Hallowe'en

My favourite holiday.  Just as the air turns crisp, the leaves fall from the trees and snow starts to peak around the corner, you really need something to celebrate.  Hallowe'en has always done that for me, so today I'm talking about Hallowe'en followed by a little rant about laziness.

In what has become an annual pilgrimage for the Beynon family, we headed on the Thursday before Hallowe'en to Tim Murton's Twilight Zoo.  My daughter and I attended Tim's workshop this year and made Trixie, the albino black cat.  Each year the trip to the Twilight Zoo is a treat as we get to see perennial favourites and there is always something new to delight.

This guy has greeted us at Tim's front gate ever since we started visiting the Zoo.

He hangs menacingly off the building, sneering at all who pass through  the gates.  Inside the gates are a host of witches, sharks, skulls, mushrooms, ghouls and cauldrons.  This rock group - I'm assuming they're the Grateful Dead - makes me laugh every time.

Every year there is something new and impressive.  I was most impressed by this:

The Unicorn is my daughter's new favourite.

On to Hallowe'en.  Pumpkins and Jack O' Lanterns are always fun, but consensus on what ought to be carved can be difficult for a family of four.  Through discussion and compromise we came up with this cyclopean vampire.

We mounted him on the carport roof for better street appeal.  Here he is lit up:

Next were costumes.  My daughter loves Garfield and my son is taken with Ninjas lately.  Their little buddy looked great as a particular square-panted character.

My wife gave out candy this year and looked fabulous as the neighbourhood witch.

I, of course, had to do something with some back story.  I got to wondering...what would happen if Toy-land's happiest couple, Raggedy Ann and Andy, broke up?  How would the divorce weigh upon Andy?  How would he deal?  I figured he would leave and join a carnival and, as everyone knows, the carnival life can be a rough one.  After years on the road, filled with bitterness over the idyllic life he'd squandered, I figured Andy would look a little like this:

I present, Really Raggedy Andy.

And, yes, I did scare a few children.

Now on to the rant.  During the course of this blog post I have typed out the word Hallowe'en six times so far and guess what?  Every time I type Hallowe'en the spell checker tells me I've typed it incorrectly.  But I haven't.  The spell checker wants to see "Halloween" - look at that, no red squiggly line underneath but without the apostrophe, Hallowe'en is spelled wrong.     And where the hell does the spell checker get off telling me that "Hallowe'en",  spelled completely and correctly, is wrong?

Have we become so lazy with our 144 character text messages and our r u ok and lol's etc, that to add a simple apostrophe is too much work?  I shudder to think of the day one of my kids comes home from school with a spelling test where they've had a point deducted for including the time-tested and true apostrope in Hallowe'en.

Maybe next time I'll talk about why Pluto is still a planet, regardless of what some astronomers think...

Angry, Angry, Angry

I'm frustrated, disappointed but mostly angry.

I'm grinding my teeth angry at a few things this morning.

Why?

Let's see.  I came downstairs to the basement this morning to check on an e-mail message I've been waiting on to see the start-up screen on my laptop.  Vista had done yet another of its unprompted updates.  I growled as I started up, but wasn't too concerned.  I had a few word documents open but surely the auto-recover feature on Microsoft Word would have saved those files every ten minutes just as it's programed to do.  Surely.

My e-mail hadn't come in.  Damnit.  Oh, well - let's open Word and recover those files.

The Auto-Recovery task pane (pain) was not there.  Okayyyyy - where the hell is it?  I searched and searched and searched but there were no Auto-Recovery files to be found.  Anywhere.

I did a little internet search.  I checked for all of the different file extensions which could possibly be attached to my errant files.  Nothing.  Anywhere.

I was fuming!  I was totally pissed off at Microsoft Word for not dutifully saving my files like it is supposed to. I was angry at Vista for not waiting for my to okay the request to restart before going ahead and doing it itself.  But I'm mostly angry at myself for relying on a software company with a poor track record to protect my work.

By now, I should really know better.

So - for today - I'm off to the gym to work off some frustration - then home to see if I can rewrite my synopsis for The Edgeling and the work I had added to Gerry.

Strange and wonderful...

It has been a week of strange and wonderful things.  I have been plodding ahead with a synopsis for The Edgeling and have been moving (slowly) forward on Gerry.

Something strange to begin with - it seems after twenty-two years good old Duffer (who lately has more than his fair share of "Bill the Cat" moments) has decided to stave off Alzheimer's by challenging himself with new skills.

He's decided to start with Beatrix Potter.  Good choice, Duff.

Now onto something wonderful.  My little time-consuming park project, BT Corner.  Most of the landscaping is done.  The wall is all but finished and the paving stones are in.  There are a few touches left for this autumn, but then I can take a break from the park (for the most part) until Spring when there will be planting and benches and information plaques to contend with.  Here's how the Corner looks today:

I especially love that red maple.

Something else wonderful - this:

Is that?  Could that be?  No....no one would ever-

Yes.  That's Nature's Perfect Food, right there.  Bacon, and lots of it.  That is a bacon, potato and cheddar tart, my friends.  I wish I could take credit for this flavour treat/ heart attack on a plate but that honour goes to PEI chef, Michael Smith.

Here's what it looks like inside:

Trust me - all you need with this is the salad (and maybe a defibrillator).

Now on to strange and wonderful.

I love my town.  We are blessed with hundreds of heritage homes built from local limestone by the skilled hands of masons long dead.  One of these buildings is our own Carnegie Library.  It is a stately building and last night, as I waited for my daughter to finish her piano lesson, I snapped this shot - just in time for Hallowe'en.

This really is the only way to light a building like this.

And speaking of lights...Remember Trixie, the albino black cat.  Well here she is, mounted and lit, just in time for Hallowe'en.