Monthly Archives: October 2009

Monday night 0 Other people's stuff

Oy.what a day..everythign I touched today broke, went south, cracked,

shorted, kicked the bucket, fizzled, crapped out, had the radish,

flipped freaked out, or plain just didn’t work. Not sure what was up..

but it didn’t matter if it was a meeting, a concept, a piece of

hardware, my computer, my car.. etc.. nothing seemed to work.. It got

so bad that at the end of the day (5:45) I skipped a meeting and went

home to do Diane’s yoga class in order not to break anything else.

In

htta spirit.. I don’t dare try to put anything aroingal here tonight

for fear I’d screw it up.. Instead, I’ll give you a look at other

people’s stuff.. In this case, very special other people that I love..

meaning my son Gabe. and my baby sister Mary.. So.. first. ehre are

soem wicked cool pictures that gabe an his friend Dylan took last

Friday night.. they’re photos using multiple and time laps exposures..

with some colored LED’s that I gave them tossed in for fun..

I just think these things are brilliant  and creative … and so is Gabe !

And..

so is my baby sister Mary.. she sent me the following vid of her

neighborhood doign their annual Halloween Thriller thing.. Mary’s not

in there, but her business neighbor, Louis Erdrich.. who’s one of my

favorite authors is intthere dancing in a read dress with sparkly

things.. (I’ve read several of her books.. Love Medicine, The Beat

Queen, Master Butchers Singing Club, Paque of Doves, Tracks)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OzVdjc8AuTs


..

OK.. I know better than to attempt to do anythign original tonight.. so I’ll stop here while I’m ahead..

Nite to all of you. note t you, too Sam

-me

Sunday afternoon – Clean up

I finally got to sleep last night around 3:45 … I’d gotten in to bed when the fire alarm went off in the barn.. kids were playing with the smoke machine.. and playing music // ‘oy !

I managed to sleep until almost 10… which was great because that’s when folks were showing up to help clean. Diane had been up for hours and had already been to the store and the bagel shop.. At 10 like clockwork folks started wither showing up.. or wakign up to help. I think we had at least 7 folks sleeping over..

It was a bright beautiful day.. perfect for stripping off fake spider webs and other halloween decorations. We put on some good music and got to work.

Thanks so much to all of our friends who showed up to help both with setup and take down. It really felt like a communal party when friends like Victor, Patty, Ann, Keith , Avery , Joan, Jackie  and Peggy showed up to help scrub floors, tables and windows.. And Max and his friends. Gabe and his friends, and Jessie and her friends helped us replace furniture, and schlep stuff up and down from the attic. Most of the work was done by 2.. thoguh Diane’s still working on the floors.

Joan and Lackie wecven took away all the deposit bottles for the MMU bottle drive.. This is just a tiny subset of what they took.. they had a car full !

Things came back together pretty well. As always, we ended the day with a small pile of costume peices (are these yours ? )

And  left over serving untensils (yours ?)

In the end.. the only damage the house sustained wasa piece of gum… the first, I might add.. on our new stone steps.. It will come off.. But that’s not bad for 300 + people in your house…

It was a lot of work.. but I’m really glad we had the party. It’s important to us and to the community. It was great seeing all three kids friends their together.   Thanks again to everyone out there who helped make the party a sucess.. We love this community

Thanks folks.. Thanks Sam
-me

Saturday night – what a party !

ahhhhhhhhh .. just sitting down after about 5 hours of party + cleanup..   It was a really good party.

We had a ton of help setting up, so it was a pretty low stress prep.. Folks strted showing up just before 7 and

things were getting pretty quiet by midnight. I have no way of counting

how many people were here.. I used to try and list the folks.. but it’s

grown beyond that now.. and my memory isn’t as good as it once was.. I

do knwo that around 9 I walked through and counted more than 250 folks

between the ohouse and the barn. I don’t know what that means abotu the

total number of folks who came and went through the evening..   It’s cool sitting here in the quiet .. and nearly clean place after all those folks have gone..

This year was pretty calm too.. no mischief we saw, no lost and crying

kids.. no police.. all in all.. you can’t ask much more for a

gathering.

We decorated our room by putting spooky stuff in our bed (no making out here, please).. Talk about spooky.. that’s my Monday calendar from work.. I’m talking SPOOKY !

Just before the party Diane and I took a look around to make sure all the hatcheds were battoned down, etc.. the place looked good !

Max came in dressed in armor. a mustache.. and a gun shooting fake pot leaves.. he was ‘The War on Drugs’ …   Gabe came as a banana.. both cute..

Diane had a great costume.. she came as ‘John C’s other Half’.. she got a freaky bald mad science guy mask and a fake beard and put it on the back of her head.. along with a Colony style apron.. here she is wither her back to the camera .. pretty cool, huh ? I’m just dressed as ‘John C’.. a mad scientist.. like pretty much all of the last 20 something years.. sureprise surprise !

Sue and Jim came as their sun Dylan in full slacker boarder togs.. complete with drooping pants.

Paula and on were there..  Paula was the girl from a Nightmare before Xmas’.. and Ron came as… as John C.. compelte with solar power, dirty water. dirty face,  an extra fan for the inverter, a multimeter, a spark shooter and a morse code key.. And he had to dye his hair gray/ He’s so funny

Lots of folks I hadn’t seen forever.. like Sam’s friend John…

We had soem classy outfits including Classic rockers..

They call him ,,,,,, :TIM: !

Smurfs

Glowing ear plugs

sarah pailn fresh from parasailin’.. she called herself ‘caribou barbi’ !

and creepy smile guy

Seeing Jess was a wonderful surprise !

Cupcake anyone ?

They’re always after me lucky charms.. they’re tragically malicious !

I pitty the fool !

Uh…..

The singing nuns….

Lumber jacks

spooky nightmare guy..

lots of good spooky food.. but I hardly got to it..

Piles of shoes at every door…

Some folks just hanging out..

Others playing games…

Still others in the barn dancing to DJ Sumner.. he did a GREAT job.. there were over 80 folks in there while he was playing..

Here’s aaron inverting..

some hanging out by the fire..

Here’s what a quick walkabout of the party looked like at 10 PM…



And here’s a timellapse of the whole thing.. a little dark.. but cool


Halloween 09 party

john | MySpace Video

There were still just about 100 folks here at 11 PM.. but folks started leaving quickly.. by midnight we were down to about 30.. perfect ramp down.

We collected a good amount of food for food bank during the party…  

And had plenty of help for the first cleanup.. by 1:30 the place looked pretty good.. Though we need to do a bunch more cleaning.. We’re having a cleaning party from 10 till 2 tomorrow. Please come by if you’re free.

It was a great evening.. it was wonderful seeing all our friends.. especially so many of Sams friends.. I tell you … her was there with us tonight.. you could feel him there in the spirit of all of his friends..

It was just your kind of night Sam.. just your kind of night..   We love you man !
-me

Thursday night – Coccinellidae

Coccinellidae  – the Latin family name for lady bugs as in

Succurro! Ego sum constipatus per Coccinellidae

(Help ! I’m surrounded by ladybugs)

Our entire house was covered inside and out with ladbugs today.. these cute little black spotted red beetles that were such a beautiful and rare marvel of my youth were swarming so thickly around our house that you had to run out the doors to keep from getting them in your hair (if you have hair).

 We used to get fly infestations like this in the fall.. sometime a few years back, the ladybugs took over and  transformed our walls into a crawling carpet of red polka dots for a couple of days each fall. Wouldn’t you know.. it’s just in time for our Halloween party on Saturday evening..  we have literally miles of fake spiderwebs throughout the house covered with live ladybugs.. you couldn’t pay for special effects like that !

See you at the party on Saturday… (or at the setup work party tomorrow night !).
Night folks.. night Sam !
-me