Category: Everything Else

I liked myself better when I wasn’t me.

-Carol Burnett

We’re very excited about Halloween over here! I love making costumes- I think I missed my calling there- but even more than that I love wearing the costume and playing a role.

Last year the boys were the Super Mario Brothers, and they were hilarious. They even recorded the music from the video game and would set it off each time they arrived to trick-or-treat at a new house. They spoke in ridiculous accents and jumped around really dramatically. It was fun to see kids being kids.

These were the easiest costumes ever- I just cut up a pair of Jeff’s old work jeans to make temporary overall bibs. After Halloween was over, I pulled out the stitching and voila, the kids’ jeans were restored.

Ditto for the baseball caps- the red one was reincarnated as a Phillies cap. (Hey- Phils won again last night! Unbelievable!)

The mustaches were part of a “mustache of the week” kit that the we got the kids for Christmas and is part of our extensive dress-up collection. Everyone, I think, should have extra mustaches on hand at all times. They make for really great pictures.

I’ve always hated pre-packaged Halloween costumes. They’re expensive, they’re uncomfortable, they’re flimsy, they reinforce gender stereotypes, they encourage girls and women to dress like trollops and they take all the fun out of Halloween. In my humble opinion.

Seriously, I can’t even take my kids into a Halloween shop, because I don’t want Cassidy to cower from the gore and I don’t want my boys eyeing up the “sexy nurses”. What happened to Halloween being about family fun?

All week I’ll be posting my favorite homemade costumes of Halloween Past and celebrating all things Halloween. Got a costume you’re particularly proud of? Or maybe a Halloween craft or decoration? Email it to me at simplegreenorganichappy(at)gmail(dot)com and I’ll post it too!

What was your favorite Halloween costume ever?
What are you- or your kids- dressing up as this Halloween?

I was reminded earlier this week of the Ray Bradbury short story, There Will Come Soft Rains, for reasons I won’t get into here.

It’s one of my favorite short stories ever. It concludes with a poem of the same name, and the coincidence of today’s misty rain is causing that poem to run a continuous loop in my mind:

There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground,
And swallows circling with their shimmering sound;

And frogs in the pool singing at night,
And wild plum trees in tremulous white;

Robins will wear their feathery fire,
Whistling their whims on a low fence-wire;

And not one will know of the war, not one
Will care at last when it is done.

Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree,
If mankind perished utterly;

And Spring herself when she woke at dawn
Would scarcely know that we were gone.

-Sara Teasdale

Depressing, but pretty. Sort of like rain on chilly fall days.

I suppose there are good things to be said for soft autumn rains:

Rain on the grass means no mowing the lawn today.

Rain on the leaves means no raking (hooray!).

Rain on the clothesline means a day off from laundry.

What to do with a day inside?
The kids are busying themselves with painting.

I am eyeing the cheese pumpkin.

Pumpkin whoopie pies, to be sure, but what else?
Pumpkin soup? Pumpkin muffins? Pumpkin carrot cake? I’ve not decided yet.

Later, a cup of tea and Breaking Dawn, all 754 pages of it.

Maybe I’ll watch my latest Netflix arrival, North by Northwest, while snuggled under the covers.

Sounds like a good day to me.
What do you like to do on a rainy Saturday?

P.S. I looked up There Will Come Soft Rains on Amazon, and the collection of short stories I own that includes it is available for a penny! This is seriously a great gift for middle-school aged readers, or for yourself.

The collection is called Twenty-One Great Stories (Mentor) and is so worth the cost of shipping.

The important thing
is not to stop questioning.

Curiosity has its own
reason for existing.

One cannot help but be in awe
when he contemplates the mysteries

of eternity,
of life,
of the marvelous structure of reality.

It is enough if one tries merely
to comprehend a little of this mystery
every day.

Never lose a holy curiosity.

-Albert Einstein

My bug book does not include this spider. I am guessing some form of Micrathena, as that is the only spiny spider included. (Micrathena: “little and wise”.)

These spiders are insanely hard to photograph properly. The camera wants to zoom in on those crazy threatening spikes and throws everything else out of focus. I’d been trying all summer.

The spiders themselves don’t make my job any easier, they are always very very busy spinning and fixing up their webs. They are also strangely aware of my approach and go running off when they see me coming with my infernal camera, or turn their backs on me; deterring me with the implied threat of their fierce armour.

I am fascinated by their spikes. I wonder if I were to close my hand on their abdomen, if it feels the way it looks- solid, prickly. I wonder if the spikes are strictly a visual threat, or if it hurts a bird’s throat if they were to swallow it. Like the choke on a artichoke.

Also, the stripe pattern appears to be grooved. How would this feel to the touch? Like the rings on a newly cut tree?

I have hundreds of pictures of these guys- hanging around, spinning webs, dismantling webs, wrapping up prey. I have pictures where you can see them shooting the silk from their spinners. But I couldn’t convince the dang camera to focus on their faces. It became sort of a quest. The Holy Grail of the elusive eyes.

I like to have nice shots of spiders’ eyes. I don’t know why. I like forging that connection, I guess. That’s why I continue to inflict Hang in There Thursdays on everyone.

Spiders are the good guys, and they’re not so scary. See, look into their eyes. Eyes are the window into the soul, after all. We all have souls, we are all connected, and the fate of the spider has impact on the fates of us all.

Or something like that.

Anyway, this one was a lesson in be careful what you wish for:

Yikes!

We’ll call this one our Halloween spider.
Is she creepy or what?