Halloween Past & Present

"I heard that the big kids soaped the windows on Halloween & all we had was a box of Tide & I couldn't reach the windows anyway, so I poured a big pile of it on the neighbor's doorstep & I never figured out how my mom knew it was me until we had kids" - Brian Andreas (Story People)

Halloween is perhaps my favorite holiday. I will gladly celebrate any holiday that involves free candy and costumes.

My best pal, Nancy, whom I met in the 4th grade, still hosts an annual Halloween costume party. She's the mom of two beautiful and imaginative children. She's also a librarian so if you ever visit this library, run in and give her a hug from me...and tell her that she rocks!

Rewind 34 years...above is a photo of Nancy and me at around 9 or 10 years of age donning our most awesome dragon costume that we made ourselves with boxes and bits that we recovered from the trash platform of an old department store. It took the two of us to operate the dragon...one in the front and one in the back. We pulled a string inside the beast to open and close it's mouth. The treat giver fed our goodies to the dragon and it would drop into a bag within. As you can see we ran out of green paint.

Nancy's brother Danny (right) made an existential statement about capitalism...I can still picture him painting his multi-directional-box-on-a-box while the Zappa tunes wailed from behind his bedroom door. Her sister Linda and friend Laura (left) dressed as a pack of gum. They had to take tiny steps in their slim carton and had a hard time navigating all those front stoops. They tipped over several times, unable to recover like a toppled turtle and we had to de-dragonize ourselves to hoist them back upright again.

This year we will be a lion tribe and I will try my hand at face painting. I thrifted an ultra-soft lion costume for Satch.

(Last year Satch was a cow-boy)

There is an old expression that goes something like this... the more things change, the more they stay the same. Well Nancy, if you're reading this, we may be 44 years old, but we still know how to celebrate Halloween and I still wield my Polaroid camera like it's nobody's business.

Here's to you, dear friend, on this day I always think of you....Happy Halloween! (video below)


*For those of you who asked, the inspiration for my pumpkins came from

this book  and this book respectively.

Pumpkin Carving with Satch

"Go ahead, Satch, stick your hands in and squish it"

"No too cold faw Datch"

"It's not too cold, try it"

"No too ticky faw Datch"

Satch will not stick his hands in any food substance unless it's his dinner...THAT he will fling by the fistfuls.

and a barfo-lantern to delight the trick or treaters.

Plush You Too

It was 1970-something in a suburban ranch home on Long Island.


It was my birthday slumber party and we were all hopped up on Pepsi and Doritos.

You, my best friend, along with our merry band stuffed my nightgown full of pillows. I was unable to move, but was hoisted up so my mother could take this photo.

Here's to you, Nancy...HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

(The title of this post is in memory of all those bean bag animals we used to collect)

Most Alive Monday

We went pumpkin picking at a local farm. It had been raining the last few days so we put on our nifty boots and hopped in the car. As we pulled into the lot Satch started chanting, "tawn awound ting, tawn awound ting" until I finally realized what he was so excited about. "That's a windmill", I explained and he was silent.

About 5 seconds later he exclaimed in an astonished tone, "OH MY GOD", and then asked, "Datch touch it da win meel"?

Even though we explained that he couldn't actually touch the top of the windmill, he insisted on walking up to it so he could see for himself. Satch picked out three pumpkins and a dark gourd that looks like a bird. We'll be carving them this eve.

We made shrunken apple heads 2 weeks ago and we put those outside in the herb garden.




















































Our town hosted a fall festival with crafts and trick or treating for the children.

"It's time to go trick or treating, Satch", I said, holding his costume in my hand.

"Yeah...lets do it guys!", he squealed.

(Satch wore his lion costume, and I painted my face and dada's)


We walked to the piazza and Satch was joined by his friend H who decided not to don his pumpkin costume. Satch carried his plastic pumpkin that he saw at the grocery store and fell in love with. I had intended to make him a papier mache pumpkin or a black cat to contain his goodies, but I accepted his choice for a little piece of holiday kitsch. Satch took H by the hand and off they went.

"Treats-O-Treats", he yelled joyfully as he walked toward the open doors of the shops.

They sat on a wall near the lake laughing over some seemingly private joke between them, examining their loot and sampling a few of their treats.

The Chocolatier made hand dipped pretzels for the children and the local art gallery passed out tiny tubs of play dough. Satch tasted his first lollipop...

and ran joyfully the whole way home...sunlight glistened on the ends of his sweaty curls.


About Most Alive Monday: I've decided to make at least one "most alive choice" each day and post my favorite each Monday. This, of course, is to motivate me to consciously "live juicy"! I hope you'll join me and share your "most alive choice" in the comments section.

Tricks or Treats!

We have begun our holiday decorating. I made a papel picado with a pattern from the toy maker... though I changed the eyes on the cat. Satch calls it "the Halloween flags".


We picked a few stems of brown hydrangea for our table from a bush that was growing beside the trail...


While searching for some easy-to-make, not-too-scary decorations, I found these:

• a cute skeleton cut-out
• apple shrunken heads

We're watching, "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown". The scent of nag champa oil is wafting from the linen closet and there's a bar of spicy clove soap in the bath.

You'll have to stay tuned for our very cool pumpkins. We're going pickin' on Saturday. See you Monday. Have a good weekend everyone!

Dinner Conversation: Birthday Cupcakes for Me

Regarding their ritual evening walk:

"Satchel talked to the moon this evening"
"He did?"
"Yes, and it told him that it was hungry"
"Really"
"Yes, so Satch gathered a small pile of leaves on the sidewalk for the moon to eat"

(and the wee boy nodded happily in his highchair with a mouthful a soy-meatball hero)

Here are some images of the boys making my birthday cupcakes last week.

"You are my sun, my moon, and all my stars," - ee cummings

Curious Boys (and Girls)

Adventures and Projects and Hijinks, OH BOY!

To quote author, Sam Martin, "Adventuring instincts have been dulled over the years by video games, television, and all those electronic toys that short-circuit the imagination". I couldn't agree more and "The Curious Boy's Book of Adventure" is a wonderful antidote to re-awaken the imagination in this mind-numbing electronics age. As a tomboy at heart and the 44 year old mother of an adventurous young son, this book immediately won me over with it's instructions on how to build a water balloon catapult. There are experiments, projects and hijinks of every variety. The book is easy to understand and just the right size, portable and not overwhelming for young readers.

It's time to turn off the tv and start making some forts, bottle rockets, slime and home-grown crystals. Fun, Fun and more fun!

Fall Collection

And all the leaves were calling me.
And the wind went sighing over the land,
Tossing the grasses to and fro,
And a shining rainbow held out its hand,
So what could I do but laugh and go?
- Richard Le Gallienne

More gifts from the trail to celebrate Autumn...

and Satchel's first watercolor paintings to brighten the shorter days to come...

and his paper butterfly fluttering suspended in the stairwell...perhaps we'll make some friends to keep it company.



Yesterday, while out (at least a 5 mile stroller trek) buying more watercolors and safety scissors and yet another digger because when Satch saw it he sighed, "I love diggers", so sincerely that I felt he should have it... we ran into a man with long white hair and beard to match and eyes that twinkled like Santa... come to think of it, he looked like David Crosby. "Look, Satch", I yelled jumping up and down, "he has a BANJO"! And the dear soul walked over and played for us and we sang made up lyrics to fit the moment like, "I've got a pinecone...how 'bout you".

Well...what can I do, but laugh and go. Have a good weekend everyone. See you Monday.

(To the mysterious banjo player, you were "the shining rainbow" yesterday...thank you for "holding out your hand".)

Unreluctant Soul:: Forty Four

"Suppose you were shaped
like these or those!
or shaped like a BLOGG
Or a garden hose!
Of all the shapes
we might have been...
I say, Hooray
for the shapes we're in!
- Dr. Seuss (The Shape of Me and Other Stuff)

My mama belly is no longer perfectly flat, now there is a soft, small roundness where Satch once nestled...and a dent in my right pelvis where he made his entrance into the world by an unplanned incision. My boobs, like two migratory birds, have flown a little further south and will no longer roost upon their northern perch. The locale not the result of gravity, but from the ebb and flow of a tide of milk spanning over two years.

This is the shape of me and I wouldn't change a thing.

Forty four years have now passed. The passing of time (for me) is no longer journeyed by clock and rarely by calendar. When the battery in my watch died during my pregnancy, I never bothered to replace it. I have learned to navigate with a mixture of grace and stumbling by the rhythm of motherhood...by the flow of milk, by meltdowns, milestones and messes, by love and laundry, by tears and by laughter. It's a dance of equal parts exhilaration and exhaustion.

The sun raises and bows it's head boasting colors unimaginable. Seasons shift wearing their familiar scents. The hue and slant of the light is my new guide.

Yesterday we celebrated with pizza and cupcakes and kisses and song. As the sun was setting I pointed to the pink sky. Satch, in a breathy voice said, "Waaaaaaah!", and then asked. "Datchoo kiss it da pink sky"?

Beauty all around , tender and kissable.

Oh my heart!

(Thank you all for your wishes, your emails and comments. Even though I can't always respond to all of you, know that you make my heart dance. This post is dedicated to Nina, who inspired me to take a dip in a secret lake!)

Most Alive Monday

"There is nothing in a caterpillar that tells you it's going to be a butterfly" -Buckminster Fuller

One most alive choice that I made recently was a split second decision to let a caterpillar crawl on my arm so that Satch could observe. It was a Halysidota tessellaris -- Banded Tussock Moth caterpillar.


If you know me well enough, you would understand that this was not an easy decision. Though I'm not fond of insects...and maybe even a bit repulsed by them, I did not want to imprint my revulsion on Satch. I didn't feel this way when I was a child and can clearly remember playing with caterpillars and snakes and all sorts of critters. I wonder why it is that creepy crawlers now give me the creeps.

I let the little bugger crawl on my arm. It didn't feel at all like I thought or remembered as a child. It's numerous feet felt sticky like itsy bitsy pieces of velcro. As it turned out Satch wanted no part of the fuzzy insect crawling on him, he was satisfied to watch it on a leaf or the stroller. He didn't want to set it free so we had to bring it home to live in our garden.

I found some nifty links to help us identify the critters we stumble upon during the course of our day:

• What's that bug?
• Butterflies and Moths of North America
• What bird?
• Snakes of North America

We've also fallen in love with the Fun with Nature Take Along Guides!


Tomorrow I will be celebrating my 44th birthday! I will begin my day as I always do...by dancing to "Birthday" on the Sugarcubes' "Life's too good" album! I will be back Wednesday.


"She’s painting huge books
And glues them together
They saw a big raven
It glided down the sky
She touched it
Ohh...today is a birthday" - Sugarcubes


About Most Alive Monday: I've decided to make at least one "most alive choice" each day and post my favorite each Monday. This, of course, is to motivate me to consciously "live juicy"! I hope you'll join me and share your "most alive choice" in the comments section.

Playing the Market

It feels felt, until today, more like July than October. A few leaves have fallen and the musky scent of autumn is beginning to fill the air. The sunlight is the color of lemon and honey.

We bought Satch a swell metal shopping cart with some loot that his great aunt gave him and we took him to the market last evening to play in a real store. He was delighted. He bought some bananas, yogurt, Dada's "samich" bread and a raisin pecan artisan bread for breakfast. Below is a photo essay of his special trip . (This may have been my most alive moment this week because I just can't imagine anything more magical happening 'tween now and Monday)

Oh, I found this nifty link to print play money for Satch.

I'll be back Monday. Have a good weekend, everyone!