Happy All Saints Day

Happy All Saints Day!

Although It's All Saints Day, I expect that I'll be dealing with the fall-out from Halloween for the coming week. I still haven't gotten all the photos from Holly with her and Robin in costume.

But her sister, Heather, and her husband, Rob were in the newspaper today! Read the whole story here.

This was the view of their house yesterday.

Rob apparently scared kids with a (bladeless) chain saw.

And Heather posed with her son, Mitchell.

The problem with all this is that next year, we'll expect bigger and better things from them! But then, Heather is only following her father's example.

When we lived across the street from my mother, Al made the house so scary that none of the kids would stop to trick or treat! He finally had to turn off or take down some of the stuff so that kids would come for the candy!

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Well, V is on SyFy! All day! And all day tomorrow and Tuesday!

Today, they are showing the original mini-series (twice, it's on later, if you missed it) followed by the two other mini-series. Tomorrow and Tuesday, they'll be showing the TV series during their daytime rotation.

I have a lot more to say about V, but right now I just want to make sure I don't miss any of it!

Have a great All Saints Day!

Happy Halloween!

I hope you're having a wonderful Halloween! There is so much on TV that I couldn't begin to list it all if you want to spend your Halloween on the couch watching the tube. Right now, The Good Witch is on Hallmark, and it will be followed by The Good Witch's Garden. Both will be repeated later today. Both are good movies if you want a quiet story about ordinary people interacting in good and bad ways. I've enjoyed both of them enough to want to watch them again, so that says something.

For you knitters out there, you might be interested in Cassie's sweater in The Good Witch's Garden, too. It fascinates me every time I see it.

Oh, and I was reading Twitter earlier today, and there was someone who said that All Hallows Day was Halloween. This is incorrect! All Hallows Day is the first of November. Halloween is the evening before All Hallows Day, or All Hallows Eve!

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Holly and Robin have been having fun in New Orleans. They were both disgusted with the hotel they booked. Their website said they were "minutes from" all the best places. It turns out that they are only minutes from these places if you have a car (with attendant parking problems) or want a $20 cab ride each way. They planned to change to another hotel after the first night. Beware of believing everything you read in internet ads.

The first day, they saw a swamp. Holly sent this photo of it.

She said it was very pretty down further, but she didn't send me a photo of that, only this one.

That evening, they went to see Doctor John. I found some great recordings of him on YouTube, which, by the way, has a great logo up there for today.

I have an older computer and lots of videos are almost unwatchable in it, but these play well, and they have enough clarity and volume available that I can hear them with no problem, probably better than they could live because of the lack of background voices. So, turn the sound up, but not too far!

Here's a fabulous version of Goodnight Irene, which is one of my favorites. My grandmother's name was Irene, and I think she would have loved this version of it. She never liked the name Irene, but I've heard stories of her dancing on a table at a roadhouse, and that's what this make me think of.

Here's Let the Good Times Roll, which I know he also played that night. Holly was texting me the names of some of the songs.

And here's one of his boogie pieces:

This morning, Holly sent me another photo of a swamp, and said that they're going on a boat tour of the swamp!

And another photo from Holly:

Actually, I think Doctor John made the whole trip worthwhile, but today is Halloween, and I'll bet they have even more fun tonight. They plan to wear costumes. Holly will wear her pirate costume once again, and I'm not sure I want to say how Robin is going to dress.

Holly promised me pictures, so you'll probably get to see it anyway.

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I'm about halfway down the first sleeve of the slinky sweater. Photos soon.

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I don't get many comments, so I'll answer this one.

Yes, I went to see the dentist. Yes, I got my whole kitchen torn out and replaced. Yes, they happened on the same day. No, the dentist did not do the kitchen renovation.

Oh, and if you're reading this on Halloween, check out the Weather Pixie in the sidebar. She's got a Jack 'O Lantern, and, because it's raining here, an orange umbrella!

I wish you the best Halloween ever!

Happy Mischief Night!

Tonight is Mischief Night, and I hope your windows remain soap-free, your bushes remain un-TPd, and you remain, in general, free of all other tricks.

I really don't have a lot to write about.

Today, I was up early for the third day this week, this time to get a flu shot, and I am in an absolute daze, unable to string two coherent thoughts together.

Maybe I shouldn't have picked today to pick up all the stitches around the armhole of my slinky ribs sweater and to start a set-in sleeve. But I did. If worst comes to worst, I'll just rip it all out, and I'll only have lost a little time.

So, anyway, my sister sent this to me, and I'm sending this to you. It requires Flash, and the sound is cute, too, so turn it up!

http://terrisfp.com/hallo1/ghost1.swf

Have a happy Mischief Night, an a wonderful Halloween!

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Addition:

Check out the 16 Halloween costumes that would get you fired if you wore them to work here. Here's a sample:

The expression on the baby's face is priceless!

Boo!

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Addition (too):

V will be premiering on Tuesday evening on ABC, and if you want to get ready for it, The SyFy Channel will be running all the V that ever was up until now on Sunday, according to their announcements on air and my digital TV Guide, although their online schedule says they will not be airing it on Sunday. If you want to watch it, it's worth tuning in to see if it will really be on.

I'm in a Daze

This is the second week this month that has me getting up early several mornings in one week. Today was one of those days, and tomorrow will be, too.

Earlier this month, I had to get up early on Tuesday to go to the dentist and have my kitchen replaced, and then on Thursday for something else that I can't think of at the moment.

This week, we have another early dental appointment on Tuesday, followed by an appointment to tell me what my new rent will be for the next year, and tomorrow I have to get up early again to get a flu shot.

The dental appointment on Tuesday wasn't fun, but I've just about recovered from that. The awful tastes/smells are almost gone, it feels a little funny, but doesn't really hurt anymore, and the whole center of my face is still not happy about having been filled with Novocaine, but I'm pretty much over it.

Even though my income won't be going up next year (Susan, in her wisdom insists that the newspeople reporting that Social Security will not be going up next year are wrong, and it will), and my rent is dependent on my income, and in spite of the fact that I managed to muster $500 in eligible medical expenses from last year, my rent is still going UP! That $500 in medical expenses is getting me a whole $13 a month discount on my rent. Wow! I'm underwhelmed!

I'm also tired from getting up early two days this week, and I'm going to have to repeat it all tomorrow to get a flu shot.

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There's a lot of good stuff on TV tonight!

Vampire Diaries and Supernatural will be on the CW tonight, and they'll both be new. For any of you who (like me) have missed some of the Vampire Diaries, they've been running reruns at other times. I think there was one on Tuesday, and I know there was another one last night. Supernatural has been dynamite, but I still haven't made up my mind about the Vampire Diaries. I keep hoping it'll grow on me, but so far, it's "Who cares?"

There's a new Mentalist on tonight, too, and a new Flash Forward.

I need to manage to catch up on my sleep. Unfortunately, it's impossible for me to "catch up on my sleep" because if I miss those early morning hours, I'm never able to catch up.

Have fun with all the great TV tonight!

Day at the Dentist's Office

Yesterday, I had to get up at 7 am (that's really early in the morning for me!) to get myself ready in enough time to catch the bus and get to the dentist's office at 10!

I wanted enough time to get a chance to eat something because I didn't think I'd want to eat later, and I was right about that.

The plan was for me to get a broken cap replaced, and get a new cap for a badly damaged tooth. Since the teeth were next to each other, and they weren't sure how well the new cap would do because the tooth was so badly damaged, the plan was to get one cap of two teeth stuck together (no space to floss in between).

Things started off pretty well. They gave me the Novocaine and then did an impression of all my teeth. When I got the cap that's now broken, it took something like ten to twenty minutes to do the impression, but this time they did it in under a minute. I thought this was real progress, but it has it's down side.

The next step was to remove the broken cap, which was almost like trying to remove a real tooth. It took a lot of drilling to weaken the cap, and then a lot of force. There was very real violence involved!

Then we moved on to cutting down the other tooth that had already broken and been repaired and then had a bad cavity added to the mix. That went pretty smoothly.

Then we came to the part that was a real problem for me, which was taking an impression of the base of the two teeth that we planned to make new caps for.

They took the impression. But they weren't happy with it, so they added more of the impression material and did it again. And again. And again. And again.

The problem with this is that they were just adding more material to the original impression, coupled with the fact that the impression material seems to shrink a bit as it cures. I'm sure that it doesn't really shrink a lot, but it was enough, since this was an impression of all my teeth, including the back ones that each time he redid it, it was harder to get it back on. Each time they redid it, he had to use more muscle to get it back on. And once it was on, it felt like it was bending all the bones in my face and head. It hurt! It really hurt!

After the third or fourth time they did it, it pulled the cap off my other front tooth. The dentist tried to replace it, but broke it in the process. So, they had to do an impression of the base of that tooth, too.

So, I'm left with the fading taste/smell of: rubber gloves, the impression material, Novocaine, burned teeth (from the drilling), blood and other assorted dental tastes/smells. I thought some of it might be on my hands or face, but no amount of washing/brushing would get rid of it last night. It's starting to fade today. Plus, there are still small pieces of the impression material that I'm fishing out of my mouth and trying to scrape off the inside of my upper lip, etc, and the skin on the inside of my lip seems to be blistered and is partly peeling off.

My whole head, and especially my face, hurt last night from the distortion that was imposed by the impression material. There was and still is a sharp pain in my nose for no reason I can think of unless there was a hairline crack in the area between my front teeth and nose. The whole area that had Novocaine in it still hurts, as it always does for a few days after something like this. The temporary caps are probably a tiny fraction of an inch larger than the previous caps/tooth, so they're pressing against the teeth in both directions, which hurts a bit. And, of course, they had to drill my tooth below the gumline, so the gum is all torn up, and the whole general area has swollen. None of this is major pain, but it's enough to make me feel yucky. I know from past experience that it will be worth it, though.

So, I have temporary caps on three of my front teeth, and instructions not to bite into anything "unless you want your teeth to be all chippy before we can replace them."

In three weeks, I'll go back and they'll remove the temporary caps, fill a cavity next to one of the caps, give me the finished caps, and I'll have time for it all to heal before Thanksgiving!

I had three caps put in almost thirty years ago, and I do know that all this hassle/pain will be worth it. Once it's done, it'll be almost like having my own, real teeth. I can hardly wait!

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Holly and Robin are on their Halloween vacation already. Unless they met with delays at the airport, they should be in New Orleans by now.

Holly called me last night. She's angry at K-Mart. She ordered a camera from them with expedited shipping. They guaranteed absolutely that she would have the camera delivered yesterday. As of yesterday, they hadn't even shipped it! She swears that she will never buy anything from K-Mart ever again! I don't really blame her. So, now she has to spend part of her vacation looking for a nice camera to buy. You would think that in this economy, a store like K-Mart wouldn't want to blow a sale.

So, for any of you planning your Christmas shopping, keep this in mind.

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Eastwick will be on again tonight! I can't wait! The electronic TV Guide on my DVR says that they plan to burn a witch for Halloween! I sincerely hope they plan to do it in effigy! Whatever, it should be good!

I really hope you got to see the Halloween episode of Castle on Monday! It was too much fun!

Have a great evening!

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Addition:

I nearly forgot!

Trick or Treat!

Halloween for Knitters

Deadly Knitshade has been having Halloween fun over at the London Stitch 'N Bitch! She wrote a great article for them about how to deal with zombies if you happen to be a knitter. I'm severely tempted to put a photo from the post in here to whet your appetite.

Oh, alright, I'll do it.

Please go and read the article! It's great! And there's a lot more in it than just the photo! And if you're on Twitter, you can follow her at deadlyknitshade.

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In more Halloween fun, I went to the grocery store yesterday, but also took a walk to see if I could get a photo of that wading bird that shows up only if I don't have a camera with me.

I actually managed to walk onto the bridge before I noticed that there were some teenage girls dressed as Zombies, complete with make up taking pictures of each other on the bridge. They were using fake blood that they'd bought. I remarked on the fact that they'd bought it and told them how to make fake blood. Making movie blood is something I learned from Tim Davis while we were working on New Genesis. We had a fun chat, and I told them to look up Tim on Facebook because he's been looking for zombies for the movie he's doing.

The wading bird, needless to say, didn't show up. Considering the crowd on the bridge, I didn't really expect it.

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In knitting news, the body of the sweater is done. I even picked up and knitted the pocket linings I've picked up stitches around the neckline and am currently doing a 2x2 rib. I'd rather do some garter stitch, but since the whole bodice of the sweater is in rib, I think that the stretchier rib is the way to go. Once I finish the neckline, there's only the sleeves to knit, darn in ends, sew down the pocket linings and block it! Most of it is done!

I feel guilty knitting something for myself so close to Christmas, though. I want to make some things to sell on Etsy, and make some more Christmas presents. If you scroll to the bottom of this page, you'll find the widget that tells you how many days there are until Christmas. Today, there are exactly 60. That feels like such a long time and such a short time all at once. Only 60 days left to get ready! If you're making presents, get busy!

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Tonight, we have a brand new episode of Heroes, The Big Bang Theory, and Castle.

Castle, in particular, is not-to-be-missed! There will be a dead vampire, references to the Buffy storyline that Nathan Fillion was in, plus, he'll be wearing his Captain Tightpants outfit as a Halloween costume! And, if they're smart, there will be even more in the episode.

Find out more about tonight's Castle episode, as well as Heroes, and highlights of the rest of the week here.

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Well, that was exciting. And now, for something completely different, we have something that I hope is funny.

Have a great evening!

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Addition:

For some additional humor, check this out!