Hallowed candy grifters

Only a few more than a dozen kids came by, but all were pretty young and excited about the night. None of the rather ominous lurking teens we've had in past years, to whom you hand a bunch of stuff and hope they don't return for tricks. Lat year I think was when a two year old golden haired toddler came as a great white shark; her counterpart this year wore a very hairy black tarantula outfit, really cute. Early to bed, and no loud carousing from any quarter.

T'was the day before Halloween...

And we did our usual simple decorating, as in an almost antique cardboard skeleton purchased years ago at a now defunct dimestore, the local Fuji Five and Dime, where you could actually buy things for nickels and dimes; Mr. Bonyparts gets installed in the front store door, behind the blinds. I also have an ancient dead rhodedendron skeleton bush which has long been hung with fake cobwebs, paper bats and miniature lights. It gets put out on the front porch. I used to carve jack-o-lanterns, but lately have been buying small white pumpkins and drawing faces on them, or making masks for them. This year I got a large weird "Sweet Meat" squash, which is supposed to be good eating, so I added a front end and used it as the abdomen of a big spider. It's sitting beneath the Halloween Tree, looking danged good for such a simple approach. It's supposed to rain tomorrow, so we may have to find ways of offloading extra treats in case the Halloweeners don't arrive. The climbing gym usually gets a lot of donations this time of year.

Rockin walkin

Urban hiking sweated out about the last of the flu; lots of ground covered to complete errands. As I crested the top of one particularly long hill out of one neighborhood and into another, I heard a woman crying aloud for help. I saw her, struggling with her dog, and rushed over to see why she was upset. Her dog, an eight-year-old greyhound-looking creature, was trembling violently, and unable to walk very well. She said he suddenly seemed reluctant and/or unable to put weight on his rear right leg, and his heart was racing tremendously. She asked if I could help her get him to her house, which was about a half block away. As we slowly moved the dog, she saw her husband drive up from work, and called him on her cell phone. He brought the car over and they loaded the poor dog into the back to take him to the vet. She'd said this had never happened before, and I haven't any idea what was wrong. I will never know.
Strange section in a perfect fall afternoon, loaded with leaves changed but still on the trees; the cottonwoods along the Ship Canal were nearly all transformed into golden-bangled towers. No zombies in sight anywhere.

Fog on the mind

Weather changes brought strange dreams, headaches and awakenings. We're down a quart or so today. Off for a small bite of sushi, where they're gearing up for Friday's spookiness. They've got a thing going with the little nightclub/restaurant up the street for some kind of cooperative customer sharing, it sounded like. Fill 'em up and send them off to hear music.

Not a cloud was in the sky

By the time the after lunch walks were accomplished, it might have been late spring rather than early fall. There seemed to be a tendency towards going farther, but it was mostly in long gazes. The lizard-on-a-rock syndrome manifested itself, and we soaked up some vitamin D-making rays. Nice meet up with a friend who'd spent a week in Alabama with family; it was comparatively tropical there, and her family time was good. There are some lovely beaches along the coasts, from the sounds of it. One of my sibs was on "The Redneck Riviera" as they call one of the resort areas on Mobile Bay not too long ago. He said they pretty much had the beaches to themselves, and no, there wasn't anybody hunting in the wildlife sanctuary.

House of fear

The person hosting the Halloween party last night goes all out for this festival more throughly than I've seen in a long time. She even switched out the pictures hanging on her walls to fit the theme. It was pretty impressive. Best Swedish meatballs I've ever tasted, spicy for a change, and someone brought a chocolate fondue with pound cake and strawberries to dip. One woman was dressed all in black, had a big black eye made up, and a card around her neck with the letter"P" on it. Her identity? A blackeyed pea. Clever, and very simple to execute. Lots of marcelle potato chips and dip; forbidden stuff, which I savored. Fun evening.

Astounding

More gorgeous weather, so we went to the indoor gym for a workout. Neither of us had any more time to devote to a longer trip outside, unfortunately. Life gets in the way so often. Still pleasant, after about a week of flu-related crappiness, to see that we can still function.
Off to an early Halloween bash.

Dare I think it?

Interesting midday experience: A young friend of ours has been heavily involved in Democratic campaigning, local and national, and got us to come downtown to see Al Gore talking on behalf of our governor, Christine Gregoire, who has been an excellent governor for the past four years, but is being attacked by the shitheel she beat by 136 votes, Dino Rossi. Good old Al got me actually - hoping. For a bunch of positive stuff. We et chicken, and cheered and clapped a good deal. Made me feel as if there actually IS a good side to root for, and that not all politicians are mendacious fuckwads.

Scenes

Walking along the lake, I espied a very old man setting up his fishing gear, and just down the way, a young hip-looking fellow looking deep into a woman's eyes and talking mellifluously. Different kinds of hooks, lines and sinkers...

Reviving

There was warmth and sun today, so the ill rose from their gloom and walked among the living. How the nonegenarian avoids the germiness I cannot explain. Reading reviews and such lately; the latest Updike novel, The Widows of Eastwick, sounds intriguing, but I've always been a fan of his, through odd early short stories to later tomes. He began getting published at around age 21; he's now 72, I think, such a long productive writing life. Funny, he kind of looks like a witch in his photos.

On this day of all days

The most important person in my life was born; a very Happy Birthday to my excellent husband. You definitely deserved those cupcakes! (We'll have to have the traditional cake later.)

Matching

Moods and atmosphere; achy-looking skies, and aching joints one has never imagined could feel so bad.
Thunder late in the afternoon, but we squeezed in milady's two walks. Le Guin's writing makes me feel better, despite its dystopic flavor. Several of the civilizations in her stories ruined themselves via plunder and usury. We're right on track.

Hard luck

Some kind of bug or two appear to have invaded us. Chicken soup seems to be called for. The elder stateswoman states she has already had all the bugs, so she's not getting sick. That's what statespeople need, confidence and certainty!

There was light

Somehow we were visited with sun, making the walking not such an ordeal. Some people stayed inside and caught several football games, which panicked the poor old cat, sending him to his quiet place deep under the bed. We can't figure out what causes this, the crowd noises seem to be the first trigger; strange and kind of pathetic.
Off for a small bite of sushi, after the sports fest ended; cold and starry night.

Truly, now for something quite out of the ordinary round here...

Last night kind of late for moi, I went to one of our family friends' son's birthday celebration. He had it at a kind of divey joint in North Seattle, famous for its karaoke. And so we did commit karaoke, repeatedly; it was quite a lot of fun. Some of us even remained sober in order to do so.
The song lists were spotty, but had enough options from very old to kind of recent to accommodate all but the pickiest of performers, of which there seemed to be few. What a strange phenomenon. It's quite a leveler. It helps to go up at least a couple of times to get over the Elvis leg jitters that set in on the first go. Great time for all, particularly the birthday boy, who reprised his favorite, Yes's "Owner of a Lonely Heart". His friends made sure it wasn't his theme song.

Brangin' in the sheaves

That's the way the air feels, like harvest time; we don't have any grain to scythe, just the lawn, and the gutters needed cleaning. The kids took care of it; nice to occasionally have staff. That must be why the country's "landed elite" and other assorted villains get so hooked on power. Crews of Hispanic laborers must come in so handy on one's acreage. I just read about a photography exhibit that depicts the annual Ranchos Visitadores horse ridin' the old boys have been up to since the 1930's, chock full of drinkin', whorin', and anti-Semitin' and other assorted racism. Lots of the same fellers who belong to the Bohemian Grove set that meets in California.What a piss-poor bunch of creeps, and they're in charge of all the money-makin' round the country. A man named Tomas Polaris took a pile of pictures of this debacle, and is showing them in Seattle. Anyone interested can go to seattlepi.com for the spectacle.

Sartre didn't know the least thing about true nausea

The current election run ups, both here in Washington State and nationally, would make ole Sartre barf till he dropped. I could not stay the course on watching Obama versus McNuts, and didn't even try to view our gubernatiorial debate between Christine Gregoire and Dino Rossi, who "prefers GOP", a tactic deliberately crafted to try to attract the dummies who don't know that GOP = Republicans. The latter has the unctuousity of a sleazy salesman - which he spent most of his early career as, in fact - and no scruples about taking dirty money from the state's building industry association. A fine bunch of putrescent apples, Dino and his supporters. Mini McCains.
Off to read about other worlds, where overpopulated planets are restoring themselves; fewer humans and more giant intelligent cephalopods.

Swung back

The pendulum of human behavior, my dad used to say, keeps swinging back and forth between extremes. He pictured it taking some time to do so, but it seems to be moving so fast these days it resembles the horrific denouement of that old Edgar Allen Poe story. It seems to me all the best elements of the world are being strapped down, starved, tortured, and the final cut could be coming. Small wonder that fiction which takes one off somewhere in the universe is appealing. Somewhere beings appreciate the landscape and don't want to strip it to build malls and golf courses. Pure fantasy.

Diversionary stuff

Short run to get some climbing in with a good friend; she's off to visit the old folks at home pretty soon, and needed a fix before she left. Much tidying done before the wind and rain arrived in the late afternoon, but it's still not debilitatingly chilly just yet.
So the Gibson novel is finally letting go of enough clues. Radioactive material + missing billions from Iraq rebuilding; hmmm.

Let down

Now really no more sweet climate after Sunday afternoon; back to keeping ourselves pumped up psychologically, somehow. We watch a few episodes of "Planet Earth", but it saddens me to see all those vistas and animals that are being dug up and killed off. Hope shmope.
William Gibson's Spook Country is growing increasingly bizarre; to be expected from the creator of Neuromancer. There are so many ominous indications of a bloodbath lying somewhere ahead, I am tempted to peek and get it over with.

Reachy

That's the "R word" in climbing, considered an excuse for not solving a route, but often a legitimate summation by those of us under five feet five. We always encounter these spots at gyms, not as much outside on real rock. Two of us ran into reachiness on an otherwise kind of interesting route, and it's frustrating, especially for one friend. She is an experienced alpinist, and I think it ruffles her feathers when some dumb gym climb proves impossible. I write them off and move on; it isn't worth the energy to protest.

Doing the do

Another week has sped past, and we are zipping through the neighborhood to get to the salon. We used to walk all the way over there and back, some years ago, but the range of nonegenarian walking is dwindling. It's all relative, as she still gets a workout. Somehow the experience of the shampooing and styling relaxes her to the point of goofiness, so I have to kind of shake her out of it on the way back to the car. Lots of coaching; better than a lot of the college ones these days.
There was a pound container of dried organic cannolini beans which needed to be prepared; they swelled into a very large batch. If we ever have an emergency, we're ready with the cannolini beans. Bacon on top perked them up nicely.
Taking a break from Rikki Ducornet's bizarre fiction; picked up the latest William Gibson near-future paranoic novel, which is kind of creeping me out, in a very odd way. He's so into technology, and the big one in this work concerns GPS. I am always a bit on the edge of not knowing what the bloody hell he's talking about, and yet kind of knowing. Stuff of uncomfortable dreams.

Plummeting everything

Stocks, bonds, temperatures and prices; maybe not the latter. At least one young denizen of the general neighborhood wasn't daunted by the adults' fuck ups. A six year old kid was decked out in full Cap'n Jack Sparrow regalia, just sitting on a fire hydrant eating some kind of snack, with his saber by his side. He'd managed to find a rare spot of time in which to eat without getting soaked.

Demanding fun

Off to the gym with a younger friend; we had a good workout, and she taught me a few things about bouldering moves that were needed to get started on a route. We stopped at the Fremont PCC afterwards, and while shopping, saw Dave Matthews, rock star, wandering around with a basket. It's very funny, because many people know who he is, but everyone pretends to ignore him. No mobbing for autographs, and he stood in line for soup just like the rest of us. Nice-looking feller in person.

Blowing us all down

Very strong wind gusts in the early hours, making the bedroom sound like the crow's nest of a pirate ship; hard to sleep through, once you wake up. Not as powerful as the financial maelstrom which is developing world wide; I read a review of a book by George Soros in the NYRB that actaully makes me want to get it. Soros has lived through a good deal of turmoil, being in his eighties, and the fact that the Libertarian Milt Friedman free marketeers at the University of Chicago are dissing Soros's ideas increases my curiosity.

Robust systems

That's what the yokel weatherman was going on about; he didn't mean our efforts to stay fit and strong. Caught up with one of my dear pals on the climbing wall. She's been involved lately with a group that's teaching breast cancer survivors how to fly fish, which sounds, oh, fishy, probably. But the casting motions evidently are very good exercise for women recovering from the often horrendous after effects of the surgery, and it sounds like they had fun last weekend on the Yakima River, catching and releasing trout. She has been musing about how quickly she bounced back after getting back to climbing, and is considering offering women the chance to try it themselves.
Day deteriorated into steady showers; I don't like the feeling of wet denim clinging to my legs.

Wee hours' distress

Around two this morning, the sound of a huge vehicle rumbling up our block yanked me out of dreamland. I looked out to see a fire engine parked in front of our house, and personnel heading into a house across the street. A woman in her early forties who had a baby boy five weeks ago had suffered an aneurysm, and was taken of for emergency surgery. They also have a four-year-old boy; the in-laws came down to help with the kids. The in-laws have all the wrong bumper stickers on their car, but I have reached across the aisle to help.

Fun fundraising

We got a late evening message from a friend about an Obama/Biden fundraising party, so hied ourselves down to it. Nice bunch of people, almost all quite a bit younger than we; one woman was about ten years older, retired and into grandkids. Our friend is the daughter of a friend our age, with whom I share an abhorrance of just about any GOPer I've met or read about lately. I figure if they cleave to their candidates these days, they're in the irrational base department. Strange, as I am basically fiscally conservative, you'd think there'd be some Repubs with whom there'd be overlap. A mythical creature.

Time slippage

Probably due to the increasing gloom of the region, meteorologically and elsewise; a certain nonegenarian thought it was still the middle of the night at nine ayem. Good snoozing weather. That debate began to make me snooze, and then feel very irritated. Intelligent experienced feller versus moronic dishonest throwback. The end of days will be ours if she and her ancient running mate get elected.

Spot of fun

Short but sweet session at the climbing gym; had a good afternoon of walking all over searching for things. I went down through the University of Washington campus, which was crowded with all kinds of people taking advantage of the last day of summer. One of the few places I ever go to find clothes has gone out of business, victim of rising rents, I suppose. They had great sales, but I missed the biggest one of all.
Sushi date tonight.