HALLOWEEN TIME AGAIN

It’s too bad adults don’t get to go trick or treating. We could all trek up to Clay’s door …but we would just yell, “Treats only” when he opened it, wouldn’t we?

Most women love to dress up. And we could be as outrageous as we always wanted to dress and no one would make snide remarks about being “cheap”. We could wear great wigs….long straight black Cher ones, or pink ‘60s pageboys, or white spiky Billy Idol ones …at one time or another all these appealed to me but i have always been too repressed coughanalretentativecough to really express my true inner self. That must be why i love the internet and message boards so much….you don’t know me….i can be anybody i want to be. My Space is really great for that. I’m young and tall there…but i digress.

We’re talkin’ Halloween here, right. Remember when there were no such things as store-bought costumes??? You were a hobo or wore your mother’s clothes….that was about it. But nobody worried about razors in apples then either.

The Halloween that will always stand out in my mind is the year i begged and begged my mother to let me wear her dangly rhinestone earrings with one of her fancier dresses and high heels (now these were her very nicest earrings, mind you) and she refused. But being the persistent only-child i was, i bugged her until she relented.

Of course, i lost one of them somewhere along my route. I just hated to go home that night. Not that i was afraid i would be punished, because i knew i wouldn’t be. But because i knew how hurt she would be….to lose that favorite earring…and that i had been so careless after i had promised and promised how careful i would be. Nothing hurts a child like that “mother guilt thing” does it? I use it on my kids all the time now..

The only other Halloween i really remember was the last one. My girlfriend and i must have been thirteen or fourteen….still young enough to want to get as much candy as we could (girls didn’t grow up so quickly then, obviously)….but aware enough of our age and height to be a little self-conscious. I remember we had a great time and were amassing great quantities of calories when we went to the last house we ever went to (these momentous occasions need to be documented, ya know). The woman gave us candy, but guess she just couldn’t help herself from ruining our evening, “Aren’t you girls a little old for this?”

Now i wonder what would prompt her to say that to two young girls. She ruined this holiday for us forever. Maybe she had had a bad day herself, maybe she was just tired from answering the door bell, maybe she was just a frustrated old bitch. I’m sure she had problems of her own (all adults do). But my girlfriend and i didn’t understand that. We only knew we had been slapped in the face. The candy really didn’t even taste too good that night. We felt ashamed that we had been going door to door and embarassing ourselves and didn’t even know it.

When my kids were little we lived in a great neighborhood and i made all their costumes. The best was the robot - two cardboard boxes spray painted silver with wire antennae on top. By that time, i always accompanied them on their forages(maybe even stole a snickers bar once in a while when they weren’t looking). Anyway, the neighbors would always invite us all in and they would oooooh and aaaah over their costumes and the kids would just preen with pride.


What memories! Now the only trick-or-treater i have is when my daughter-in-law drives over with my grandson and i have a special bag made just for him and we take pictures of him. All the neighborhood kids go to the mall and go from store to store now. I understand completely. Parents have to be so careful in these troubled times.

But still…….i always wonder who found that rhinestone earring and what they did with it.

It’s just me, geni

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LITTLE THINGS MEAN A LOT




Doncha just love those wonderful little, seemingly inconsequential, inventions? I don’t mean the earth-shaking, magnificent accomplishments like cell phones and their offspring, camera phones, tivo, high speed internet, audio books (a mixed blessing), web cams, dvd and cd burners, uSendit, Itunes, blogs…….

No, I mean just tiny, thoughtful ideas to help save a little time, eliminate an irritating annoyance. Who was the nice person that thought up making the back stand on picture frames with one side slanted so you could use either a vertical or horizontal picture in it? That was thoughtful. Or that curved thingy attached to electric cords that clips onto it when you wind it up for storage.

Pull out handles on rolling luggage, push buttons to open umbrellas, beep button to find lost portable phones (be nice to have one of those on remotes, too) One of my favorite inventions is the detachable gas pump. Yes,it is embarrassing to drive off with it attached to your open gas tank, but better that leaving self service hearing that scrape and clang and the horrible scene in your rear view mirror of a writhing pump spewing gasoline all over the service area. And although gasoline will clean the dirt off the side of your car, it also does something to the paint job.

Or zip locks on plastic storage bags…think how many schoolkids are saved the tramatic experience of stale bread with their pb&j, not to mention, effortlessly learning that red and blue make purple.

Who thought up the laborsaving idea of using the lid on the liquid laundry soap to measure just the right amount? Lids in general have evolved, well maybe that really is creationism ….squirt tops on ketsup and mustard – no more searching for mislaid ones. I love those flip top ones on mao. Child-proof lids probably saved a lot of kids. Course there’s the trade off of seniors dying with their medicine bottle, lid intact, cluched in their arthritic hands. Gel caps (capsules, of course, but a nice segue you’ll have to admit) gel caps are so much easier to swallow even if they remind me of midget slugs…excuse me, little people ones.

I adore post-it notes….now you don’t have to hunt for the scotch tape, remember how that pulled the paint off the wall along with the taped note? Clap-on lamps were nice. Whatever happened to those? Someone die of fright in the middle of the night when all their lights came on suddenly?

Now these innovations are not so little but are so convenient that they hold a place in my heart: Household appliances like self cleaning ovens and no-defrost freezers. Most of you are probably too young to remember chipping away at the ice buildup with a knife and boiling water and sitting the pan up there. Those glass topped stoves are nice to look at. Did you know you can melt that glass if you happen to be looking at clack and forget that you left something cooking on HIGH?

Driving innovations can be life saving. I kinda like what they’ve done to the side of the highway. Ya’know when you veer over too far to the shoulder and you get that horrible grating noise and vibration…wakes me up right away. Then there’s seat warmers, remotes that unlock the door and turn on the lights, cruise control, GPS, (I need one of those because I have literally driven miles to get to the next exit to go back and find the right exit I just drove past), DVD players for kid control. No more, “Do I have to stop this car and come back there?” I wish someone would come up with an easier way to open the hood, though. That release handle under the dash takes a lot of muscle to pull, not to mention the search for the little latch inside the hood when you’re standing out in the sleet with your jumper cables over you shoulder.

Sippy cups, diaper caddies, electric warming box for wipes, automatic musical baby swings, telebabies, the wiggles…..not to mention “that night” pregnancy tests and morning after pills. Hmmmmm maybe I shouldn’t go there.

Velcro is real nice. Now kids never have to learn to tie a bow – which they don’t need to know anyway – stores sell colorful bows to just stick on your gifts. Velcro shoulder pads are nice too, except if one should happen to somehow fall out of a loose sleeve and someone taps you on the shoulder and says, “I think this belongs to you.”

Personal enhancement items are great. Like non-absorbent falsies. Ever go swimming with a pair of those old ones in your top? Not a pretty picture when you’ve been out of the pool for awhile. Nail glue is marvelous. One word - leepressonnails. I gave up on eyelash curlers….too dangerous. Self-ear piercers are simple and handy, but studs all the way to the top of the ear are overdoing it, I think. Also won’t go to the various and sundry other places that some people are piercing now.

Thank God for little things.

i have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night

it's just me, geni

sex, lies, and videotapes

the sad killings in PA have prompted this blog. what in the world is happening to people? Why in the world would someone do this? the killing of innocents is always about the killer, though, not the victims.

quite obviously this killer chose those symbols of innocence - Amish children - for a reason. not because he knew them, or they had harmed him in any way. just for the symbolism. and girls - women - are quite often the target for men with suspected sexual confusion - sex.

i watch the news- videotapes - sporatically, so may not be up-to-date on the "latest developments in this breaking story". and in my opinion - and that's what a blog's for, right, opinions? - but a blackbagfull of the problem lies right at the media's bloody doorstep. this constant, continuous, overblown coverage of stories with an emphasis on sexual overtones is fueling the fire.

and i mean the fire raging in so many people. that fire of sexual confusion - sex. that quest for physical gratification, for a "soulmate", someone to fill all our desires, someone to be the answer to all our problems, someone to make us whole. well, of course, no one can fit that bill. no one is going to solve your problems but you.

but we are constantly fed this dichotomy on screen. 1. "the horror of it all" and 2. if i buy enough/change myself enough i, too, can have some of that perfection i see fed to me daily on screen - if a bit too skinny or a bit too musclebound sometimes - still the promise is there - maybe.... perhaps, if we can just find it.....maybe everything will be all right.

it's all pr....lies....giv'em what they wanna hear and see. i have no idea who's to blame....the giver or the receiver....the media or the public....the idol or the worshipper. as pogo said, "i have seen the enemy and it is ?????"

but is it any wonder there is so much frustration out there? confused people are just becoming more confused. they give up and the dementia takes over. perhaps just the overwhelming feeling that "if i can't have what i want someone is going to have to suffer along with me". perhaps just the desire to end it all, somehow, no matter who else gets hurt.

do i have any answers? are you kidding? this is a blog not an advice column. i have no idea what a solution might be or even what the real cause is. this is the third millennium, we're all just winging it here. i only know what i see and hear on those screens, just like you. i only know something is very wrong with a lot of people. let me know what you think...

it's just me, geni

p.s. a blog isn't part of the "media", is it?