Halloween 2023

While Sheila was getting ready to greet Trick or Treaters as a "Witch"...

...I was busy digging up scores of Coleus and other plants to bring in before the first freeze tonight.

I put most of them in my bathroom. But I also put a few in the hall and the den as house plants for the winter.

Halloween 2022

Sheila enjoys Halloween. I saw this afternoon that she had donned her witch's hat and gathered assorted props for her to use as she distributed Halloween treats. Also we were hoping to FaceTime with Clem, Ruthie, and Suzie at some point as they prepared to "Trick or Treat" in California. I knew I needed to do my best to come up with some sort of last minute costume. I couldn't find any of the old silly hats from my teaching days -- did I give those away? -- so I managed to find a silly tie and my Whopper Hat from my victory in the Big Fibbers Contest almost a decade ago. Not much of a costume but it was something. 

Sheila snuck a picture of me as I texted Brannon .

Soon the ghosts, ghouls, and gangsters began dropping by. Sheila was ready.

Sheila was ready.

Then the FaceTime call came. So we got to visit with our three grandkids and Brannon while we hosted the monster visitors. Here are a few screen captures.

Clem wanted a story right away. 

She asked for the "Raccoon" story (Joega) Im told her that was too long. 

I tried a really quick and lame version of "The Hairy Toe" but she wanted more. 

I tried "Jabberwocky" and the "Dark Dark Night". 

Ruthie decided she could do "Dark Dark Night" and began it but never quite finished it.

Susie reaches for the phone.

And we took a couple of selfies before we closed up for the night.

Then, I thought, I oughta go take a picture of the City Clock with spooky clouds and that orange light! Sheila said she'd ride with me and at almost ten o'clock in the evening we drove to the clocktower. Shoot. No orange light this time. And I couldn't get a real good angle, had a hard time shielding the iPhone from the bright lights while keeping the clock and the moon in a frame, and the limitations of focussing in low light with a cell phone... oh well. 

I took this picture from our back porch before we left the house...

...and this one from our yard.

But the best I could do on clocktower hill was to block the streetlights with the brick wall along second street. But the moon is low from this angle and I could not get it in good focus.

From the lawn at the other side of the clock ... same problems.

Frustrating Halloween

First there's the arthritis acting up, in my shoulder especially. Poor pitiful me. %$&^%$

Then I'm just aggravatingly late getting ready to head up to Arrowhead. I really need to get some end of month chores done. &^%*&%

Then I get to the car and my Honda Pilot is dead! I evidently left a map light on and ran the battery down. *^%&^%

Then I open the hood and see that Honda has made jumping the ^%$*&%^ thing a chore.

I hook up the cables to my truck and the burglar alarm goes off. $&^$%

Plus the Pilot still won't crank. ^%$^&%$

Finally convince the computer on the vehicle that I'm not a car thief.

It still won't crank. &^%$&^%$

But this picture arrives from California via text.

Clem is an "Army man from Toy Story" and Ruthie, I'm guessing, a kitty.

Maybe we'll get to FaceTime with costumed grandkids before the day is out.

I'll figure out the car eventually.

Happy Halloween!

Chip & Dale

 Lil (and Jordan) may murder me. She just sent this via message and, being me, I'm gonna show the world. <grin>

Chip & Dale are loose in Decatur for Halloween. Y'all watch out in the big city!

...and they have transportation!

Spirit Halloween, The Movie

 When the producers of this movie approached us last fall about using our house for set location we reluctantly turned them down. We had scheduled a road trip to Southern California and a long stay there with our daughter, son-in-law, and three granddaughters. We would not be home for the filming.

But they persisted and agreed to pay us and also to pay our nephew, Andrew, who agreed to be on hand to watch the house and make sure all went well. They agreed to careful take down my Christmas decorations so they could decorate the house for Halloween and then replace the Christmas decorations when they were finished. So we relented. 

I admit I was a bit uneasy about it, but both Andrew and our neighbor Joan Ledbetter took lots of pictures and sent them to us so we could see what was going on.

Click this picture to see more pictures of our yard from Andrew and Joan.

Our impression was that our house would appear very briefly in the movie. The trailer seemed to confirm that.

Then Friday we attended a special showing of the movie at the Desoto Theater. I kept my phone handy hoping to quickly snap the scene with our house. Turned out our house was often frame very often. 

My pictures aren't great:

Christopher Lloyd is the big name in the movie though his appearance was brief.

A costume contest was part of the fun-- an all-way tie was declared and all the costumed participants received a pass to this year's RIFF! 

Here's our front porch early in the movie.

This is the lead character walking on the sidewalk in front of our house.

One of the scenes shot in our front yard.

Trick-or-Treaters on Avenue A across from our house.

Other parts of the movie were filmed at the old Toys-R-Us building at Mount Berry Mall, the deserted Celanese buildings at Riverside, Georgia School for the Deaf and the namesake cave in Cave Spring. Of course, through the magic of cinema these locations were meshed and melded and molded into a completely different geography of the imagination.

Granny & GrandShaw Grand Adventure 2022 - 9/8

Grandshaw loves his early morning walks in Vista. Here the sun rises on Wednesday as I walk from  Blackbird toward Anza.

 

I turned back west to snap this view of Vista  in the valley with steep Apollo Drive in the foreground. 

Along Cortes I snapped these Morning Glories.

Susannah with her Mom.

Clementine had mentioned this elixir to us the day before,
but today she wanted to show us her "Mortal Tea".

She had hopes that this magic brew would regrow Bowie's tail.

Meanwhile the swing on the back porch got lots of use first by Susie, then by the other two girls.

The one green cushions (what are they called?) were a great purchase. The girls arrange and rearrange those things into all sorts of playscape.

The "ice cream" toys were also a great idea. We are served ice cream  many times a day.

Granny is such a great playmate. On the screen is "The Pirates of Penzance" currently a favorite video in the Carlin household. Unfortunately none of them seem to know the correct words to one of the songs. Who remembers: "Hail, Hail, the gang's all here. Time for Woody Willow. Time for Woody Willow. Hail, Hail, the gang's all here. Time for Woody Willow, now!". 

I had to run an errand that took me up the 78 past the Emerald Drive exit. It was here that Susannah was born in a car at the side of the road last October.

Granny and the girls "roast" "marshmallows" around a "campfire".
There is no shortage of imagination in this room.

Papa and Gamma have bought and installed an above-ground pool since our last visit. 

Clemmie loves it!

Clementine has taken swimming lessons and is a little fish!

Granny says the water is cold!

Mom and Susannah are dry; that is a condition Clemmie is glad to remedy.

Ruthie is playing with Granny.

Clemmie like to hide under the floats and then surprise everyone!

All four Carlin girls.

Susie likes the water too.

Papa found this little electric car at a garage sale.

Along Dorsey on the way to Papa and Gamma's is a house that really decorates for Halloween.

Tonight we watched... 

...two videos......

 ....the Pirates of Penzance and...

... Lady and the Tramp. We liked when Lady and "Bootch" shared their spaghetti...

and we like to sing "We are Siamese if you please; we are Siamese if you don't please."

We were sad to find out that the people of the United Kingdom had lost their queen today. She was a very old lady.