WALKIN', WRITIN', WIT & WHIMSY

Well, Halloween is finally here, complete with its own very real weather special effects. You just can’t make this stuff up. There are predictions of thunderstorms and howling winds gusting to 45 mph for the evening hours – well, you can’t get much more realistic than that for the spookiest night of the year. I wonder what this witch has got mixin’ up in her magic brew? Maybe she is stirring up some “Friendship Tea”. I’m sharing my mom’s recipe for “Friendship Tea”, sometimes called “Russian Tea”… the ingredients and prep are simple and it yields 40 servings. It’s perfect to warm your innards on a cold Winter day.

Do be sure and catch today’s Google Doodle with the wicked-looking witch stirring up something green and mysterious in her big cauldron. Further, on the subject of witches, my old college pal, Jim Mulleague, called the late local celebrity “Good Witch Gundella” mom. Jim was also famous in his own right; he and a friend have had a gig as Laurel and Hardy for decades. Jim is the spittin’ image of Ollie Hardy and somewhere in my collection of scrapbooks and albums, I have a picture of him and I at our student government banquet and I will scan it in and post it one day.

Be forewarned: if you’re flying tonight, hold onto your broom handle tightly. Happy Halloween everyone!

FRIENDSHIP TEA
1/2 cup instant tea powder
1 cup sweetened lemonade powder
1 cup orange-flavored drink mix (e.g. Tang)
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves

Directions
• In a large bowl, combine instant tea, lemonade powder, orange drink mix, cinnamon and clove. Mix well and store in an airtight container.

• To serve, Put 2 to 3 teaspoons of mix in a mug. Stir in 1 cup of boiling water. Adjust to taste.

• Makes 40 servings

It’s Halloween Eve, so what an ideal time to venture into the occult just a tad.

Every year, mention is made by the news media of the 1938 CBS broadcast of “The War of the Worlds” which was Orson Welles’ orchestrated event wherein he used fake news bulletins to create an extraordinarily eerie depiction of a Martian invasion here on Earth (in New Jersey). One day I will listen to the whole extravaganza on YouTube as I’ve only heard bits and pieces through the years, mostly those very convincing portions which sent panicked people fleeing for their collectives lives. It sure sounded convincing to me, at least for that particular period of time, maybe now, not so much. You can listen to the full, crackly and tinny-sounding broadcast by clicking here.

I’ve not ventured much into the world of the occult in my lifetime. Sure, there were spooky Halloween parties we had for our Brownie troops, when the lights went out and you went to a table to feel such squeamish items like body parts – icky, realistic livers, fingernails, eyeballs, bones and the like, inviting each of us young girls to let out a blood-curdling scream.

I also remember gathering as a group in the schoolyard at recess while one of our classmates sprawled on the ground as we all closed our eyes to will her body to be levitated into the air.  Yes, you are shaking your head for sure after reading that.

Or, how about a group of girls at a slumber party sitting around in curlers and jammies and trying to reach Great Aunt Edna at a pretend séance?  None of these experiences came to fruition of course and we soon tired of all that nonsense.

Be honest now and just ‘fess up … who didn’t sit with a friend trying to tell your future through the little window in the Magic 8-Ball or decide what action to take based on what the Ouija board said to do?  Yes, we’ve all been there, but maybe don’t care to admit it now.

I enjoyed watching spooky tales on “Twilight Zone” or “Night Gallery” back in the day, not just for the spooky tales narrated by Rod Serling, though they weren’t all that realistic, though, as a long-suffering arachnophobe, I shuddered watching that episode of the gigantic spider – silly girl!

I will admit that psychics left me a doubting Thomas ….

Years ago, when my mom was in her early 20s, she and my grandmother went to The Daffodil Tea Room in Toronto to have their fortunes told.  The Tea Room’s soothsayer did not use tea leaves or cards to predict the future, but instead would read fortunes by touching a personal object that guests proffered at the entrance to the Tea Room.  Once all the Tea Room guests were seated, having dropped a personal item into a basket when they arrived and paid their admission fee, the fortune teller took the stage, reached into the basket, pulled out each person’s item, one by one, then told their fortune.  After the predictions, that guest went to the stage and retrieved their personal item and was asked if the prediction seemed viable to them.

While, my mother and grandmother did this visit for fun, the psychic told Mom she would soon meet a fair-haired man from across water whom she would eventually marry.  Shortly thereafter, Mom was sitting on the front porch, when my father, fresh from landing in Toronto off a boat from Germany, was walking down the street and approached the porch to ask my mom for directions.  That was 1950 and they were married three years later.

I heard this oft-recited tale when I was growing up, probably the first time in response to my query about “how did you two meet?” and I thought it was a cute story, but perhaps just happenstance.  But that was before I heard of the famous psychic Gary Wayne.

And then there was renowned psychic Gary Wayne ….

Long after four children were allegedly murdered by the Oakland County Child Killer in 1976 and 1977, a famous Houston-area psychic by the name of Gary Wayne, was brought to the Detroit area in the mid-1980s by detectives still investigating this cold case.  Since Gary Wayne Wayne was credited with predicting President Reagan’s assassination attempt one week before that occurrence, it was hoped he could harness his psychic powers to assist them with clues to capture the child killer, which murders remain as unsolved cases to this day.  Gary Wayne was a guest on the J.P. McCarthy Show on WJR.  After host J.P. interviewed Gary Wayne, there was a half-hour time period for listeners to call in and speak to the psychic.  My mother was one of the lucky callers and told nothing to the program’s screener as she awaited the guest to speak with her.  Gary Wayne told my mom she had been the victim of a childhood accident which left her with substantial medical problems, including orthopedic and leg circulation maladies.  Gary Wayne further sympathized with her continued worries about her mother’s heart condition and said it preyed on her mind.  

Gary Wayne asked my mom if these statements were correct and she verified that yes, she had been hit by a car at age eleven and spent the next four years in the Hospital for Sick Children recuperating from her injuries; she had some forty-two orthopedic operations in her lifetime and suffered from poor circulation as well.  My grandmother and each of her siblings had heart problems, and my grandmother was in declining health at that time due to her weak heart and in fact succumbed to a heart attack in early 1986.  My mom was nearly numb that he “read her vibes” over the radio.  She called me at work and asked if we could go to a hotel in Southfield that weekend where Gary Wayne would take appointments to meet with you for thirty minutes and tell your fortune.  It was pricey as I recall, but we booked a half-hour session, fifteen minutes for each of us.

The experience was amazing and yet kind of scary.  We sat together at a table across from him.  He laid his head way back, let out a near-primal scream, then looked normal after that and relayed all kinds of events that had happened in the past and would happen in the future.  He pinpointed my mom right away as the woman he spoke to on the J.P. McCarthy show, even though she never gave him her name on the radio, and told us that plumbing troubles in the wall behind the bathtub would occur soon.  This revelation really fizzed my mom who called the plumber Monday morning to have him check out the pipes and plumbing.  He found no problems and chuckled at her belief that a psychic could predict a plumbing problem.  (Nothing ever happened in that regard.)

When it came time for my session, Gary Wayne told me I had a blonde woman enemy at work who would make trouble for me and that I would marry either a professional pilot who liked to golf or a professional golfer with his own plane (neither the former nor the latter has transpired to date).

But, while predicting those long-term future events, which I discounted as dubious, it was rather chilling when he looked me right in the eye and advised me not to cut my long hair as I would be sorry.  This totally freaked me out as I had been thinking of a change in my hair style for a while as I’d had long straight hair for years and needed a change.  Because I was very vain in those days, changing my hair style was a big undertaking for me.  Gary Wayne told me he knew I’d been preoccupied with the hairstyle change but don’t do it. (I did get my hair cut, hated it and proceeded to grow it long again, so yes, score one for Gary Wayne). 

At times during our sessions, this psychic’s voice changed, sometimes fast, sometimes slow, while relay his predictions.  I found myself thinking he was very weird and I was uneasy, yet I was afraid to think negatively toward him, lest he knew what I was thinking.  He also made us a tape and gave it to us as we left.   While it was a most-unusual experience and I’m glad we went, I’d never do it again.  

May the mystical, maniacal Devil’s Night be kind to you. 

… it causes cavities.

How’s your Halloween candy stash holding up? Be honest and raise your hand if you had to go out and buy more goodies for the ghouls and goblins that will be arriving at your house two days from now. I heard on the news that this year Americans would buy 600 million pounds of candy (90 million of it which would be chocolate) and spend nearly $1.90 billion (with a “B”) for that Halloween candy. That’s just amazing to me. I gave up sweets a few years ago for Lent and never regressed be it for baked goods or candy or gum. I have a very-occasional cornbread cake but that’s it and that really is not sweet so I don’t feel I need to have any wiggle room if I “fall off the wagon” to eat cornbread. When I got my temporary crown last week, Dr. Kelly said no Tootsie Rolls or gum and I told him no problem with that because I don’t indulge. I bet those sticky, gooey peanut-butter kisses in the black and orange wrappers would do a number on that temporary crown. I told my dentist I never got hooked on sticky and gooey candy as a kid as I wasn’t allowed to eat it and chocolate was just a occasional treat. The family (that being my parents and me) shared one large Cadbury chocolate bar on a Saturday night while watching TV and that was the extent of my eating chocolate. That was not a weekly treat either. In Canada, we trick-or-treaters would arrive at homeowners’ doors and cry out “Shell out, shell out – the witches are out” and not “treat or treat” as they do here in the States. My parents rifled through my cache of candy, plucking out sticky toffees, hard candy suckers, popcorn balls and all unwrapped treats before I was permitted to indulge. That didn’t leave much else unfortunately – maybe a few single strawberry Twizzlers, or a bag or two of chocolate goodies comparable to Raisinets or Goobers or the perennial favorite, Smarties, the Canadian equivalent of M&Ms. Since I wasn’t a big candy eater anyway, it wasn’t a real hardship for my candy to be misappropriated. Back in the day when I got braces on my teeth, gum was out and I missed it for awhile, but got over it. I can safely say I’ve never had bubblegum in my life – no Bazooka bubblegum or Bazooka Joe ‘toons for this kid. I don’t know whether I should feel deprived, but query … how did I get the two cavities that eventually crumbled and needed crowns? Hmmmmmmmm. I suspect devilish little dental demons were hard at work somewhere along the line.

Now there’s just a handful of days to get your Halloween duds ready. The costume stores were probably busy this past weekend with all the house parties. Growing up I heard the story told and re-told about my stint as Little Red Riding Hood one rainy Halloween. It wasn’t raining when my dad and I left the house, but it was predicted that evening, so we took an umbrella along. Too bad trying to use an umbrella around a porchful of kids didn’t work out so great and I ended up getting wet, so my dad took me home and we made it a very early night. Unfortunately, my costume was red satin and not colorfast so I had red dye all over my warm, light-colored coat and it ruined it. A lesser evil was that I toted along a paper shopping bag with the Big Bad Wolf’s picture emblazoned on each side which was part of the get-up. Sure, it looked cute, but that sack got wet as well, plus I dragged it on the ground and lost most of my candy before I got home. So much for magical memories for that particular Halloween.

I like checking out the kids’ costumes when I pass out candy, but sometimes I’m not familiar with the trendy characters. Most of the trick-or-treaters at my door are older kids anyway, and they just don a “Scream” mask or go as themselves – not so imaginative for the latter idea. Last year I had three kids, maybe one the year before. But you don’t want to leave the light off signifying no candy and thus risk damage to your house. The last time I went trick-or-treating was age ten, the first year we lived in the U.S. I went as a hobo, dressed in my father’s old flannel shirt stuffed with a pillow inside, some ratty denim jeans and an old pillowcase filled with crumpled-up newspapers on the end of my mother’s mop handle which represented all my worldly possessions. An old fedora was plopped on my head and my mom, who used to smoke in those days, saved some ashes from her ashtray and smeared the cold ashes all over my cheeks to resemble a few days’ growth of beard. We strived to have me resemble Red Skeleton’s character of Freddy the Freeloader.

Have you seen this clever glow-in-the-dark, stick-figure costume a proud dad made for his toddler? It is so innovative and I wonder how many people will try to copy it for their kids? Have a look and give yourself a grin: http://www.ryot.org/toddlers-awesome-led-stick-figure-costume-wins-halloween/439069

This morning was the first substantial walk I got in this week. While it wasn’t a perfect Fall Day, at least the sun was shining. I was surprised there weren’t more leaves on the ground after Saturday’s blustery weather, but unfortunately the homeowners’ harvest decorations took a beating with that near-40 mph wind yesterday. I saw several scarecrows sitting askew or their poles were listing or toppled over. Mums were looking bedraggled and cornstalks were crumpling and pulling off their tethers. At least the bales of hay and big pumpkins were intact. Lots of pumpkin pie fixin’ and eatin’ going on these days. While I was still at the law firm, before Robb and I moved out on our own, every Halloween we got mini-pumpkins for each of the support staff from Eastern Market and we had a decorating contest. The partners contributed a prize for the most-unique little gourd and one of the girls took all the pumpkins to Children’s Hospital to brighten the spirits of the kids who had to be hospitalized for Halloween. I won first prize one year and my efforts took about ½ minute of time. The downtown Detroit Hudson’s building had been imploded a few days before and it was a big deal for the other downtown tenants. I bought a can of Libby’s Pumpkin Pie Filling and stuck my bare mini-pumpkin on top. I typed up a sign “Before/After The Hudson’s Implosion 10/24/98”. … as ol’ Will Shakespeare suggested: “brevity is the soul of wit” … not only was it easy to do and clever but it yielded a $50.00 cash prize.

Today’s blustery and beyond-brisk temps remind me that the prediction by the Farmers’ Almanac of a cold and snowy Winter here in the Midwest sounds pretty darn credible. Yesterday, the weathermen kept touting 40 mph wind gusts and plummeting temps for today. This didn’t sound too inviting to take a walk, thus contemplating a few extra hours of shut-eye sounded much better, and I didn’t even set my alarm last night. I woke up about 7:30 and curled up in a little ball under the warm covers while I listened to the wind whipping around and rocking the house ever so slightly. I shut my eyes and fell right back to sleep and as I drifted off I know I wished I could hibernate until Spring. Speaking of hibernation, or otherwise dropping off the grid, did you miss me at the tail end of the week?

Some cyberspace shenanigans or evil voodoo was afoot the last few days trying my patience and wreaking havoc with my homeostatic condition and the internet as well. Wednesday we started the day with no internet or phones at work. Comcast in the entire building was down for about 2/3rds of the business day. The morning break was nice at first and I had an extra cup of coffee, then an early lunch, then a snack, all between trying to remote in, but everything was still out of commission. I had just started writing Wednesday’s blog, and my boss called to say we were “up”, so then alot of scrambling ensued to get some stuff done which had languished all morning. There were a few urgent items which got finished up but I was still pumping away with a big chart into the evening hours, so I decided to forego my blog post. The next day, I was working away and lost my remote connection. Big sigh on my part and after I tried to reconnect a few more times, I picked up the phone to call my boss and half-way through the call I noticed it was MY internet with the yellow shield on it. I fiddled around, pulling out plugs and plugging them back in to no avail. I decided dinner was in order and I would come back later, hopefully with my stomach full and patience intact. I was successful that time, so I worked fiendishly as if the internet connection was a parking meter and I wanted to get my chores done before it expired. I finished up, and was grateful to shut down for the night. About a half-hour later, I realized I had not done my blog post. Now, how could I forget you ask? Well, it had been over twelve hours since I walked, albeit a measly two and half miles, and walking and writing about it had slipped my mind somehow. I decided to just give the blogging another rest and return with great gusto on Friday. Yesterday, the work internet was intermittent and problematic through the day and it exasperated me. I lost my connection at least thirty times and was more than happy to terminate all keyboard activity when I finished my work day. I figured I’d better post something today in the event the power went out with this wind and you thought I was rolling along the street like a tumbleweed, never to return.

I trust you are tucked in your house clad in your cozy sweats or PJs and sipping a warm beverage with someone special by your side. As I write this, “Bohemian Rhapsody” is playing on the radio and Buddy is trying his very best to keep up and hit all the high notes. He is doing an admirable job and I told him that soon the radio stations will turn their playlists into all Christmas tunes. I’m looking forward to those songs, especially the old favorites, as is he.

This morning was brutal indeed. I shut the outside water off last weekend and it appears not a moment too soon with very low temps and a wind chill of 27 degrees this morning! It is much, much too soon for this cold weather and now snow flurries are expected tonight and tomorrow morning. Enough already! I decided, in lieu of a walk this morning, I should get a few errands done and give the buggy a run since we are having this cold snap for most of the week – unfortunately, sometimes it is better to cater to the car and not myself.

Autumn is really my favorite season, but maybe I’m rethinking that statement when it gets this cold and blustery and looking up at the sky, the leaves falling from the trees and scattering on the ground resemble a time-lapse photography video.

I really liked this picture because it reminds me of some of my favorite woolly sweaters that I’ve owned through the years. Warm and fuzzy memories of cardigans buttoned up to the neck to keep me cozy while one hand grips a mug with steaming hot chocolate with mini-marshmallows floating on top and the other hand is dipping into the cookie jar. But, any knitted item will evoke memories of my mom because she loved to knit and boy could she churn out the knitted goods until carpal tunnel issues forced her to stop entirely. For years she would knit while watching TV, the needles flashing furiously and the ball of wool at her side dwindling down ever so quickly. Mom never missed any part of the show since she rarely looked down at her work and only glanced at her project or directions on the commercials. She tried to teach me how to knit many times, but I was more likely to do “knit two, purl two, drop two” quickly followed by handing over my work with its dropped stitches boo-boo to be repaired. The many mistakes on my part were often met with a sigh so we eventually abandoned my knitting lessons and projects.

My mom was a whiz at creating delicate baby outfits – lacy sweaters with matching booties and cap and she knitted at breakneck speed when she learned friends’ children, grandchildren and even a few great-grandchildren were on the way. Mom would knit argyle socks and cabled sweater vests for my father and I amassed several large bureau drawers brimming over with soft, fuzzy sweaters, vests, plus many hat, scarf and glove sets through the years. Her hobby came to a crashing end when Mom decided to experiment with knitting afghans; she made two for my grandmother and one for her and me and all that knitting on large, circular needles, was too taxing for her and she eventually had to have carpal tunnel surgery on both hands. She was reluctant to take up knitting again lest she cause the carpal tunnel problems to flare up again, and she bemoaned the loss of her hobby and the fact that the needlework had helped keep her arthritic fingers nimble.

In the course of the last week, I’ve dragged out a knitted gloves, hat and scarf set plus a medium-weight coat for walking on the chillier mornings; perhaps the Polar Fleece gear and heavy mittens are next on the warm-weather apparel agenda. When is Indian Summer slated to arrive please?

To paraphrase a quote often attributed to Mark Twain, i.e. “golf is a good walk spoiled”, a visit to the dentist took a bite out of a long walk this a.m. and I only mustered 2 ½ miles. I go twice a year to get my teeth cleaned and in April, Dr. Kelly said “hmmmmm, that cavity may need to come out next year and we’ll put in a new crown in its place, but no urgency” … I’m sure I looked crestfallen when he told me because I don’t have dental insurance, but on the other hand, I was happy that I could be like Scarlett O’Hara and defer thinking about it until another time. When I went in last Monday for another teeth cleaning, the dentist said “um, maybe sooner rather than later” … so, here I was a week later in the dentist’s chair for part one of the crown process. Easy and breezy and Dr. Kelly is very gentle. His assistant, Rueben, asked if I wanted just a numbing needle or did I want some nitrous oxide to relax? Nope, I told him I’d tough it out. I’ve been through the prolonged dental visits before, sans drugs, and I’ve had multiple impacted wisdom teeth removed to boot, so I am a trooper. Alot of effort has gone into having straight, pearly-white choppers.

I had braces put on my teeth when I was 20 years old. I endured braces nearly three years, and top and bottom retainers another two years after that. Dr. Kelly and I reminisced this morning about wearing full-metal braces on your teeth back in the day. Orthodontia sure has changed – now there are just specks of metal glued onto teeth, or the invisible braces. I had the wrap-around metal braces during which time I wore two sets of head gear simultaneously which pulled my teeth up and back, and which thankfully I only wore at home and to bed. I looked like I was a radio transmitter … plus, picture this, at the same time, my long hair was wrapped around about a dozen hair rollers the size of huge, orange juice can. Many times I hung my head over the side of the bed to get a good night’s rest. While I wore braces which wrapped around each tooth, and were strung together by heavy wire, each monthly visit to the orthodontist brought a new way to wear the rubber bands which hooked onto the braces. The rubber bands came in various sizes as well and my orthodontist always had me wear the smallest size which created the most tension. As the orthodontist worked on the middle of my mouth, he had two assistants, one on each side of me, each wielding a rubber mallet and banging the metal and wires into place. OMG! Lastly, they wound the metal strip up and tightened it before you left and called out “don’t forget to get some wax before you leave” … on your way out you stopped at the dispensary and grabbed packages of wax as your cheeks invariably got scratched by the wires, especially when they put the wires in new places. You had to develop a tolerance for the new wires poking into you. Because I usually had four sets of rubber bands on my teeth at any given time, I wasn’t prone to opening my mouth very wide. The ultimate embarrassment one day was laughing with great gusto at a customer’s funny story at the diner where I worked. That belly laugh caused a rubber band to snap and pop off – into his soup. Oops!! Good thing we both had a sense of humor. Wonder how many people reading this also had braces and I’ve dredged up a few memories about their brace-face experience that they would rather forget?

WWJ’s meteorologist defined today as “just plain yucky” throwing away more scientific terminology to describe our dismal weather. It’s not even “Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs”; it is just plain soggy and wet. The weather put a kibosh on walking but I curled up in bed and turned off the alarm when I heard the first pitter patter of rain hitting the patio roof. I don’t envy the spectators at today’s college football games. It’s preferable to stay inside and spend some quality time with your significant other on this Sweetest Day 2013. I leave you with one of my favorite quotes:

“To the world you may be one person; but to one person you may be the world.” ~ Anonymous

Depending on what trek I take when I walk, I pass a corner yard with several huge signs with the caveat “beware of dog” yet, as the days, weeks and months passed, I’d yet to see or hear this beast. I would like to pose the question that if you saw a large, silver bowl sitting on the cement outside the back door, would it not be a safe assumption that Bowser is a sizeable pooch and maybe you don’t want to cross paths with him? Or aggravate him? Well, that big bowl talked to me and said “don’t take any chances” … so, I’d cross the street as I neared this place, despite never seeing the dog who was the subject of the sign. I merely equated the big bowl with the name of “Butch” painted on it and the sign to beware of dog and that was enough warning for me. I finally saw the bowl’s owner, a terror to be sure – a silky, little terrier who barked ferociously at me as I walked past. I almost laughed at it thinking he was all puffed up with attitude defending his turf – a terrier with a ‘tude. He barked incessantly as I walked by and then I turned backward and stole a glance at him and he was drinking out of that big ol’ bowl as if he’d made himself hoarse with all the barking. Truthfully, if he would have bent down too far, he might have fallen in. That amused me all the way home.

Speaking of dogs whose bark is worse than their bite, we went to Buddy’s vet today for a toenail trim. I favor weekdays if possible, as the big dogs don’t seem to have vet appointments until evenings or Saturdays, when their owners bring them in, or perhaps I should say they pull their owners in through the door. We generally wait until the latest date in October for the last trim, just before cold weather sets in, and that I understand will happen next week. Robb was out today, so we made our appointment and off we went. In the Spring and Fall I swap cages in order to give Buddy’s “current” cage a thorough cleaning. The “new” cage is identical, right down to the toys and treats. So, Buddy, who is pictured above, watched me intently as I was filling up the dishes and putting the perches and toys in place in anticipation of our visit this afternoon. He was rather quiet, which was unusual for him, though, every so often I’d hear a tiny peep or a squeak. As he watched me warily, I was sure the gears were clicking in his head and he was dying to ask me “are we getting another canary?” to which his pet parent would answer “no dearest, you are all the canary I need –singing like Pavarotti and mischievous enough for two canaries” … he should not sweat it as he will remain a spoiled, “only bird”. The appointment went without incident and hopefully we are good to go until the warm weather.

My friend Ilene lives in rural Kingsville, Ontario and she has many Golden Retrievers and German Shepherds. When she takes her pooches for vet visits, on the way home they stop at Mickey D’s for fries! That’s the perfect way to top off a trip to the big city and seeing your doc, er vet. We didn’t stop for treats for Buddy on the way home as his cage was swaddled under four covers with a small air hole due to the stiff breeze. We did share a big piece of multi-grain toast once he was back and settled into in his own space – afternoon toast is our everyday ritual.

Luckily, on today’s trip to the vet there were no big dogs with booming barks (or even pipsqueaks like “Butch”) to scare the living daylights out of one small canary, even though it is nearly “Howl-a-ween”.