Sh*t My Brother Drags Home

Last Week:

• Two random sheets of plywood, a wooden pallet frame and three buckets full of 4 x 6 ends no more than a foot or so long. I have no idea what he intends to use them for and I'm not convinced he has either. The stumps, except for being pine, would be ideal in a fireplace, if we had one, which we don't.
• A sort of scrapbook/portfolio of some random person's experience in the navy right after World War II including newspaper clippings (of various people so we don't know if the owner might have been one of them), photos of warships (aircraft carrier, cruiser and at least one destroyer), airplanes and Guantanamo Bay naval base back when it was just an innocent naval base located in a friendly country.
• An envelope labelled "Paris 1951" and containing hand-tinted postcards including one of the Eiffel Tower taken from almost the same vantage point as the famous picture of Hitler's visit to the City of Light, les Invalides, Napoleon's Tomb, etc.; several aerial photographs obviously taken by the original owner as he flew into the city; and a couple of business cards to cafes apparently owned or run by American expats with notes about meetings.

He was given the portfolio/scrapbook by a customer and thinks one of our nephews (both active-duty Navy) might be interested in it. I have my doubts since neither has ever expressed a great interest in history, especially not the personal histories of complete strangers.

I have no idea where (or why) he acquired the other items. I could probably put together a pretty good spy story with the contents of that envelope, though.

The Naughty Kitties' Reward

So I'm sitting last night with one eye on my laptop trying to get the CS50 shuttle game to work (good news: it does, for the most part. At least, I think, the hardest part is done) and one eye on the football game (I really don't know why this CS50 project is taking me so long) when one of the cats starts repeatedly bumping the toe of my shoe. When I look down I notice the other two right there as well watching her.

I lift my foot and there's a poor little tailless lizard trying desperately not to be seen. It was in such shock it didn't even try to avoid me as I scooped it up and carried it outside.

This is what happens when the weather suddenly warms right back up to the 80s (27C) and we throw open the doors and windows again.

The cats spent the next twenty minutes or so prowling around my feet and chair looking for their prey even though they all saw me pick it up. It doesn't make any sense to them that someone would just throw away a perfectly good lizard.

My brother spread a couple handsful of catnip on the living room rug. Jasmine and Mittens both got high as kites first eating and then rolling in the stuff. Paribanour ate more than the other two but just said "Meh," and walked away.

The MOOC and Me: Destroyer of Time

I have been remiss in posting to the blog, and much else besides, thanks to the latest homework assignment from my on-line programming course.

The last problem set was relatively easy and a great deal of fun: designing a financial services web page. This set, building a shuttle bus "game" is making me crazy. I just know the solution is much, much simpler than I am able to come up with and my Rube Goldberg construction is an ugly mess. And doesn't work. Right now, it insists on picking up only the passenger at the alphabetical end of the list of possible passengers. Which, admittedly, is an improvement on refusing to pick up anyone at all.

The problem is, the course deadline is the end of the year, and includes a final project which I haven't even begun to seriously think about, and I've already skipped over one problem set that was taking way too long and throwing the schedule into impossibility. The syllabus is not clear on the consequences if I can't submit at least a partial final project in time. I have no idea how the kids manage to do this in a 12 week course (with other classes!). I'd be living in the TA's office.

My consolation is that this is my favorite time of the year for food so when I start to get all cross-eyed at the screen I can just sit back with a large mug of tea, a plate of crackers with a wedge of brie and a pear and another plate of dried figs, dates, pistachios and a section of pomegranate. In a previous incarnation or two I was either French or Persian (or both).

The weather has been cold enough lately that the cats have discovered I can provide other services beyond provisioner of food and water and have started climbing into bed with me to absorb the warmth which is fine except that it's impossible to turn over with a cat wedged behind one's knees.

I just bought four pounds of butter and a new jar of cinnamon. Baking time! One batch of chocolate chip cookies is done. Oatmeal raisin is next on the list and, by then, we'll be well into Thanksgiving week cooking.

Over 200 Served, Not Counting the Cops

Last night began with my brother cursing (one of his favorite pastimes) and vowing never to honor this holiday again (totally not to be taken seriously) because the wind kept threatening to blow over the balloons and even the zombies, and the blower motors inflating the balloons were worn out and there were no viable batteries to power the zombies' eyes and moans, pretty much all of which was true but irrelevant since the real problem was that, as usual, he left everything to the last minute, didn't do any pre-installation checking (re: batteries and motors) and, even on the morning of the day, wasted an hour or two (I wasn't home at the time) chopping down a bougainvillea that was encroaching on the lanai--and had been for several years so why it had to come down right then who knows.

There's no point engaging him when he gets like this so I just let him run his course and assumed the wind would die down once the sun set (it did) and the motors would be more effective when the air cooled (they were). The battery problem was solved when he ran off to the store as the first kids were arriving and bought a jumbo pack of AAs. 

Meanwhile the pillaging hordes started to trickle in about 4:30. Our first visitor, a teenage female pirate, was followed by a five-year-old female doctor. I was kind of disappointed that a lot of kids really didn't seem to put much effort into their "costumes" although the first pirate was very good and there were a number of passable ghouls, super heroes (both male and female) and even a couple of classic Ghostbusters. A couple of kids had corrugated cartons on their heads and I assumed they were Box Trolls but, when I said that to one she sounded very disappointed and sighed, "No, I'm a robot," and turned on the flashing rotating lights in her eye and mouth spaces. I think I might have gotten that correct if they'd been on to start with. The most original was a five- or six-year-old orange Crayola crayon. Second place went to a perfect little Beetlejuice being wheeled around in his stroller.

There were three distinct waves of foragers, the first starting just after sunset, the last coming through just as the police arrive around 9:10.

Did I mention that the police shut us down?

One patrol car went by very slowly on the main street early on in the evening but didn't stop. A second one came onto our street and parked just up from the main activity about 8:30 or so but that's way too early to enforce any sort of noise ordinance and we weren't that loud anyway so he left.

We can't be sure a complaint was filed since people were parking in the main road's median strip as well as on the shoulders in order to get into our street and the police may have been responding to the congestion. Comparing the ethnic diversity of our visitors with the homogeneity Neighbor Dan (who, it must be admitted had partaken of a number of shots) was not taking any chances and attempted preemptive revenge on the mean old man down the street who always complains about everything to the point of calling the police and filing reports about car horns, lawn mowing and unregistered vehicles, by taking a visiting German shepherd named Diesel for a walk and encouraging him to poop on said neighbor's lawn. Diesel was uncooperative.

Finally, three patrol cars came back around 9:20 and stayed until everything completely wound down about forty minutes later which it totally would have done anyway since we were running out of candy and the third wave was thinning out. They didn't say anything to anyone as far as I could tell but their presence was a big hint. Plus, the night was crystal clear and the temperature had dropped into the mid-60s which is a little cool for short-sleeves around here. We put the zombies safely away in the garage, my brother deflated the balloons and I went in to make a cup of hot tea.

My brother's mood had been steadily improving throughout the evening (as I knew it would) and now, operating on the theory that any party shut down by the police is by definition a success, he was delighted. By my calculations we served just north of 220 trick-or-treaters. I managed to salvage three 100 Grand bars for myself and my brother gave me two Almond Joys he acquired somewhere.

This morning is bright and sunny but the wind is howling again.