Happy Halloween!

"The period between 1880 and World War I was the great era of the picture postcard. Inexpensive postal rates and high-quality, high-speed printing methods encouraged the growth of this craze, which swept the world and brought countless thousands of postcards into existence."

"Holidays were a favorite time to send postcards, and as Halloween was second only to Christmas as a card sending occasion, Halloween themed cards abounded. The imagery of these cards was varied, appealing, and dramatic, using the familiar imagery of Halloween -- pumpkins, ghosts, witches, and black cats -- but the mood was generally light-hearted rather than frightening."
-- Laughing Elephant Publishing

Whitney Music Box

This is fun to play with:
Whitney Music Box -- a musical realization of the motion graphics of John Whitney as described in his book "Digital Harmony."

My favourite variation is var. 17 - hand cranked. It's pentatonic.

[Pentatonic means 'five tones.' The five black keys on a piano. On another instrument, you could play G-A-B-D-E. Sounds 'oriental.']

Var. 6 - microtones sounds like ghosts. ooooooooooooooooooo

I played with that site for about 10 minutes, and I was doing an experiment to see when Jason would complain about the noise. He never did. That man has the ability to turn his ears off.

Paper Bones

Halloween obituary

Halloween is coming up. I always thought it was kind of fun, in a take-it-or-leave-it sort of way. It was always difficult to come up with an original costume, and it was always so cold that you had to wear your winter coat over the costume, anyway. My friend Michelle always insisted we dress up and go trick-or-treating even though we all knew we were too old, but really, are you ever too old for free candy? I think the year Sheri-Lyn dressed up as a pregnant nun was our final year, as it should have been.

The freakiest costume I have ever seen was at University about 6 years ago. A man wore a gas mask, a pink baby doll dress, rubber boots, rubber gloves, and he carried a brief case. That was the perfect outfit for carrying out some twisted kind of murder, and he gave me the heebie-jeebies (if that's how you spell it) or, as my FIL would say, "queered me out."

My brother had his "obituary" on his blog, so I thought I would try it out, too:

'What will your obituary say?' at QuizGalaxy.com

My brother's obituary says he'll be terribly missed by the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, which is certainly true. He developed quite a relationship with Leonardo, Raphael, Splinter, Michelangelo, and ... the rest of them. He made himself a bo staff, throwing stars, and a grappling hook, the latter of which had some head trauma consequences, but I think we kept that a secret from our mom.

I Eat Food Daily

The Best French Toast Ever (found on AllRecipes.com, the best recipe site ever)

• 6 thick slices bread
• 2 eggs
• 2/3 cup milk
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• salt to taste

Uh... not much to report here, hence the French Toast recipe. It's so good that it tastes like an EVENT.

I made my first successful omelet today, by following these instructions.

Today, I saw orange cauliflower, and purple cauliflower in my neighbourhood market. No pictures, sorry. There's no excuse for that.

I also saw eggnog next to the milk today. I don't know about you, but whenever I think of the end of October, I think about pumpkins, leaves, Halloween costumes, mini chocolate bars, horror movies, and of course, eggnog! [Sesame Street song: "One of these things is not like the others. One of these things just doesn't belong."]

BONAVENTURE

Look at what I found today:
Can you read the name of the building? If they added a "D," I would move in, or at least my blog would move in.

This apartment building is near the hotel where Jason's parents are staying. Their hotel room is about the size of our apartment.

Here, Kitty, Kitty...

Does anyone have $5 950 US to give to me & Jason as a 7-Year Anniversary present?

(It would be belated, but we would forgive you,
that's just the kind of people we are.)

What would we buy with SIX THOUSAND DOLLARS?

Why, a hypo-allergenic kitty, of course!


Maybe y'all can pool your resources. Work it out in the Comments.

Vancouver is Skunky

Last night, around midnight, a skunk was run over in front of our apartment. I wonder if people were roused from their sleep by that terrible smell. There is nothing (that I know of) on this earth that smells worse than a skunk. The smell lingered all night, and no amount of Apple Ginger scented candles could cover the stench.

The black and white carcass laid just in front of the stop line at our busy intersection. Most people were able to swerve to miss it, but some people ran right over it! Maybe they thought it wouldn't hurt because it was already dead, but that smell has to transfer onto tires, doesn't it? Some people had to stop at a red light right next to a dead skunk. Other people slowed down as they drove past so they could get a better look. A boy bent over and posed beside it, holding his nose, while his friend took a picture.

There was a city truck that drove by it a couple of times. The first time Jason saw the truck with flashing lights, he assumed it was here to collect the carcass, but no. I saw the truck later, and also thought the problem was about to be removed, but no. Then a city water truck came around, sprayed it with water and kept driving. That was funny. Have you ever seen roadkill getting a shower?

All the while, the smell evolved into a combination of stinky skunk and burnt rubber. We went to bed, and the excitement continued. I heard a man on the street say "skunk" just as I was drifting off to sleep. That night, we slept with candles burning unattended, but we really had no choice. When I woke up, the smell was still in the air, but the street was bare. No flat skunk there anymore.

I must admit, however, that in one particular way, Edmonton was more skunky than Vancouver. Once, I smelled "skunk" as early as 11:00 on a Monday morning.

Tomato doesn't like his job workin' for the city, but it pays well.