|
Post by Mini Mia on Oct 28, 2015 17:35:43 GMT -6
Yeah. It's no fun being alone with all that going on. Especially when I didn't have any 'real' explanations other than I was actually being haunted. Having more explanations other than being awake and dreaming has helped greatly. Plus, being taken seriously, and not made fun of.
|
|
|
Post by Mini Mia on Oct 28, 2015 17:42:43 GMT -6
|
|
|
Post by stepper on Oct 28, 2015 17:46:20 GMT -6
There wasn't anything funny about what you had to say Joxcee. Even if the only thing you were talking about was the misadventure with your teeth, it's just not funny.
|
|
|
Post by Mini Mia on Oct 28, 2015 18:04:41 GMT -6
Thanks.
|
|
|
Post by Phalon on Oct 31, 2015 7:13:46 GMT -6
This fits in here I suppose, since it is Halloween and involves hauntings. Every year, since I love the holiday, I try to get in at least a couple of Halloweeny events. Last night, a friend and I went to a program at the maritime museum called "Michigan's Ghostly Beacons" - with 117 lighthouses on Michigan's shorelines (more than any other state), you'd figure some of them would be haunted - and you'd be right. Great program given by an excellent speaker that encompassed both the history of the lights discussed as well as their ghostly inhabitants.
I felt redeemed since she liked it as much as I did, and because I dragged her to both. This one was much better than the other event we went to this season - the play 'The Haunting of Hill House'. Only thing scary about that was how poorly it was acted.
|
|
|
Post by Phalon on Oct 31, 2015 18:42:48 GMT -6
Do you all mind? Here's a few of the decorations I had out this year... I went with a nursery rhyme theme (which looks better in the dark with strobe lights, of course....) There was 'Little Miss Muffet' who sat on her tuffet when "Along came the spider, who sat down beside her, and frightened Miss Muffet to death." Also the three blind mice-turned into rabid rats with blood-dripping teeth made their appearance, taking out the Farmer's Wife before she could get their tails with the carving knife. There was Peter, Peter, Pumpkin Eater... ...had a wife and couldn't keep her. Put her in a pumpkin shell, and left her there to die. And finally found use for the found-by-the-side-of-the-road cradle... Babies don't belong in treetops unattended, don't you know. And of course, there's my littlest ghoul and her ghoulfriends. Still raining, but had a couple handfuls of kids since I last wrote in the other thread, who each got a couple handfuls of candy each, and I was out of candy by the time it was all said and done. Even had to ask BP for a piece of hers (a Reeses peanut butter cup!) just so I could have one piece...and since she couldn't eat it anyway with her mouth sewn shut.
|
|
|
Post by Mini Mia on Oct 31, 2015 18:50:39 GMT -6
I had two. My great niece & nephew.
|
|
|
Post by stepper on Oct 31, 2015 22:06:04 GMT -6
Game called on account of more rain again. We survived the replay this morning and at that time they said it would clear out. Tonight would be clear, no wind, and morning lows in the 50s. No more rain until next Wednesday or Thursday.
We had about two hours before it started dripping and it just kept getting heavier and wetter. The kids, or their parents, all disappeared and we closed house. I figure we had maybe 50-60 visitors including parents many of whom were also dressed up - and I was giving out doubles and triples, but not handfuls.
I still have standing water in the back yard and this new stuff isn't helping. It's been one heck of a Halloween. Anyone like Mr. Goodbars or Krackles? Someone who isn't me laid claim to the Hershey's and Dark Hershey's.
I can see why people like coming by. Not everyone puts out that much effort.
|
|
|
Post by Spock on Nov 1, 2015 8:49:47 GMT -6
I like Kracles. Next time I'm in the area I will relieve you of any you still need to get rid of.
|
|
|
Post by stepper on Nov 1, 2015 12:10:27 GMT -6
I have some Tribbles around someplace. You interested in those?
|
|
|
Post by Spock on Nov 2, 2015 7:27:20 GMT -6
I have some Tribbles around someplace. You interested in those? When you mentioned Tribbles, I had an instant vision of placing them in government buildings and sealing any openings. The trouble is, I wouldn't want to feel responsible for what happened to the Tribbles.
|
|
|
Post by stepper on Nov 2, 2015 18:38:03 GMT -6
That would be great, except I'd feel bad for the Tribbles. They are not accustomed to significant amounts of hot air.
Left over candy - Steppet took the Krackles and Mr. Goodbars, put them in a pot and turned it on low. Then she added marshmallows, a little Cool Whip, sugar, peanut butter, and stirred; turned the whole mass of stuff into fudge.
|
|
|
Post by Mini Mia on Nov 2, 2015 19:39:12 GMT -6
How clever she is. You should keep her.
|
|
|
Post by Phalon on Nov 4, 2015 7:11:12 GMT -6
I really, really wanted to get rid of the stuff! I had four extra bags I didn't think I had - two bags of regular Kit-Kats, and two bags of 100 Thousand Dollar bars. I figured if they were brave enough to venture out in the rain and 40 degree weather, they deserved to reap handfuls. I can usually expect 200-300 kids - which isn't much compared to the main drag into town - those houses typically get over 500 kids, but we are further in the neighborhood. It was dead even down there though - BP and her friends walked downtown to "see and be seen" (our town's equivalent of hanging out at the mall). No one was about for them to see or be seen by, so they ended up at the toy shop, keeping the woman who runs the place (she knows all the kids in town, and watches over them) company and eating her candy because there were few trick-or-treaters out.
OMG, that sounds rich!! My teeth hurt just reading it.
|
|
|
Post by stepper on Nov 4, 2015 21:41:50 GMT -6
It's most likely the only way I'll be associated with the word “rich.”
|
|
|
Post by Phalon on Oct 29, 2016 22:26:39 GMT -6
Just got home - a group of us went tonight to the Douglas Halloween Parade. Adults only for this one; definitely not a parade for kidlets. It's a riot - a big party in the street, music blaring from loud speakers, and dance club lights flashing from big overhead cranes. Anyone who wants walk in the parade just joins in, as long as you're in costume, and as far as costumes go, it's pretty much a free-for-all anything goes. Lots of sugar skull Day of the Dead costumes this year, some of them very elaborate. Just as elaborate were period costumes from the Victorian era. And the drag queens...there's always gobs of drag queens in platform heeled boots so high, I wonder how they can walk a few feet, much less an entire parade, part of which is up hill! My favorite costumes this year though were worn by a group of about 15 guys - all dressed as Flo from the Progressive commercials, right down to the hair bump and "name your price" gun. They were fun, interacting with the parade watchers, and garnering lots of cheers and applause along the way. Weather this year was perfect; we didn't go last year because it rained, and I remember the year before that it was so cold and windy, we all froze. Just to give you an idea, check out the video of last year's event (at the bottom of the page). www.douglashalloween.com/
|
|
|
Post by Spock on Oct 30, 2016 11:14:22 GMT -6
Who is Flo?
|
|
|
Post by Mini Mia on Oct 30, 2016 22:31:22 GMT -6
|
|
|
Post by Spock on Oct 31, 2016 9:06:29 GMT -6
OK, now I know who "Flo" is. Those commercials were just baaaad!
|
|
|
Post by Phalon on Oct 31, 2016 13:37:41 GMT -6
I'm nearly ready. The cauldron is filled with candy, and the front yard and porch are decorated. The porch has been decorated for a couple of weeks - I do basically the same thing there every year - branches twined with lots of purple and orange lights, my crows and cat silhouettes. My witch sign. BP and her friend had a pumpkin carving/scary movie marathon night Friday - those are on the front steps with strobe lights inside to light them. I always vary the front walk though. While the girls carved faces on their pumpkins, I went a non-traditional route with mine this year (basically because I was too lazy to carve them). This before I put them out - they now line both sides of the walk, along with twenty or so Mason jars - the pumpkins and each of the jars will have a non-flame battery powered candle. What a great invention! Normally, the wind blows out the candles (though I still have a lot of real candles lighting the porch). Some of the other stuff I put out this year... It all looks better lit up (and in a full-sized photo). Bring on the dark! Bring on the trick-or-treaters.
|
|
|
Post by stepper on Oct 31, 2016 21:09:28 GMT -6
Nicely done Phalon. It was about 85 degrees and near 70% humidity - not Halloweenish at all. The news was even warning people to watch for dehydration signs in trick-or-treaters and escorts.
Done for another year here - we had maybe 75-85 kids. I was giving out double candy to kids and some to the escorts too. I still have left over candy.
|
|
|
Post by Mini Mia on Oct 31, 2016 22:29:24 GMT -6
I forgot to buy candy. My sister bought plenty though, so she pretended like some of it came from me. Only two, my sister's grandbabies. We live out in the country, so we tend to get only family.
|
|
|
Post by stepper on Nov 1, 2016 19:26:14 GMT -6
The guy I work with had none. He mowed his front yard, made sure his porch light was off (signaling he wasn't doling out candy) and then mowed his back yard. Everyone got the message - nobody knocked.
Something else I noticed this year - over the years, on the day after Halloween, you'd find a busted pumpkin or two in the road but there weren't any this year. It was a fairly civil Halloween.
|
|
|
Post by Phalon on Nov 1, 2016 21:54:47 GMT -6
Wow! That's definitely unHalloween weather! More like summer than fall. I cannot imagine Halloween being at any other time of the year except autumn. Yes, I know Halloween has its origins in the ancient harvest festival, Samhain, so it really couldn't be in another season. The falling leaves though (we are at peak color this week! A bit later than normal), the chilly crispness in the air, apple cider, pumpkins - everything about this time of year ties in perfectly to Halloween.
Our weather Halloween night was perfect. Only a slight breeze and chill - just enough for a sweater.
OMG, never again will I let BP pick out the candy. Of course, some of the blame is mine - I told her to get what she wanted as long as there were some Twix, Snickers, and Reeses peanut butter cups, but I really wasn't paying attention to what she put in the cart. We ended up with four extra-large bags of candy - each bag had 150-180 pieces of candy! Even I can do the math on that one...if they were at a minimum of 150 pieces per bag, that's 600 pieces of candy. Smaller pieces that I would have picked, but still...that's a lot of candy. On a good Halloween, we maybe get around 200-250 kids - this Halloween we only got around 120-150 I'm guessing. They got triples at a minimum.
BP had a friend over, and we all sat out on the porch passing out candy....with different goals. Their goal was to end up with left-overs; mine was to get rid of all of it. We pretty much succeeded to achieving both - only select pieces were left (so I got a few of each of my above mentioned favorites - and they are small, so the guilt factor is low!)
We had a lot of fun. Despite the lesser than normal turnout, it'll go down in the books as a great Halloween.
Our neighbor across the street never once has passed out candy - he not only keeps his porch light off, he blocks the porch with orange cones and yellow caution tape. Neither neighbor on either side of him participate either - one house is a summer home, and the other is Eccentric Lady...who is not only getting more eccentric, but truly is getting quite crotchety too. Three houses in a row who don't pass out candy, in addition to the house that was moved, another that is for sale and vacant and one other summer home, may account for the lower than normal turn-out - only a handful of houses on a street that have candy? Maybe the kids figure it's not worth the effort.
Or it could possibly be those "Trunk or Treat" events; that's Next-door Neighbor Computer Guy's opinion on the lower number of trick-or-treaters. A lot of the churches around here are doing those now - I get it; it's easy. You pull into the church parking lot, open your trunk that's filled with candy, and let your kids out of the car to go car-to-car to do their trick-or-treating in the parking lot. Oh, and no scary costumes allowed - no witches, goblins, evil clowns, ghosts, Harry Potters, or even super-heroes - they have weapons, as do cowboys. Only "happy" costumes. A parking lot full of princesses, vegetables, and cute furry animals - a washed-out version of Halloween. My two teenage witches (we were all dressed in black with witch hats passing out candy) think this is a horrible thing - running through the neighborhood is half the fun, and neither of them has ever had a costume that wasn't scary...except a couple of years ago, BP went as a sheet...not a ghost, but a Sheet. Weird sense of humor that one has.
Oh! And that peacock costume I made a few years or so ago. She still owes me for that one - it was a b!tch to make. Come to think of it, she probably did that on purpose - watching me pull my hair out, buried in a mass of tulle and feathers. Again...a weird sense of humor.
|
|
|
Post by stepper on Nov 2, 2016 18:50:56 GMT -6
Sounds like she chose well, but her sense of proportions was off – a little. You're going to be consuming Halloween candy for some time - and if you are careful you won't have to get anything new for Valentines Day.
No offense Phalon but that’s just silly; it's Halloween candy - there's no guilt factor for at least two weeks. I think that's the legal limit - two weeks - there may be technical variances though. And I think full size candy bars have a two package limit. If you have to purchase more, even though you might be within the two week limit, the fact that you purchased more terminates the limit on guilt until next Halloween. (You can still eat the candy, but you'd have to live with the extra couple of pounds AND the guilt AND her Impishness gets to hang around and play until all the candy is gone.)
You didn't mention being tempted to decorate the cones and tape with some colorful TP. Just to say this, has it ever occurred to you that they are afraid of the crazy lady across the street who goes out of her way to treat Halloween like it's the only holiday in the year? And you seem to be encouraging your progeny in those same delusions!
She's getting good at knitting?
What's happening is that the neighborhood is getting old - at least that's what has happened here. We're getting old - 'our' kids are beyond looking for candy and many are away at college. I'd guess that nearly 20% (or more even) were kids trucked in - literally - to hit the houses here who were giving out candy. A few years ago it was a bus. They went in different directions so as not to overwhelm by all showing up at once, but all the groups made it to all the houses. The kids were all fairly well behaved, but some wanted more and said so. A few even asked if they could have it all to make it faster.
The church thing happens down here too. After a couple years of dealing with imported ghosts, people complained to the churches that were busing the kids around and pretty much talked them into having things for the kids to do at the church itself. The churches now do something along the same lines as the ones you mentioned - meaning don't show up as the devil or a witch or an evil something named in the Bible, but they draw the line there. Xena, Harry Potter, the Wolfman, super heroes, etc., are allowable. A few argued against carved pumpkins because of some of the mythology behind them, but even the 'no graven image' people understood that no one is worshiping a pumpkin so they're also allowable. It creates a safe environment and helps keep some of the kids from getting into trouble because there's adult supervision at the church events. It's helpful for the kids out in the country - instead of visiting only a couple homes of relatives who live miles apart, everyone goes to one location and it's a party.
|
|
|
Post by Phalon on Nov 4, 2016 6:21:13 GMT -6
Nah. Only a few pieces of each of my favorites - Snickers, Twix, and Reeses. Oh, and chocolate Kit-Kats; I like those. She held out for herself some sour stuff - SweetTarts, Warheads, and the ever-so-icky Airheads Extreme Sour. I'm not even tempted to dip into her stash.
She doesn't knit or crochet; she paints. Which is not to say she's not good at needling, and spinning yarns.
It's kind of the opposite here - there seem to be a lot more kids in the neighborhood than when the girls were little.
The same thing happens here. I've never minded - the town is surrounded by rural areas, and it gives the kids out in the country a chance to trick-or-treat other than, like you mentioned, going to homes miles apart. We've never had an actual bus, though! Mostly vans that park at the end of the street and let the kids out.
I'm sure some churches are less strict than others about what is considered an acceptable costume; I'm only going by the big ad in the paper from one church that was offering a Trunk or Treat Halloween. Harry Potter though, I believe, is considered along the same lines as witches in all churches don't allow those types of costumes because the books and movies glorify sorcery and witchcraft. I read something once about parents trying to get the books banned in schools in some areas of the country, and I think I remember Joxie saying something about not reading the books for that reason.
|
|
|
Post by stepper on Nov 4, 2016 13:00:44 GMT -6
Steppet likes Reese's and Hershey's milk chocolate. I like those plus Snickers, Reese's Pieces, and Three Musketeers. Don't ask, I can't choose a favorite.
They're okay - and now that I think about it - add Skittles.
Sounds like someone else I know.
After a couple of years with buses many of the houses quit giving out candy. Neighbors in the block behind us joined forces and created a two yard spook house of sorts, but that stopped too. It became a liability with so many kids showing up and they were afraid of being sued on account of a careless kid.
Not by all churches - the difference gets technical but it boils down to this - Harry Potter isn't involved in worshiping the Devil (I.E. they celebrate Christmas) and it's not a religion. "Thou shalt have no other gods before me" - Biblical witches worshiped Satan.
|
|
|
Post by Mini Mia on Nov 4, 2016 18:05:27 GMT -6
I haven't read them because they just don't interest me. However I may have mentioned that my Church preaches against such books. (IIRC, they have mentioned the Harry Potter books.) Horror books/movies included ... which I read/watch. And I know of one family and their kids from Church who love the Harry Potter books. They preach against R movies, which I watch. They preached against watching "The Last Testament of Christ" too, but I watched it on one of the satellite movie channels. I'm not good on being told what to do.
J. K. Rowling is a Christian, so, that is most likely why these witches aren't satanists.
Oh. And Photobucket is undergoing maintenance, so that's why the images aren't showing up.
|
|
|
Post by stepper on Nov 4, 2016 21:26:42 GMT -6
Ah. That would explain it. Thanks.
That's understandable. There are many otherwise popular books that couldn't hold my interest past the dust jacket.
|
|
|
Post by Mini Mia on Nov 4, 2016 21:41:41 GMT -6
You are most welcome.
I won't say I'll _never_ read the books, I could someday. I haven't seen the movies either. I've see snippets when I'm channel surfing though. If I catch the first one from the very beginning, I might give it a try just to see what it's all about. Whether or not I watch the others will depend on how much I liked the first one. And if I love the movies, I'll most likely check out the books. Books are usually far superior to the movies, and I've only been disappointed by a book after seeing a movie a handful of times
|
|