The Haunting

You know how sometimes you do something cool and you have a lot of fun, but you forget to really tell anyone about it? And then after a week or so it's not even a story worth telling?

This is one of those. I don't know that it's no longer worth telling, but the lustre has worn off. Had I written about it earlier, it would have been a more charming story, no doubt. But I wanted to have it for posterity, so here it is regardless.

This Halloween season (Really? Is there a whole season now?) I was invited to a Halloween party. That's pretty rare. The last time I went to a Halloween party was probably 15 years ago. This party was sort of a team-based mystery/scavenger hunt thing and part of the game was that all the teams were supposed to go around and "haunt" the other team's houses. Each team had a name...like the Devils & Demons or the Spiders & Skeletons and we "haunted" others' houses in theme with our team names. So, there was a week in there where my house was being haunted nightly...sometimes multiple times. It was always fun to peak out the door and see what might be out there next! Our windows were painted in window graffiti, there were bats hung from the porch, a doormat replaced with someone else's, super spicy brownies, streamers, lollipops dressed as ghosts... This kids found this all VERY entertaining.

This was sort of a school-based party, so I knew most of the other guests and the folks haunting my house. But there's a little boy who lives on our street who doesn't go to the same school as my kids. He saw all the new decorations around our house. I think Mam must've explained them to him. And he was jealous! Mam said he really wanted for his house to be haunted too!

I'd been planning to meet some friends for brunch in San Francisco Sunday morning, but the Giants pulled out the miracle of returning from St. Louis with games left to play and Smunch was going to Game 6 with his dad, who suddenly had tickets that were good for something. So, I stayed home with Mam...and we went shopping.

Of course, this wasn't girly shopping. The first thing she insisted upon was a screaming doormat. Ohhhh-kay. Nothing's too good for our neighbors! We went to every drugstore in town...Rite Aid, CVS, Walgreens...and scooped up whatever was on sale or just looked too fun to pass up.

Fortunately, I also happened to know that our neighbors were going to a soccer tournament in Carmel in the afternoon. They wouldn't be back 'til late evening. So Mam and I hauled our bags and a ladder down there and staged the best darned haunting EVER.

And the screaming doormat was just a little part of the whole plan. There was caution tape across their front door, tombstones along their path, a ghost floating in their carport, creepy crawlies scattered about, little lollipop ghosts in all sorts of unexpected places, a larger spider web and spider across their lovely bay window and their trellis, now decked out in orange twinkle lights a big glowing spiders.

Mam and I also baked some cupcakes, which I sadly forgot to photograph, with funny zombie wrappers and instructions to make the light pink frosting look like exposed brains. We left those for a ding-dong-doorbell-ditch the next day, when we knew they were home.

Mam could not wait for them to get home that night. Unfortunately, it was far past her bedtime by then, but as she was going to sleep she said to me, "Mom, this was one of the most fun days, ever!"

A little while later, I received this e-mail entitled "Is everything okay at your house?" It read: "We just got home and our house has been haunted...really, it's really scary...is everything okay at your house? p.s. are you missing some scissors? we have them here."

And if the rumor I heard was true, one little boy came home to a very spooky house and declared it the BEST day of his life!

The neighborly thing to do...

Know that saying, "Good fences make good neighbors"? Our next door neighbors don't subscribe to that philosophy. They like ivy. As a result, there's lots and lots of ivy (containing plenty of rats' nests) and one old broken down fence between our houses. If we had a dog, it'd be in their yard all the time. It's a bone of contention, as you might imagine. We also have issues with our big old oak tree that overhangs their chimney. None of those things give me warm fuzzy feelings about our neighbors. Neither does the owl box they strapped to their chimney. If any owl decides to take up residence there, it'll be right next to our bedroom and will doubtlessly drive us insane.

Still, as a granola-y kind of girl myself, I understand a lot of our neighbor's motivations, even if they conflict with my own. And Mr. Neighbor is a nice guy who makes a point of organizing the annual block parties and getting to know all the kids. The other weekend, he came over because he wanted to show the kids what he'd found in his backyard. I think perhaps Mrs. Neighbor was not as enthralled as he knew the kids would be and he was pretty excited himself.Mam looks pretty excited, doesn't she? You can't really tell what this is until you see it close up, but this is one of the neatest insects around and I didn't even know that they lived around here.Do we have some cool neighbors, or what?

Our 4th of July

It's only been since we moved to our current house that I've felt like we're really living the American Dream. And nothing illustrates that like our neighborhood on Independence Day. It's kind of surreal to have our own little slice of Americana, right here on our own street. Each year, our little cul-de-sac has a block party. We all bring our own meat to barbeque...although a lot of sharing goes on...and we bring something to share. This year, I brought fresh squeezed lemonade and a rather patriotic spinach, strawberry, and blueberry salad with feta cheese.

Our neighbor, Bob, introduced the kids to making ice cream the old-fashioned way...in a hand-cranked ice cream freezer. As you can see, they were enthralled! Since it's a pretty laid back affair, I also invited Kirsten, my friend since kindergarten and maid of honor in our wedding. The kids had a great time hanging out with her too!

We left the block party a little early for our annual pilgrammage to Cupertino for their fireworks display. We arrived just before dark and had about an hour to wait. The kids passed the time by running around like maniacs in their pajamas. Smunch waits for this night for the entire year. Sometimes I'm not sure that even Christmas compares to fireworks in his mind.


Smunch and Mam were both absolutely thrilled with the show. They both spent the entire time with wide eyes, exclaiming about the size and colors and noises. Interestingly, Smunch was completely fluent the entire time. We've noticed that's usually the case when he's excited and speaking almost accidentally.

It was a fun night and after all the food, racing around and excitement of fireworks, neither of the kids made it home awake. It was the easiest bedtime we've had in ages!