Boo! Time for a quiz, and an exorcism if you're so inclined.

Enough of my headache (returned) and exhaustion (profound). It is time for a silly quiz - What's Your Halloween Personality?

Mine: What Your Halloween Habits Say About You

You're a friendly person, but not the life of the party. You like making someone else's day - and you'll dress up if you think of a really fun costume. You definitely think of yourself as someone who has a dark side. And part of having that dark side means not showing it. Your inner child is stubborn and a bit bossy. You truly fear the dark side of humanity. You are a true misanthrope. You're prone to be quite emotional and over dramatic. Deep down, you enjoy being scared out of your mind... even if you don't admit it. You are a traditionalist with most aspects of your life. You like your Halloween costume to be basic, well made, and conventional enough to wear another year.

I doubt it's because I prefer chocolate to gummy worms, but some of this is right on (I'm friendly with a dark side and a stubborn, bossy inner child, like to be scared, somewhat traditionalist). Of course some of it is also crap (I'm neither prone to overdrama nor a true misanthrope, though maybe kind of a curmudgeon). And how a person can be both friendly and truly misanthropic escapes me. Well. It's a silly quiz. Enjoy, and report back.

What do you do for Halloween? U.K. readers, has Halloween spread across the pond?

As a serious kind of kid, it was never my favorite holiday. I never really liked any sort of dress-up, and going to school in costume made me anxious. I don't even know if schools still do that, but I won't be sad if they don't.

As a parent it is a total hoot to see the kids enjoying it. We have good friends up the street, and team up to do dinner and trick-or-treat stuff together, and it's truly fun.

For some of the 1990s, I had a looooong highway commute to work from Amherst, MA to Brattleboro VT. Was I insane? Let's just say home life wasn't great, work life wasn't great, so those hours in the car may have been the healthiest part of the day. Anyhoo, I used to catch this dude's kooky radio talk show for sheer entertainment on the way home. This time of year it was always highly amusing to listen to his demented rants about how celebrating Halloween is opening ourselves to forces of evil, demonic possession, Satanic influence, &c. I kid you not. If you need an exorcism or know someone who does, check him out. You could get on TV!

tidbits

Here's a kind of spirograph thingy. Eh.

In case there was anyone left in the known universe who doesn't think Tom Cruise is crazier than a shithouse rat: be aware he's building a bunker for when the aliens come. Course, maybe he'll have the last laugh. I dunno though, my pantry is preeettty well stocked from that time the canned tomatoes (no salt added, natch) went on that crazy sale, and also from the time I thought Stop&Shop was going to quit stocking cans of Goya low sodium red kidney beans and I bought every single one they had. What can I say -- I have high blood pressure and I make a lot of chili.

Check out the astronomy picture of the day. I'm going to put the link on my sidebar. Cool.

Also: the earworm of the last few days, to go nicely with my headache (which is just abating over the last couple of hours, tyvm), has been that "Tub Thumping" tune by Chumbawumba, or whateverthehell that band was called. I say was, because somehow I can't imagine they're still crankin' out da hits.

Headache

I don't know why I get 'em, but I remember having headaches even as a child. As a younger adult I had migraines. I don't get those anymore, so that's good. But sometimes -- dang. My head freakin' hurts.

Today is one of those days. I skipped the Advil and went right to the prescription stuff, which has kicked in, but I can still feel the headache as if it's hiding behind a heavy curtain which will lift in a few hours, and I'll be back where I started from.

There are all kinds of pain to be in, and most of them are worse than this. Still, it wears me thin.

Metaphorically only, of course. There really is no up side.

More Movies!

From the "everybody knows this already" department: Crash is a gooooood movie. One of the best serious dramas I've seen in quite a while. It's upsetting, doesn't have a lot of light moments, but the effect for me was more thoughtful than depressing. The movie follows a dozen or so characters (big cast, all terrific) as their lives are affected by a couple days' events on the streets of Los Angeles. It makes for a lot to think about: 21st century racism, isolation, prejudice, fear; the fact that everyone has more to them than first shows (and isn't that some of the oldest wisdom, "don't judge a book by its cover"? We all know to try not to do that. We all do it anyway). That you never really know what is happening in someone else's life is worth thinking about, and Crash is a great vehicle for it. Every character has something to identify with. Every one also has deep flaws.

Moralizing: We're all flawed humans. Treat each other kindly. Bad things may still happen, but to do otherwise is to live in a kind of prison.

Crash reminded me a bit of House of Sand and Fog, another excellent drama, this one based on a powerful novel by Andre Dubus III. House of Sand and Fog is quite sad, however, and though I recommend it I don't want to see or read it again.

***

Good news from the "sometimes even Sandy digs a chick flick" department: Mona Lisa Smile (2003) wasn't nearly as nauseating as I'd feared. Julia Roberts plays Katherine Watson, a new art history instructor at Wellesley College in 1953. An independent thinker from California, Miss Watson is unprepared for and ill-suited to the conservative, stodgy, stifling environment she finds at Wellesley, despite its being a school for the sharpest minds in the country ("I thought that I was headed to a place that would turn out tomorrow's leaders, not their wives").

Miss Watson proves herself a powerful instructor and role model. She teaches a lot, she learns a lot. It's a nice story, however stereotyped and stylized. Especially noted: the costumes are great. Maggie Gyllenhaal is lovely. Julia Stiles has a terrific voice. Marcia Gay Harden is funny, borderline freakish, as the chintz-loving elocution/deportment instructor.

The story is complete fiction -- I don't think that Wellesley College had classes in deportment and whatnot, as even then it was a place for serious education -- but it is true that in 1953, even women's college graduates for the most part "only" married and raised families. I suppose the question is there: how far have we come? Even in 2007, nobody asks men how they plan to balance career and family. But I don't have the energy for that today, and as Katherine Watson learns, we don't all measure by the same yardstick. Mona Lisa Smile is a good story, and a pretty movie, and I'm going to leave it at that.

I gave my love a story... that haaaad noooo ennnnnd...

You know the scene in Animal House where Bluto Blutarsky (or whatever) comes down the stairs at a party and there's some dude strumming an acoustic guitar, soulfully crooning

"I gave my love a cherry
That had no stone,
I gave my love a chicken
That haaaad nooooo booooooone..."

and Bluto grabs the guitar, smashes it on the stairs, and hands it back with a muttered "sorry"?
At least that's how I remember that scene.

Well, I always thought that song was a joke, part of the genius of the script (another gem is the headline: "Sophomore Dies in Kiln Explosion.")

Turns out, as I was blissfully unaware until recently, it isn't. It's an actual for-real song, that real people sing. Incredibly, this can be done with a straight face. Just not by me.

I learned this because Peanut and I take a music class Wednesday mornings while Bean is in school. Each 10-week session comes with a CD of a reasonably pleasant mix of songs in different styles for the kiddos to learn. So I unwrap the new CD, pop it in, and what to my horrified ears should appear but this damn tune, in all its sincere, saccharine splendor. And I can't help but also hear the satisfying crunch of an acoustic guitar being smashed mid-verse.

Sadly, the Bean heard the song in the car today and has decided it is "soooooo beautiful." She sings it constantly, and... well... the kid can't carry a tune in a bucket.

I have the mental guitar smash going on infinite loop.

Leave a light on, just in case.

Can you watch horror movies? How 'bout alone, late at night? In a dark house? With your spouse on a trip to Far Far Away and your little ones sleeping upstairs and occasionally making vaguely unsettling gurgling noises over the baby monitor?

Something possessed me (ha! - I kill me. Double ha! ... right, not funny. Sorry.) to watch 1408 under those circumstances. Based on a terrific short story by Stephen King, it's about what happens when Mike Enslin, a jaded writer of cheesy "haunted inn" travel guides (played by John Cusak looking appropriately chunky), stays in room 1408 at New York City's Dolphin Hotel, over the strenuous objections of hotel manager Gerald Olin (played by Samuel L. Jackson looking appropriately stern). "Nobody lasts more than an hour," says Olin. Enslin scoffs, demands the key and checks in. He notes on his tape recorder that 1408's major threat appears to be its horrid decor, and blithely flips through a thick file of news clippings and grisly photographs of its previous unfortunate occupants.

Then. Chocolates appear on the pillow while his back is turned. Cute trick, thinks Eslin. But as the clock radio, untouched, begins to blast the Carpenters' "We've Only Just Begun," again and again and again -- well. He begins to realize that the manager wasn't yanking his chain. There's serious evil in 1408, and he'll likely die there.

The movie's got some flaws, but overall it's effectively creepy, and one of the best King adaptations I've seen. (The Shining, of course, is the gold standard. Actually, the others I can think of weren't so good, so maybe that's faint praise.) Anyway the original story, as always, is even better. I'm going to read it again, probably with another adult in the house.

updates

On the missing person - not much hope. There has been nothing in the Cape Cod Times (I won't link you to their website, which is astonishingly bad, for a news outlet) about the man who went overboard off the ferry for almost a week now. His cap has been found; that is all. Evidently he went off the starboard bow. Those propellers come pretty quickly -- I think if you're aiming to survive, you'd choose a different spot to dive from, but I don't really know. Anyway I'm guessing the outcome won't be a happy one. I happened to be in Falmouth (Cape Cod town closest to Martha's Vineyard) the other day and saw posters of his picture on the telephone poles in town. Sad.

On the casino proposal - some reason for optimism. News today is that Governor Patrick's proposal includes a provision for voters at the local level to have the final say on whether or not there will be a casino in their town. So at least there's that. It doesn't help Lakeville residents deal with a potential casino in Middleboro, but it's something. If a casino is approved locally, well, I'd say it's all kinds of stupid, be careful what you wish for, etc., but it's less horrid than the state just giving it the OK from above. People can still say no -- let's hope they do.

On the way to the bus stop

Bean: Wouldn't it be nice if a nice girl monkey came to tell that skunk to stop messing up our yard?
Me: Um... sure. That would be nice. Why a girl monkey?
Bean: Because monkeys have hands like people and can pick things up, and feet like hands so they can climb trees.
Me: Good point. (forgets to ask why not a boy monkey)

On the way back from the bus stop, Peanut carrying acorns, me carrying my tea:

Peanut: What if someone put an acorn in someone's tea?
Me: Someone should not put an acorn in someone's tea.
Peanut: If someone did that, someone would have a time out.

More pissing into the wind

(submitted on stopandshop.com, for whatever it's worth)

TO: STOP & SHOP
FROM: SANDY SHOES
RE: GIANT SANTA

Hello -
May I just say that it is WAY TOO SOON to be displaying that stupid giant inflated Santa thing in the grocery store? People say that Christmas commercialization happens earlier and earlier every year, and that is certainly true at Stop & Shop, where you now have Christmas displays up and running within hours of the autumnal equinox.

It's gross. Please stop it.

The poor employee who was stationed in front of it, and taking the brunt of everyone's comments, said that everyone -- EVERYONE -- who came in was disgusted and complaining about it. I know I'm one of just a few who will take the time to write, but you know and I know that HUNDREDS of customers feel the same way. Hello? Do you care?

I would really appreciate Christmas displays being held off until after Thanksgiving. Otherwise it's one more reason I'm doing more and more of my shopping at Trader Joe's. (The other reasons include that they sell eggs for $1.19/doz. Where does Stop & Shop get off charging twice that?)

Thanks for reading.

The House Always Wins...

...we the people stand to lose.

The Governor of Massachusetts, Deval Patrick, has recently come out in favor of casino gambling in our fair Commonwealth, and put forth a proposal for three casino "resorts" to be built in different regions of the state.

I am terribly disappointed in him. So disappointed, I [edit: almost] wish I'd voted Republican. And that, my friends, is a bitter, bitter thing for this pro-choice/pro-gay marriage/environmentalist/equal and civil rights advocate/public education enthusiast to admit.

Those who support the proposal say that casinos mean a whole lotta tax money, which we simply must generate to fix our infrastructure and give our schools a boost. Why not casinos, say they. Gambling isn't the end of civilization. Nobody forces people to gamble, and who are we to moralize about what people do with their money? Isn't it hypocritical to have bingo, the state lottery, etc. but get all prudish about a casino? Lighten up! People are just going down to Connecticut to the casinos there -- why not keep the money in state?

The money, the money, the money. Always and only the money. Our government has smelled cash, and look out, here they come.

Why does this matter to me? Mr. Sandy and I don't gamble. It would be easy to think of casino gambling essentially as a tax on people who either can afford to willingly lose some money, or are (sorry, but let's face it) too stupid not to throw away money they need. Not being either, why should I worry about it further? Let 'em pay. So what. Shrug.

But what moral society taxes its stupid so heavily? The Governor boasts about how much he plans to have us spend on gambling addiction programs, etc., to alleviate the myriad social ills that nobody denies are coming along with the casinos. We'll set up trust funds to take care of all the unpleasantness, won't that be nice? I will be so glad to read about the generous payout to the family of the first shit-for-brains parent who leaves an infant to suffocate in the car while they play just a few hands of $10 blackjack. Yay us!

What's the human cost of all this revenue? I doubt we'll even break even.

Never mind that we ought to be fixing our bridges and roads with the considerable revenue already being generated by income and sales and myriad other taxes. It's not as if Massachusetts citizens are undertaxed.

And speaking of roads, how 'bout we take a higher one, and not put casino projects out to the highest bidder?

Because (have we forgotten?) the casino-in-Massachusetts issue was supposed to be about the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe, now federally recognized as a sovereign nation, getting an exclusive opportunity to better their economic situation by building a casino somewhere in southeastern Massachusetts. To that end, for better or worse, they already have land and a deal in the works in the town of Middleborough. The tribe appears mired in its own serious problems -- their recently resigned longtime leader is a convicted rapist, among other things, and IRS and FBI agents have come a'calling with questions about certain "fiscal irregularities" -- but all that aside (!), it was supposed to be their opportunity. Not Deval Patrick's.

But Wampanoag, schwampanoag. Let's have three ca$ino$! Let's put 'em out to bid! Think of the roads we'll fix, and nobody will ask why it couldn't have been done without Ballys in the Berkshires, or whatever friggin' monstrosity we end up with.

Are casinos really the best our state can do? Is this the best and highest use of our land, our labor? I truly don't think so, but I wouldn't bet on this government looking for another way. Brace yourselves for the newspaper accounts of dead babies in parking lots. Dice roll in 2012 or so. Will it be worth it?

Miss Spelled

I'm a very good speller. I don't say this to brag, because it ain't braggin' if it's true, but also because I don't think it's an indication of intelligence or anything except that I happen to be able to do it. It's a knack. Some of the smartest people I know, way smarter than I, can't spell for beans.

But here are some words that just don't come automatically, and always make me pause, if only for a split second.

zucchini
broccoli
occasionally
embarrassed

It's the double letters.

(I know: Most. Boring. Post. Ever.)

Tattoo You?

Classy.

I heard somewhere the statistic that a third of all Americans have at least one tattoo. That's a lot of us.

In theory, I have nothing against tattoos. I wouldn't get one myself, because 1) I am a wuss about painful things and don't do them on purpose if I can help it, and 2) I can't think of an image I'd want on my own skin for ever and ever and fading ever.

In practice, I have a sort of mildly held, open-but-not-likely-to-change opinion that most tattoos, on most people, are ugly and/or look just plain stupid. Those lower back butterflies or whatever, aka "tramp stamps"? Ugly. Asian characters of meaning unknown sometimes even to the person on whom they're inked? Look stupid. Likenesses of other real humans, alive or dead are often ugly and always creepy. Tattoos of mermaids, dolphins, roses, dragonflies, the name of your child/lover/mother/favorite band/patron saint: whatever floats your boat. Just not my style.

If you Google images of "beautiful tattoos," what you'll dredge up is images of ugly tattoos. It's just what there is.

So, I was unsurprised yet strangely fascinated to come across this blog: Horrible Tattoos. Checkit.

Novel fodder

A local news story this morning made me think of novels, or potential novels, or truth being potentially at least as strange as fiction.

Three days ago, this 28 year-old man rode his bike to the pier in New Bedford, boarded the 1:30 PM ferry to Martha's Vineyard, and hasn't been seen since. Surveillance cameras show 26 passengers getting on board in New Bedford, 25 disembarking on the Vineyard. A Navy veteran and Merchant Marine, he is a strong swimmer, trained in cold water survival. It is assumed he went overboard, but nobody knows precisely where. Buzzard's Bay is chilly but definitely survivable this time of year. His mother is asking people to walk shorelines and help look for her son.

So what happened? Suicide seems unlikely. Alien abduction? Foul play? Meticulously planned escape (from gambling debt? blackmailers? an unbearable personal life?)? Is this guy hundreds of miles away with a new identity by now?

And who should finish this story? Sue Grafton? Stephen King? John Grisham? Whoever's riding Robert Ludlum's coattails these days? Creative Writing 101 at a college near you: "Write this story in the style of your favorite contemporary author"?

The simplest explanation is usually the likeliest, but I'll be kind of bummed if this turns out to be a stupid alcohol- or drug-influenced accidental drowning instead of the tip of an intense and complicated international espionage iceberg. Or something.

Lost in Translation

Not the movie, though I liked it better than the paid critics did.

I recently had reason to read Psalm 23. I can't remember the reason, I've since been distracted. That happens a lot. I'll be thinking about something, then reminded of something else I've always wondered and go to look it up and find something else interesting, then get an email about something else entirely, and so on. That's not counting interruptions. Mr. Sandy sometimes calls me Dory.

"Look, something shiny!" Where?

OK, it was nothing.

Anyway. I have two Bibles: the Good News Bible I was given at my confirmation, which calls itself "today's English version," and a very cheaply bound King James version which I bought when I needed a Bible to look up some other long-forgotten thing, and hadn't yet retrieved my confirmation one from my parents' house.

Anyway, anyway. Psalm 23 in the KJ Bible reads thusly:

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.
He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.
Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou annointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.

Lovely, right? Lyrical. Powerful.

Compare to the Good News version:

The Lord is my shepherd; I have everything I need.
He lets me rest in fields of green grass and leads me to quiet pools of fresh water.
He gives me new strength.
He guides me in the right paths, as he has promised.
Even if I go through the deepest darkness, I will not be afraid, Lord, for you are with me.
Your shepherd's rod and staff protect me.
You prepare a banquet for me, where all my enemies can see me;
you welcome me as an honored guest and fill my cup to the brim.
I know that your goodness and love will be with me all my life;
and your house will be my home as long as I live.

Good grief! "I have everything I need"? That sounds like something you'd say to the waiter, or the nurse.

Who could have thought it was a good idea to water down the incomparable "yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death"? Who thought we needed "rod and staff" clarified and so added the gratuitous "shepherd's" to it? Who did away with the lovely "my cup runneth over"?!

Bah.

Instead of "today's English," they should just have subtitled it "for today's morons."

Note to churches: why talk down to kids with the Good News Bible? High school students read more poetry than most grownups, and there's no reason they shouldn't get the good stuff.

Finished.

Mr. Sandy and I finished Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows the other night. (I'd been reading a chapter a night aloud at bedtime, and in hindsight it is clear that I have J.K. Rowling to blame for some of my recent fatigue.)

What an amazingly good, rich set of stories this has been. I feel a little bereft. They are there to reread of course, but still.

I love best the details -- the characters' wonderful names, the odd plants and magical creatures, the owls, the secrets of Hogwarts, the charms and potions and devices. Portraits and portkeys. Howlers and gillyweed and blast-ended skrewts.

And I have questions! There are loose ends -- what happened to...? How did...?

I need to see the deleted scenes!

Ah well. Though I'm sorry the saga is over and I'll miss that first-time reading experience, I'm so glad that I didn't ignore this series first as kid stuff, then as an overhyped popular culture phenomenon. It's more than both those things.

Well done, Ms. Rowling, well done indeed.

I'm not tired. I'm not tired. I'm not ...zzzzzzzzzzz.

That'd be me in denial, not my children.

I have always (since babyhood, says my mother) had better things to do than go to sleep. That is until pregnancy, during which I could easily fall asleep at any time of day, and would sometimes find it impossible not to, even standing up. Mr. Sandy observed that pregnancy seemed to have permanently changed my falling asleep process from an hour-long ordeal to a two-minute slide to slumber. Having the babies didn't bring back the old toss-and-turn habit... as a new mother, you catch what rest you can as efficiently as possible.

It's now been 3.5 years since I was preggers, and lately the old slow-to-sleep pattern seems to be creeping back. Unfortunately, it doesn't feel like I need less sleep, just that I'm getting less.

But! Aren't we supposed to need less sleep as we get older? When does that kick in? As someone who's always half resented needing sleep at all, I'm sort of looking forward to that.

Or is it just a myth?

"Myth?"
"Yeth?"

TO: Macy's, Hyannis, MA

FROM: Sandy Shoes
RE: The limits of good taste.

I noted with regret (but not disbelief) that you saw fit to put up Christmas trees in your store the day after Labor Day.

Even by today's dubious standards, that struck everybody in the place (including your grumbling employees) as -- how shall I say? Horrid. Gross. Tacky. Without class.

Just so you know, I try to avoid places where all those adjectives apply at the same time.

And me without my eye patch!

Holy poop deck, me hearties, I almost forgot it's Talk Like A Pirate Day. I shall switch keyboards at once:

RRRRRRRR! Avast!

The Department of Redundancy Department

A representative sample, by no means a complete list, of things I say a thousand times a day that make me feel like some sort of crazy mean angry bitch:

No.
I don't understand what you're saying when you use that voice.
Try again.
Use words please.
Use your nice words please.
No.
Please stop that.
Please STOP THAT.
STOP THAT!
Did you wipe?
Where do your underpants go?
What did you forget?
No.
Don't suck, brush.
That means MOVE the brush on your teeth.
Don't talk, eat.
Your sleeve is in your plate.
Your hair is in your plate.
No.
Please drink your milk.
Please take another bite.
Is the light on in your room?
Do I listen to whining?
I can't reach it when I'm driving.
Come out from behind there.
TELL ME WHEN YOU POOP.
No.
Is it OK to hit/yell at/grab things from your sister?
What do you say?
That's enough.
I said, THAT'S ENOUGH.

And, when I finally snap, which I'm not proud of, but it happens: Why do I have to say the same things again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again EVERY SINGLE DAY? WHY?!?
Mommy needs a time out.

The Sound of (relative) Silence

At bedtime, I ask the girls to tell me what their favorite part of the day was, sometimes with amusing results. The past two nights, the Peanut has said that her favorite part of the whole day was when the Bean got on the bus to go to school.

Not to dis my firstborn, but I can relate. That Bean is being loud and bossy lately. Also loud and jubilant, which I love -- she's a happy healthy girl and it's great to see. But loud and silly, which is a small doses thing for me. The baby voice she affects sometimes just sends me through the roof.

If only I could get the Peanut to EAT HER SUPPER and the Bean to CUT IT OUT with the stupid noises all freakin' day... well. There'd be something else.

One thing about parenting is you realize the annoying phases pass, just as the precious ones do. But in the meantime, kindergarten may be saving my sanity, and it definitely gives the Peanut some well-deserved time to play on her own terms.