Halloween Fixings and the Death of Twinkies

The only way Oliver and I could entice Henry away from the television yesterday afternoon was by appealing to his manly strength.

Only you can drive these stakes into the ground, Henry! we both said.

He obliged.

There was some good-natured banter between them that I was tempted to record as it's so rare these days. There was also the usual bickering.

I took a couple campy shots of Oliver, pretending to be dead in the graveyard. With a black and white filter, they were almost too creepy. The two of us went to Spirit, the grotesque all-things-Halloween store that pops up in our neighborhood once a year. We bought some more spider webs and walked around creeping each other out. There were horrible zombies and spiders that jumped out at you. There were nasty, nasty costumes and entirely inappropriate sexy Halloween costumes. The guy who was stocking the store was creepy, too, and I wondered whether they did background checks on the workers and then wondered why I would think that anyway unless it was true (a psychic hit?). There's so much shit in a Halloween store and so much shit makes me so weary in that bone weary way. Doom.

I sort of hate Halloween, but I cheerfully oblige my children's love of it.

So, Halloween is up chez House of Crazy. I've been for a walk already today and done a lot of housework and paperwork. An old friend sent me a grainy photo of a large group of girls -- a sorority photo -- from our days at UNC. She asked me who the girl to the right of her was, and the name came to me in one instant. I am finding this recall very weird today. Why is it that I can't remember the name of the book I'm reading but was able to look for one moment at this girl's face -- from nearly thirty years ago -- and know it? What the hell is that all about? These are the questions that creep out and try a woman's soul.

The Entrepreneur, Halloween, Christmas and The House of Crazy

If I told you the past week chez House of Crazy was crazy, it would be an understatement. Raymond Chandler and Santa Anas aside, between the Seizing Marijuana Chronicles and The Teenager and The Dyslexic Entrepreneur, I've been hard put to remain not just calm but even somewhat collected. I won't even go into The Husband. I've been wearing sunglasses all week to disguise my tears and have walked around the house whimpering when they're all at school. I've told you over and over that my Italian grandmother used to do so all day, whimper, sigh and mutter under her breath pray that I die, pray that I die. Last night I made a valiant and last ditch effort to cheer the Dyslexic Entrepreneur who had finished a horrific week of school that included about 5,321,789 emails back and forth to The Powers That Be at the school and the passing, Santa Ana-induced thought of homeschooling. He had just climbed into the car after baseball practice and begun another historic rant of negativity, how I suck at baseball and just about everything and how I'm just going to give it all up and be a giant loser, I'm really not supposed to be in this world, and while my eyes glazed over and my ears dripped blood, the tiny thought entered my mind, the valiant thought that I then actually voiced:

Why don't we go to Cost Plus World Market and get you some stuff for your lemonade stand?

If you're familiar with Los Angeles on Friday nights, and particularly with our local outdoor shopping mall called The Grove on Friday nights, you'd know just how outrageous this suggestion was -- how it was more the last ditch effort of a dying woman (pray that I die, pray that I die) than of a reasonable or even good enough mother. We went. We nearly killed ourselves wrestling a giant Exxon Valdeez SUV for a parking spot, and we walked the Christmas decorated clogged aisles (pray that I die, pray that I die) until The Dyslexic Entrepreneur decided that he'd use some of his earnings from last week's lemonade stand to buy a cotton candy maker for this week's stand. And given that I was dying, had contemplated buying some admittedly adorable silver-flecked Santa ornaments and wouldn't be spending the money myself, since the Dyslexic Entrepreneur has actually made about three times as much as it cost,  I said yes.

What's really cool about the cotton candy maker is that you can throw candies in the top to flavor the sugar.In fact, that photo of The Dyslexic Entrepreneur was taken at about 10:00 this morning, and his product became his breakfast. In addition, we're going to start decorating for Christmas early this year at The House of Crazy by putting silver flecks on the pumpkins and draping spider-webs over the life-sized Santa Claus that's sitting on my porch, a "gift" from my parents. The weird thing is that I'm no longer praying to die but actually getting excited.

Reader, what are you doing?

We planted a vine,

and it sprouted flowers and leaves and grew right up the walls and over the doorways and everything is going to be ok.

Perspective, Part 3,456,782

So, I don't know if any of ya'll get agita (how about that for a southern American/Italian linguistic reference?) when October passes, and your pumpkins are still sitting pristine outside your front door with a tiny perfect persimmon from a neighbor's tree perched on top, but I do. If I told you that I get slightly nervous every single time I pass into and out of my house and see those perfect pumpkins sitting there, would you think less of me? Last year, some vandals miraculously appeared at some point on Halloween and threw our pumpkins, or smashed them in the street, a terrible act for which I was secretly grateful. Seeing as how you all hold me to high moral standards juggling my not inconsiderable problems, would you chastise me for my bourgeois complaint or commiserate? I just can't throw them away. We don't have a compost bin. I will not cut them up and cook them. It's 12/12/12, and the poinsettias are plopped into the pots on either side of the door, clashing horribly with the orange pumpkins.

Reader, please tell me what to do.

And stay tuned for a January post in which I ask for suggestions for what to do with the potted poinsettias. I HATE POINSETTIAS at any other time than Christmas and even then, I'm stretching my tolerance levels to include them in my decor. Oliver insisted.

How lovely are thy branches

 Oliver was coaxed onto Henry's shoulders so that he could reach the top of the tree and place the Angel. The amount of fighting on who got to do what before that was inordinate. Good God Almighty.

 Here's the tree in all its magnificence. We're a white lights kind of family, and every year, The Husband Who Is From Switzerland remarks how ridiculously safety-conscious Americans are and how much more beautiful and superior the real candles that his family put on their tree every year were. I just say uh huh.

Here is a close-up of some of our decorations. When I was a girl, my mother began a tradition of giving me and my two sisters a special Christmas ornament each year. By the time we left home we had a box filled with ornaments for our own Christmas tree. I've continued the tradition with my own children and The Husband (who gives me one, too). It's wonderful to open up the ornaments every year and exclaim which are our favorites. This photo shows an owl  in a clear globe that I received in 1971. There's also a tiny beaded knight on a red horse that I adore from 1974, tucked back into the branches. The white Adirondack chair commemorates our beloved Wawona Hotel in Yosemite, and Sophie, Henry and Oliver each have a felt elf just as my sisters, Melissa and Jennifer, and I had so many years ago.

Sophie watched the proceedings this year rather bleary-eyed as she had quite a few seizures today. She has her own box of ornaments, and while the boys tried hard to include her as they hung her mermaids and glass globes filled with sand and shells from La Jolla, a silly lady dressed in a fur coat and French beret, a tiny glass creche inside another globe, she was content to just sit and look at the lights, even her humming silenced. When Henry objected to the number of ornaments in Sophie's box, Oliver said, Duh. She's been alive for eighteen Christmases. I couldn't help but be both grateful for those eighteen years and a tiny bit sad that her box would probably never go anywhere. Even traditions have a strange twist in these parts.

Reader, what are your tree-decorating traditions?

Weekend Wrap-up

Lacrosse season started, and Henry began practice. That's him in the middle.

Sophalofa sophed around in her room, listening to music

I used one of my favorite old cookbooks

and made Chicken with Dumplings

Oliver and I had a genius idea and executed it:

We bought exceptionally beautiful nautical-themed ornaments from my favorite west side store, DH Rhein, and hung them on silvery branches inside a beautiful ceramic vase made by my best friend, Moye.

The ornaments are so gorgeous, but our execution less so. It's always difficult to transfer brilliance from the mind to reality.

Here's Day One of over all Christmas decorating chez us.

And here's our tree, bought by The Husband, Henry and Oliver, dragged in with much squabbling and competition which I ignored because a very wise person recently told me that it's natural for grown men and their boys to compete with one another constantly. O.K.

(Jesus Christ! is what I thought to myself as I bit my knuckles in another room.)

Stay tuned for more execution, hopefully perfect, more squabbling and peace on earth, goodwill amongst men.

Special Needs Home Improvement

This is one panel of Sophie's closet. For some reason, she likes to stand in front of it, gaze at it and then tip toward it and hit her forehead. Over and over again. Sometimes she knocks it in, and it comes off the runner, and we hear a godawful bang. Those of you who have older children with seizures know what the sound of a bang does to your body and psyche. Those of you who have PTSD from fighting in wars or spending a lot of time in NICUs or PICUs do, too.

Anyhoo.

A really wonderful man named Elvis and another really wonderful man named Nelson took those doors down.

They cut and sanded and worked for nearly two days to create two sliding doors. I bought some fabric online, and Elvis and Nelson bought some mattress pads and attached them to the doors. Then they basically upholstered the doors and put them on new and sturdier runners. This is what it looks like now:

Sophie stood in front of the doors and gazed at them, silently. Then she tipped over and bopped her head on them. I can't tell you what peace of mind this is going to bring us -- and it took over ten years!