Red Nose

Minimalist Halloween

Last night, over half-priced burgers and full-priced beers, Joe said, "I guess we're not getting a pumpkin this year, are we?" And my Emergency Must Rescue Holiday hormones kicked in and I said, "Maybe we could get one on the way home! I could carve it tonight! Maybe I could pick one up tomorrow, or see about ..."

Joe intervened, just in the nick of time.

"Or we could not do anything."

And I realized I didn't really care all that much about carving up a pumpkin for the little kids in cute costumes who stop by early and the big thugs in black hoodies who stop by later. We have the candy; we have a big bowl to put it in. Minimalism, kids, minimalism.

We were actually good about Halloween decor when SonnyeBoy was small. When he was in his Punisher Is God stage I actually carved the Punisher skull into a pumpkin and did a damn good job of it. I know this because one poor tyke in some fanciful getup said, "That pumpkin is scary!"

Joe and I have put a lot of effort into costumery over the years. In college I went to a Halloween party where we were all supposed to come as concepts. One friend came as The God of A Thousand Eyes; the hostess was a calorie. I was taking a stage makeup course (such are the graduation requirements for drama majors), so I created a very lifelike, oozing, bloody gash down one side of my face. My concept? The Tragic Flaw, of course.

One year we went to a party as The Hunchback of Notre Dame and Esmerelda; the short order cook at Tastee Diner recognized us right away. It was, of course, about two o'clock in the morning, so he'd probably already served several French hunchbacks and their erstwhile girlfriends by then. Another year Joe went as The Wolfman -- I glued theatrical hair all over his face and he put on Spock ears to seal the deal.

SonnyeBoy had some great costumes over the years too. He was a Ghostbuster one year, complete with backpack. Another year he was Groucho Marx (that one was my favorite, naturally). He was The Crow for a couple of years -- I got to do the makeup for that one, too. Thank goodness for clown white and black eyebrow pencil!

Now that we're old and cranky, though, we seem to have lost some of our Joie de Halloween. That's okay; I'll still put on my feathered Mardi Gras mask to dispense the Kit-Kats and Reese's cups.

I'm keeping the Snickers for myself.

Year Five: It's A Go

I seriously considering skipping NaNoWriMo this year. Whenever I thought about it, or read another email from the NaNoWriters Yahoo! group, or looked at the dust-covered binder containing the still-unfinished neverending sequel, I filled up with a lot of eehh.

So I figured that I might as well skip it this year.

But in the last week I got excited again. A little idea popped into my head for a very thoughtful, sort of dark and brooding story -- one that might even be considered (dare I say it?) Litahrahry Fiction. The idea simmered a little bit and I mentioned it to Joe.

He said, "Can you say 'catharsis'?"

All of a sudden the idea, which had been this bitter little ball, exploded into a big old slapstick comedy. Much more like it! Of course, I still don't know how it's all going to play out, because that, my friends, is how I roll. However, I do know that wheelchair races and high-stakes Bingo will be featured.

Now I'm looking forward to the madness. I went to two kickoff parties this weekend, one for Maryland and one for DC, and gabbed with friendly folks from previous years and folks who are just now dipping a toe into the tub. I talked about my idea and got even more jazzed up.

So what the heck. I will attend write-ins. I will unearth my spreadsheet. I may even blog it.

But most of all, for the fifth year in a row, I will write.

Theyr'e Hear'ts In The Right Place...

...even if the apostrophe isn't. And I ain't sayin' a word about that "R."

Liquid Love List

Hello, Friday! It's a monsoon outside, but I am home. We really need this rain, but it does make for a white-knuckle flight from office to home. At any rate, even though there are copious amounts of liquid falling from the sky, it's still time for the Love List.

I love:

• Being home and warm and snug and dry.
• Macaroni and cheese - homemade, out of a box, from the cafeteria; I don't care. I love it.
• Taking a little taste of some of Joe's more interesting cigars.
• Ice cold Coca-Cola.
• Hockey night in Washington!
• Joe B and Locker.
• Hot chocolate with whipped cream.
• Coffee with whipped cream.
• Oh heck, whipped cream.
• Going to sleep without the blanket, but waking up with the blanket. Thanks Joe!
• Mojitos that do not taste like Scope.
• Tres Leches cake.
• My coworkers. The guy in the cube across from me and I have been having a friendly discussion all week long about the chances of the Redskins beating the Patriots on Sunday. He's funny, but for some reason he believes that my team has no chance! O ye of little faith! There is always a chance, at least until kickoff.
• The absolute silence of Red Rock Canyon. It makes you want to hold your breath.
• The sound of the crickets and birds just before dawn.
• Listening to traffic splashing through wet streets when I am not in it or on them.

I think I'll go put on my jammies and settle in for the evening. I don't have the ingredients for a mojito, but I know have some Swiss Miss around here someplace!

Got My Funk Back

Today, in spite of the gloom and the rain, was a much better day, annoyance wise.

First, thanks to you perceptive commenters, I got the very good news that I have a week of daylight savings left before the darkness closes in. Okay!

I slept all night, I think. I had some vivid, weird dreams, but they weren't bad. I gotta say, it's been so long since I've slept all night that I still can't quite believe it.

I also managed to beat Word into submission by unchecking the "Automatically Update" box in the style dialog. It's still sasses back occasionally, brat that it is. I actually managed to finish the draft, too.

Then! SonnyeBoy called me -- from Binghampton New York! He's at a conference for accident reconstruction specialists, because he is one. He was also selected to attend special training to become a driving instructor to teach police officers how to drive cop-style. I really want him to teach me how to do that controlled skid into a perfect parallel parking space. Oh hell yes.

When I got home, after an hour and 15-minute commute largely caused by stupid-juice ingesting drivers ogling a police car with flashing lights, I sat down to read a bit. But I unconsciously turned the lower switch on our temperamental lamp instead of the upper switch, so no light was forthcoming. I gave up.  About an hour later, after dinner, I was paying bills and Joe was relaxing in his chair next to the lamp. And just like that, the light came on. Joe didn't touch it; I didn't touch it. It just lit up, silently and brightly, as if it had simply decided that it was time for a little illumination. Either that, or Joe is the Lamp Whisperer. Magic!

During Ugly Betty (a sweet, sweet episode), one of my favorite commericals came on, and it made me smile and get my funk back.

Ten Things That Annoyed Me Today

The days are noticeably shorter lately, and will get even shorter still this weekend with the return of standard time. This decrease in daylight corresponds directly to an increase in my being annoyed. Let's take today, for example.

• It's raining, which means every driver in the greater metropolitan area drank a great big glass of stupid juice for breakfast, turning my commute into a two-hour jaunt through the fifth circle of Hell.
• My windshield wipers don't wipe, they smear.
• I neglected to eyeball the toilet seat in the women's restroom, with predictable dampening.
• Microshaft Word insists on continuously numbering the numbered lists in the user guide I'm writing, despite the fact that the style specifies that each list should start at 1. Every time I fix it, and save after every fix, and save and save and save, it still reverts to continuous numbering. I believe that this is because Word, like Skynet, has become self-aware and is evil.
• There are no more pink Starburst in the group candy jar.
• Neither are there Hershey bars in the candy machine.
• While I am enamored of the Asian salad that's available at My New Starbucks, the adorable black and white sesame seeds with which it is generously sprinkled tend to leap out of the container and scatter themselves recklessly over my shirt and lap.
• My bangs are still too goddamn long, even though I told my new stylist to cut them above my eyebrows. (I seem to be the Typhoid Mary of this salon -- every stylist I've had there has either changed careers or locations.)
• My socks were just a tiny bit too thick for my shoes.
• The Caps cannot seem to score on the power play. C'mon, boys, c'mon!

Grumble, grumble.

But I don't have horrendous fires licking at my heels, and Joe came downstairs shirtless to meet me this evening, and we had clam chowder for dinner, and David Steckel just scored his first professional goal.

Maybe I'm not quite as annoyed as I thought I was.

Fight For Old DC!

Here we are at Fedex field, home of the Washington Redskins!

My sister invited us to join them for the game today, and of course we eagerly accepted. We left early, so as to score a good tailgating spot.

And score we did, a prime spot in the Itchy lot, where we circled the wagons and set up for the party.

Shannon grilled the steaks.

The rest of us consumed mass quantities of shrimp, cocktail frankfurters, chips and queso, and various forms of adult beverages. I discovered that the cocktail franks fit perfectly in the Frito scoopable chip. Add a quick dip of queso and you have a true gourmet treat right there.

Oh, and there was also a football game.

What a game it was! In true 'Skins fashion, they scored early and often, and went into halftime with a 21-6 lead. But the Cardinals didn't give up easily, and they came right back in the second half. The 'Skins dodged a bullet at the very end of the game, managing to deny the Cardinals a two-point conversion, then losing the onside kick, and holding the Cards far enough away from the goal line that the 55-yard (thanks, Diane!) field goal attempt failed.

Final score? Redskins 21, Cardinals 19.

Hail to the Redskins!

A Love List of Love Songs

I've been thinking about putting together a playlist of my favorite love songs. Not just any love songs, but love songs that are a little sexy, a little funky, a little romantic; joyful songs that, oh, I don't know, make you want to grab your sweety and smooch 'em up, fall back on the bed, and commence doing the dance of love with a big old grin on your face.

Here we go, in no particular order:

• Let's Stay Together, by Al Green
• Let's Get It On, by Marvelous Marvin Gaye
• Cease and Desist, by Delbert McClinton
• Sacred Love, by Sting
• I Never Met A Woman, by Los Lonely Boys
• Are You Ready for the Thing Called Love?, by John Hiatt (or Bonnie Raitt, but I like John Hiatt's better)
• Something to Talk About, by Bonnie Raitt
• A Long Walk, by Jill Scott
• Cheek to Cheek, by Fred Astaire
• Eye Candy, by Chuck Brown
• Your Body Is A Wonderland, by John Mayer (Oh, shut up! I like it!)
• Have You Seen the Stars Tonight?, by The Jefferson Airplane
• I've Got A Crush On You, arranged by Charlie Watts
• My Guy, by Mary Wells
• You Are the Sunshine of My Life, by Stevie Wonder
• Baby I Love You, by B.B. King and Bonnie Raitt
• If You Love Me, by B.B. King and Van Morrison

That's just scratching the surface, but my brain is blank. Any suggestions? Let me know what you'd add to the list.

The Fullness of Time

You know, I'm sure Rick DiPietro is a nice guy. I'm sure he's good to his mother and kind to animals. He probably picks up after himself and dandles little babies on his knee. I'll bet he even cooks and puts the seat down after he's done.

I don't care. I still don't like him, or anyone else who plays for the Islanders, goddammit.

On the other hand, Alex Ovechkin could probably run over squirrels and trip little old ladies, and I would still love him.

The refi continues to continue -- I got hold of the insurance company and easily completed the change to the hazard policy, but the flood insurance is another matter altogether. First, the agent had to ensure that Ocean City, Maryland -- a barrier island plopped between a bay and the Atlantic Ocean -- is in a flood hazard area.

And guess what! It is!!

But before she can tell me that a policy is going to cost us more than we could ever hope to make in all of our lifetimes combined, we have to get a flood elevation certificate.   

So I faxed off all the stuff the bank wanted us to sign, along with a lovely memo explaining that the credit card in question probably belongs to my nephew who is currently vacationing on a goddamn private island (and I am SO NOT KIDDING about that) and we'll verify it next week, when we'll also get the insurance squared away.

I suppose I could let all this nonsense (and other nonsense as well) bend me out of shape and tap dance on my nerves... but it's too much work.

The sky is beautiful this time of year, and the light is golden.

Everything will work out in the fullness of time.

I'd Prefer Having A Big Wad Of Money Fall From The Sky

My sister, brother, and I are refinancing our beach house so that we can pay Mom off in one lump sum, thus providing her with the funds she needs to stay in prison her ritzy assisted living apartment. See, Mom holds the mortgage, so we make the payment to her rather than to a mortgage company or bank. We decided to ask only for an amount equal to the balance remaining on the loan, which is pretty small compared to the increased value of the house. In fact, the LTV (loan-to-value ratio for you non-housing finance types) is only 14%!

So we applied online, and the loan officer phoned each of us up with all of the embarrassing questions that loan officers always ask, and that was that.

Monday's mail brought to me a whole slew of paperwork to take of, including a conditional loan approval. There are disclosures to sign, and good faith estimates to mull over, and a fair amount of fiery hoops conditions that we have to jump through satisfy before we can call the loan approved and close the sucker.

And it's all due by October 21. That would be Sunday. This Sunday.

I stopped at Mom's old house yesterday evening to pick up her mail and leave my brother a note about the documents. Just as I was writing the note, he walked in the door. I said hello, and after he climbed back into his skin, we talked about the stuff we needed to do. Turns out he was leaving for Puerto Rico this morning, so I ran out to the car and got the paperwork for him to sign right then and there.

Naturally I forgot to get the name of the homeowner's insurance agent from him, which I need because we have to provide a copy of the hazard insurance policy and it looks like we have to get a flood insurance policy.

Damn.

Luckily his cell works in Puerto Rico (my heart's devotion! let it sink down in the ocean!), so I called and got the agent's name. Tomorrow I'll get the agent to fax me a copy of the hazard policy and sell me a horrendously expensive flood policy. Beach property and all that, you know.

The more immediate problem is that we have to "provide documentation to evidence the following obligation is not the responsibility of the applicant: AMEX account number:  blahbidiblahblahblah."

None of us has an AMEX card with that number - we think it might be my brother's oldest son, who shares his first name. Okay, no worries. I'll just call him up and ask if it's his, and then ask him to email me and say that it's his and not his dad's and voila! Loan approved!

Except his voicemail tells me he's on vacation with no cell or email access until October 22.

Oh goody.

I finally got through to a loan officer (not the loan officer, but a loan officer) and explained the sitch, and she gave us an extension.

Oy. Maybe it's just me; maybe it's Mercury in retrograde, but it just seems like everything is so hard lately. I mean, couldn't the bank have seen our online application and just personally delivered the cash to our door?

Oh right - the bubble burst.