Jack’s Lament

Halloween was a great one this year. I pulled out all the tombstones from last year and I made another one with a gargoyle on it. But the best part was this tree limb that I found.

Back in September we had this crazy windstorm, we got hit with 80 mph winds for about 8 hours, aparrently it was a leftover from Hurricane Ike (can you believe that?). Well after the storm i saw thing gnarly tree limb that had been blown off a humongous birch tree sitting on the side of the road. And I immediately knew what to do with it.

I recruited my father-in-law to help me hoist it up onto the top of his truck and them after I got it home I stipped off all the leaves and small twigs then stained it black. I put it out in our front yard and got it to stand up by running a piece of rebar through it an into the ground. I then tied some skeletons and bats and those blinking “Creepy eyes” on it. Wicked!

Then of course I had to dress up, and who else could I be in my Halloweentown? None other than Jack Skellington of course!

I’m a master of fright, and a demon of light
And I’ll scare you right out of your pants
To a guy in Kentucky, I’m Mister Unlucky
And I’m known throughout England and France

And since I am dead, I can take off my head
To recite Shakespearean quotations
No animal nor man can scream like I can
With the fury of my recitations

† Excerpt: Jack’s Lament from Tim Burton’s fantastic animated movie The Nightmare Before Christmas

Linky to the photos

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What an Anniversary!

I decided to start off the day of the 14th wedding anniversary but getting up very early and putting down some weed-n-feed on the lawn since it was very wet with morning dew. In the process I slipped and fell dumping a 1/3 of the fertilizer on the lawn. Knowing that it would burn the grass, and still needing to finish the rest of the lawn with what I had, I put on some disposable gloves and scooped up what I could. When I was done – and being in a hurry to get the hose and wash off the fertilizer I couldn’t get up – I ripped off the gloves and threw them up the hill near the house, then finished with the yard.

Later that night after dinner with my Samantha I was walking the dog when I noticed that my wedding ring was not on my hand! I am also very careful with it if I ever take it off so I know it had fallen off somewhere, and that was when I remembered the gloves in the yard.

I went to Art’s Rentals and got metal detector and looked for it for about an hour without any luck. I kept getting false positives (beeps when there was nothing there) and was thinking that I needed a reference point to set the sensitivity. So disappointed, I went back to work thinking that I would try again when Sam gets home so I can set her ring on the ground and get a reference.

Well I was sitting at my desk and Samantha came up and asked me if I was cranky and I told her I wasn’t, it’s just that I was really busy. Then she held out her hand and gave me her ring and said “thanks”. As I put it on my little finger she said “Is that all, just ‘Thanks’?” as I noticed that either my fingers shrank more than I thought or it was my ring! And it was mine! She was untangling the dogs lead from the bottom of the stairs outside when she spotted it. Whew (pt.2).

The interesting thing is that last year the same thing happened, but the roles were reversed. She lost her ring for about three days and had no idea where it could have gone. I was sitting outside on the deck with her having “Mommy-Daddy Time” and we were talking about it when I glanced down under the table and saw her ring sitting in the patio umbrella stand’s ironwork. She said she twists and plays with it around her finger as kind of nervous habit and remembered hearing it drop, but because we were talking about something intensely she didn’t think to look. It was just pure luck that I saw it. Whew (pt.1)

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1st Annual Cul-de-sac Party

When we were in Kansas one of the things that Buck and Lyn treated us to was the neighborhood “white trash party”. It’s not what you think, they live in a nice area but the street dead-ends into hay fields and they basically live on a cul-de-sac like ours. On Sunday evenings all throughout the summer their neighbors bring out lawnchairs, coolers and grills to the end of each driveway and have a get together in the street. It was a lot of fun, and would be have been more so if we knew everyone.

On the drive back home Samantha said to me that she wished someone on our street would do that. So I said to her, “Then do it.” Duh, right? So she did. She put these really nice invites from Vista Print together and put one on every door on our block.

Now I have to say that the neighborhood that we live in is really new and not many people know each other yet, so I was a little skeptical that very many people would show up. I knew that our immediate neighbors would, but that’s only seven of about 25 houses. To my very pleasant surprise 20 out of the 25 showed up! Now, that I brewed a batch of beer and told a few people about it may have had a little to do with the turnout, but I am not sure. We met people that we have never even seen before, and everyone really like that.

It was great time, it started a little too early for the time of year and it was really warm the first two hours, but once the sun started to set and it cooled off it was really nice. The kids loved the waterslide of course and the adults loves the beers – and they drank it all, plus some!

Everyone brought some standard picnic faire – hamburgers, hot dogs, beans, pasta or potato salad – and some even brought cheesecakse and cookies. It went on into the wee hours, even after we broke down the EZ Up.

It’s on our “definite-do” list next year, and some have even suggested that we do it this Autumn. Who knows?

Linky to the full slideshow

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Crazy June Storm

Wow, this was nothing like the tornadoes or some of the other storms that ripped through the midwest this month – leaving tens of thousands of people homeless – but then when you think about the very tiny watershed that feeds our creek this is really impressive.

Notice that in one of the photos the creek rose up almost to our compost bin, which is about 3½ ft. higher than normal!

Linky to the full slideshow

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Alsatia “Survives” Elementary School

On the last weekend in May this year my daughter Alsatia graduated Elementary school. Since my wife has no idea how to put on a small party, we ended up with almost 40 kids here for “Survivor Beechgrove”. For those of you who are completely culturally clueless when it comes to the “omni-directional sludgebox” ¹ Survivor is a reality game show where contestants compete against each other in physical contests and vote each other out of the game via clique contests all while on some deserted tropical island or desolate location. The goal is to be the last one standing (and product-placement).

Think Gilligan’s Island meets corporate outdoor survival training weekend meets Beverly Hills High…

Linky to the full slideshow

They were split into two “tribes” – the Kickapoo and the Shawnee (in keeping with the tradition of using local aboriginal names for the teams) – and there were several challenges that the kids had to do. One challenge was to stand on a large can for as long as they could until there was a winner. First two feet, then one foot after two minutes. You should have seen the faces on the kids when I told all of they had to do it barefoot!

Another challenge was to eat gummy fish; they started out with teh fish in a cup but they ended up eating them off the grass. One kid barfed them right back up (along with a little Coke- yeesh).

The last challenge was a race that entailed running through hoops, then over a balance beam, up & over a waterslide, then knocking over a coconut monkey idol. Complete chaos.

The kids had fun, and Alsatia asked when she could have a party like that again. I think I mumbled something about “when you’re in your 20’s”.

¹ [quote from Sideshow Bob in an episode from The Simpson's where he rants about his "sucksess" compared to Krusty the Clown and how he is not being taken seriously as a thespian]

Posted in Ackerly Antics, Alsatia, Pop Culture | No Comments »