Trick or Treat

Things I love about this night:

All the neighborhood lit up, and everyone is out in it.

Adorable little toddlers dressed as fuzzy animals who just make noises for "trick or treat."

Our porch decorations, added to every year, to make sure our house is a "must go to."

Giving out glowing bracelets to the kids that I know the best.

The little Smiles girls, even more lovely when dressed up like princesses.

Timmy stopping home for a minute and letting me dig out some chocolates to munch while I sat on the porch.

When Tim's friend Lewis was at our house when they finished the sub, and he laid down on the lawn and then jumped at kids that walked by.

When Missy the cat went darting out into the darkness and thank goodness we caught her.

Jeffrey as Elvis saying "Thank you, thankyouverymuch" and getting a laugh.

When the little Spartan football players thanked me for putting on the sub parade on Sunday.

That Nee Nee who moved away this year was in the neighborhood again, but crying because she missed everyone.

That a lot of the dads walking down the street were carrying "beverages."

The sense of community I get when I realize I know almost all of these people and their kids.

When people know about my kids allergies and try to give them candy they can have.

Betsy the spoiled little white dog in costume.

Scaring the kids with our bowl with the fake hand on the outside and the black glove on the inside.

That the blasting rain paitently waited until after it was al over to come pouring down.

And my favorite, when a girl looked at me and asked: "Is that your real hair?"

And what are you supposed to be?

Today was the deadline for getting Jeff's Halloween costume ready: the first party of the season. After this it's the subdivision parade that I organize every year, and then his class party and finally trick-or-treating on Halloween night. There is less for Tim to do this year, but he is going to go trick-or-treating. At first we had the idea that they could be the guys from their favorite TV show "Mythbusters" and we started thinking up how to do those costumes but I was concerned that when Jeff went to things alone his wouldn't make sense. And then he announced that he wanted to be ELVIS. How could I argue with that one? Luckily they had an Elvis costume at our local costume shop, although I had to spend a little more on it than I would have liked. I figure that there aren't many big costume years left, so I justified the splurge. Plus Tim's costume won't cost that much, he wants to be a Christmas tree, and I think we already have everything we need in storage.

I just love the Halloween holiday for a lot of reasons, but most of all the dressing up. It is great fun to pull together an outfit, making every detail just right. And you get to pretend to be someone else, it's fun! I already wrote about the ill-fated orange-princess-over-the-winter-jacket fiasco from my childhood (Oh look she's a pumpkin!) but that didn't stop me from trying again every year. In my memory the costume thing was left up to us kids to figure out from what we had around the house, we rarely went out and bought anything. And if you weren't creative the fallback was "bum." Nowadays that would translate to "Homeless Person" and would be extremely politically incorrect.

Another way I know that times have changed is when I look at the flyer for Halloween USA that comes in the mailbox this time of year. It lends credence to the scene in the movie "Mean Girls" where Halloween is a contest for who can look the sluttiest. I know that it wasn't that way when I was that age, at least for me. In those years I made good use of my Grandpa's high quality Knights of Columbus cape and went as a witch.

It's been a while since I've had the occasion to dress up myself. Probably not since last year for Alisa's groovy 60's party. Which was great fun, I found the best miniskirt, and then went and got a lot of mod accessories to go with it. I know I put far more effort into that getup than I would for a similar event wearing "regular clothes." It was a great party, and all of the outfits were hilarious. When I showed my mother the pictures, she gasped. She was horrified that we were wearing things that she used to wear, and now they were silly costumes.

So when do someone's "regular clothes" become a costume? When Elvis Presley pulled on his white jumpsuit could he ever have imagined that 30 years after his death a 9 year old kid would be instantly recognizable as him when dressed that way? I fear that anything we are wearing, at any time could someday be considered a "costume." In a way, everything is. Any time I assemble a special "look" that's really what I'm doing. I'm dressing up like a bike rider, or a wedding guest, or an engineer, witness in a courtroom, stay at home mom going to pick her kid up at the bus stop.

I remember in college the sorority had a special event called "Senior Send Off" where the juniors would make a special breakfast for the graduating seniors, and then perform skits making fun of them. And they would dress up like the person by sneaking into the closets and pulling out someone's signature "look". It was hilarious. And I still remember when a girl named Julie dressed up like me; she put on my ratty old plaid bathrobe and carried an engineering textbook and a pile of junk food.

So maybe that line in between everyday fashions and way out there costumes is actually more of a blur. But if you think about it: if someone went as YOU, what would they have on?

Like lipid pools of nuclear waste

My eyes have been bothering me when I have my contacts in, and I am starting to get that problem of not being able to read things with small print. I did pick up some very cute purple reading glasses with little rhinestones at Target, but they don't really work for me. So I went to the optometrist, it was time for that anyways. When I got there the desk girl showed me a description of a new machine that they have that takes a picture of your retina. It isn't covered by insurance, she said, but it can find serious problems. I agreed and I got to look into this enormous space-age looking contraption. When I went back into the dark eye exam room, the Dr. pulled up a picture on her screen of my eyes. Left eye looked good, right eye has a little white blob on it. She pointed it out and told me that is what something called "mascular degeneration" would look like, but in my case it was probably just a reflection. They we did the "what is the last line that you can read" routine and she gave me a package of new contact lenses to try. We were going to do an experiment of what she called "monovision" where one eye is for close up and the other is for far. Okay. Then I went back to the desk girl and forked over a pile of money for the retina scan and contact lens fitting.

Well by the time I got home my vision was already weird, but she told me it would take a while to get used to it. For the next several days my vision got worse, especially in my right eye. At work it got so bad I could barely read my computer. Good old Bob tried to help, he got a box for me to put my computer on to position it for better viewing. He suggested that sometimes vision problems are caused by diabetes. Another symptom of that is extreme thirst. Hey, I have been feeling thirsty. I also made the mistake of mentioning this to my mother, who totally freaked out and looked up vision problems in "Merck's Manual" and came up with a big list of horrifying things that could be wrong with me, and then kept calling me to ask about it. Finally it got so bad that I just ripped the contacts out and turned to wearing my glasses, which I don't normally do because they make me look like Jimmy Neutron's teacher Mrs. Fowell. And I went back to the optometrist.

I told her about my bad vision, hurting eyes, and sense of terror about the inconclusive retina scan. She re-did the scan, and then checked my eyes another way by putting in florescent yellow eye drops. That allowed her to scan for scratches with a black light. After she put the drops in there was nothing to wipe my eyes with so she went looking for kleenex while I blinked and cried this stuff all over my face. Finally, she was able to determine that there's nothing seriously wrong with my eyes or vision. It was that the contacts I was trying were a smaller diameter than my usual ones and had irritated my eyes. She ordered a different kind and wrote me a prescripton for eye drops.

Since I was nearby I went to Kroger to get the prescription. While I was there I walked around the store looking at things. I like that center aisle called "seasonal." I was looking at the Halloween decorations, there were all kinds of spooky things with fake blood and yellow eyes...YELLOW EYES! I hadn't looked in a mirror since she put the eyedrops in! I was a spooky thing with florescent yellow eyes! I hurried home as quickly as I could, I hope I didn't scare anybody too much.

Get thee to a Monastery

The city that we live in is at the very outer edge of what can be described as a metropolitan area. It is only in recent years that it started to become "suburban" with new construction popping up all around the few structures that were already there. The "country." So we have these recent subdivisions all mixed in with cottages and some formerly secluded properties such as the Dominican Sisters Motherhouse that I have mentioned before. It is actually a campus of buildings that consists of an old mansion facing a small lake with a darling white glassed in gazebo, a daycare/preschool, several structures for retreats and offices, a small cemetery, the giving garden, and a main structure that is newer which is really a nursing home for nuns and a chapel that is open to the public for mass on Sundays. There used to be an old abandoned mental hospital on some property in the back and I when I would ride my bike around there I'd get a creepy feeling. Then they sold that property and ripped it down and built luxury homes where it used to be. (Do they know?) We often attend mass at the chapel and I get to see the nuns. Mainly they are extremely elderly but there are a few "younger" ones (in their 60s) who always impress me as sort of strong yet gentle women in incredibly comfortable looking shoes.


Several miles east down the same road is a Benedictine Monastery. The road is dirt and it goes up a hill where the land is still mainly undeveloped, very beautiful area. On my more ambitious bike rides I used to go past the entrance and wonder about it. You can only see the sign and a driveway through the woods from the road. I always wanted to make a lot of noise when I drove by, break that vow of silence, but I didn't.


Then recently I found out that they have mass there that the public can attend. A chance to satisfy my curiosity! I have this fascination about monks, and it's not from reading The Mermaid Chair in book club. Really. I just wonder what they're all about.





So today we went there and I got to take these pictures so I could share them with you. It would have been a great place for viewing the fall colors except for that the odd weather we've had has made for a dud of a color season so far. The property sits upon the highest point in Oakland county, and the view from the chapel is incredible. It is nothing like I expected. I guess I thought it would be dark and gothic and made of crumbling stone. The architecture is very unusual and it seems relatively new.





The monks were there, there are only about 1/2 dozen of them, and they look like normal men. They were wearing black robes with hoods, but they had normal dress shoes on with them, not ropey sandals. Apparently they spend their time in this beautiful place tending to their large garden, playing with their 2 large dogs, doing art, writing poetry, and praying. It sounds lovely, doesn't it. Oh! And they make jam and salad dressing. I know this because it was there in THE GIFT SHOP!!! Yes, there really is a gift shop there. Now you know too.

High Maintenance

"Did anyone ever tell you you're high maintenance?"

That's what the man who sits across the aisle asked me today. The answer is NO, I have not been told that. The situation at the moment was there were 2 facilities men laying on the floor of my cubicle with flashlights and tools trying to rescue my lunchbag and purse who had somehow gotten themselves trapped inside my desk file drawer. They finally got it open by smashing into the thing with a giant bang and then wrenching it open. Before I called them I had asked Bob to to help to try to get the drawer open and we tried our own series of banging and jimmying and wrenching.

Earlier in the day I had decided that the screen on my laptop was too smeary and asked Bob if he had any cleaner for it, which he did but when we inspected it decided it might not be the right kind and I got the IT guy to give me a special little wipe, like a wet-nap. And I also noticed that my cubicle smelled weird and ended up going to Wal-Mart at lunchtime and buying some citrus scented cleaner, and showing it to Bob. And the day before I had managed to pinch a nerve in my back by sitting down too quickly. When I complained about it to Bob he showed me some stretches that might help and we stood in our cubicles practicing them.

Oh dear. I have become "high maintenance." When did that happen? It must stop.

Note to self: Try not to bother poor old Bob so much.

Tulips

We are having a bout of unusual weather for early October. It is in the 80's, sunny and humid. I am LOVING it. One last blast of the weather I like the best. Today I took a long bike ride where I could see a lot of the lakes around here, and then I planted some tulip bulbs that Jeff and I grabbed last week when we were at the hardware store for something else. They caught my eye because they contained my favorite tulip that I had at our last house, called Shirley. It is an ivory color with a purple edging, almost lacy looking. And I always remembered that name, it reminds me of my best friend's mother. I wonder if she knows she has a flower namesake. I've always liked it that roses and some tulips have names, it adds to the fun. The other ones I put in today are called Demeter, and "Mauve Mix." (boring!) I like planting bulbs in the fall because when they come up in the spring I get to remember what I was doing when I planted them. And they look so great when everything else is still struggling to get going. But then there are those ugly brown stems to look at later. I know that there are ways to hide them but I've never had success at that. If all goes well then sometime in May I will put up pictures of beautiful flowering tulips.

Potential Chaos

There were two big “news items” recently that I found I had a similar reaction to. The first was the national strike at GM last week. I drove to work hearing about how the strike was set to begin at 11:00 am unless an agreement was reached. So at 10:59 I got up and asked people if a bell was going to go off, or what. There wasn’t much activity that I could notice but at the end of the day there were some picketers at the end of the drive into the property. It was nice out so I had my windows down, and when I stopped at the light there was a man standing there with his sign, just a couple of feet away. It was hard not to make eye contact, and he had one of those blue worker shirts on, and reminded me of my Grandpa. I said “Well you got a nice day for this.” He nodded. Light still red, I went on: “I hope it doesn’t have to last too long.” He nodded again. Then the light turned. “I wish you well with it!” I said as I pulled away, and he kind of lifted his sign to me, like a thank-you gesture. The next day at work there were a lot of emails about what to do if strikers tried to block your entrance, and how to avoid altercations with them. There were also emails about how our building would be affected, such as closing down some of the bathrooms, and what to do with your food garbage since building maintenance is union. I was amused to see some ladies in high heels struggling to empty a garbage can into a dumpster. (They had supervisors performing some of their worker’s tasks.) And I wondered whether I as being a SCAB when I walked over to the main garbage area to toss out my apple core, instead of letting it rot in the can at my desk. But then agreement was reached and it was all over. Inventory adjustment? We’ll never know.

The other was the big buildup to the state government shutdown that was going to happen by Sunday night if a budget agreement wasn’t achieved. Since I was up north watching silly movies I was insulated from a lot of that but I still had the sensation of going to bed not knowing if the next morning there would be prisoners out roaming the streets and people not being able to apply for trailering licenses or whatever the impact would be. But agreement was reached and everything went back to normal except for the effects of the new budget on taxes and services.

All of this reminded me of the time we all believed that some BIG thing was going to happen which was Y2K, when all of the computers were going to shut down on New Year’s Day 2000 and so we had to fill our tanks with gas and bathtubs with water and buy cans of SPAM to eat when all of the grocery stores shut down after the looting was over and there would be no food left and giraffes would roam the streets since the gates to the zoo were electronic. I felt a kind of disappointment that I didn’t go to any parties that year because we were sitting at home checking the batteries in our flashlights. And then the next day when Larry said he had to go to the store because we were out of diapers and formula and I had to think what were we doing with SPAM and all this bottled water but not enough supply of the essential things for our baby to last even 2 days? But again, nothing actually happened after all the big buildup.

I am almost ashamed to admit that there is a small part of me in these situations that wants to wish that the BIG THING will happen, and shake everyone up and out of their mundane daily lives and force them to really think about who and what is important, and sort of start over with a fresh perspective, do it all different. This is probably why I even LIKE it where there are disaster drills at work, where everyone has to stop what they are doing and go and stand in the hall, or outside. And there we all are, a big group of carbon-based life forms all equal as we follow the instructions, and no one gets out of it just because they have an office with walls or wear a blue work shirt or have the authority to put a stop to that Engineering Change you were trying to get approved. Just for that moment, we are all just people who just might need each other’s help someday just because they are they ones standing nearby when IT happens.

And of course there have been some actual BIG THINGS that actually have happened such as 9/11 and Katrina that maybe could have resulted in everything changing for the better, but then, sadly, didn’t.

Maybe it’s time I realize that there isn’t going to be some external BIG THING that comes along and rocks my world. But I can rock my own world by making big changes like the ones I have in the last year. And though they don’t affect the collective consciousness of the people around me like I wish something would, I now know that I do have the power within me to shake things up enough to make it all seem different. Even if only just a little.