Personal Blog of Author Kathryn Thompson
In a stunning comeback, leaping two categories from Tragic Excuses straight up to the Hall of Fame, Rachelle has now been added to the Tattoo Parlor as part of her official coming out party…
She took a bunch of drugs.
Feel free to head on over and congratulate her.
One of the things I learned working in the media department of a public library with a massive film collection was that people like scaring the living chigooly out of themselves on or around October 31st. What many people learned the hard way was that if you go to a video store or library the day before or the day of Halloween, you’ll have to be a little more creative when choosing a scary flick to watch.
More than once have I tried to convince a teenaged boy that Nosferatu would be the oogledy boogledy best scary movie to watch for his Halloween bash. No takers. No love for the original scary, the movie that started it all. I bite my thumb at them. Go to Blockbuster and see if Scary Movie 3 is in stock. Ha HA!
Then there’s the grown men looking for a scary movie on Halloween night. Umm… Nosferatu’s still here or you could try that one about the pride and the prejudice… The screaming, the running, the horror, the sudden fits of narcolepsy. Works every time.
What are some of your favorite scary movies? Here are a few that you may not have seen:
Nosferatu (1922) — silent, B&W, the original vampire movie. Everyone should see this at least once. It also makes a great background on a big screen during a spooky party.
M (1931) — Fabulous German film starring Peter Lorre as one of the all-time creepiest villans, B&W, German with English subtitles.
Le Boucher (The Butcher 1970) — Another great murder mystery, French with english subtitles, directed by Claude Chabrol. You will be freaked out by this well crafted thriller.
Killer Klowns from Outer Space (1988) — Kampy, silly 80’s horror flick.
The Brain from Planet Arous (1957) — Life is not complete without viewing this 50s horror film. A giant brain from Planet Arous, held up by heavy wires, “floats” around and possesses the body of a well-known scientist. The tagline reads “It Will Steal Your Body And Damn Your Soul.” You cannot lose with this one.
Wait Until Dark (1967) — My favorite scary movie of all time, this film must be watched in a completely dark house. Audrey Hepburn plays a blind woman being terrorized by a team of international drug dealers. There is no scarier movie. Ever. I’m willing to step up and fight you over this pronouncement or step up and dance you over it or EVEN freestyle rap battle to prove my point. I’m that confident.
Now share yours. Some ideas for younger kids would be helpful too. Mine are all relatively clean as horror movies go, but much too mature in content for young family viewing.
We live near Seattle. We’re close enough that the commute is decent but far enough into the nowhere that we’d be more likely to go cow-tipping than clubbing on a typical Thursday night.
We have a slightly smaller public market than the big city, slightly more people dressed as giant cornstalks in the Fourth of July parade and our newspaper is much quirkier than the big city variety.
In my local paper you will find a section called Police Beat, eerily similar to the section of the same name in my college paper.
The only difference is that in BYU’s Police Beat, the articles would nearly always end with “The situation is under investigation” while my new town’s Police Beat articles end with something more like “There are no suspects, witnesses, clues, evidence, interesting details or real crime of any nature at this time.” At least in BYU’s Daily Universe, someone was still investigating the stolen cheese sandwich or the man who gave a woman a strange look across the parking lot of her dorm building.
I’m quite surprised I haven’t made it into the paper yet. The other day I parallel parked for almost two full hours right on Main Street when the sign clearly states that 2 hours is the LIMIT. Even if we don’t make Police Beat, I know our family will make it into the paper somehow. One of my kids is bound to join the chess club at school or earn their Eagle Scout award. If one of us manages to save a salamander from untimely mangling, I’m sure we’ll make front page for the heroics.
How much of a dork am I that I’m suddenly scheming about how I can get on staff to write some kind of weekly parenting spot? Yeah…..
My favorite part of the paper has to be the classified ads section. Nearly every ad is in its own special section. Here are a few of the headings:
Adoptions
Cemetery Lots
Firewood
Gutters
Mandarin Speaker (Dan speaks Mandarin and our marriage is not perfect, but I would never consider selling him in a small-town newspaper. I don’t care if there is already a section for it.)
Miscellaneous (This section only has one entry, which I find amusing.)
Pain (This section also has only one entry. I hope I called in time to snatch it up. No one answered the phone. There was just this amazingly high-pitched screeching noise. Man, that still kills! )
When we first moved here, things got a little crazy and I was behind on my bill-paying. I had to take my utility check into “city hall,” a little structure that looks about the size of my garage from the outside. I parked in one of the three spots in front of the building and walked in, licking the envelope as I approached the desk where a tiny box labeled “utilities” sat.
The girl behind the counter called out, “You don’t have to lick that.” “Oh, thanks,” I said as I stuffed the open payment into the slot. The envelope stuck out about an inch.
“Um, excuse me. The envelope is too tall for the box.”
“That’s okay. I’m just gonna take it out as soon as you leave anyway.”
Look for twisters Dorothy. We’re not in Seattle anymore.
I “borrowed” a handful of washable tattoos from the mommybloggers at BlogHer this summer and mailed them out to about 30 of you. These 30 swore by blood oath to send me pictures of themselves wearing said tatts. Here are the results.
The Hall of Fame
(Aiyaiyai! Check out these hot mamas!)…
Magoo has become addicted to string “cheece.” After 2 string cheeces yesterday, I had a hard time explaining to Laylee why I was rejecting his pitiful cries for more cheece. The bowels, the stoppage. Dude, mom. It’s just cheece.
I explained ad nauseum about variety and how our bodies will only grow healthy and strong if we eat a lot of different foods. If we eat the same thing every meal we’ll die a hideous constipated death, etc.
Laylee: Okay then. What’s for dinner?
Me: Oh. I’m making cheese sandwiches.
Yes I did.
No she didn’t.
But if she had, I would have explained that cheese sandwiches use orange cheese, which might as well be from a different planet than string “cheece.” They’re not even pronounced the same.
Yesterday evening as Laylee evacuated her bowels prior to retiring for the night to her bedchamber, she informed me that she was “goin’ to the pod.”
Me: Oh, really?
Laylee: Yeah, I’m goin’ to the “pod” because, well, I’m sitting on the pod-EE. So, it’s like I’m goin’ to the “pod.” Yeah, it’s like that.
I will grant you that around our abode, I frequently speak highly of Dan’s “bod” and it only stands to reason that over time, she would pick up this colloquial abbreviation and begin to incorporate it into casual speech with her peers. However, she seems quite puerile to be adapting adult lexicon in such a creative fashion.
On that self-same day, she had me quite enraptured with a detailed treatise on the etiquette of flatulence and the spasmodic ejection of stomach gases. According to Laylee’s hypothesis, the idiom “excuse me” must only be directed at a specific personage if the nature of the emission is noxious in its pungency. Otherwise, the plea for pardon should merely be expressed to the world as a whole, no actual apology being needful as no one person has received harm.
The spiders of Washington State have teamed up with the haunted forest behind my house to ensure a spooky good time for everyone who lives here. Giant spider webs stretch from every tree, column and fence post around our yard. In the morning, the dew clings to them, making them appear thick, white and stiff.
Sitting in the center of each web is a huge female spider who, according to a thoroughly freaked out woman in Target, will do anything AN-Y-THING to get inside my house or crawlspace and lay her bazillions of eggs at this season of the year. I used to get excited when one of the spiders disappeared from the yard. Now I find it moderately disturbing.
Dan and Laylee watched a male and female spider do a “special dance” last Saturday in the front yard until Dan sent her in to tell me that the daddy spider had gone away to “dance somewhere else.” Um, yeah. I’m sure his dissected corpse is doing tons of dancing IN HER STOMACHE JUICES. If she’d eat her own mate, what would she do to my grey matter as I’m sleeping and she crawls in my ear to hibernate?
Sudden change of topic:
What are you gonna be for Halloween? How about your kids? I blogged a few costume ideas last year at this time but here are more:
-The cast of Prison Break. Simple. Understated. Hope your kids don’t mind shaving their heads.
-Characters from Napoleon Dynamite. Got a thrift store? Got a costume.
-The different things the old lady swallowed. Dress your kids as a fly, a spider, a bird, a cat, a dog, a horse and a cow and then see if anyone can figure out what you’re supposed to be.
-Green.
-The Wiggles. Easiest costumes ever if you have a family of 4.
-The Seven C’s — I once heard of a group of seven all wearing matching outfits with the letter C written on their shirts. Silly, but fun.
–Freestyle rappers.
-Gum rappers. Wear the bandanas, hoodies and low-rise jeans and a necklace made of Bubblicious. (I think this will be me and Dan this year)
-Charlie Brown characters. Magoo plans to be Charlie Brown this year. You’ve got to capitalize on your strengths. With a noggin like that, he’s got it made.
-The Invisible Man. Stay home, eat ice cream, and when people ask you why you didn’t come to the party, tell them you were there but you went as the invisible man.
-Not a princess.
Now share yours. Creative, weird, practical? All suggestions are welcome.
Photo courtesy of Mary K. Baird, posted at morguefile.com
reasons: hard hats in children’s sizes, string cheese, visits from family
Dan’s family left us this morning while I slept. I miss them already. The 3 day visit seemed too short and disorganized. We didn’t plan ahead what we would do or talk to them about their expectations for the trip. So when it came time to go do something, we’d sit around like the vultures in Jungle Book asking each other what we wanted to do until the sun went down and then we’d hang out some more, eat some food and stay up way too late.
It was a fun and informative visit. My sister-in-law, a financial coach, got us pumped to take over the world through strategic planning and mission statements. We are excited to let our money “work for us.”
With the help of some aunts, Magoo learned to say “poo” and Laylee can now say “I am terrified beyond the capacity for rational thought.” I guess it’s a quote from Ghostbusters.
They also gave Laylee her first gumball,
which she tried desperately to keep an eye on.
When I woke up this morning, they were gone. My house is much cleaner now than when they arrived, my fridge much more full, and the fact that I don’t live near any family weighs heavily on my mind and heart.
I drove behind a semi-truck for a couple of miles that was either full of freshly cut evergreen trees or Vicks Vaporub.
I heard bells chime on a classical recording yesterday morning.
Last week I could see my breath….
What do you do to entertain your kids when they are too-sick-to-go-outside but not-sick-enough-to-lie-passively on-the-couch? Or when one is sick and the other is bored silly?
What are some alternatives to TV-watching for little kids (under three) when Mommy is too sick to do anything but lie on the couch?
These questions are brought to you by Keryn.
A few answers can be found on Tuesdays past. I had a great answer to the first part of the question but then I read the second part and was all…um…TV-free…of coouuurse.
1. Buckets — Obviously you’d want a barf bucket handy. Another good one is a bucket, bowl or Rubbermaid tote full of beans (preferably uncooked) and some cups and scoops to dig with. They love it and the beans are easier to clean up than sand or rice.
2. Finger painting with pudding. You can choose colored varieties like banana, chocolate, butterscotch and pistachio or you can just use vanilla and color it with food coloring. Have them paint on LARGE paper or plates and then can lick themselves off. I discourage cross-contamination by “helping” each other get clean, especially if only one is sick.
3. Make them clean. Like the other two, I have used this. When I just can’t get up off the couch, I have Laylee clean her room which takes anywhere from 1 to 10 hours. There’s a lot of whining but I can handle that in a semi-narcoleptic state.
4. Tell them they’re your mommy. When I’m sick, I like to have Laylee pretend she’s my mommy. She covers me with blankets, reads me stories, brushes my hair and sings to me. I encourage the singing so if it stops, I know to freak out and go searching for body parts.
I’m sure you all can do better than this. Please answer Keryn’s question so I can steal your ideas next time one of us goes down.
reasons: 83 more sleeps, Papa Murphy, spider-cide spray in my crawlspace