Things to Share

This is Jack the O'Lantern. We carved him so that Georgia could have the experience. He turned out a little spookier than we intended.














This is the house of a 93-year-old lady who lives down the street from us. I'll explain in a minute.

We had a busy week last week. Monday night we carved Jack the O'Lantern. My main motivation for carving a pumpkin this year was to see Georgia bark at it once we finished. This was her first pumpkin carving experience, and I was disappointed. She enjoyed eating the pumpkin guts, and she was very interested in the process, but she didn't bark at him. I guess we should not have allowed her to watch us carve him. We should have just surprised her with him. Oh well. Squirt Monster had a grand time playing with the pumpkin seeds afterward. I feel quite sure that I will be finding seeds around the house for a while. We also visited Jan and Daddy to see Daddy's pumpkin because I knew it would be a neat one. He carved a treble clef and a half note in his. It looked great, and while Jack looked like he was carved by an amateur, the treble clef looked very professional. I guess so, since Daddy used a saw blade to carve it. (Note: I fully credit him for my nerdiness.)

About the picture of the taped off yard: the lady that lives there is 93, and she has lived there for a long time. She takes great pride in her yard. Over the summer, she spent quite a bit of money having new sod put down. On Halloween morning, she called Bobby (my step-dad who runs a lawn service and cares for her lawn) and she was MAD because the police would not wrap crime scene tape around her yard for her. You see, she was concerned that the trick-or-treaters would tromp through her yard. And, it wasn’t the local trick-or-treaters she was worried about, but the ones that come from all over the county to trick-or-treat in our neighborhood. So, the police refused to help her, and suggested she just turn off her lights to discourage the kids from coming in her yard. Well, as it turns out, she wanted to give out candy, she just wanted them to come up the driveway to the carport. Since crime scene tape wasn’t going to happen, she called around town until she could find something like it. As it turns out, the local hardware store had construction tape. She placed another call to Bobby and had him come wrap her yard with the tape. I laughed all day thinking about this, and I had Dave take the above picture. I really expected someone to roll her yard, but apparently the kids in the neighborhood now are too young to do those things. Had this happened 10 years ago when we were in high school, there’s no way she would have escaped that fate. The kicker? She’s decided she likes the tape around her yard and she’s going to leave it that way for a while.

Tuesday we had trick-or-treaters. I was worried that Georgia would be upset by the kids in their costumes, but she did great. We had barking at the first couple of visitors, but then we were fine. Lucy the Golden Retriever was visiting that night, too, so we had a house full of dogs. I put the baby gate in the front door to keep them from running out, and they stood there most of the night greeting the kids. They were very excited about the little ones. Do you know who wasn't excited? The sweet kittens. Dave locked them in the bedroom because they were loitering at the door waiting for a chance to escape. You cannot imagine the great relief we had on November 1 when I let them back outside again.

Saturday morning I took the kittens to the vet for their annual shots. I had them in two Pet Taxis. Jewel rides by herself, and Squirt and Gypsy ride together. They get along the best, and Gypsy is small enough to fit in the box with him. While we were waiting, we watched the waiting room fill up with people and their dogs. Then a lady brought in three more cats. She had those big cats that sound like men when they howl – and they were howling. We had a cat chorus for about five minutes. Hers would howl, and then mine would howl. Squirt even gave a little growl at one point. I have to credit the dogs though, as none of them seemed to care about the very upset cats.

This was our first trip to the vet for Gypsy’s shots because she was vaccinated before we got her last year. The drill was, I held the front half of the cat while the vet stuck them in the behind three times each. This worked famously for Squirt and Jewel. When it was Gypsy’s turn, she got her first shot and decided she would pass on the next two. I was holding her front end toward me and she neatly curled her behind under her so that she was in a ball and inaccessible to the needle. When we straightened her back out again and he gave her the next shot, she tried to bite him. She got me instead. Witch.

Sunday we took Georgia on a walk around town. She got to swim in the creek and play on the elementary school playground. We let her off the leash on the playground while we were swinging, and she was studying the slides and climbing equipment. She looked at me as if to say, “Can I play on that?” So we did. She LOVES that stuff. She went down the slides and all over that equipment. She loves to jump up and down and keep up with us while we are playing on it. Dave had her running like a crazy dog because he was pretending like he was doing a military obstacle course and she was following right behind him. Crazy kids.