Happy Halloween

The Bride of Frankenstorm

To celebrate Brian's birthday, we had dinner with Nichole and Emily at Tucanos Brazilian Grill.  It was a nice night out.  The food was of course delicious and left me feeling so stuffed that I swore never to eat again.  That's pretty typical of the place.  I eat so much meat that I start to consider vegetarianism... and if you know me, you know that ain't ever gonna happen.  But still the thought creeps in there and just settles unpleasantly on my stomach until all the buttons on my shirt pop off.

Anyway, feeling like a Brazilian heifer we said goodbye to the ladies and met up with Michelle and Wes at the movie theater for a special screening of Halloween (1978).  Although I've seen the movie multiple times (and somewhat recently), it was the first time seeing it on the big screen.  Pretty fun.  The day before a bunch of us went to see Frankenstein (1931) and The Bride of Frankenstein (1935) which were being presented as a double-feature in theaters for one night only.  I had never seen either movie before and I really enjoyed them.  Boris Karloff is legendary for his portrayal of Frankenstein's monster and I was pretty impressed with the special effects of the 30s.  They weren't really that scary to me, as a modern viewer, but they were sure entertaining.  And although sequels usually suck, I'd have to say the second one was my favorite... even if the "Bride" only shows up at the end!

But do you want to know something that really does scare me?  More than monster movies or overeating?  The thought that I might not make it to New York City to get married!  Right now a terrible storm is brewing on the east coast and it's supposed to strike New York City before Halloween.  It's a combination of Hurricane Sandy which is heading north from Haiti and Cuba and some smaller winter storms coming from the west and down south from Canada.  Weather forecasters are calling this combination "Frankenstorm" and it's supposed to bring high winds, heavy rain and extreme tides.  As of right now, JetBlue is cancelling flights for Monday the 29th and Tuesday the 30th.  We're supposed to fly out on Halloween, late at night, and we just hope to God that weather permits!  Because if we can't make it out to New York City to get hitched, I'm going to turn into something far scarier than the Bride of Frankenstein!

Halloween Treats!

Halloween was lots of fun yesterday.  Brian and I spent the day making sweet treats and then gorged ourselves on them all through the night!  Our delicacies were very simple and definitely delicious.

Homemade Orange Marshmallows

For this treat, bloom gelatin in cold water for ten minutes.  Meanwhile, make a syrup with sugar and evaporated milk.  Once the syrup registers 240 degrees (you'll need a candy thermometer for this) add it to the gelatin and beat it for ten minutes with a hand mixer until it is very thick and fluffy.  At this point we added vanilla and orange zest to give our marshmallows a fun flavor!  In a square or rectangular baking dish (buttered and dusted with powdered sugar) pour the marshmallow mixture and let it rest for two hours or so.  We covered ours in orange sugar to give it a more fitting Halloween appearance, cut it into squares, and stuck them with lollipop sticks!

Caramel Apples

A quintessential autumn favorite!  First make some caramel by cooking sugar with a little bit of water until dark brown.  Off the heat, add some heavy cream and butter.  Once the butter has melted, dip your washed apples into your homemade caramel sauce.  We died our caramel red (although the photo makes it seem brown) and covered them with some Halloween sprinkles.  The caramel apple sticks and the lollipop sticks from the previous recipe were hard to find, but we eventually located them at a kitchen supply store called Bosch.

Chocolate Truffles

You can't have a celebration without chocolate!  Brian and I made these truffles by first making a ganache, which is just chocolate that's been emulsified with heavy cream.  We used white chocolate and died it orange for Halloween.  You then put the ganache into the fridge to firm up, and in the mean time you make tempered chocolate by melting half a bar of dark chocolate and then stirring in the rest of the bar and letting it melt from the residual heat.  This will cool down the temperature of the chocolate and allow it to harden once again.  With a melon baller, scoop out small portions of the ganache and roll into balls.  Using a skewer, dip the balls into the melted chocolate and roll into any toppings such as hazelnuts or coconut.  We placed ours into white paper cups and let them sit at room temperature until the chocolate coating hardened (if the chocolate wasn't properly tempered you might have to put them into the fridge to harden).  It's a happy little surprise to bite into the truffle and discover the fun orange color inside!

Chocolate-Dipped Bacon

If you are unfamiliar with the amazing sweet-and-salty combination of bacon and chocolate then you are severely missing out on one of life's greatest joys!  Simply cook up some bacon as you would normally, then follow the directions above for making tempered dark chocolate.  Dip one end of the bacon strip into the chocolate, throw on some Halloween sprinkles, and allow the chocolate to harden.  I probably ate about six of these last night!

October in a Pumpkin Shell

Usually the phrase goes "in a nutshell", but seeing as it's Halloween I thought "pumpkin shell" was more fitting!  October was another good month to us... as you will see.

• Brian celebrated his 24th birthday this month!  He and I had lunch up at Thanksgiving Point where we also tried to do a corn maze only to find out that it didn't open to the public until later that evening.  So no corn maze.  We did do some new clothes shopping and invited some of his friends and family to a birthday dinner at Red Lobster.  Part of Brian's birthday present was a new Wii Console that I allowed him to purchase in September, but I also got him a ten-month subscription to Food Network Magazine.
• Michelle, Brian and I went to a production of Shakespeare's Macbeth, performed by The Grassroots Shakespeare Company.  It was held at the Castle Amphitheater in Provo, UT and it was fantastic... even if it was a bit chilly outside!  The cast managed to create a very low-key but effective atmosphere for this sometimes funny, sometimes terrifying play.
• My 20-year-old brother Daniel bought an engagement ring and proposed to his girlfriend of two years, Sofia.  A wedding date has not yet been chosen, but we are all happy for the young lovebirds.
• I got a 15 cent raise at work... which isn't a whole lot to shout about but I guess it's better than nothing!
• Brian's sister Amy returned from Florida this month (where she was doing an internship at Disney World) and we are very happy to have her back.  It just wasn't the same without her.
• My block class Professional Considerations for the English Major started this month, which means I am now taking three classes.  I only take it on Mondays and I just have three writing assignments total, so it shouldn't be too hard.  In my Ethics and Values class I had to give a 30-minute presentation on the issue of pornography, which seemed to go really well.  I currently have a high B in the class and hope to bring it up by the end of the semester.  I'm doing the best in British Literature where I have an A (I've scored a perfect 100% on both a test and a paper, which I am very proud of).  I just finished reading Othello for the first time and it was very good!
• Michelle, Brian and I have been on a Stephen Sondheim kick and have watched recorded productions of Sweeney Todd, Into the Woods, Passion and Company (with more shows coming through Netflix).  Michelle even got Brian a book about Sondheim for his birthday!
• My friend Dyann invited Brian and I to a Halloween party and it was a lot of fun.  We arrived dressed as cowboys which made everybody think instantly of the movie Brokeback Mountain!  The party proved to be a lot of fun and we watched Coraline and played the game Curses... which Brian won.  Oh, and we also managed to spill red cream soda on her beige carpet.  Oops.
• I was able to have lunch with my friend Ryan from Salt Lake City who I don't get to see often, and Brian's cousin Patrick also stopped by for a quick visit after doing the Halloween Marathon down here.  It's always nice to see those you love, which really makes me want to visit my family!

Jack of the Month: Jack of the Lantern

Once upon a time in Ireland, there lived a man named Jack—because he’s always named Jack now isn’t he?  And this Jack was known as “Stingy Jack” or “Drunk Jack” or any other lowly and degrading nickname because he was a very bad guy!  He was deceitful, malicious, conniving and always left the toilet seat up.  He was flat-out evil!

So evil, in fact, that the Devil was jealous.  How could a human be so silver-tongued and despicable?  The Devil set out one night to discover if Jack was really as bad as his reputation, and before too long Jack came stumbling drunkenly into the Devil’s path.  Jack thought for sure the Devil had come to collect his soul and he had just one request before being dragged to the fiery pits of Hell:  a last drink of ale (as if he really needed another one).

The Devil thought this seemed perfectly reasonable, so the two went down to a local pub and boozed the night away, playing drinking games and taking jello shots off of saucy Irish wenches.  When their night of debauchery was done, Jack asked the Devil to kindly pay his tab.  That also seemed perfectly reasonable to the Devil, so he said, “Why the heck not?”  Jack made a suggestion though:  “Why don’t you just turn yourself into a coin.  You can do that can’t you?”

Well, everyone knows the Devil can metamorphose into a coin.  Common knowledge.  And for matters of devilish pride, the Devil proved his powers and transformed into a coin.  Jack then snatched up the Devil—in coin form—and stuffed him into his pocket.  His pocket also happened to house a small crucifix, and when the Devil came into contact with it he lost all ability to transform back!

Holding the Devil hostage in his pocket, Jack negotiated his own terms for his inevitable damnation, giving himself ten more years on earth.  I would have asked for more than a decade, but that’s just me.  The Devil agreed so Jack let him go.

Ten years later, the Devil came to collect Jack’s soul.  Jack was all packed up and ready to go to Hell, but he just wanted a quick snack on their way to the airport.  The Devil—nicer than you might think—agreed to climb up a tree to get Jack an apple.  While the Devil was apple-picking in the high branches, Jack surrounded the base of the tree with many crucifixes.  They must have been in his suitcase or something…

The Devil was once again trapped by the ingenious Jack, and this time Jack made him agree to never take his soul to Hell.  The Devil agreed.

Pretty cool huh?  The only problem is that Jack’s way of life didn’t merit him an eternity in Heaven.  So when he died many years later of alcoholism, God wouldn’t let him in through the Pearly Gates.  And since the Devil had promised not to drag him to Hell, Jack couldn’t go there either!  So where does a soul go when it’s not allowed in Heaven or Hell?

It wanders.  As a way of warning others not to follow in his doomed footsteps, Jack roams the world with a small burning ember inside a turnip, forever trapped between good and evil.  For years the Irish have told Jack of the Lantern’s story and carved turnips or potatoes to ward away the evil spirits.  Today we carve them out of pumpkins and call them Jack-o-lanterns.

Moral of the story?  Don’t make deals with the Devil, unless you really really love pumpkins.

2008: Grimm Rapper

I'm 22, in college, and feeling pretty witty.  The only drawback was people actually expecting me to have some sort of Halloween rap prepared.

2003: Unmotivated

It was my senior year of high school, give me a break.  I was a lazy 17-year-old.

"The Halloween Tree" Chapter 19

I can't believe the book is over, the story finished, and my relationship with these characters forever put to rest.  It's always such a shame when a book ends.  Sigh.

First thing when I woke up, I pulled my copy of The Halloween Tree toward me, and began to read the final chapter.  It took a lot of self-restraint not to read it yesterday when I read Chapter 18.  I was so close to the end and I just wanted to keep going... but I felt it would be cheating somehow.  I did promise a chapter a day, and I'm proud to say that I stuck by that promise.

For those of you who've been reading these posts, and essentially following the story with me, I thank you.  And I hope it's been fun.

So Chapter 19 of Ray Bradbury's story brings us the final conclusion of the boys' Halloween adventures.  A woman passes them in the street, carrying mounds of burning charcoal over her shoulder, followed by a man with a small coffin resting on his head.  It seems to be a funeral procession, and Tom can't help wondering if Pipkin is inside the box.

"What do you think, lad?" asked Moundshroud.
"I don't know," cried Tom.  "I only know I had enough.  The night's been too long.  I seen too much.  I know everything, gosh, everything!"

But as overwhelmed as the boys feel, they know that they can't quit and go home.  They need to do something for Pipkin.  Anything.  So Moundshroud points out a tree similar to the Halloween Tree at his house, but instead of being adorned with jack-o-lanterns, it's covered in piñatas.  Each boy has a special piñata just for him, and he must break it.

And from the Skeleton piñata a thousand small skeleton leaves fell in a shower.  They swarmed on Tom.  The wind blew skeletons, leaves, and Tom away.
And from the Mummy piñata fell hundreds of frail Egyptian mummies which rushed away into the sky, Ralph with them.

So all the boys, followed by Moundshroud, go whizzing through the sky through town alleys until they finally end up on another hill, in another graveyard.  But this one is empty.  Moundshroud finds a handle in the earth, and pulls open a door to the catacombs below.

The boys swallowed hard.
"Is Pip down there?"
"Go bring him up, boys."
"Is he alone down there?"
"No.  Things are with him.  Things."
"Who goes first?"
"Not me!"
Silence.
"Me," said Tom, at last.

So Tom goes first, and empowered by his bravery the other boys follow closely behind.

For each step down was a billion miles lost from life and warm beds and good candlelight and mothers' voices and fathers' pipe-smoke and  clearing his voice in the night which made you feel good knowing he was there somewhere in the dark, alive and turning in his sleep and able to hit anything with his fists if it had to be hit.

And that's when they reach the bottom, and ahead of them they see a room full of dead bodies.  These are the people who's families were too poor to pay for their graves, who've been dug up and thrown down here unceremoniously.  The dry earth mummifies them.

But then they hear sobbing.  And way up ahead, past this room of mummified remains, they see a small figure weeping...

"Pipkin--?"
The crying stopped.
"Is that you? whispered Tom.
A long pause, a trembled insuck of breath and then:
"...yes."
"Pip, for cri-yi, what you doing there?"
"I don't know!"
"Come out?"
"I--I can't. I'm afraid!"
"But, Pip, if you stay there--"
Tom paused.
Pip, he thought, if you stay, you stay forever.  You stay with all the silence and the lonely ones.  You stand in the long line and tourists come and look at you and buy tickets to look at you some more.  You--
"Pip!" said Ralph behind his mask.  "You got to come out."
"I can't." Pip sobbed.  "They won't let me."
"They?"

And he's referring to those mummies.  To get out, he would have to run past them all.  They would stop him.  So Pipkin is afraid to leave, and with this news, the boys are afraid to enter.  What do they do?  And that's when Moundshroud speaks up.  They'd almost forgotten he was even there.

"Here, boys.  Save him with this."
Moundshroud reached into his dark cloak and brought forth a familiar white-sugar-candy skull across the brow of which was written:  PIPKIN!
"Save Pipkin, lads.  Strike a bargain."

And he breaks the candy into eight pieces and hands each of them a part of the skull.  He asks them if they truly want Pipkin to live, and they insist that they do.

"There, there, I see you mean it.  Well then, will you each give one year from the end of your life, boys?"
"What?" said Tom.
"I mean it, boys, one year, one precious year from the far-burned candle-end of your life.  With one year apiece you can ransom dead Pipkin."

The boys agree.  Every last one of them.  Even when Moundshroud explains how very serious the deal is and asks them to take a moment to think it through, they still say yes.

"Do you know what you pledge, boys?  You do love Pipkin, then?"
"Yes, yes!"
"So be it, boys.  Chew and eat, lads, eat and chew."
They popped the sweet bits of candy skull in their mouths.
They chewed.  They ate.
"Swallow darkness, boys, give up your year."
They swallowed hard, so hard that their eyes shone bright and their ears banged and their hearts beat.

And as soon as they've eaten the candy, Pipkin regains his strength and conviction.  He runs through the mummy-filled room at full speed and even passes his friends.  He just keeps on running...

Moundshroud begins to spin, and creating a cyclone he whirls all the boys up with him and they soar into the air for the very last time.  They soar over Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Iowa and finally arrive back home in Illinois.  They land on the roof of Moundshroud's house, and notice the skylight window where they can see down through every floor of his house.

The boys jump through the window and slide down the banister of the old house, each getting off on their own floor.  The Apeman is in the basement with the cavemen, Ralph is on the first floor with the other mummies, and Tom is clear up on on the top floor surround by candy skulls.

"Well, boys, do you see?  It's all one, yes? ... Night and day.  Summer and winter, boys.  Seedtime and harvest.  Life and death.  That's what Halloween is, all rolled up in one."

The boys have learned so much, but there is still one more thing to be known.  Did Pipkin live?  So they leave Moundshroud, head across the ravine, and back into their familiar neighborhood.  They head to Pipkin's house, and Tom goes in while the others wait.  After a while, he comes out.  With good news.

Pipkin is at the hospital, but he's doing fine.  He had to have his appendix removed.  With sighs of relief, the boys celebrate by jumping into the air and letting out a few happy tears.  They then decide to decorate Pipkin's front porch with jack-o-lanterns, simply not wanting to leave.  But eventually the time comes that they must all go home.  It is midnight, after all.

So each boy returns to his home, and as each door shuts, a candle on the Halloween Tree goes out.  Tom is the last one to go inside his house.  He stands on the porch for a while, thinking.

Mr. Moundshroud, who are you?
And Mr. Moundshroud, way up there on the roof, sent his thoughts back:
I think you know, boy, I think you know.
Will we meet again, Mr. Moundshroud?
Many years from now, yes, I'll come for you.
And a last thought from Tom:
O Mr. Moundshroud, will we ever stop being afraid of nights and death?
And the thought returned:
When you reach the stars, boy, yes, and live there forever, all the fears will go, and Death himself will die.

And Tom went inside, and his pumpkin went out.  Only one remained lit on the Halloween Tree and it belonged to Mr. Moundshroud.  And with a small breath, he extinguished the candle, and disappeared himself like smoke.

Chihuahua Comics: Politicians Are Scary...

2001: Convict

I'm 15 years old and already behind bars.

1997: Wizard, Lumberjack, and 50's Girl

We didn't feel the need to coordinate this year.  I'm 11, Daniel's 6, and Renee's 4

"The Halloween Tree" Chapter 18

We are so close to the end, I can almost taste it!

And in this chapter we get a little taste (am I good or am I good?) of what Halloween is like in Mexico.  As the boys begin to descend and draw nearer to their landing, they can see that all the graveyards are full of candlelight.

"Is that the way they celebrate--"
"El Dia de los Muertos.  How's your grade school Spanish, Tom?"
"The Day of the Dead Ones?"
"Caramba, si!"

The kite disassembles once more and the boys land on a shore of a lake.  In the distance, through the mists, they can see a tall hooded figure standing on a small boat, slowly moving toward them.

They realize that Moundshroud is no longer by their side, and that the hooded figure must be him.  But he doesn't say anything.  He only gestures them inside the boat, and they float quietly along towards an island in the middle of the lake.

Far off on that dark island, there was a prickle of guitar sound.
A single candle was lit in the graveyard.
Somewhere someone blew a musical sound on a flute.
Another candle was lit among the tombstones.
Someone sang a single word of a song.
A third candle was touched to life by a flaming match.
And the faster the boat moved, the more guitar notes sounded and the more candles were lit high among the mounds on the stony hills.  A dozen, a hundred, a thousand candles flared until it looked as if the great Andromeda star cluster had fallen out of the sky and tilted itself to rest here in the middle of almost-midnight Mexico.

They get to shore and Moundshroud disappears again.  They follow the sounds of singing and guitars, until they are led right to a graveyard, bursting with life!

By every grave was a woman kneeling to place gardenias or azaleas or marigolds in a frame upon the stone.
By every grave knelt a daughter who was lighting a new candle or lighting a candle that had just blown out.
By every grave was a quiet boy with bright brown eyes, and in one hand a small papier-mache funeral parade glued to a shingle, and in the other hand a papier-mache skeleton head which rattled with rice or nuts inside.

Plates of cookies were placed on the gravesides, and the boys all decided that Mexican Halloween was better than the one they knew.  Tom thought it was interesting that he hardly ever visited the graveyards, and especially not at night... yet here, it was a party.

They hear someone singing "Cuevos de los Muertos" which Tom translates as "the skulls of the dead."  They see that the voice singing is the voice of a vendor selling candy skulls.  Even under the sombrero, the boys can tell that this vendor is really Moundshroud.

"Names! Names!" sang the old Vendor.  "Tell me your name, I give you your skull!"
"Tom," said Tom.
The old man plucked forth a skull.  On it, in huge letters was written:
TOM.
Tom took and held his own name, his own sweet edible skull, in his fingers.

Every boy has a candy skull all his own.  Ralph, Henry-Hank, Fred, George, Hackles, J.J., and Wally all catch their skulls as Moundshroud tosses them out.  But before they can take a bite, a group of Mexican boys run up and take the skulls from them.  The boy who takes Tom's skull candy is named Tomas.

"Hey," said Tom.  "He sorta looked like--me!"
"Did he?" said the Vendor of the Skulls.

Enrique takes Henry-Hank's.  Jose Juan takes J.J.'s.  Moundshroud tells them to chase after their Mexican clones to see what they are up to.  So they run out of the graveyard and into the plaza.  Suddenly all the lights of the stores turn on and firecrackers are being thrown in the streets.  Everywhere are pictures of people drawn to look like skeletons.  Toy skeletons are being sold in the streets.

Never before had the boys seen so many--bones!
"Bones!" laughed everyone.  "Oh, lovely bones!"

"Hold the dark holiday in your palms,
Bite it, swallow it and survive,
Come out the far black tunnel of El Dia de Muerte
And be glad, ah so glad you are...alive!
Calavera...Calavera..."

They see the Mexican boys run towards their individual families, and Tom begins to think out loud.

"Oh, strange funny strange," whispered Tom.
"What?" said Ralph at his elbow.
"Up in Illinois, we've forgotten what it's all about.  I mean the dead, up in our town, tonight, heck, they're forgotten.  Nobody remembers.  Nobody cares.  Nobody goes to sit and talk to them.  Boy, that's lonely.  That's really sad.  But here--why, shucks.  It's both happy and sad.  It's all firecrackers and skeleton toys down here in the plaza and up in that graveyard now are all the Mexican dead folks with the families visiting and flowers and candles and singing and candy... Oh, heck, Ralph."

And that's when Tom realizes that they haven't seen Pipkin at all since they've been in Mexico.  He's popped up unexpectedly everywhere else.  But not here.  At this moment, Tom realizes that he may never see Pipkin again.  He shivers...

Pumpkin Potter Pizza Party

I finally got around to carving a pumpkin, which means Halloween is officially here!  My friend Kayla come over last night for the first time in--I hate to say it-- two whole months...  Horrible, right?  I promise we're good friends, we just get busy sometimes.

So she brought over two GIANT pumpkins (mine weighed 33 pounds!) and some pizza from Papa John's.  We popped in a Harry Potter movie, ate our pizza, caught up on the twists and turns of our lives, and then let the carving commence.  I'm not the greatest at pumpkin carving, but I did my best.

Brian's so funny.  He came home from work, took one look at it and said, "It's better than the one you did last year, honey."

Um... thanks?

1995: Candy

I'm a chocolate bar, Daniel's candy corn, and Renee is an M&M.  Our ages are 9, 4, and 2.  Aren't we sweet?

1993: Toy Soldiers

Matching costumes ... well, we are a boxed set.  I'm 7, Daniel's 2.

"The Halloween Tree" Chapter 17

So the gargoyles have come, and are now set in place as adornments to the great cathedral that is Notre Dame.  The boys are pretty impressed that they were able to bring them there with only the power of their whistling.  What else can their whistling do?

"Jehosophat," said Tom Skelton, on the parapet.  "We whistled all the stone griffins and demons here.  Now Pipkin's lost again.  I was thinking, why can't we whistle him?"

When I read that, I got so excited!  They're going to call Pipkin to them!  But Moundshroud just laughs... and I got disappointed... but then he tells the boys that Pipkin is still there!

"Look and find, lads, hide and seek!"

So they run throughout the cathedral, down stairs and hallways, until they finally spot him.  He's made of stone, protruding from the side of the building amongst the other gargoyles.  The boys walk out on a dangerous ledge to get near him.  It's high drama, high over the city.

 "Pip, for cri-yi, what you doin' here? called Tom.
Pip said nothing.  His mouth was cut stone.

But Tom is sure that it is Pipkin.  He's sure that he heard his voice before...so why won't he talk now?  But then the wind blows around them and through the gargoyles and out their mouths making a sound.  The wind is the key.  Pipkin can only speak when a gust of wind flows through him.

The wind blew sadly and the voice spoke as from deep in an old well:
"Been--so many--places--in just--a few--hours."
The boys waited, grinding their teeth.
"Speak up, Pipkin!"

But then the wind dies, and he can speak no more.  But just when all seems lost, the rain starts.  It begins to pour and Pipkin is given a new voice.

And this was best of all.  For the raindrops ran cold in Pipkin's stone ears and out along his nose and fountained from his marble mouth so that he began to utter syllables in liquid tongues, with clear cold rainwater words:
"Hey--this is better!"

He goes on to marvel over the places he has been.  He's been a mummy.  He's been a dog.  He wonders where he'll be next.  But the boys have something to ask him.  Something they need to know.

"Are you dead, Pipin?"
"No, not yet," said the cold rain in his mouth.  "Part of me in a hospital a long way off home, part of me in that old Egyptian tomb.  Part of me in the grass in England.  Part of me here.  Part of me in a worse place--"
"Where?"
"I don't know, I don't, oh gosh, one minute I'm yelling laughs, the next I'm scared.  Now, just now, this very minute, I guess, I know, I'm scared.  Help me, guys.  Help, oh please!"
Rain poured out his eyes like tears.

They boys try to reach out to Pipkin.  To give him comfort, show him love, help him any way they can.  But a flash of lightning streaks the sky and shakes the cathedral.  The boys cling to something so as not to fall off, but the stone Pipkin isn't so lucky.  His head goes crashing to the ground below...

And that's when Moundshroud suddenly says, "Mexico."

"Mexico?" asked Tom.
"The last grand travel of this night," said Moundshroud, still uttering, savoring the syllables.  "Whistle, boys, scream like tigers, cry like panthers, shriek like carnivore!"
"Scream, cry, shriek?"
"Reassemble the Kite, lads, the Kite of Autumn.  Paste back the fangs and fiery eyes and bloody talons.  Yell the wind to sew it all together and ride us high and long and last.  Bray, boys, whimper, trumpet, shout!"

And when the boys hesitate, Moundshroud just pushes them off the building.  As they fall, they scream and gasp, and their cries bring the kite to them!  It catches them in their fall, and Moundshroud latches on as the tail.  Off they soar to what I'm guessing is their final destination.

Fred Fryer, dressed as a beggar, notices below the real beggars of Ireland, going from door to door asking for food.  What a sad trick-or-treat!

But they fly on, and they fly fast.  Soon they are approaching Mexico and they can hear the hammering of the coffin makers in the streets.  Our chapter ends here, leaving me thoroughly anxious for the adventures Mexico might bring.

1992: Ghosts

no money + white sheets = cheap family of ghosties

1991: Clown

Creepy Clown at age five... with my mother's red hair!

Make A Halloween Wish

The retail store I work with likes to give back to the community, and this month's project was volunteering at a Halloween party for the Utah chapter of the Make-A-Wish Foundation.  Cool huh?  So Brian and I selflessly--from the goodness of our hearts--missed watching the entire cast of The Sound of Music on Oprah today and went down to Murray to bring a ghoulish smile to those kids' faces.  That is how giving we are.  We missed Julie Andrews on Oprah.

Our store was asked to be in charge of a booth, playing a game or making a craft with the kids.  My manager just recently made tie-dye t-shirts at her daughter's sixth birthday party, and it was a huge hit.  The kids loved it, and parents even commented that it was one of the best children's birthday parties they had ever been to.  They even emailed her pictures of the kids wearing the shirts!

However, not to speak ill of the foundation or what they do, but they were a little reluctant to let us make tie-dye shirts.  First they thought it would be too messy.  We assured them it wouldn't be.  But then--and here's the kicker--they thought it would be too boring!  "Just don't be offended if not many kids come to your booth," they said.

I guess when they said that, they meant, "Don't be offended if the line to your booth wraps around the building and the 100 shirts you brought with you aren't enough so you have to send people out to buy more."  Yeah.  That's right.  To quote my boss: "We were the hit of the party!"

We did it assembly-line-style.  The kids picked their t-shirt size and someone soaked it in water, twisted it up, and rubber-banded it.  It then went to the next person who dyed the shirt in the colors that the kids got to choose.  It was then wrapped in plastic wrap, placed in a Ziploc baggie with the child's name, and instructions on what to do with it were stapled to the bag.  All they have to do is let the shirt soak in the bag over night, rinse it in cold water, and let it dry.

I was one of the ones doing the dyeing, and Brian was bagging it up before he had to leave for work.  I stayed the whole time though, and dyed t-shirts for three hours straight.  Yep.  Three hours.  Right through Oprah.  It may sound grueling, but it was a lot of fun!  The kids were all dressed in their costumes and having a great time.  Some of the kids are too sick to go trick-or-treating, and this party is really all they have to celebrate the holiday.  I'm glad I was able to play a small part in their Halloween experience...

...and I got to go into the Wish Room!! It was so magical!

"The Halloween Tree" Chapter 16

Do you remember how yesterday's chapter ended with the boys whistling for the gargoyles to come?  Well, in Chapter 16 they come.

And that's it.

The unemployed of all midnight Europe shivered in their stone sleep and came awake.
Which is to say that all the old beasts, all the old tales, all the old nightmares, all the old unused demons-put-by, and witches left in the lurch, quaked at the call, reared at the whistle, trembled at the summons, and in dustdevils of propulsion skimmed down the roads, flitted the skies, buckshot through shaken trees, forded streams, swam rivers, pierced clouds, and arrived, arrived, arrived.

Moundshroud jokes about dumping boiling hot lead down on the creatures below, and the boys remind him that Quasimodo already did that.  These boys are sure educated on their Victor Hugo novels.  They are no dummies.  In fact, Tom catches on quick to what is going on:

"Does it make sense, Tom?"
"Sure.  All the old gods, all the old dreams, all the old nightmares, all the old ideas with nothing to do, out of work, we gave them work.  We called them here!"
"And here they will remain for centuries, right?"
"Right!"

And the beasts thanked them.  A simple four-page chapter... and I'm not quite sure how this book is going to wrap up in the next three chapters.