Trick or Treat!

Pretend you are 9 again. This is my own meme...

Best candy overall? Reese's peanut butter cup.

Best candy for school lunch? Sugar Daddy - it lasts the longest.

Worst candy? Raisins.

Candy your brother is dumb enough to trade for? Smarties.

Candy Dad steals, but you don't mind? Almond Joy.

Candy Dad steals, but you do mind? Butterfinger.

Best candy-gathering bag? Pillow case, of course!

You get an apple. You do what with it? Believe it or not, never happened.

Best book about Halloween? Blubber by Judy Blume, of course. It taught me the word flenser and made me realize how quickly the tides can change when teasing is concerned. It also made me endless jealous that there were places in the world with dried, crunchy leaves on Halloween, rather than drifts of snow.

Candy Mom steals? Trick question; she never stole any - she's Mom!

Date upon which Mom throws out Halloween candy if not all eaten? The weekend before Thanksgiving.


And yes, I was a kid who meted out my own candy, to myself, a couple pieces in my lunchbox each day, to make it last and last and last... and be at risk for parental theft... and then I eventually tired of it - or was left with nothing but suboptimal Mr. Goodbars and Three Musketeers and Raisinets and plain ol' raisins by Thanksgiving, dried out in a crumb-covered pillowcase on the pantry shelf. Happy Halloween!

Forewarned is forearmed.

I have planted some bright red geraniums and little purple-flowered ground cover in the parking strip. (Do you know about the parking strip? It is apparently the bane of many gardeners' existences.) But we live in a skinny house, so with only 25 feet of property facing the street - including a driveway! - I have but a tiny bit of land to work with. The parking strip is the only place for me to show neighborhood pride!

But I'm warning myself - and you - now. The beautiful geraniums, they're tempting. They're a shiny, candy red and blooming away happily, with more buds already to be seen, and part of me wonders, "Are they begging to be picked?"

And if they are, how angry will I be to come outside and see them ruthlessly chopped down or ripped out of the ground? Well, we all know the answer to that: really, really, really angry.

And if all I can control in the world is my reaction to things, then perhaps I shouldn't have set my self up, shouldn't have planted such lovely flowers for all passerby to see...

Only time will tell. But I'll be sure to report back with updates!

Summer is Here

OK, no more lazing. Summer is here! Sauvie Island begs to be visited, the patio furniture has been BOUGHT and we had our first al fresco dinner last night on it!, the first houseguests have come and gone, my first trip is done and John has one concert under his belt. So, a few things for you and I to blog and chat about:

• A pile of shoes by the front door of a home; does this indicate shoes-off-house? Yea or nay? Do you do shoes-off? Did you grow up with shoes-off?
• I have kept two secrets from you over the last month: I started doing Zumba and I am in Week 7 of Weight Watchers. (More on this to come, don't fear!)
• The crazy neighbor has not stopped. He is making ME crazy and I am accepting any and all suggestions on how to deal with a honestly mentally-unbalanced neighbor who is loud all the time... not the kind of neighbor you go chat with about the noise.
  

In brief: 2 Tuesday observations.

#1: Just when I thought we got rid of the circular saw to the left of our house, now we have one behind us! I don't know what they are building, but they were freaking building it when I left for the bus-that-has-shown-up-14-minutes-late two days in a row now at 7:50 this morning, and they are freaking building it right now. It's been two weeks. Work smarter, people!

#2: Waiting at said bus stop, I had a nice conversation (OK, I listened kindly but contributed very little to her monologue) with a woman who was carrying a lot of cans to recycle, talked about all the gang activity in recent weeks in NE Portland, then let me know she was waiting for the teenagers at the Urban Educational Center on the corner to leave before she did "this" - which was smoking a joint at 8:05 AM - on the way to her babysitting gig.

It's a mystery, x 2.

There is much, much, MUCH to write and many, many, MANY pics to post of the great weekend move. But for now, there are two mysteries to this little corner of NE Dekum...

First, we have an insane neighbor who walks around his yard of weeds and scrap wood, carefully selects a shitty, splintery piece, and uses his circular saw to cut it. ALL DAY. And evening. He also appears to maybe live in a tent in the yard. (I think he will figure greatly in future blogs... and future research into noise/nuisance laws.)

Second, a couple times a day, each day, the whole block is filled with the smell of ice cream cones. I don't how else to describe it... too light to be cookies, and too sweet to be actual waffles. Maybe there is a waffle cone factory nearby? I'm not sure, but it's sort of amazing.