Bookish (and not so Bookish) Thoughts

[my neglected, but so loved, pups]

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1. I saw someone cleaning the outside of their house with a duster when we were walking earlier and I was like, "WHAT THE HECK I CAN BARELY KEEP THE INSIDE CLEAN!!!!" I hate that person. I don't need the bar set that high. 

2. I am very excited for Halloween next week. Sawyer is going to be Chewbacca and he loves his costume very much. I am a little nervous that he might choke when it comes to seeing other people dressed up, though, since he has completely lost it when he's seen mascots at events. Nonetheless, I already called Reese's PB Cups for the mom trick-or-treating tax.

3. I hate chewy, fruity candy, but I am obsessed with strawberry and cherry Hi-Chews. They're soooooooo gooooooooood. 

4. It's been a rough five or so days and I cannot wait for this week to be over. Actually, last week was sort of crappy too. It's been one little thing after another, which as stand alone issues are pretty manageable, but when they all start piling up things start becoming overwhelming. Compounded with a head cold and the normal bone-tired exhaustion, well, let's just say enough is enough.

5. The book we just read for book club, The Sellout by Paul Beatty, won the Man Booker. An American! Since it's a satire on race it's of course not for everyone, but I really enjoyed it and we had a good conversation. It's not a book for every book club, either, but the six of us are pretty respectful, open-minded people , so it worked for us. 

6. Last week I wrote about how I had no plans for this past weekend and how it was probably good for me. It was not. I need things to look forward to and structure my time around. It's who I am and I own it. Hello, my name is Christine, and thrive on being busy. 

7. Do you need a laugh? I think you do. Take a look at these hilarious tweets about Obama and Biden.

8. I told my son that he was going to try soup for dinner while we were washing his hands. He thought I said "soap" so the next thing I know, he's licking the soap off his hands. I can't get him try real food, but he didn't even think twice about licking soap off his hands. Sigh. Toddlers. 

9. I made Sally's Salted Caramel Pretzel Crunch Bars last weekend and they were perfection. There are a million steps, though, so they can't be done on the fly. Still worth it (so is making the salted caramel from scratch).

10. There are so many post ideas swimming around in my head right now, but TIME! If there's a will there's a way... Supposedly. Something like that. [If I type it is real].

Happy Halloween

Top Ten Tuesday- Halloween Costumes

I seriously can't remember the last time I dressed up for Halloween- probably high school. It's not that I have anything against it- I just haven't had the need. This week The Broke and the Bookish ask us what characters we'd dress up as- I'm going to go ahead and extend that to literary costumes, just to give myself a little more leeway. 

1. Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz- This is more of a leftover from childhood, since I remember wanting to be it and not being able to.

2. The White Witch from The Chronicles of Narnia- I don't do princesses, but her regal attire is something I could get on board with.

3. A publishing exec- I picture them all in Banana Republic. Sign me up.

4. A librarian- While I know librarians come in all shapes and sizes, I'd play up the part with a pencil skirt, buttoned-up shirt, a severe bun and glasses. Yes, this isn't a far cry from what I wear normally.

5. A doctor from a book that is about doctors- Really, I'd just like an excuse to buy a pair of scrubs (aka pajamas you work in).

6. An author- The author costume would really just be me in a new Anthropologie dress. That's what writer me would wear on an imaginary book tour.

7. Lisbeth from The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo- My wardrobe would typically not be labeled as "bad ass" so this would be fun.

And a few that I would not like to be:

8. Katniss from The Hunger Games- Purely out of protest.

9. Hermione Granger from Harry Potter- Sorry, but those robes aren't even a tiny bit fun.

10. Anyone from Frozen- Just because I'm already anticipating inventing a game on Friday that's called "Every time Elss rings the doorbell take a shot" (or in my case "Every time Else rings the doorbell eat a Kit Kat" since I can't drink and would probably not get completely plastered around tiny little people anyway).

Halloween plans? We're dressing up the baby as Han Solo, and I'm supposedly making the dogs into Princess Leia and Chewbacca. Mostly I'm just hoping that I can find Reeese's Peanut Butter Cups on sale the next day. 

Bookish (and not so Bookish) Thoughts

Link up below! One of these days I'm going to actually like push this on twitter and tweet about it and make it more legit. Mmmmmmhmmmmm.

1. The new Mac OS is called Yosemite. Ew. I like Macs, I like Yosemite, but do they need to be together? It's like combining Diet Coke and chocolate milk.

[Hey! I've hiked that thing! Twice! Source]

2. I finished Tana French's The Secret Place- hallelujah. I'm now reading an ARC of Reif Larsen's I Am Radar and am totally loving it so far.

3. The Giants are in the World Series! We don't have cable or satellite so we sucked it up and spent the $10 dollars so we could stream the World Series games on MLB Live (or something like that) on the PlayStation.

[source]

4. You should follow Los Feliz Daycare on Twitter. Ridiculously funny.

5. The Common Core Committee I am on is working on a unit on dystopias and we agreed to suggest Fahrenheit 451, Animal Farm, 1984, and A Brave New World in our work. I have to confess I've only read the first (I know. I know! Sci-fi-esque books aren't really my bag), so I've got some reading to do before we meet again. I'm a little excited, a little annoyed.

6. Tomorrow night is parent-teacher conferences, a night I tend to dread, and this year more so. It has nothing to do with interacting with the parents- that's usually pleasant and productive. The crappy part is that we're there from 4:30 to 8:00. We get to leave early the next day, but I have a lunch meeting so I'm not going to really reap those rewards. This time will be especially hard since I'll have to pick Sawyer up from daycare, feed him really fast, and then basically go back to work. And by the time I get home it will be time to feed him again and put him to sleep. Wah.

7. This weekend I have to finish/start Halloween projects. We need a pumpkin (really I just want to take pictures of Sawyer at a pumpkin patch) and I need to make the dogs their stupid costumes. Can you sense the enthusiasm?

8. Today the inevitable happened- I was walked in on while pumping at work. Despite the sign on my door. Despite it being my prep period and there not really being a reason to come in. It gets better- the intruders were an assistant principal and one of the big guys from the district office. Even better? I yelled at them. Twice. Luckily I was all covered up, but it was still traumatizing. 

9. This irritates me so much.

10. The UCLA "Friends of English" is starting a virtual book club, but I'm pretty sure you have to be a "friend" as in "I give you money" sort of friend. Until I'm done paying off my student loans I'm not giving that campus a dime.

Trunk-or-Treats are Ruining Halloween

As I roamed own the aisles of Target last week I made my way over to the dreaded seasonal area to buy Halloween candy. "How much do you think we should get?" I asked my husband. This, of course, led to an obligatory recount of how much we went through in years past. 

Three years ago: a ton (people were even driving into our area from other areas)

Two years ago: some

One year ago: less than a bag (we still have some)

Background: we live in a nice neighborhood full of families with kids ranging from infants to teenagers. On our street alone there are close to a dozen kids.

So, you ask, what happened last year? Could it have possibly been the weather? The arrival of a religious sect that doesn't partake in such festivities? Did local law enforcement warn of a killer on the loose?

No, no, no. My friends, what happened was something called Trunk-or-Treat. 

Yes, trunk. As in the one in the rear of your car.

[source]

Primarily sponsored by churches and sometimes schools, parents park their decorated vehicles in parking lots and dispense candy to costumed kiddos. Sometimes these aren't on Halloween, but more and more they are, meaning families go there instead of door-to-door. 

And now you're up to speed on the slow death of Halloween as we know/knew it.

I'm not a huge fan of Halloween as an adult (although I am admittedly more excited now that I have a tiny human to dress up), but as a kid I had fun with it. My mom made our costumes for many years- I was a clown, a Native American (oopsies), an angel, cowgirl, and Little Red Riding Hood. We'd eat an early dinner and then eagerly wait for the sun to go down so we could take the neighborhood by storm with all the other kids from the neighborhood. It was fun. It was a tradition. 

But now, there are less and less kids roaming the neighborhoods on October 31. Parents are concerned with safety, enthusiastic about convenience, or feel pressured by certain organizations (or by their kids, who are in turn pressured by said organizations). Cracked.com says it's what happens when "laziness and paranoia collide in a parking lot" (source). Time reported a few years ago in an article entitled "Grownups in Costumes: Have Adults Ruined Halloween?" that there hasn't been "a single documented case of Halloween candy poisoning" and that "sexual-predation rates are no different on Halloween than any other night of the year" (source). Moms get to obsessively pin trunk-decorating ideas on Pinterest, dads get to shoot the shit with other dads by their cars, and kids get to collect ridiculous amounts of candy. But where's the spirit? Where's that creepy feeling you get when you dare to ring the doorbell of the neighbor who you think might be hiding dead bodies in his attic (or something a kid would think up)? Or the butterflies in your stomach when you go to your crush's house (and then his fat, cranky dad opens the door)? The pride you feel when your parents finally let you go out with just your friends (as long as you stay between this road and that road)? What about getting yelled at repeatedly to "not step on the grass" and to "say thank you!" (just another way to teach manners)? 

The idea of trick-or-treating dying out makes me depressed. I want Sawyer to be able to dress up like some idiotic movie characters (okay, but not that part) and run around our block hyped up on sugar making people go "awww" when they open the door to see him. And to later know that he's sauntering around with his pals probably acting like a hooligan or flirting with girls. It's part of growing up.

Resist the urge, parents. Put down the crepe paper, dry ice, and whatever the hell people use to decorate their cars (that sounds ridiculous, decorating a car). 

And rest assured. As much as I hate buying candy for other peoples' kids, abhor hearing my dogs bark a million times, and detest hearing my doorbell ring, I will always buy candy and keep my light on... until at least nine.