INDIANA JONES and the PINK FAIRY

No, it's not the latest George Lucas movie, it's Dane and Aubrey's
h a l l o w e e n .

We had a full day of festivities -- and, fortunately for us, it quit raining around 11! At noon, Aubrey's class had an hour of cookie-decorating, bat cutouts, ghost puppets, popcorn gloves and witches broom pretzel crafts.

After that was the all-school Ghost Walk, where every single kid in the school wore a costume and they did this elaborate parade through the halls -- where one class would stay at their room, posed like statues, while another class would walk around them.

Then, at some point, the posed statues would form their own line and walk through all the other classrooms. I have no idea how they organized it, but it went smoothly and was absolutely amazing.

THE ASHLAND HALLOWEEN PARADE

We left the school at 2:45 and headed straight to downtown Ashland, where the whole town seemed to be costumed and ready to celebrate. No kidding--there were thousands of people there.

The parade started at the library and went about 8 blocks to the downtown plaza. The road and sidewalks were jam-packed the entire way and these terrific marching drums led the whole procession. It was so much fun.

TRICK OR TREATING, etc.

We met up with the cousins -- an organ grinder monkey, a genie, and two space aliens (handmade showstopper costumes by their Grammy Linda):

(Isn't he the cutest little monkey ever?)

After mooching loot off all the local vendors, we went to the cousins' house to eat lasagna, goof around, and go trick-or-treating in their neighborhood. Here are some goof-around shots:

POST TRICK OR TREATING

When the treat bags were full and the kids were ready to spill all their spoilage on the rug to count the candy, we parents ditched the kids, leaving them all with (the cousins') Grammy and Alvin and the Chipmunks.

We headed for Alex's Restaurant for a spookylicious time downtown. We were Medusa, a space alien, a priest, and a who-knows-what -- joined later by Rainbow Bright and Where's Waldo (Mick's fellow associate / dentist, Nicole, and her husband, Chris).

And... HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MEdusa!

FIRST ASHLAND HALLOWEEN

It's raining. Let me repeat that: It's raining -- on Halloween in Ashland, where it hasn't rained for weeks! Puh-leaze! (Insert sad little pic of Aubs. Note: not her costume; just play.)


Aubrey's gonna freeze. I might have to make/encourage her to wear a pink raincoat under her wings so she doesn't freeze her katooshie. I'll post pix after she actually dresses up for the event, but she's a pink fairy, a costume she assembled from thrift stores, her closet, and Target. She's all pinks (including spraypainted hair and a feathered eye mask) with a little bit of lavender. Super creative and cute.

Dane might not fare so poorly if it's cold. I can probably convince him to wear a long sleeve shirt or two under his top -- his "leather" jacket with shirt attached. That's right, he's embracing another Harrison Ford movie, this time as... The Fugitive.

Just kidding. This time as... Indiana Jones! He's so excited -- and I'm doing my best to be super jazzed with him. Don't get me wrong: I love the idea, but I wish he could've assembled it on his own, with personal creativity. If we'd had any hope of finding hat and jacket at thrift stores, we would've but Target had it all packaged together -- and he really loved it -- so we bought it. I'd love to see him be creative in compiling a costume, and, to a degree, I suppose he was -- but, more importantly, I need to acknowledge this:

He enters an imaginary world every time he puts that costume on! Every time he snaps his little fake cloth whip that audibly cracks and plays the theme song when you press a button. He IS Indiana Jones at that moment. You should see how serious his face gets. So get over it, Mom! (OK, done. Over it.)

I went to bed last night with papier mache'd hair, spraypainted green, and rolled up in curlers. This morning my hair's supposed to look like snakes. That's right, I'm Medusa.

I found a sweet gun-metal gray tunic for $4.99 at Old Navy, and threw on a bunch of gold jewelry, sparkly sandals, and some sparkly face powder with gray lipstick. It's sort of effective -- at least he second graders knew I was that snaky-stone-freezer-lady when I worked with them this morning for Writer's Workshop.

At the risk of seeming totally self-centered, here are pics Mick took of me this morning. The kids weren't dressed up yet (save that for the 1pm Ghost Walk at school), so their pics will have to come later.



See? It sorta works.

And Mick? What about Mick? you might ask. Well, I've just got NINE words for you:

He's going to be treating patients looking like this.

Be very SCARED.

And hope it doesn't rain.

TODAY I REALLY MISS MY DAD

It's been sixteen years this week since my dad died of colon cancer. When I reflect on what this means, I almost can't breathe -- for reasons like: wow, sixteen is the number of years it took before I got my drivers license or had my first date, or that sixteen is just Dane times two, or that it's been sixteen years since I last saw him skeletal, wretching and pale, crying that he'd never see me get married or meet his grandchildren.

Not all thoughts are so harsh, though. If I reach out and grasp some of the memories floating around in my brain, I think of things like sailing on his 32-foot sailboat in the Puget Sound with him when I was seven -- he bought my cousin and me matching blue t-shirts with fuzzy white lettering on the front that said DECK TOAD because we couldn't sit still on the boat; I think of that same sailboat charred beyond repair when arsonists lit it up a year or so later after he'd restored all the teak wood beautifully (the newspapers wrote it up as arson possibly as a direct link to his role as a sheriff's deputy).

I think of swimming with him at one of his girlfriends' houses (he had many girlfriends, much to my dismay), but we just got crazy doing dives and splashes, he made his normally flat, short hair stand on end and posed for the camera with me with a wild look in his eyes, and he let me put a red bandana around my head and wear his 70s glasses for another goofy pose.


I think of years and years of camping with him, pitching our tents up alongside a river, playing Acey-Deucey, Backgammon, Fish and War while swatting mosquitos, later fishing or catching crawdaddies to sizzle in butter. We went through a lot of different vehicles along the way, the old light blue soft-top (I think) Range Rover, the red VW station wagon, a couple of Ford Broncos.


Top music favs: one summer it was Rocky IIIs "Eye of the Tiger," which we saw together and loved -- he let me play it over and over for miles of open highway. I also remember Fleetwood Mac, the album with a ponytailed guy with his foot up on a chair. And I'll never ever in a million years forget "Ghostriders in the Sky," played over and over, because whenever it came to the part where the old cowboy "heard one call his name" my dad would yell, "Hey, Anjie!" and I'd barely be able to contain myself.

When he died, I didn't get much of his stuff, but I did get a box of photos and small mementos and even some poems he wrote. As his daughter, it was very moving to find what he'd kept of mine -- besides the photos, there were school programs, team certificates, and cards I'd made for him.

And among the photos, his sense of humor was captured. He had a wicked streak that I appreciate even more now that I'm an adult. But just in case you missed it up above, here's a bit of his legacy that I'm so glad has lasted.

I sure miss this guy.

William Lewis Seewer
b. June 4, 1941
d. October 28, 1992

R.I.P., Daddy-o.

UNGULATE WEEK
Wildlife Safari, Winston, Oregon

This week we learned that an ungulate is a hoofed animal, and, thanks to a click of the mouse on the Wildlife Safari website, my kids and I discovered that WS was offering a special on feeding the gentlest and gigantic-est of ungulates, the giraffe. Normally $45 per person, this week WS reduced their feeding fees to $10 per person. And I think everybody knows how I love a good deal...

We drove the hundred miles north on Wednesday night, because the kids don't have school Thursday or Friday due to conferences, and spent the night at the Safari Inn. Mike and Jan joined us, and the next morning we all headed off on safari in my station wagon to start our day with a drive out the 1-1/2 hour loop.


Most of the animals roamed free, like this rhino, above, who just eyeballed us from about twelve feet away -- no barrier.

I say they roamed free, but WS actually has them sectioned off by continent, and sometimes by species, where they can roam a general area. That's how we saw ostriches, rhinos, camels, giraffes, zebras, bison, yaks, some kind of monkey (can't remember what kind) -- lots of WS's 500 animals. It was so exciting to have them just outside our open windows.




The highlight of the day was definitely the Giraffe Feeding. Our truck-driver/giraffe-feeder guide, Patches, drove us out to the giraffes where we stood on benches in the back of her truck and fed Mate and JT carrots and bananas from a bucket.

The giraffes were 18 feet tall, both males (a third male roamed the area but didn't join us). They smelled like grass and dirt and something else -- something pungent -- and their heads were huge reaching down to us. One of them had gnarly scar tissue over his left eye from clashes with another giraffe. (Who knew?)

When they reached down they often brushed against our shoulders or breathed warm air down our necks, but no matter how tempting it was to pet them, we had to remember not to. Evidently, that's not safe.

The kids were a little cautious at first, but once they felt those whiskery lips pulling the carrot from their fingers or watched the long black tongue wrap itself around the banana in their hand they realized they wouldn't get hurt.












Before we headed to the feeding, I gave each of the kids a disposable camera so they could capture the experience on their own terms. Here's Dane thinking hard about what's to come:


He spent a bit of time looking pensive. After some encouragement, he started asking Patches his questions. He wanted to know things like "What's the closest relative to the giraffe?" and "How much do they weigh?" and "What's the most useful animal here?"

Answers:
1. Patches couldn't quite remember, but we looked it up this morning: The closest relative to the giraffe is the okapi. If you want to see a spectacular creature, click on that.
2. Female giraffes weigh up to 1500 lbs; males weigh up to 3000.
3. Patches thought the most useful animal there was the elephant.

Here are the kids stretching and hanging from the truck railing, happy after their big giraffe encounter.





Next summer they have a program called something like Elephantastic Week. You'd better believe we're all over it.