You Gotta Love Halloween, Even Though The Grandkiddies And Most Of The Kids Are A Thousand Miles Away

 

I love Halloween, and some of the girls have had a chance to celebrate earlier in the week. Here are photos, starting with Brianne and Callie (I think, anyway), dressed up for a pre-holiday party. Everyone was thrillered. Ha ha....

Lucy got two costumes, both adorable, a baterina and Hello Kitty, only cuter. Kelly made this one.

 

Baby Aspen in her Halloween jammies. Let's hope she is more alert tonight.

 

 

 

This just in: our little Sadie, cute as can be. She reminds me of that old saying, "I can't wait until tomorrow, because you get cuter every day." Am I right? 



 

Of course, here's me with my very own Purple English Teacher, heading off to class. Of course, she gets cuter every day, too. Woo hoo!

 

Am I lucky or what. Everybody have a fun, safe night.

Except For The Taste And Texture, I Like Bananas

 

 

No, I’m lying. I don’t like bananas. They are gross and disgusting and offensive to my tastes and senses. But I eat them. I don’t eat them from April through October because banana eaters attract mosquitoes, but I eat them. In fact, I ate one just now, because I believe bananas are good for me. At least I believed that until about 20 minutes ago.

Here’s why I thought bananas were healthy:

• Four times the protein of an apple, twice the carbohydrate, three times the phosphorus, five times the vitamin A and iron.
• Energy: Two bananas provide enough for a strenuous 90-minute workout.
• Depression and SAD: Contain tryptophan, a protein that converts into serotonin, known to make you relax, improve your mood and generally make you feel happier, and limits Seasonal Affective Disorder.
• PMS: Vitamin B6 regulates blood glucose levels, which can affect your mood.
• Anemia: High in iron to stimulate the production of hemoglobin in the blood.
• Blood Pressure: High in potassium yet low in salt, making it perfect to beat blood pressure.
• Brain Power: Potassium-packed fruit makes students more alert.
• Constipation: High in fiber to help restore normal bowel action.
• Heartburn: Natural antacid effect for soothing relief.
• Nerves: High in B vitamins that help calm the nervous system.
• Strokes: Bananas can cut the risk of death by strokes by as much as 40 percent.

 

It turns out this information, this eRumor, available widely online, is unsubstantiated, which means it is mostly wishful thinking, probably written by an enterprising greengrocer somewhere. At least that’s what TruthorFiction says:

TruthOrfiction.com checked with one of the biggest distributors of bananas, the Chiquita Banana Company. A spokesperson told us that bananas are a wholesome, nutritious food and a good source of important vitamins, minerals, and macro nutrients including vitamin C, potassium, vitamin B6, and dietary fiber. He said that although he would like to say that everything in the eRumor is true, he is not able to and added that much of the email is based on assumption.

So you know what that means. No more bananas for me. Yipee!

 

Red And Yellow And Orange, Oh My

 

We live in a fabulous neighborhood, filled with old homes and old trees and, well, old people. The streets are especially beautiful during these brief days in October when leafs first turn from green to red and yellow and orange.

Kelly and I got a rare hour together one afternoon last week, so we made a photo expedition through our streets. I haven’t been on a lot of photo expeditions, but the ones where you get to hold hands are the best.

You can see some of the photos Kelly took here, and some I took two years ago right about here. We live in a fabulous neighborhood.

 

If you live in a place where the leafs have not all fallen or turned brown, take an hour, take someone’s hand and take a walk. And take your camera.

Presidential Issue 4: Holiday Decorations In Stores Months Before The Holiday

 

“Retailers are rolling out aggressive sales earlier this holiday season to lure consumers,” reports The Washington Post. It gets worse every year, and we need a president who will finally do something about it. I didn’t hear it mentioned in the debate last night. Did you?

 

In mid-August, all we should see in stores is back-to-school supplies, not Halloween candy, and certainly not Christmas decorations. But by early September we could buy candy corn and costumes, and by late September, yet again, there were plastic holly and twinkle lights and shiny plastic ornaments up and down the aisles. Which means that awful music won’t be far behind. In fact, one of my children is already listening to it on the radio.

 

This is too soon, too soon. No wonder we are all so sick of any holiday by the time the big day arrives.

I’m not saying it’s your fault, but according to the National Retail Federation,  it is, because 20 percent – one in five of you – have already started shopping. Shame, shame, shame. There are even houses with Christmas lights up already.

The least you can do is vote for a presidential candidate who will take action to stop this madness.

Scarfing Up The Hunger Games

 

I bought and downloaded Mockingjay: The Final Book of The Hunger Games, from Audible last night. If you knew me, you would be shocked. I am a slow shopper. I was the last person in America to buy a VCR. I was the next to last person to get a CD player, because I researched and compared for years. I still wouldn’t have an iPod had Kelly not given me her old one.

 

 

 

It took six months for me to decide to buy The Hunger Games, despite my daughter Grace telling me over and over that I would enjoy it. And sure enough, I liked it, and I mean a lot. It is a wonderful and compelling story, well told. I listened to it twice, in fact, and it is better the second time.

That doesn’t mean, however, that I rushed right out and bought Catching Fire, the second book in the trilogy. It took me 182 days to convince myself to do it, because it so often happens that sequels, those sloppy seconds, are inferior to the original. Grace assured me that was not the case, but still I waited. I didn’t see how the story could continue any other way than the obvious one, so I didn’t want to waste a credit on it.

 

 

 

Man, I’m sorry I waited. Catching Fire is fantastic, simply wonderful in every way. The progression from the first book is perfectly logical, once you see it, but totally unexpected. The character development continues, and we know them well enough to know what to expect, but also enough to accept the unexpected as believable. And once the big shock came, I was well and truly shocked, and stayed shocked right to the end. I still can’t believe it on one hand, but on the other hand  I say “of course, of course.” But, you know… wow! Kudos to author Suzanne Collins.

Once started, I had a hard time not listening to book two. I had the headphones on everywhere, all the time, even when I should have been sleeping. Catching Fire is completely satisfying. Except for the cliffhanger ending that demands that you rush out and buy Mockingjay.

Which I did yesterday. But you already knew that, didn’t you.

Not So World Serious Anymore (But You Gotta Love Those St. Louis Cardinals)

 

 

Apparently the St. Louis Cardinals are in the baseball postseason. Again. The men where I work have talked about little else for three weeks, each with his favorite teams, his own opinions, and, of course, his predictions.

 

 

It is a major league yawn.

I was going to say it is a waste of time, but it’s really not. They are interested, involved, happy. And, at least, it diverts them from video games, their main topic of conversation the other 330 days of the year.

 

 

None of these guys were alive when I first found myself in that same place, sweating out a pennant race, swelling with pride when the Cards beat the Yankees in the 1964 World Series.

My team went to the Series three times that decade, beating the Red Sox in 1967 and losing to the Tigers in 1968. Those men were my heroes: Gibson, Brock, Flood, Cha Cha, Maxvill (my glove had his autograph), Carlton, even Roger Maris. Roger Maris!

 

If we weren’t playing ball, we were talking about it or listening to a game. As I grew, I listened faithfully through the lean years, then rejoiced in new heroes of the 1980s, winning it all again in 1982, then losing to Don Denkinger in 1985, and the noisy Twins in 1987.

Then I stopped. I quit listening one day in 1988, cold turkey. I was watching a game – no sound, Jack Buck on the radio. My kids were playing outside the window, uninterested in professional sports. I turned it off to go play with them, and haven’t bothered since.

The Cardinals have been in several World Series since then, but I would have to look it up to know what years or who they played, or, for the most part, who their players were.

I don’t miss it, which would surprise you if you knew what baseball meant to us.  Nor do I frown on people who are so absorbed these days. Baseball is a great game, and a mighty fine pastime, too. It’s just not mine.

Go Cards!

 

 

 

World Series program image borrowed from here, Sports Illustrated cover from here. Adam Wainwright from here. Thanks.

And Baby Makes Five, With The Sixth Not Far Behind

 

My oldest daughter was hoping to have this baby before Halloween, and she got her wish. Say hello to baby Aspen, born early this morning. Mother and daughter are fine, sisters are estatic, daddy is hap-hap-happy, too.

 

We have been blessed, very fortunate to have five grandchildren now, with another arriving around the end of the year. There is a rumor Number 6 is a male, which is hard to believe. We have one son but seven daughters, and all the grandkiddies are girls, so far.

 

Aspen was born at home, which is pretty scary to me, but apparently everything went off without a problem. I guess things are very well, because baby has already made a trip to her other grandparents' house.

 

The only bad thing is that these girls and their mothers are far away, the closest being 1,400 miles down the road. Thank goodness for Skype and Facebook, right?