Horse Manure Park

Last night was pumpkin-carving night... Attempting to get everyone to look at the camera at the same time (a difficult task)! Mesmerized by pumpkin guts. Off comes the top!  Neil is much more interested in the corn. Cool!   Big sister being silly. Gross... pumpkin guts. Captain Caveman A couple of days earlier, in my attempt to play Mr. Mom, Ava and I made Halloween cookies... Yes, the cookies and icing were all homemade... just ask Ava, who is decorating her Halloween "cookie snake." Enjoying all the hard work Cooooookie!!

It is a gray, cold, rainy and very windy day.  A large jack pine has fallen in our front yard - it is hung up about 15 feet above the ground.  That's going to be fun to get down... To add to this uplifting weather, I logged onto weather.com to see when this frigid wind and rain is going to end and this is what I am greeted with: Seriously?  A winter storm warning?  Let's see, it's October 26th.  Better download some new music from iTunes, order a couple more good books from Barnes and Noble, and stock up on the Bailey's.  This could be a long, cold winter.

I just finished an 800+ page epic biography on John Lennon, written by Philip Norman.  It took me almost a month to plow through it, but it was a decent read.  I've read a lot about Lennon and the Beatles over the past 20 years, but it seems I always learn something new.  It is amazing that there are always new facts and new stories to be told more than four decades after the split of the band. Lennon was a very complicated guy.  He had a traumatic childhood, which affected him for the rest of his life.  He had a wayward father who he barely knew and a mother who was incapable of raising him, so he was raised by an aunt.  He was a contradiction in so many ways -  he could be unpredictably mean and aggressive while being kind and generous at other times.  He was funny and witty, as well as cynical and naive.  He was moody - I have no doubt he was "bipolar" before there ever was such a diagnosis - and was a violent drunk.  Surprising...

[spoken with a barely-comprehensible slur and a blood alcohol level almost four times the legal limit] "I need morphine for my pancreatitis.  I have pancreatitis because I am an alcoholic and only morphine works for my pancreatitis pain.  When are you going to give me something for pain, you fucker?" That was my night.  And for anyone who thinks nurses get paid too much, I give you a one-fingered salute.

I'm probably just a delusional parent, but I think Ava has really got a knack for drawing.  Reminder, she's only 4 1/2 years old, but she's pretty good.  This afternoon she said "Dad, come and look at my clown!"  So I went into her room where her chalkboard is at and I was pretty impressed by what I saw: Ava's Clown, 14 Oct 10   I really don't think this is bad at all!

Before I start this little adventure, you need to know some background information:  I hate cats.   I absolutely despise them.  They are pissy, rude, egotistical and unappreciative.  My boxer, Grace, hates cats even more than me. I've been in a state of quasi-war with the neighborhood cats for the last nine years.  You see, for years we have had several bird feeders and a bird bath in our yard.  We love watching the different species of birds come and go -- and it is a connection that I have with my Mom, who has been gone for over 20 years now.  She was a bird watcher and taught me much about birds. But the damned neighborhood cats were spoiling it all.  They were always perched under our feeders waiting for a free chickadee or cardinal meal, which enraged me.  For whatever reason, people are not held accountable for their cats and they are allowed to roam wherever they damn well please.  Why is this so? For years, I would ambus...

I am sure everyone has seen this, but I hadn't.  I've got to hand it to him, it's a pretty good impromptu line by the President.  Only 30 seconds, surely to become something of a "Read My Lips" presidential legend...