Of Halloween coming near~~~~

Hello Darklings,

Well as you know my favorite holiday of the year (besides Christmas) is approaching!!

Yes you guessed it, Halloween!!!

I have been busy at work, yes I know I'm suppose to be retired, but I am on call if someone is out ill for longer than a week, or is taken an extended vacation like to Cabo.

So I've been working, and I have to admit I'm feeling it, but fortunately the boss told me that since one other staffer has returned from vacation they can do the work and has freed me.   And just in Time for Halloween!!

Well on my days off I have been looking at Spirit, Target, Wal-mart and you guessed it Home Depot!

As you know I both 2 skeleton horses one 6 ft and one 4 ft and a 9 foot tall T-Rex,  well at CVS they had the howling wolf and skeleton Bats and skeleton snakes but Target has some Wonderful Resin Graveyard headstones, and cemetery decorations,  HAD TO HAVE THEM!!

And a punch dispenser the kind you'd put lemonade in, had one labeled "Poison".   Again Had to Have IT!

I went to our nearest Wal-mart but they were focused on kiddie costumes and huge blow up (air filled) displays, no not what I wanted but did they have a good deal on paper plates and napkins in the halloween patterns so I got that.

Spirit had some very nice indoor decorations for the fire place mantles,  and door hangers over the parlor doors,  and fun drinking cups.   But there was a coffee mug I had to have that said "Normal People Scare Me"  it was designed for the American Gothic T.V. program promotion,  as a matter of fact I bought two of them one for home and one to take with me when I'm called in to work.

Sis and I were at Nob Hill the other day and she got happily surprised when she discovered baking pans to bake witches fingers cookies and all kinds of decorations to put on mini-cupcakes and everything. 

We whipped out our Halloween cook books for old time favorites, although we did buy the new magazines with new recipes but she said for now lets go with the tried and true and experiment with the new one's later.  I could only agree

Doyle said that he's going to need help with decorating so I've recruited my nephew to help out.   Coralline will help with the indoor decorations. 

Even though Halloween is on a week night again, we still get a lot of trick or treaters because we are such a popular block and I've been sending out invitations to friends and family.  The party will not run late because it is a school night, but on the weekends Look Out! 

I've also been restocking the cellar with Apothic Red, and Dark and for me a new one Apothic Inferno, and Apothic Crush,  Crush is fruity with a carmel taste, but Inferno is like blending whiskey and wine together smokey and different, it may not be to everyone's taste,  but Doyle liked it, in a whiskey glass, so I stocked up.  It's one of those wines were you want to kick off your shoes, loosen the tie, sit in a recliner and listen to "Old Blue Eyes" singing "its a quarter to 3". 

Another wine that we took a strong liking to is Curious Beasts  Blood Red, its smokey, chocolatey and with dark red fruit flavors,  so we loaded up on that as well.

I have not had a chance to do my wine tour this year as I prefer to do it in the Fall, but well work did call.   So I'll see about doing it next year in the late spring.

So all the Halloween plate ware and table ware are out and getting dusted and washed getting ready for the party.

And I did order two of those flaming skulls, I have them perched in the front parlor fire place, I've not been able to use them because of the spare the air days.  But it will get nippy enough and I can't wait to try them.

But I have to tell you this Dear Darklings, the other evening I got a shock,  I mean granted the stores sort of sneak Christmas onto a few shelves but I was watching T.V. and Wiener Dog distracted me and I then heard the instrumental version of "Jingle Bells"  I looked up and there they were in all their artificial glory  the Balsam Hill Artificial Christmas Trees it was on Oct. 1 and already they're advertising and we haven't reach Halloween or Thanksgiving!   It was too much,  Please I say let's at least keep our holidays in the correct order.

We have not assembled the T-Rex yet, it's going to go into our pet cemetery, and I'm not sure what the dogs will make of it.  Most likely give their seal of disapproval.

But we've got a cowboy hat for the Ghost Rider, I found it at the Dollar Store.

But this coming weekend, we've got to load up on the candy,  Wal-mart has the best prices with Target a close 2nd  but I've seen a good deal at Lucky's so much to choose.   But Wal-Mart will be our primary candy go to store.

And now Sis is calling me, dinner is ready.

Later Darklings

Of wanting a Gothic Summer (not), Pennydreadful, Timothy Dalton and Halloween~~~

Hello Darklings,

Oh we were having another heat wave, with most of August being overcast and chilly for the summer why is it before Labor Day, we get a real blast of Summer??  

I can only take the dogs out early in the morning and early evening, when it gets like this,  and even then just around the block, I do not trust drivers driving at twilight, but then isn’t twilight when Vampires come out to play, and early dawn when they go to sleep? 

Well I have been busy, my doctor has been having me do all kinds of tests, blood, urine, and just recently a bone density test, well considering that I’ve worked indoors most of my life and avoid sunlight, I have to take vitamin D to compensate, but ever since Coralline broke her ankle, even I have been cautious.  

And to add insult to my body, the doctor wants me to have a G.I. exam which means having a camera go up the nether regions where no one wants to go, again!   It seems they didn’t complete it the last time because I showed discomfort while under a light anesthesia ---- DISCOMFORT!!???   When I was told that I said “YOU give me that camera and I’ll show YOU DISCOMFORT!!”  

But they said once done it doesn’t have to be done for 10 years, (maybe)  sometimes I think my doctor is a sadist, and I’m no masochist. 

I like a little bondage but only with black furry mink handcuffs.  (at least in my younger days) and I prefer to do the tying up,  now that I’m thinking about it I did do that some years ago with one of my college boyfriends, I tied him up with his silk ties, and you know what they say “You can’t break old school ties.”   Sorry very bad pun.

Even with the heat wave I’ve been feeling a bit Gothic of late, I haven’t had a chance to purchase the latest installment of American Horror Story “Roanoke”.   But Doyle happily fulfilled my Gothic morbid craving by purchasing the three seasons of Pennydreadful,   Oh I had forgotten how wonderful Timothy Dalton’s voice could be, he could recite a grocery list and seduce me.

“Pennydreadful” is a most unusual series not PG13 more R rated, it deals with evil, and re-discovering redemption after giving in to one’s darkest desires,  focusing on the female lead, but some don’t quite make it, and some do, and bringing in a number of the classic “monsters”,  Frankenstein’s’ creature,(which was sensitively played), Dr. Frankenstein himself, Dorian Grey, Dracula, Dr. Jekyll, a werewolf, a monster hunter, in a way you sort of wanted it to continue after the end but then it would have gone in a different direction, which was not the authors or producers idea or concept.  In the end a very dark and Gothic morality play----at least in my opinion.

During my “Pennydreadful” fest, a local church was having its annual 3 day rummage sale, and I love rummage.  I managed to snare 4 Victorian  plant stands, and then had fun looking through the china and glass ware finding a few Victorian style pieces, including soup bowls although modern, were in the “Rose Chinze” pattern, perfect for soup on a cold winter’s night.  

 As I purchased, Doyle dutifully took them to the car, then I went book hunting there.   It’s amazing what people no longer want that are treasures for others,  there were a few Earl Stanly Gardner “Perry Mason” mysteries, and a couple of books in the ‘Sookie Stackhouse’ series that I think “True Blood” is based on, plus a few others of interest.

But then I began to feel a little haunted, because I had wandered over to the children’s toy area, sometimes I get lucky and find complete board games for children and adults to play and there it was! In a metal frame that was falling apart, a coming attractions movie poster of the James Bond movie “License to Kill” with Timothy Dalton (much younger of course) looking dark, dangerous and deadly.  Well for $2.00 I HAD to buy it.  

 Doyle gave me a ‘raised eyebrow’ but carried it good-naturedly to the car, the poster was in fine condition so I’ll re-frame it, and hang it, in the down stairs bedroom, that I use for guests or when one is too ill to climb stairs.

I had fun with my newly found treasures, the plant stands just need a little clean-up and a fresh coat of paint, the soup bowls washed and ready to be put to use, the books put into their proper spaces in my reading library, and when I’m done with them they will go to the Library book sale, perfect to re-purpose.

I am already seeing signs of Halloween here and there, a few new magazines, which I purchased, Halloween candy on the high shelves at Safeway, but I do have to ask, why is it that the first store to carry Halloween decorations is called ‘Michaels’ ?   (if some of you don’t get the Halloween pun, it’s your own fault)

I had gone into Michaels to get a replacement jewelry fixing for a necklace that broke and something prompted me to wander around and there they were---- all kinds of ghoulish, morbid things. 

 It’s a good thing that the credit card that I use to buy Halloween items was all paid off, now I didn’t buy everything, I was picky, there were crystal balls with a skull floating in the middle, bottles of weird contents, and a wonderful large glass dispenser with a skull on it perfect for strawberry lemonade.   And Halloween tree ornaments of skulls, witches hats, pumpkins and little bats, and tiny skeletons,  and a perfect witch topper for the tree.   

 Yes Darklings I have a black (but fake) tree, to put out for Halloween,  it’s just too bad that it will be on a Tuesday this year but I can have at least 2 maybe 3 parties for the season. 

I mean is it too early to start decoration for Halloween in September?  Why Not!

Then Doyle surprised me the other evening, he had been on the “house computer” in the Library, which is my computer, but he told me that it was for personal use and didn’t want to use his in his office since that was for work.  I just rolled my eyes on that remark.   

Then he comes up to me as I’m reading one of my Perry Mason mysteries, with Belladonna and Wiener Dog curled up next to me (making it difficult to shift around) and he announced “I bought a copy of ‘Jane Eyre’.”   I looked at him and said “Why buy a copy?  I have that book in our Library.”  

He went on to say “Not the book, the BBC program from 1983, with Timothy Dalton as Mr. Rochester.”   I looked at him dumbfounded.

I had always thought that was the best ‘Jane Eyre’ and that Dalton’s impassioned and obsessive Rochester was the best of all of them.  

 Doyle looked at me and then said “You’re Welcome.”  Finally my mouth sputtered to working as I quickly got up (which the dogs were not happy) and rained kisses all over Doyles’ face.    And I love seeing that Humphrey Bogart smile on his face as he said to me (once I came up for air) “Here’s lookin’ at you, kid.”

Yes, Darklings, Halloween treats do come early in my home.

Later Darklings