Vandalism or Bribery

That's pretty much what this evening boils down to: offer up something of value or suffer the resultant property damage for failing to meet the original demand. Of course, there are the costumes and the parties and community events, but it comes down to the fact that, for this night, we all can be real bastards and raise hell and thoroughly enjoy it. Of course, come Nov. 1, we're all into the saints and holiday cheer and two months of family togetherness and unending joy, warmth and love, whether we want it or not. Viewed in this paradigm, Halloween makes real sense: Kind of like Mardi Gras at the other end of the calendar.

I added this bit of 1929 Disney Silly Symphony nostalgia for those old enough to remember it. This was 83 years ago, before cartoons had gone color and right after they had added sound (much easier to do with animation than with live action, since no really accurate lip syncing was involved).

The biggest Halloween party on the planet is held in West Hollywood, of course. We don't attend because; 1) neither of us is very good with huge crowds; 2) no matter what I might come up with for a costume, there will be someone there who did it bigger and better and; 3) parking, parking, parking: getting in and out is almost as intense as the gathering itself. So we'll be sitting at home this evening, handing out candy. I've got a couple scary movies recorded on the DVR.

I'm Still waiting on the Pasadena City College job search to progress. They're still reviewing applications, so I haven't been eliminated yet. In a few days I will e-mail Karen in the HR department once again and see what's happening. Meanwhile, I peruse the job posting sites, but it seems like everyone's looking for web designers (with two to three years experience, of course, so I never get called on these jobs).

One bright spot: an old friend of mine, whom I've been looking for on and off since I got back to L.A., finally showed up on Facebook. I sent her a friend request and we are now in contact. Talk about patience and perseverance. After nearly 30 years, I wonder what meeting again will be like.

On the home front: More toilet woes. Longtime readers of this blog will recall the saga of the sock in the upstairs toilet. Now the facilities downstairs have decided they need attention, as well.

The downstairs toilet has been slowly leaking — just dribbles — for a couple months. This would not be a bad thing, except the previous owners of this place put berber carpeting in the bathroom. So the carpet and the padding underneath have slowly been soaking up the product of this small leak and, a week or so ago, bloomed into a funky, moldy smell.

We decided to turn the water off in the toilet, and suddenly the carpet was turning all manner of colors (it started ivory-white). We put a fan in the room to try and dry things out, but to no avail. Finally, I pulled up the carpet and padding to discover the original 1980s linoleum flooring.

By no means a showstopper, the flooring will at least keep us from having to lay new flooring immediately. It will be serviceable until we know what my long-term employment plans will be. Since we're planning on removing the existing sink and cabinets and going with a pedestal sink, we'd have to do that demolition before replacing the floor, which would mean doing the whole remodel, since doing one without the other makes no sense.

Good God, this is fascinating stuff.

So I'm still in a holding pattern. I really have to concentrate on not going stir-crazy or champing at the bit. As Fritz Perls said, "Don't push the river; it flows by itself." He also referred to the future as a "fertile void" where all possibilities reside. Gotta be flowing with the river in order to snatch up the good stuff as it flows from the future into the present, because there's only the moment of now to retrieve it.

And we like the good stuff. Yes, we do.

Harmless Halloween

For Christmas this year, Steve and I went to Disneyland to attend their Halloween Time celebration. In other words, the trip to the park is the big present that won't be under the tree this year. There will be other presents, of course (I always require a gift of socks to keep my feet in style), but the blow-out gift was a visit to Anaheim's favorite neighbor.

The tickets cost a little more than regular, but for admission from 4 p.m. to midnight, it was worth it. You get a wristband when you first come into the park, and at 7 p.m., anyone without one is politely told the park is open only to guests of the special event, and asked to leave. By 8 p.m., the crowds had pretty much thinned out.

The evening was actually the suggestion of Chuck and Jeff, a couple we met recently. And it's not a bad deal: by the time they deck out the park for the Christmas season, the crowds are unbearable. This was one of the few times I've been to Disneyland when I wasn't harangued by huge crowds or platoons of baby strollers.

Jeff was very much into going in costume. He went as a spider (as shown here) and Chuck went as an exterminator. Steve went in his orange "This Is My Halloween Costume" T-shirt, wearing a "Welcome to Mooseport" hat with plush stuffed antlers (a remnant from my days at the Reporter). I went as a tropical depression, wearing a Hawaiian print shirt with a pocket full of prescription bottles. (Steve's concept, not mine, but I think it was genius and it shows how much he loves me that he let me use it.)

The park was decked out with the friendliest scary-looking decorations, heavy on the smiling Jack-o-Lantern theme; there were fog machines churning all over the various lands and special spooky lighting. Lots of folks were in costume and there weren't a lot of kids in attendance. Those that were seemed extremely well behaved, and there were lots of security to make sure the Happiest Place on Earth stayed that way.

Best, though, there were trick-or-treat stations throughout the park. When you got your wristband, you were also issued a trick-or-treat bag, and these stations, designated by a Mickey "ghost," had three or four cast members (as Disneyland workers are called) dumping great handfuls of candy into your bag. If one worked at it, I'm sure you could earn back at least half your admission price in candy. It was good stuff, too: Reese's cups, Snickers, Crunch bars and the like.

When we first entered the park and walked up Main Street, there was a parade about to begin. Chuck had suggested having dinner, and I pointed out this was a great time to do it, because everyone was sitting on the street, waiting for the parade. So we stopped in at the Main Street Pavilion and had pot roast and chicken dinners: good cafeteria fare at the usual exorbitant prices.

The best part about the evening, though, was that Jeff and I love going on the fast rides, and Steve and Chuck hate them. So, after dinner Jeff and I went on Space Mountain, while Steve and Chuck rode on Peter Pan. Hitting Space Mountain before 7 p.m. was a big mistake, though, as we spent a good hour and some standing in line there. But we did make friends with a troupe of lady pirates right ahead of us. I got a picture of them posed in front of the spaceship just before we boarded the ride.

After that, we all met up, and decided to go on the new Star Tours ride. (All except Chuck: It seems Steve is not averse to the bumpy-jiggly rides, just the plunging, whipping, twisting, free-fall dropping kinds. Chuck is more loathing of fast, erratic movement and heights.)

Star Tours is really just the same format with a new movie. It is in 3-D now, which improves some of the zip and zap of the experience. The animatronics of the droids in the waiting areas are much smoother, and there are some pretty cool imaging affects added (like a security screening of the folks in line). While we were on the ride, Chuck browsed the gift shop at the exit (something that keeps him occupied for long periods of time).

There was the mandatory Halloween parade and a really great fireworks display, which was actually more of a multimedia display. (Their branding of Halloween is Jack the Pumpkin King from "Nightmare Before Christmas": I really love the movie but hate what Disney has done with it in branding the park).

The other mistake we made was going on the Haunted Mansion ride, which was totally packed, even in the evening. It was dressed out so as to be totally unrecognizable (Christmas in Halloweenland), and not really worth the wait. All was not lost, though, because Jeff spotted not one, not two, not three, but four trick-or-treat stations between the Haunted Mansion exit and the back entrance to Fantasyland. My personal booty nearly doubled, and by the time we reached the Dumbo ride and the carousel, all bags were groaning with goodies. (FYI: Dots are Jeff's favorite.)

And, after the hours we spent in the park on our feet, our dogs were barking, as well. The youthful child within me was considering riding Small World, Alice in Wonderland, the Matterhorn Bobsleds or the Monorail, but the throbbing in the bottoms of my feet were suggesting giving up the ghost (how appropriate) and saving the final foot-wear and tear for getting out of the park and back to the car. My three compatriots, all of whom had stopped for a lavatory break, seemed to concur, so we strolled through Fantasyland and the entrance to Sleeping Beauty's castle, where I got this final shot of evil, the villainess from the film Walt referred to as "a moving painting."

As we walked back down Main Street, we stopped in the China Shop (which is now a Christmas store with a couple china pieces around the edges) and got the annual Christmas ornament: a small, grinning, sparkly Cheshire cat from "Alice in Wonderland."

Downpourette

Southern California is getting its first autumn rains today. Of course, we call it a "storm," which will drop an inch or two of rain in a 12-hour period. It's actually the tail end of a low that brought the northern part of the state much more weather, but down here we have news teams covering it like it was the arrival of Will & Kate.

But the day is cool and I love being inside watching the gentle falling of the rain. For the first time in months, I've been able to put on a long-sleeve knit shirt and not break into a sweat.

Yesterday, I met with a woman Steve knows who does custom chocolates as a sideline. I am going to give her marketing stuff (such as it is) a makeover, with a new logo, brochures, cards, etc. I'm doing the work gratis, since I really need something recent in my general design samples online. I'm also going to put together a website for her and do the photography of her products for it.

I'm still waiting on the job at Pasadena City College. I checked in with the woman in HR with whom I am in communication, and she said the position was still being reviewed by the committee, and that I should check back in a couple more weeks if I haven't heard anything by then.

As I've said before, I'm holding off putting the big bucks down to start my studio until I know whether this job will pan out or not, so the only thing I have left is to redesign my own website with the new logo and all, and wait to upload it until I find out.

Until then, we're being very good about pinching our pennies, except for the one extravagance of spending $100 to replace our Blu-Ray player. We got our first one a couple years ago, and it was not playing some of the discs we get from Netflix, so we decided to upgrade the firmware on the machine. After much research and several calls to the Sony "help line," we had burned a firmware upgrade disc, which we popped into the machine.

It accepted the disc and started whirring and flashing, and whirring and flashing. After about 45 minutes of whirring and flashing, we noticed it had not advanced from the readout "0/9." What's more, there was no way of getting the disc to eject (we had tried Sony's technique and it hadn't worked). The last call to the help line elicited a verbal shrug from the "helper," who said to take it into an authorized repair shop for servicing. Knowing that this would cost far more than the unit was worth, Steve decided to use some of his overtime cash to purchase the new one.

While we were installing the new player, we also broke down and pulled the old VCR from the stack, as we hadn't used it in years. This will also give us a good reason to donate our remaining VHS tapes and get some much-needed room back in the upstairs closet.

Well, we seem to have arrived at a lull in the "storm," as the rain has stopped falling. But the skies are still a close dark gray, and I think we have a few more hours of downpourettes in store before tomorrow morning arrives. By the weekend, it promises to be back up into the 80s and 90s, one last stab at summer, which is usually the case in mid-October here in La-La-Land.