Halloween 2009, a Recap

~The Deadbodys, at church on Halloween evening~

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Shouldn't one sit back and reflect on such an important holiday?  Perhaps review a bit, take some notes, write a poem, plan for next year?  Such reflection sounds better than obsessing over one's worries:  a looming grant deadline, a looming birthday, a whole batch of looming decisions [about one's father and one's career and one's home and one's family (who is still finding their footing after it's matriarch passed away)], a head cold from hell and ...see?  You are bored already.

So - Halloween 2009 recapping it will be!  
  
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~Airstream kitchen window shrunken heads~

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The Airstream was decorated minimally this year - two heads hanging in the kitchen window (it's amazing how two $1.50 heads from CVS Pharmacy can entertain me).  Yes, once again, heads (or the lack thereof) was a continuing theme...

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~Lily the Pencil~

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Is this not the sweetest, scariest, most realistic pencil in the whole wide world?

That most certainly is not Lily, but I'm told that it is.

(Lily is a budding biologist, fellow lover of Halloween, and forever in my heart because of a lovely little prayer).

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~Vincent Van Gogh~

~John Stewart~

~Jack Nicholson in 'The Shining'~

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 The eclair-baking postdoc (yes, the one who hasn't brought us eclairs in a long, long time) is one of those fancy pumpkins carvers.  A skilled one in fact.  He sent me these images of his three selections this year (and forgive me, but doesn't 'John Stewart' look an awful lot like Vladimir Putin?).

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~the lab's senior graduate student (newly appointed) in her Halloween socks~

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A few years ago, a friend came to the lab one morning when I wasn't there, and placed a brain in the lab's 'deli box' - he was like a Halloween 'easter bunny, hiding Halloween-themed socks all over the place.  Every now and then a pair still surfaces, as demonstrated by the feet of the lab's senior graduate student.

My lab is very patient with my Halloween silliness, in fact - perhaps it's been a subconscious screening tool that I've been using all these years?

Now that's a thought.   

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~Mr Sperman and SuperSperm~

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Now how does one transition from Halloween-themed socks to Mr Sperman and SuperSperm?

I'll just leave this one alone (and no - I wasn't at the party).

However the lab's newly minted Ph.D., Mr Sperman, was.

(I hope that Mr Sperman is wrapping up his dissertation edits as I'm typing this.)

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~Mr. and Mrs. Deadbody~

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Each Halloween, Mr. and Mrs. Deadbody are spotted roaming the streets of Charleston, on their way to church on Halloween night.  They're a delightful pair, aren't they?  Rumor has it that they were both poets in the day - he a writer of magical tales, she a teller of family stories and famed observor of the Day of the Dead.

Did you happen to see them too?  I hope so.

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~Jeff the dead...lumberjack or something or other~

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So what does a Halloween sock Easter Bunny look like?  Does he have floppy ears?  No, no, no.  Does he hop?  Heavens no!

A Halloween sock Easter Bunny looks dead, no he is dead - more like undead - so watch out for him next Halloween.  If you are lucky, he might bring you a pair of socks too.

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Comments

[Janet]

Wonderful Halloween photos!! Love the pumpkins, that is some great carving. Think Jack Nicholson's is the scariest.
I still think the 2 large slices of bread on top of the Airstream would have been great!

[jeff]

sweet socks!

[David]

I am never, ever disappointed with my visits here.

But I am sorry to hear about your cold.

[Steve]

The zombies & ghouls seem to have retreated
for another year here, but I wanted to mention a fine new book (UVA Press) that your
dad might like. "Answer At Once": Letters
of Mountain Families in Shenandah National Park, 1934-1938. Katrina Powell, editor.

All those Profitts & Shifflets & Corbetts
et al in Lydia, Dyke, Simmons Gap writing
these incredibly poignant letters to the WPA
and NPS in Washington, trying to avoid eviction for just another summer, or just begging to be allowed to go up and pick the apples from their old home places for one last year. I'm guessing your dad would know the progeny of 90 percent of the letter writers

[Pam]

Thanks Janet. I liked the whole toaster idea too...until I realized that I missed the opportunity to dress up the Airstream as a rod-shaped bacterium. Now I'm guessing no one has done that!!

Jeff, I think they are multiplying. Pretty soon we'll be opening drawers in the lab, and Halloween socks will fall out...like tribbles.

Thanks David!

Steve, the book sounds wonderful. I went to the UVA Press website, and think I definitely need to order it. Did you see Burns' National Park series on PBS? There was some mention of this kind of thing (in another park), but I missed the one on the Shenandoah - so I don't know if it was also mentioned. I'm sure there will be much that is familiar: the store at Dyke was operated by my Uncle for many years - it was always fun to drive up there and sit for awhile, knowing that simply by your heritage anyone coming in would know you, if not as an individual, at least as a 'family'. My Dad's family has a 'family place' still in the area - his middle brother lives there (it used to be my Dad's parents farm). My mother is buried in a beautiful cemetery in Dyke - and every time I have visited her grave, someone stops by to tell me hello.

I digress...thank you for the book recommendation!

[Blackswampgirl Kim]

Oh my... I don't think that I could handle having even that pumpkin of Jack Nicholson on my front porch--he did WAY too good of a job on Jack! (I was WAY too young when I saw The Shining--and Carrie, too, for that matter. The Shining still freaks me out!)