Candy (Everybody Wants)

At the Trick or Treat on Main Street event this afternoon the twins kept choosing the worst candy!
Not the Twizzlers! Get some Kit Kats!
No! Put down those Whoopers and grab a Snickers Bar!
Dum Dums? Are you kidding!?
Plus N wouldn't wear his saucepan on his head so no one knew he was supposed to be Johnny Appleseed. Instead he was using it to put the candy in so some people thought he was a panhandler. Which is a funny play on words, but not what I intended.
Sigh.

song: Candy Everybody Wants • artist: 10,000 Maniacs

Brown Sugar

Davy Crockett, Johnny Appleseed, a cowboy, and a jester - those are this year's costume choices at our house.

When I was a kid you had to dress as something thematically associated with Halloween, or with autumn at the very least. I was a scarecrow, black cat, witch, ghost. One year my sister was an apple core, another, an ear of corn (she had a fruit and vegetable theme going or something.)

Every year I secretly yearned to be a gypsy or a hippie like every other girl in my class but I never went as far as to buck tradition.

H is being Davy Crockett. We bought a real (yes real) raccoon tail at the Fryeburg Fair and I sewed it onto an appropriately-shaped faux fur hat. The cat freaked out while I was sewing the tail, she kept trying to grab it and run off with it or at least locate the rest of the raccoon.

Anyway, the hat's done and he's got the rifle replica, really once you've got a coonskin hat, who else could you be but Davy Crockett? Costume done right? 

Not so fast. 

I wanted him to have a brown fringe shirt. He's to short for the jacket I bought in college, which would have been perfect (I guess I should dress as Davy Crockett for Halloween) so I figured I could just get a brown shirt, make my own fringe, and sew it on.

After checking thrift shops, Walmart, TJMaxx, and of course my own attic, I can safely say that brown is the least popular color for a shirt on the planet. Walmart has t-shirts and long sleeve t-shirts in every color; there's even a section of neon colors, every color but brown that is.

I looked on-line thinking I could get a brown fleece from LLBean. No brown. I googled "kids brown shirt," I got t-shirts for the Cleveland Browns. I googled "kids chocolate shirts," in case they weren't calling brown, brown any more, i.e. eggplant for purple and slate for gray, I got t-shirts with picture of Hershey kisses on them.

Authentic raccoon tail? No problem. Brown shirt? Not on your life. 

song: Brown Sugar • artist: The Rolling Stones

I'm a Boy

Why is there a box for gender on the Cub Scout Registration Form?

song: I'm a Boy • artist: The Who

Fool in the Rain

When your son wants to walk the long way back to the car even through it's drizzling, because there's a chance you might see wild turkeys - and you cave in a do it and then it starts pouring and the wild turkeys are long gone (because even a turkey is smarter than you about knowing when to get out of the rain), are you the cool mom who said yes - or just a chump? 

song: Fool in the Rain • artist: Led Zepplin

Down in the Flood

When my kids think of children who are less fortunate then themselves, they'll likely think of kids who come to Storyland in the summer and who have to (gasp!) wait in line in order to ride the bamboo shoots.

song: Down in the Flood • artist: Bob Dylan

Black Socks II

My black, cast-iron fry pan never gets dirty either.

song: Black Socks • artist: Bill Harley

Black Socks

Note to Bill Harley: Black dresses never get dirty either.

song: Black Socks • artist: Bill Harley

parenting is ...

having squashed pennies and tiny plastic swords in your wallet.

Atlantis

Atlantis. The first landmass to fall victim to global climate change.
I felt a little high in the car just listening to this song.

song: Atlantis • artist: Donovan

Little Lies

S and N are identical twins but S says he likes chocolate and N says he doesn't.
So I'm pretty sure one of them is lying.

song: Little Lies • artist: Fleetwood Mac

Barnyard Boogie

Where are the t-shirts that read, "A Goat Ate My Bookmark at the Fryeburg Fair?" Because I'm sure S isn't the only one that's happened to.
Or maybe, "My family went to the Fryeburg Fair and all I got was this lousy bookmark. And a goat ate it."
or
"Keep Calm and Hold on to Your Bookmark."

song: Barnyard Boogie • artist Ann Rabson

Killing Me Softly

Friday I broke open the box of chocolates my friend Christine brought me from the Czech Republic this summer in order to counter the effects of having biked 10 miles to (and from) school with my kids.
If sh*t falling out of the freezer onto my feet doesn't kill me, my kids will.

song: Killing Me Softly • artist: Roberta Flack

Sky High

We've been playing a lot of Clue at our house.
So much so that today while driving I swear I saw a cloud that looked like the wrench.
It was done by Hercules, in the Elysian Fields, with the Wrench.
But seriously. It was done by Mrs. White. The overworked maid.
And who can blame her?

song: Sky High • artist: Jigsaw

Stay (Just a Little Bit Longer)

How bleak things must be in Afghanistan if visiting the Cape Cod Mall was enough to make three Afghan soldiers want to defect.
The Cape Cod Mall usually makes me want to leave the country. Or at the very least run away screaming.
It's not as if there were at the Grand Canyon or Yellowstone or Las Vegas or something.
I mean at least Robin William's character in "Moscow on the Hudson" was in Bloomingdales.

song: Stay (Just a Little Bit Longer) • artist: Jackson Browne

One Foot in the Gutter

If I had a $1 for every time I whispered "shut the f*ck up," under my breath to my kids I'd be able to put the little f*ckers through college.

song: One Foot in the Gutter • artist: Jonny Two Bags

U Get Me High

Sometimes I pour my leftover wine into the watering can before I water the houseplants.
I figure if I'm going to kill them slow they might as well be inebriated.
Maybe I could procure some medical marijuana for them too.
Although - if a plant were to smoke pot - wouldn't that make it a cannibal? Or at least a cannabisibal?

song: U Get Me High • artist: Tom Petty

Ghost in the Machine

The blender turned itself on last night at 11:15PM. Which, if that's not par for the course for your blender, is quite freaky and more than a little disturbing.
My appliances are possessed.

album: Ghost in the Machine • artist: the Police

Hit The Road Jack

S traded his new musket-ball bracelet that we bought at the Bunker Hill Historical Museum last weekend for Pokémon cards on the bus yesterday.
It's like Jack and the freakin' Beanstalk around our house.

song: Hit the Road Jack • artist: Ray Charles

Black and White

Today one of the boys asked me, "if a white person and a brown person wanted to get married, would that be okay?"
Which kind of stunned me since we've already gone over, pretty thoroughly, with examples, that (at least in our state) boys are free to marry boys if they want and girls can marry girls.
So I guess I figured the okayness of an interracial marriage would just be a given.
But as usual I figured wrong.
Yes, of course that would be okay.
This falls into the category of my observation from a week or two back that, if we could just last long enough as a species, won't we all eventually end up the same color?

song: Black and White • artist: Three Dog Night

What You Need

All three of my elementary school children's back to school lists request one dozen black dry erase markers. The ones at Staples sell for $4 a four pack. That comes out to $12 for a set of 12 markers and $36 for the requisite 36 markers I have been asked to purchase total. 
I bought three packs of four and called it a day.
Let my kids fail elementary school. I can't bring myself to spend $36 on black markers. 
At least not when there's crayons, colored pencils, ear buds, sharpies, three-ring binders and folders in a rainbow assortment of colors still on the list.
Has anyone priced out Post It notes lately? Those suckers are expensive.
And what happened to the pencil sharpeners and cases I bought last year?

song: What You Need • artist: INXS