I’m reading submissions to TC for our 2010.1 issue and got a cover letter that states that the following work is free of the graphic sex and vulgar language in so many stories today. I felt like looking around and doing the “Who do you think you’re submitting to? She who conservatively uses “fuck” about six times a page and thrives on a good graphic sex scene? Yeah so that’d be a “no” on principle but as a good editor, I read the story anyway.

So anyway…

It made me want to take a break so here I am. Of course I should be doing about 87 other things but I want to do something for myself and so here it is.

This is Halloween, so say the residents of Halloweentown. We have a tradition here at Chez Piggyhawk: much like his friend Santa Claus does in two months, Jack Skellington visits Zoe and Holden on Halloween. They leave their pumpkins out and Jack comes to fill them. We’re never sure what Jack will bring. Could be books, toys, art supplies, a shrunken head, a striped worm as big as your leg, a vampire doll…

So I tell my kids during the month of October, “You’d better be good or Jack will bring you a head in a box!”

So today Zoe has been saying to her brother, “Holden, you should be good. Jack Skellington will bring you a head in a box tonight!”

We also talk about what they might like Jack to bring, since Jack can pass any lists or requests that have been made on to his friend Santa. Jack brings small things, although he is particularly fond of books, like his other friend The Easter Bunny. What Jack likes more than the Bunny though are games. Jack likes to bring at least one game and the request by Madame, who saw the commercial roughly 18,923 times while she was home sick for a week, was for Uno Moo. Well I had trouble finding it anywhere I went this week so we’re crossing our fingers that Santa will be able to hook Jack up with an Uno Moo for the kids. It’s shaping up to be a popular Christmas toy so I recommend getting your requests to Jack tonight.

Jack also brings candy for Mommy & Daddy. Jack also might leave a note for Zoe and Holden. You never know with Jack.

Happy Halloween, my tender lumplings.

His name is Jedediah. Technically his name is “Jed” but as you may have guessed, we like having another alternative as his name.

Don’t let the sad eyes in the photo fool you. He’s currently humping his bed.

He’s a licker. I have to wear long sleeved shirts (and change my shirt at least once a day) b/c he licks my arm every time I sit down.

He was kind of a rescue situation. It’s a long story but the short version is that he needed a new home. He’s all lab and all energy and a healthy dose of just plain weird.

Minerva is extremely displeased and not speaking to me.

More pics to come, I’m sure.

So anyway…

I go to the liquor store today and I ask the guy if he can recommend a brandy. He says, “What for?” I’m like, To pour all over Gerard Butler. What else are you supposed to use brandy for? Drinking?

Ah, la vie.

Harry has disappeared.

A week ago Sunday he slipped out when Zoe went to call Hawk in for dinner. Usually he would come up to the front door soon after but he never did. On Monday Hawk & I realized neither of us had let him back in. So we looked around for him to no avail. We haven’t seen him since.

Zoe figured out he wasn’t around pretty quickly. She said, “Maybe he’s sleeping.” I said, “Maybe.” She added, “Maybe he ran away.” I said, “I think he did.” A few days after, when he still hadn’t turned up, I said, “How would you feel if Harry did run away?” She said, “I would be so sad, I would cry and cry.” I said, “Well honey, I think he did run away. We can’t find him and it’s been a while.”

So now she wants a bunny.

The one who’s really missing Harry is Minerva. He was her play buddy and she just doesn’t know what to do with herself. Although she is back to being my cat. After we brought Harry in, she became Hawk’s cat. Previously she was so much my cat that she sat on my shoulder like a parrot and I could walk around doing things & she’d just be up there. She’s back to being my shoulder cat.

However…

We have a surprise lined up for the kids this weekend and it might make Minerva not be my cat (again).

So anyway…

My first Tasteful Treasures party is Friday night. I’m very excited. I think I have all my shit together. I just need to make some more goodie bags (price points $10, $20 and $50, worth more than what you’re paying, every bag includes something that tastes good and something that requires a battery).

We’re going to be in Erie the weekend of November 6. I love Erie! Whoo! Even in November. Now that’s a true Erieite.

The kids are excited for Halloween. Zoe is Little Red Riding Hood, probably the last year I’ll be able to push her toward a certain costume. She saw it in a catalog and I loved it. Then she wanted to be a pink leopard — a “too old for a six year old” costume at Target. Holden wanted to be a train. Train train train. I said, “How about an engineer?” “NO!” *sigh* Then I took him costume shopping and he went for the Obi-Wan costume because “I can have a lightsaber?”

Zoe’s also wondering what Jack will leave for them. I keep saying, “Probably a shrunken head.” Which makes the kids squeal. They don’t like “Creepy” or “Scary” Halloween stuff. And I’ve been so busy, the only decorating I’ve done is outside. If I’m not decorated for Halloween by the 15th of October, you know I’m busy.

Holden & Zoe

Originally uploaded by edenza

The recent documentary series on national parks shamed us into finally visiting the one right here in our little town: Allegheny Portage Railroad National Park.

What’s that? Well once upon a time it took almost a month to haul anything from goods to passenger from Philly to Pittsburgh. The state, like most states, used canal systems to do this. When it was decided that this wasn’t acceptable, the solution was this: let’s build canals from Philly to Hollidaysburg (a little town near Altoona) and from Pittsburgh to Johnstown. Then we’ll build a system of inclined plains to get the canal boats over the mountains. We’ll haul the boats out of the water and put them on flatbeds. We’ll use counterweights to help get the stuff up & down the planes. It’ll cut that trip from 26 days to 5.

And so it worked.

The Allegheny Portage Railroad was largely responsible for opening the west in the mid 19th century, connecting Ohio to ports in the east. Steam engines became more powerful and engineers designed the Horseshoe Curve (and built the Gallitzin Tunnels at the top of our little mountain) and the APRR was phased out of existence.

But we got a national park out of it b/c it’s really kind of a historically cool thing, if you’re into that stuff. Our 20-mile radius is like crack to rail junkies. Right by our house there’s a bridge over the Main Line and there are always rail buffs there taking pictures & videos. I haven’t done a good pic there yet. Maybe I will soon.

So anyway…

Our park is nicely educational and has a cool film which explains all this stuff (in a very nice 70-seat theater). We also have a good hiking trail which is a breeze to go down and hellacious to go back up.

The kids enjoyed having a hike (not so much the hike back but they recovered quickly). Zoe had already had her soccer game Saturday morning, hence her uniform (over seats b/c it was cold in the morning on the mountain). Between the soccer game & the park, we stopped at the pharmacy to pick up her prescription. While there, we had ice cream simply b/c we can (yes, our pharmacy has it’s original soda fountain; penny candy too).

Oh and last week at a kid party, a girl said I was lying when I said that we had a milkman. Which reminds me, this is also the time for the pumpkin patch at the dairy farm (until the 18th).

BTW: national parks, memorials, battlefields, etc. that I’ve visited include: Castillo de San Marcos, Canaveral Seashore, Antietam, Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial, Korean War Veterans Memorial, Lincoln Memorial, National Mall, Thomas Jefferson Memorial, Vietnam Veterans Memorial, Washington Monument, Rocky Mountain NP, Boston National Historical Park, Allegheny Portage RR NP, Eisenhower, Gettysburg, Independence & Valley Forge. If I’m feeling ambitious, I’ll address the question of “which is your park?” posed in the documentary.

Boobiethon 2009* launches today and only runs until next week. See boobies. Feel boobies. Schedule a mammogram. Donate cash. Knit a cap. Take a survivor out for coffee. Talk to your daughters. All that good stuff.

At least 10% of my Tasteful Treasures profits in October will go to breast cancer charities. If you’ve ever wanted to buy a rabbit vibrator, vibrating bullet, edible lotion, etc., this is the month to do it Buy direct from TT here. Visit my TTxS blog for my deals here. Neither site SFW.

* the linked page is SFW; the gallery at Boobiethon is not

So I’ve been having an issue with Paypal.

I got my bank statement (for my business account) and I had a charge of $8.02 from Paypal around Sept 5. No transaction details. I was like, “What?” So I wrote to Paypal and I told them I don’t have any transactions between Sept 2 & and Sept 24 and no transactions for $8.02 yet my bank says they sent Paypal $8.02 during that time. What gives?

“Ed” tells me oh that happened on September 2.

I write back to “Ed” and reiterate that there is no transaction for $8.02 anywhere.

Today “Lee” tells me what “Ed” did. I’m very “WTF?!” So I go to my Paypal account and… now there’s a transaction on September 2 for $8.02. I really wish I’d printed what it said Sunday, Monday, Tuesday… In any case, the bank is also charging me $7 for “servicing account,” whatever the fuck that means. So now I, with laryngitis, get to call & talk to them.

Has anyone else had a problem like this w/ Paypal?

/bitching

What I should do is get out the Halloween decor. That’ll perk me up.

There’s a new dancing baby video making the rounds:

Video won’t embed. Here’s the link: http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/bestoftv/2009/09/24/ac.shot.wed.cnn

Here’s the AC360 blog post: http://ac360.blogs.cnn.com/2009/09/24/the-shot-single-babies/

Last week, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) announced an update to Music-Rules!, its flagship “curriculum” for teaching copyright law to schoolkids.

We wrote about Music-Rules! and similar industry propaganda efforts in May, outlining some of their falsehoods and biases. For instance, the RIAA tells kids, “Never copy someone else’s creative work without permission from the copyright holder” — omitting the important right to make creative fair use of existing content. It also coins a misleading term, “songlifting,” (which the curriculum says is “just as bad as shoplifting”). Perhaps most disturbing of all given that the curriculum is supposed to be adopted by schools, it teaches kids bad math as part of its lessons on peer to peer file-sharing.

Source.

Via Dinosaur Mom, from Jezebel:

Whatever the details of these missives, the aggregate makes it clear that the real problem is not that Heather Armstrong is a bad mommy, a careless dog owner, an arrogant bitch, a bad writer, or a bully — it’s that she’s a woman with an audience. A woman with influence. And that kind of hatred and fear of female power affects women who are not Number 26, women who don’t have blogs or book deals, women who have never been on Oprah. It affects all of us.