely. His sister will not do so I believe he may have seen one too many scary masks. So, he nestles in between the Mrs and myself and spends the night kicking the hell out of my kidneys. The price of parenting. I'll pay him back at TSD practice later.

Technorati Tags:Halloween | Children

Labels: Banalities, Children, Halloween

Bwa-ha-ha-haaaa. Ok, nothing going on here. Most excellent. There should not be much to talk about since it was the regular schedule. Sleep, Drop off kids, work, pick up kids, swim, karate, adult karate, sleep. Yeah, predictable as hell, eh? Big difference for tomorrow is the night of tricks and treats. I'm going to skip swimming tonight, and obviously, there will be no karate tonight. That, after paying for next months dues, the test fees (for the 10th of next month) and the price of the new staff weapons for the Tyrants. I'll be expecting them to get their green belt with little difficulty. Although, after talking with Master Smith, I have concluded that we are getting much more for our money than we would ANYWHERE else. Apparently, other institutions charge extra for self-defense forms and weapon forms. That, and we go five times a week. Except this week, where the Tyrants will be donning their Optimus Prime and Briar Rose outfits instead of the 'dress whites'. I'll have much more to talk about after tonight, for certain.

Technorati Tags:Tang So Doo | Swimming | Karate | Children | Halloween

Labels: Children, Halloween, Tang So Doo

The terminus of the 'free wheeling' weekend has come to me like a lost hive of bees looking for a suitably spent reservoir in which they can deposit the fruits of their labor. I'm drained, replenish me with loads of sticky, syrupy energy plz. Of course, the terminus came but the syrupy energy did not. Instead, I have the beginnings of a head cold thanks to my two little disease carriers. Alexis has been brewing some nasty upper respiratory nastiness for some time now and Jake just picked it up. I'm starting to feel a little nasal congestion so it is only a matter of time. I think Last week's support bizarroland travels may have opened up my wacky immune system to the invasion. Stephen knows what I mean. It was nice to ditch the support phone on Friday, but I do not think I'll be able to throw off the damage it did for some time.

Let's talk about the nice things of last Friday though, eh? Yes, it was the end of my support duty till Christmas ... gha, one could hope that it goes well over that Holiday! I picked up the Tyrants early on Friday so we could do the work-place trick-or-treat thing. They loved it! Hundreds of stops for candy and all of them no more than 6 feet apart. Three buildings, thee floors each, all connected by tunnels. It's a diabetic nightmare. After the pillaging of candy-land, we went off to TSD where I was allowed to participate (NO PHONE!) and by proxy, the Tyrants had to behave or I would snap them back into line. The following day, were were planning to go to Sesame Place ... for more Trick-or-Treat activities. Mercifully, this did not happen because of the downpour of rain. We need the rain, but I need to rake leaves and mow the lawn and do all kinds of out-door stuff. So, the Mrs and I slumbered away till noon ... except when I had to get up and prepare the kids breakfast ... and let the dogs out ... and feed them. Oh, then there was that pesky lunch thing. Wait ... did the Mrs let the Cybernetic Mammoths out? Both the long term and short term memory sticky-goo was powered down to the bare minimum. I'm probably lucky I did not end up wandering the streets in my underwear, a hat and my boots.

Sunday fared a bit better. Sunday School at 1000 hours, then off to the Produce Junction to pick up inexpensive veggies for my lunch during the week. After that, Home Depot to buy a sheet of dry-wall. And yes, I actually used the stuff to patch the two holes in the wall behind the Master Bath Shower/Decon chamber. Left a bit of a mess behind, but a quick swipe with the vacuum will clear that up. Finishing that, I mowed the lawn (and thusly, cleaned up the leaves) without the power assist on the mower. I need to pick up that belt but forgot to when I was at the local Home Depot Temple. I can get so single minded at times. In the act of mowing the front pastoral expanse, one of the lids on the sprinkler system got sucked up and chopped to bits leaving a giant hole in the ground. I'll need to put something over that soon or some children will get swallowed up on the 31st. The last thing I need is for a bunch of well meaning rescue personnel to start digging up the yard only to find the previously hidden skeletons of Jimmy Hoffa, Elvis's first clone and some left-over bits of Ark. Speaking of arks ... the Mrs was so kind as to pick up the dog-dip and wash the hounds while I busied myself with other nonsense. Little stuff, like fixing the 'O' in Jacob's name on the Twin Towers , a mountain-range of laundry and spreading out the clippings in the garden. Standard fun-stuff. As a capper on Sunday, I carved out two of the 20,000 pumpkins for the Twins after they drew what they wanted them to look like. Next year, I'll insist that they carve out the guts themselves. They were less than enticed by that prospect this year. The Ever Ready Mrs took a pic of the two gored gourds, but had not posted them yet. Trust me when I tell you that the Tyrants were sufficiently pleased. And, on queue, since the jack-o-lanterns were ready, we got frost this chilly Monday morning. Perhaps I did finally mow the lawn for the last time this year. Perhaps.

Technorati Tags:Pumpkins | Weekend | Karate | Children | Home Repairs | Lawn | Rain | Fall

Labels: Children, Dodge Ball, Fall, Halloween, Home Improvements, Rain, Tang So Doo

Well, that was fun. There was no swimming or karate for the kids last night. Instead, we played on the mile-long driveway till the sun went down and the spooks came out. Jake was 'Thomas the Tank Engine' again this year. I have no problem with that. We paid a billion dollars for that flimsy sheet of colored foam, might as well get as much use out of it as possible. Alexis went as Sleeping Beauty. I alway find that odd though. Her outfit is actually some play clothing she was given by either my Big Little Brother or one of the Fawning Grandparents. Either way, it was available and easy to ensconce her within. One of these years, I'll convince her to go as Wednesday Adams. I don't think Jake would make a good Pugsly so the whole lot of us going out as a theater troupe will probably not do. Not sure who could possibly be Lurch.

The Mrs and the Tyrants go out to spread havoc about the surrounding countryside as I stay at the Manor and take pot-shots at passing hordes of begging urchins. It's ok, I'm only using black-powder and jaw-breakers as shot. In spite of my best efforts, about a score of costumed miscreants made it all the way to the front portcullis. Now I need to figure out what I'm going to do with 20 bushels of candy we have left over. We are smart enough to get hard candy so we cannot be tempted to eat the whole lot. We should be able to dispose of it by next Halloween. A dozen reloads and a few hours later, the Mrs returns with the exhausted ones in tow. They apparently enjoyed the pillaging and burning of villages and had a great quantity of booty to show for it. Along the way, one of the local police SUV cruisers stopped them. The officer was a female and she had no defense against Jake's charms so ended up handing over her goodies and phone-number for him. Later on, the kids encountered a hovel where the occupant was dressed in the outfit shown in the movie 'Scream'. Apparently, Alexis almost called it quits right then and there. She is not entirely kosher with surprises of that nature. The man was lucky she did not demonstrate her strong survival skills. Next time, she may just call in a close air strike - fire on this position for full effect. That, or "Nuke 'em from orbit, it's the only way to be sure.". It would occur to me that it would be something she would say ... and do. I wonder if she will name the 1st Orbital Combat Platform after me. Heh, the HSS Mdmhvonpa. But I digress ... Jake, when seeing this apparition, was unfazed and remarked that "I'm a man and I not scared!'. Well then! A bit of confidence and a stiff upper lip will get you pretty far, my boy. Just make sure to have the 'Big Stick' to follow through. That, or have a sister willing and able to cudgel your opponents into submission.

Speaking of blunt force trauma ... I was listening to public radio the other day. Yeah, it hurts. Anyways, they were reporting that there is a massive food poisoning incident occurring in South Carolina and Pennsylvania. Hundreds of reported cases with scores being hospitalized. Nice! I'll wager there were thousands like myself and the Mrs who did not report it. Apparently, the source is unknown, the consumables affected could not be determined and the was no specific grocery or restaurant known to be the distribution point. WTF! For all we know, it could be the water. Disease control, if done properly, is a good thing. If we cannot handle another outbreak of contaminated food (green onions, spinnach), how are we going to deal with H5N1 or SARS!? ARGH! With that, here are some pics from the Fall-Season-Candy-Day outings:






BTW: Notice all the green we still have here in Pennsyltucky? Where is all the snow? HAH! East Coast Rulz, West coast is snow-bound.

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Technorati Tags:Holloween | Children | Candy | Illness

Labels: Children, Halloween