Boo!

In recent years, one of our busiest residential streets in the heart of town has developed a trick or treating tradition that has grown to the point that the city shuts down about a half dozen blocks of that street to safely accommodate all the little goblins and ghouls that will traipse through there tonight. They expect somewhere around 3,000 kids to show up. Whew! Wouldn't you hate to buy candy for that many kids?


It started when a couple of houses on the block got a little carried away with decorations, and before you know it, everyone else was getting into the spirit and now, every Halloween, the yards are filled with elaborate decorations that even include a real coffin or two. Some of the houses start getting ready a couple of weeks prior to Halloween, giving you sneak peeks of what's to come. Since I run on that street just about every day during lunch, I get to watch the decorations come together, and today that street was a beehive of activity as homeowners got their houses ready. Some houses go the traditional route:

Others create mazes that will likely be kind of dark and scary at night.

Others, like my buddy D. and his wife, build mad scientist labs, complete with old freezers and fake body parts.

In fact, there were fake arms, legs and heads scattered up and down that street today, tucked into bushes and peeking out from under flower beds.

My favorite house changes themes each year and they usually lean toward whimsical. Last year, they went with Peter Pan. This year, they teased us for the last several days with a big sign in the yard inviting everyone "to tea", and today, Alice and her buddies were setting a table and getting ready for company.

So cool. The Hula-gen's do not go to extremes like that, although I might throw on Teen Angel's bumble bee costume for answering the door to trick or treater's. With Papa T. still in the hospital, we're lucky we have candy. Thanks goodness I bought it two weeks ago because I had coupons. And thank goodness, we won't have 3,000 visitors. I didn't have enough coupons for that many goblins.

A Bigger Prize

Thursday, we had the Business and Professional Women's Luncheon where they named the winner of the local Business Woman of the Year award. I was one of sixteen finalists. Hubby and Teen Angel were there, along with mama and daddy for moral support. You couldn't keep mama away from something that recognizes one of her babies. In fact, if it had been some kind of election, she would have wrapped up enough votes for me to win two weeks ago. She's been campaigning for me since the nominations were announced. Despite her efforts to tout my achievements to anyone in three counties who would listen, I did not win. Another very well deserving colleague of mine did, and I couldn't be more happy for her.


I did not expect to win, and that's the gosh honest truth. Hand to God, I was just very honored to be included on a list with such wonderful dynamic women, and it was great to have my family there to share that joy. It truly was an honor just to be nominated. My family though, was convinced I was going to win. Hubby swore the day before that I would. Right before the luncheon, daddy so cutely whispered to me, "Now the only one I'm worried about is Mrs. ****. She's got a pretty good resume." And THEN after the winner was announced and had made her speech, mama leaned over to me, patted me on the leg and said, "Well, you're number one in OUR book." And she meant it.

And that, my friends, is why it didn't bother me that I didn't land on that podium last Thursday. I had already won before I walked in the door.

Revealed

Happy-Because he loves nothing better than to snooze in the chair with his best bud, especially if there's a good western on TV.

Sleepy-Because you can count on two hands and part of one foot the number of hours he has slept since Papa T. landed in the hospital Sunday.

Grumpy-Because, well, because she's just a bit of a bee-atch. I think she's harboring a grudge because of how much we made fun of her swollen teat this summer.



Sleepy, Happy and Grumpy. You figure out which one is which.

In case you were wondering if we're still enjoying the Big A** Chair....we are.  Well, some of us are, anyway.



Anyone Smell Beans?

So, last night I read Super Cop's comment about my post on throwing up in the car when I was a kid and got just as tickled as he did. In fact, an hour later when I was laying in bed trying to go to sleep, I got to laughing about it again and laughed so hard I shook the bed. Fortunately, Hubby was so exhausted and sleeping so soundly he didn't notice, but I had to put my hand over my mouth to keep from cackling out loud and waking him up. I had forgotten how annoyed Daddy was with me that day and how much he griped about it when it happened. As I recall I threw up right after we got in the car to go home, so everybody had to deal with the smell and mess for most of the thirty mile drive to the house. Nice. All because I didn't have the sense to realize that if you eat a hot dog right before you try to set a personal record for Tilt-A-Whirl rides, that dog is likely to come flying back up later. Or that I probably should have given everyone a heads up that maybe we might want to wait a few minutes before getting into the car so I could throw up OUTSIDE the vehicle. But ya' know, when you're a kid on an amusement park high you get a little addled. It was the one day of the year we got to ride all of the rides in that park free, and I took full advantage of it. If memory serves me correctly, that was also the year one of us won a sleeping bag with pictures of Dots candy all over it during the picnic's Bingo games, so the excitement was overwhelming.

Now, some of you without children might be wondering why daddy wasn't a little more sympathetic to my plight, but those of you with children fully understand his response. It was one of those moments when your children have driven you crazy all day, danced on your last nerve and then pushed you right over into delirium. The things that can fly out of your mouth in those moments rarely make sense.

There's no accounting for your reaction to some of the things your kids do. I've had many of those moments myself, so that's probably why I find it so funny now. Honestly, I found it pretty funny back when I was driving my parents crazy. There were many times when I clamped my hand over my mouth to keep from laughing out loud at daddy's response to something we did, or anything that caused a mess daddy had to clean up. Like that time we stopped at Stuckey's and Super Cop begged for the large grape drink, even though he couldn't drink a large drink. He whined until he got it and then promptly spilled it all over the floor before we got to our table. Nothing brings down a road trip like spilling a sticky drink in front of a restaurant full of people. To this day I cannot see a grape soda without smiling.

One of the times I saw daddy get the most frustrated was when we were headed to my aunt's house for some kind of family meal, maybe Thanksgiving. We had a large crock-pot full of baked beans in the back floorboard, and daddy turned a corner too sharp and turned over the crock-pot. Baked beans were everywhere, and for some reason us kids thought that was funny. I mean, who doesn't laugh at beans? Daddy, that's who. There we were, pulled over to the side of the road with all three of us kids rolling in the backseat and daddy flinging beans onto the ground and swearing like a sailor. The fun didn't end there though. He was never fully able to get that bean smell out of the car. For as long as we owned that Chrysler, whenever it rained and it was damp outside, you could get a faint whiff of beans in that car. And every time we smelled beans, we would laugh and say, "I smell beans." Daddy would say something not family friendly.

And then, there was the time Daddy had a little trouble fixing the brakes on the car. He did all of the repair work on our cars, and I seriously did not know until about age thirteen that you could pay someone to fix your car. Whenever he worked on the car, one of us was expected to stand close by and either hand him tools like a surgical assistant or hold the work light above his head with your outstretched arm like one of those infernal lawn jockeys. The best job though came when he put on new brake shoes or pads because that required him to be under the car while one of us sat in it and pumped the air out of the brakes. That basically involved scooting up to the edge of the seat, hanging onto the steering wheel and mashing the brakes with the enthusiasm of a jack rabbit until you couldn't press the pedal to the floor anymore. It was great fun. On one particular day I was the designated pumper, and daddy was having a terrible time trying to work on the brakes. I could hear every word he said and in between pretending like I was driving and playing with the cigarette lighter I picked up on his growing frustration. He finally bailed out from under the car, threw a rag on the ground and shouted, "I wish Ralph Nader that this emission control thing shoved up his a**!" It was a great moment in family history, and I slumped over and buried my face in the seat so he couldn't see me laughing.

Teen Angel has been laughing behind my back for years, and I have no doubts she will laugh in the years to come about stupid things I've said or done when she was growing up. I've had more than my share of delirium during her growing up years. In fact, if I had to guess which moment tops her list of my goofiest gaffs right now, it would be the time when she was approaching middle school age and had told one butt joke after another. I finally got my fill of telling her to stop when I barked out, "Enough with the butt cracks!" I paused, realized what I said and started laughing. And I'm not really sure, but I think I caught a faint whiff of beans at the same time.

The one Where Papa T. Professes his Distaste for Chicken

In the interest of keeping things lively around here, we like to work in a trip to the emergency room every now and then, preferably when the ER is at its busiest. Despite a great Saturday evening that included Teen Angel taking him to dinner, Papa T. woke up Sunday morning feeling like he had been run over by a bulldozer. He hurt so bad he was moaning, and had he not had a fever I would have blamed it on the jumbo sized platter of catfish and gallon bucket of coleslaw he ate the night before. We thought he might have an infection of some sort, so we loaded him into the car, throw up bucket and all, and headed to the hospital. By the way, why is it you can go for years without transporting a nauseous person in your car, and the minute you buy a new car, somebody has to puke while riding in it? I rode in the backseat with him all the way to the hospital, shoving the plastic garbage can under his nose every time he groaned. It took me back to that time when I was about twelve and got sick on the way home from the company safety picnic due to a hot dog and too much Tilt-A-Whirl. Tip: Do not eat a hot dog covered in ketchup and ride the Tilt-A-Whirl seven times in a row. And then drink a big Pepsi.


We made it to the hospital without any big messes, and much to our surprise, Papa T. had some pneumonia, probably a result of that bad cold he had a couple of weeks ago. He was very weak and achy, so they admitted him, and he'll likely be there for several more days. And I'm not namin' any names, but when all of this is over, somebody is gettin' a pneumonia shot whether he likes it or not. Although, after the catheter incident, getting a needle anywhere close to his body will be a big achievement.

This means a week of running back and forth to the hospital, which really isn't as bad for me as it is Hubby. The poor man is exhausted from staying at the hospital. He has the brunt of the work. Teen Angel and I just fill in the gaps as needed. It also means a week of erratic meals. So far this week, I've had for dinner: Popcorn, Sunday night and a salad with a side order of mashed potatoes last night. That still beats the steady stream of fruit salad, tuna sandwiches and chicken breasts Papa T. is getting on his cardiac diet. I don't know where hospitals get their honeydew melons, but they are like green bricks. Papa T. is not the most patient of patients, so it should be an interesting few days. If I'm lucky, tonight's special in the hospital cafeteria will not be tuna.

iHeart Faces Photography Challenge-"Let Them Be Little"

How fun is this challenge!  Hop on over here for the other entries and a few smiles.