Halloween horror story

We're nearly halfway through October, so Halloween fever is setting in. One of the Girl's classmates came round after school today for a sewing lesson - I'm helping her make a Laura Ingalls-Wilder dress as a costume. The Girl is thinking along more ghoulish lines - but more on that, no doubt, at the end of the month.

Halloween is in the headlines, too. It was reported this week that Americans spent $5.7 billion on Halloween last year. That's more than twice the GDP of several developing countries. Even more appallingly, the financial commentator on the radio seemed distressed that, due to the recession, people might decide to spend a bit less this year.

So it's evidently my patriotic duty to go out and buy rubber masks, eyeball candies and death-related lawn ornaments...

Oh go on then, maybe I'll push the boat out and buy myself a pumpkin.

Accentuate the negative

I'm working on getting back my skating legs. Today I had my third go on the ice this season. The first time was a couple of weeks ago, when I fell over twice - well, it had been six months. The last couple of times I've managed to stay upright, but I'm still taking things gingerly, and only slowly trying to remember the manouevres I'd started learning back in March.

It really does feel like skating season already. Tonight temperatures are dropping into the low 30sF, and there's even talk of snow later in the week. Too soon! I want a chance to enjoy the Fall first.

At the party yesterday I learnt that a friend of a friend who was recently in Britain says people there are very unhappy at the moment and that it's not a great place to be - can anyone reading this in the UK confirm or deny? Meanwhile here in the States someone is launching a movement to introduce Americans to negativity, with a book called Bright-sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America. So there we go, this place could soon really feel like a home from home.

Party animals

Columbus Day, so (yet again) no school.

The best part of the day was spent at a yard party, one of the regular events in our social calendar out here, highly rated for good company, excellent food and bouncy slide. Other features this year were a petting zoo and pony rides, and a huge birthday cake which I ate too much of. The Man was at work, but the rest of us had a great time as usual. I was the envy of the other adults there for remembering to take gloves - we're entering a cold snap. The younger guests, meanwhile, put out so much energy and heat going up and down the slide that they'd have been happy in summer shorts and t-shirts - and indeed many of them were. Brr.

Here are a couple of pictures taken yesterday during a late afternoon hike on the Indian Ladder trail. It was as busy as we'd ever seen it up there with people enjoying the autumn colours, though you'd still hardly have called it crowded.

Melting moments

When we went to Lake Placid a few weeks ago we found that our hotel room had a microwave oven in it. We decided to make use of this facility and self-cater a couple of meals, so we bought a pasta dish to heat up. But the room didn't come with cutlery, so we bought ourselves some of that too, and as it was on special offer we picked a box of biodegrable knives and forks.

They are made out of cornstarch or something, and to look at they appear to be much like any disposable 'silverware'. But as we cheerfully tucked into our steaming pasta we discovered a major distinction:











they can't take the heat.

This little piggy...

The threatened rain held off again this morning, which was good for me as I was back at the market touting my fair trade info. But it was cold, and as the wind picked up I was hard pressed to keep control of my poster display which kept trying to fly away. All the other stall-holders were set up under large gazebos, and around midday a mighty gust of wind caught a couple of them and sent them bouncing across the market. One had been covering the musicians - the accordion-players again (they're growing on me) - but they gamely played on in true Titanic spirit as their shelter scuttered away.

I gave up fighting the weather and packed up soon after that. The Man and the kids had turned up by then, so we did a quick market tour, admired this piglet and then the Girl bought herself a foot-long hotdog with no apparent twinges of conscience.

I spent the afternoon thawing out. Meanwhile the Man and Girl went apple-picking at Indian Ladder Farms, where the trees are still groaning with fruit, in spite of gale-force winds.

Joining the Nobelity

I was dozing this morning with the radio on and dreamt I heard them announce that Barack Obama had been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize...

OMG, he actually has won it. It's too bizarre. What's got into the Nobel Committee? I mean, I like Obama, and potentially he may turn out to do a great job. When he addressed the UN recently I cheered because he was saying the things I wanted an American President to say. Generally I like what (I think) he stands for. But he hasn't had time to prove himself yet. I hate to sound just like a conservative commentator, but it appears he has been given a Nobel Prize for not being George W. Bush. And laudable though it is not to be Dubya, I don't know that it's enough to merit this level of acclamation, at this stage of the game.

The award is an absolute gift to the rabid far-right-wingers who already accuse Obama of having a Messiah-complex. And it has to be yet another burden of expectation placed on shoulders bearing plenty of that kind of weight already.

The genuinely humble, and politically astute course for Obama would surely have been politely to turn the thing down. To be honest it troubles me a little that he hasn't. Because I think he may find he is accepting a poisoned chalice.

Thanks but no thanks

I've just got in from my book group meeting. I was late arriving there as I'd been at another meeting before that, so I completely missed out on discussing the book (The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein) and instead got to join in the food conversation that often follows on these occasions. We fell to talking about sweet potatoes, and it was revealed that traditionally at Thanksgiving Americans serve sweet potatoes with marshmallows. I must have looked so horrified that everyone laughed, so to be sporting I tried to come up with some equally revolting-sounding British delicacy - but couldn't think of anything. Help me out!