hallowee're losers and Super Zor

For Halloween this year, our first with a child, we didn't do a darned thing. We stayed home with the lights dimmed and tried not to make loud noises. It's not that we dislike snot-nosed children in over-sized costumes, or enthusiastically contributing to childhood obesity, or opening the door a hundred times to let in the frigid night air, or being told we'll be tricked if we don't hand over a treat (which, come on - being tricked is FUN!), or wondering, "Do I know this kid and should elaborate on how great they look?" but we'd had a busy several days, I was really tired, and we needed to veg out alone. By the way, that paragraph should be seen as entirely sarcastic; I actually do like giving wrapped candy to unrecognizable children.

Anyway, even in normal life, nothing about this house currently says, "Come on in!" You have to enter the property through a gate and then walk down a skinny path toward an unlit porch. The light bulb is broken off in the socket, and we haven't replaced it yet. The rod-iron fence and the leafless, low, wide tree in the yard are a classic graveyard combination, especially at night.

Nevertheless, one brave family made their way to our door and knocked. We looked around. Do we have anything we can give these people? Olive oil? A squirt of dish soap? A can of baby corn? No good. Jason threw his pants on and answered the door. That's just the way it is; Jason does not like to wear pants around the house. Maybe as a youngster, he had his pants catch fire. From my hiding spot in the kitchen, I could hear several tiny voices say, "TRICK OR TREAT!" I cringed, knowing a poor little dragon and a princess and a chicken were about to be sorely disappointed.

Jason goes, "Oh, you know what, you guys? We are total losers. We don't have any candy whatsoever for ya." And the mom said to Jason in a kind, instructive voice, "That's okay. Just say, 'Happy Halloween.'" "Happy Halloween," Jason said obediently, which the children responded with. Meanwhile, Zoralee had gotten to the door, and she peeked around it real cutely, which the family liked. I guess she was their treat. Their other treat was hearing an adult do the very un-PC thing of calling himself a loser, which Jason felt bad about later. Sorry, kids. Better luck next year.

* * * *

Three or so days later, I finally got around to completing Zoralee's costume. Don't look too closely; all we gots up here is a needle and thread. As you'll see, she was Super Zor, but maybe more appropriately, Super Late Zor. That's what she gets for being our offspring.

SUPER ZOR - A DAY IN THE LIFE



Once I spotted her, I followed Super Zor around for the day and learned some interesting things. First of all, she is unusual in that she hates to wear a mask. She said she wanted people to know who she was. She's not ashamed of being a heroine in diapers.

Get this thing off of me!



















Okay, I'll wear it as a bandana for like 1 second. Otherwise, let the people know the truth.



















Super Zor practices the fine motor skills necessary for saving the world by sorting through boxes of tea.



















She keeps Emergen-C on hand, because, something you don't think about: heroes are exposed to a lot of germs.














Doing laundry is a typical off-duty task.



















Sidekick Monkey, get OVER here. I need backup.






































That was super fast, Sidekick Monkey.














Dude, you've got something in your eye.














Another surprise: some things Super Zor does appear to be trouble-making. I guess there's a dark side to all of us. But in the case of shredding a roll of toilet paper, there's apparently a noble reason behind it. Bits of toilet paper, and in fact, any other crumbs of old food, crusty nasties, and lint from around the floor, are for Super Zor what spinach is for Popeye. At least, I couldn't figure why someone would ingest those things if it weren't for the powers they gained.














As I followed Super Zor, I also saw that there are cold, lonely moments for heroes, moments where their mothers have them sitting outside in the cold with nothing on but their thin black costumes, for the sake of a couple of posterity photographs, bribing them with trinkets to smile.



















What a day I had with Super Zor. If you're lucky enough, maybe you'll see her too. But when the day draws to a close, and the townspeople settle in for a simple supper of meat loaf and brussels sprouts, and the bad guys wake up and start their evil scheming, all you might catch is the long shadow of a hero.

pals

Chloe and Lillian Tater Tot

puzzle illustration

This is but a small illustration with a simple puzzle of why I NEVER GET CAUGHT UP ON THINGS AROUND THIS JOINT.

household noticings

It's dark outside now when Zoralee wakes up from her late afternoon nap. It brings back a very specific feeling...the feeling of waking up from a late afternoon nap and it being dark outside. Do you remember that from childhood? Oh, hmm. It just dawned on me, even as I'm typing, that perhaps this has happened in adulthood too, which is why the memory is so fresh. I do like naps, after all, so the chances are good I've awoken from a few in the dark evening. But I'm pretty sure I'm having this feeling from childhood, because I also recall that as I came to, I'd smell various supper smells, and I'd hear the news being broadcast. I'd be a little wobbly as I made my way to the light of the kitchen, and I'd have a warm sense of safety in my gut. So yeah, childhood.

Do your cheese blocks in the fridge mold and/or get hard, crusty edges? Have I got a tip for you. I read it in one of those long email forwards that has 40,000 household tips, half of which you're like, "I doubt that works" and the other half you're like, "Man, I wish I'd remember that, but I probably won't." Well, I tried this, and it works!! Wrap the open end of your cheese block in tin foil, and secure it with a rubber band. No hard spots. No mold. This bumps wrapping cheese in seran wrap, a plastic baggie, or a wax baggie totally off the podium.

Dishes are vagabonds, and I'm not sure they should be. First, we keep dishes in the cupboard for storage. Then they're used at the table or around the house. Then they are placed in the sink for either a full washing or a quick rinse-off. Then they go to a drying rack (in the case of sink washing) or to the dishwasher. That's four places. There are at least four totally separate places where kitchen dishes spend their time - anywhere from minutes to days. And we have to handle them every single time. I'd like for somebody inventive to cut that down to two or three. Can a dishwasher be formatted to also be the storage bin instead of using cupboards? Crud, that's how we use it a lot of the time as it is. Maybe if we had two smaller dishwashers, we'd always have one free for the next load, and we could leave the other full of clean dishes and grab them straight out for use. I don't know the answers here, but somebody could make bank re-designing the entire kitchen system.

McHugh Trail, second time, sunnier day, with Nic & Autumn

This is a post I have been longing to write, and more importantly, show pictures with! People, Alaska is ridiculous. I love it, and I'd love for you to love it too, if you don't already. We hiked McHugh trail the second time about a week after the first, and it was drop-dead gorgeous. I mean that. I felt like it would've been a-okay to drop dead right there, either by the overwhelming beauty or from some other cause (with the possible exception of being sucked dry by leaches).

The body of water you see is the Turnagain Arm. The ocean, man.

Every now and again, if you're lucky, you'll see a pod of beluga whales coming in with the tides.

This particularly bright Sunday afternoon, we drove to the trail past the road of my cousin, Autumn, and her husband, Nic, and we called them. Groggily they said, "[yawn]....Your call woke us up from a nap....[yawn].....but we want to come along!" Were we ever glad for that. Walking frees you from the weak and silly parts of life to talk about the good and whole and meaningful. Autumn is in training to become a midwife, for one thing, so there are always new birth stories to be enchanted by. But also, we'd recently seen with them the documentary "Food, Inc." about the way a handful of companies pretty much control the food industry of our country and aren't fans of small farms and people trying to provide for themselves.

RABBIT TRAIL: this is a whole 'nother post, or twelve, but we have GOT to get more interested in and serious about the very basic life issue of where our food comes from. Let's grow more of our own food, make more of our own things and entertainment, be our own people! We're all working on parts of the puzzle. Let's keep learning, and keep teaching each other! Let's regain the old skills, recapture the ingenuity and sense of responsibility for ourselves that made our country great. Let's slap ourselves out of drone-ville, taken by flickering lights and quick results, worshipping at the alter of convenience.

END OF RABBIT TRAIL, PRETTY MUCH: More recently, we've seen with Nic and Autumn the Michael Moore documentary, "Sicko." Also, we are working our way through the U.S. Constitution together, though we have to pause frequently to read a phrase again and feel like modern, literary dunces.

So you can see why, hiking with our friends this day, on a trail where a person starts at the sea and is free to climb as high as they wish, I longed to shout "REVOLUTION!"

break time and photo shootpottyin'feedin'Isn't this a neat one? taken by Jason (clearly)shoe-tyin'That little black dot on the horizon is a small airplane.

Do you see a special something in this last photograph?

Straight up from the setting sun, near the top of the photo, is the silhouette of a ptarmigan.

friends, kids, cards, and pumpkins

shakin' rattles





































This is Gauge, son of Scott and Amanda, a young family that we met traveling the Alcan a couple of years ago. It has been a real joy to get to know them. Hanging out with Gauge is like sitting down to eat a whole container of Ben & Jerry's "One Sweet Whirled" ice cream. He is a dear and a half. Very thoughtful and present. When he was a baby, Scott would turn the dial to talk radio so that Gauge would hear the give and take of conversation and presentation. We found that so interesting. When I heard Gauge first say Zoralee's name, with the blurred "r" of a barely three year old, I nearly melted.

After kid playtime was over this particular night, they set up Gauge's sleeping bag and pillow on the living room floor, and Amanda sang lullabies to him while I was one wall away in the bedroom singing to Zoralee. When Gauge and Z were konked, the adults played cards and talked of our travels. Isn't that a scene right out of our parents or grandparents' time? It totally makes me want to reclaim that as a regular occurrence - getting together to play cards late into the night with other adults. I'd kind of forgotten about the whole sleeping bag thing for kids.

Oh, here's something cute Gauge had said to Amanda that day. They'd gone to the store and picked out a pumpkin for him to take to preschool. The pumpkin had to be small-ish but heavy enough to be a challenge for a three year old to lift. The children were to take care of their pumpkins every day, carrying them outside in the mornings and inside at the close of school, and they were to pay special attention to the details of their own pumpkin, so they'd be able to pick it out of the pile. Amanda had bought an extra pumpkin and was making it into a dessert to bring over here. When Gauge asked her what she was making and she said, "Pumpkin Bread," that made perfect sense to him in light of all the care that had gone into his pumpkin so far. He said, "Oh! You're making food for my pumpkin!"

chasing and laughing

It's a crappy phone video, but it gets the idea across. Now that chasing and tickling are part of our days, so is LAUGHING! I've been waiting for this her whole life.

shush up, universe (a haiku)

no sudden movements
inside voices, muted coughs
breathe quietly, please
*

punks, car stereos

are sweet, okay? but during

NORMAL BUSINESS HOURS

*

spin gracefully, earth

no collisions with comets
galaxies, black holes
*

can you wait, white shark,

just ten minutes more before

crunching bony prey?

*

take another path

than o'er our neighborhood, geese,
to fly, to honk south
*
for her suckling slows
sleep, skittish, non-committal,
approaches my babe

Ava and Zoralee

For those who know Jessica and Paul C., this is their little girl. She was very sweet to put up with Zoralee's explorations. Zoralee seemed to touch Ava's hair in the same way she feels her Touch-and-Feel books that have feathers and felt protruding from various animals. Like, woo boy, a life-sized Touch and Feel critter! It's quite fun watching Zoralee interact with younger ones, but it's odd coming to terms with the idea that there are already so many humans younger than her. Zoikes. Polishing up her big sister skills, I reckon.

people and their surprises

• We were in the parking lot at the McHugh Trail trailhead, waiting for Autumn and Nic to arrive, and out of the woods came several punk / goth young people, just coming back to their car after a walk. All black clothing, chains draped about, interesting hair dos, including one mohawk, and so on. Jason thought to himself, "Those kids are just the type to be sporting swords." Just then, the driver went around to the trunk and pulled out an actual sword and sheath. Like it was nothing. Like he was pulling out an extra blanket or jumper cables. He carried it around to the driver's side, got in, and they pulled away. As they drove past our car, we saw a flag waiving on their hood - a pirate flag. Now that's just plain fun. Oh, what we'd give to be a fly in their back window. And we started wondering what sub-culture(s) Zoralee is going to be part of throughout her life. What people groups will she connect with? I hope it's some ones we haven't thought of, because I like surprises an awful lot.

• Ahead of me in line at the grocery store the other day was a short, white or white/hispanic kid with baggy pants and a ginormous sweatshirt, lop-sided cap, and a beautiful, tall black girlfriend. He totally fit the look of a gansta or gansta wanna be. Or just a person who listens to a lot of rap music. Look, I don't know about these things, but I think you know the subculture I'm trying to describe. A general tendency toward toughness, having lived the hard life. So it surprised me when, as he paid, he was gracious and polite to the slow checke. And when he took his change out of the machine, he immediately dropped it into the charity bucket.

• I met a woman last week, a friend of a friend, who had just gotten out of an arm cast. She described how difficult it had been for those months to write, yes, to do common household tasks, yes, but particularly, to fix her hair. I was intrigued by this. She elaborated. For nearly 30 years, she'd lived in Texas, where hair is evidently a super big deal, so it bothered her to not be able to fluff it up and style it in a particular way daily. It stuck with me, that organizing the strands of dead keratin cells hanging off of one's head would be deemed so vital that to not be able to do it properly would cause a person great angst. I know it's not just Texans; they may take it farther than some of our countryfolk. But isn't the idea fascinating? We humans are so interesting.

Have you been surprised by people these days? Or heck, by yourself?