scary

It's been a week of anticipating Halloween and it's been weeks of anxiety over the elections.

Both Rylee and Jackson have had costume days at their schools. Yesterday, they went trick or treating at the care facility where Bennie is recuperating. Tonight, family and friends will stop by for what has become a tradition of sorts: potato soup & homemade croutons and then a spin around the neighborhood for trick or treating. At some point, I need to carve at least one of our pumpkins. The boys have been watching Halloween specials and are excited about candy. Next year, they plan to be ghosts. More scary, but thankfully not gory.

I'm sure there'll be plenty of new pictures for you in the next few days.

Rylee and I turned on a few World Series games. It was on but we weren't really watching much of it. Rylee knows that game five was rained out. For a few days, then, Ry's obsession has gone from transformers (or trains or airplanes or cars or computer games he finds on the boys' internet sites--mostly pbskids and disney and the like) to baseball again. He searched for all of the gear--the cap, Jack's cleats, the fielding glove from his cousins, the dangerous bat from Brendon, a game ball from last season, his batting glove and his batting helmet--and rigged a ball tee in the living room. On the night of the rained out game, he quietly and carefully made a sort of baseball shrine before going upstairs to bed.

Here's a story from Cyndi. Last night we went with all the sisters' families to see Jordyn in a dance performance. (The Picture of Dorian Gray, a darkly themed adaptation of the Oscar Wilde novel. I believe it was a local production. Very professionally performed . Wonderfully staged and choreographed--what do I know--with mixes of ballet and jazz or modern dance. Some underlying humor. Great costumes. Long-winded monologues and readings between dance scenes.) It was at the Kimo Theater downtown (a grand, pueblo-deco theater, a landmark restored a decade or so ago, Albuquerque's premiere place for movies in the '30s and after.) During intermission, Cyndi and Jackson walked into the refreshment room. Jackson saw a piece of yummy looking chocolate cake and pressed Cyndi to ask for it. It was the last piece, and just as Cyndi was about to ask, another woman (who actually had purchased the necessary tickets for the refreshments) asked for the slice. Jackson was disappointed and they went back to the seats. When the performance was over, Cyndi was standing in the lobby. The man who was serving the cake at intermission came to her and asked, "Are you the woman with the boy who wanted the last piece of cake?" She was cautious in answering. "Yes," she said. "I saved him a slice," he said and gave her a slice of chocolate cake on a plate, wrapped in cellophane, for her to take and give to Jack. A stranger made one small, extraordinary moment.

Ariel will be home tonight for the soup and family and trick-and-treating. She and Cyndi had a long bicycle ride a week ago, and we all went out to a happy hour with some running friends. (I don't like these happy hours our friend sets up and I knew I wouldn't.) Did I say she's off to Hawaii to visit her college roommate on Kuaui and together they're running the Honolulu Marathon? It's around Christmas.

I haven't written anything about the elections for quite a while. I didn't want to overwhelm myself or jinx anything, but still I have had ongoing anxiety about this election. We're about four days away now. There's an early election polling place open Saturday, and we'll try to go then. Dad sends some humorous things he finds on the internet from time to time. I've been watching the news a lot, listening to public radio, reading everything I can find, following the polls and a few electoral college maps, and it's all so irritating. I understand the argument that nothing should be taken for granted, particularly in light of the last two elections, and I understand the "never-say-die" face that must be put on, but it's hard to understand how McCain and his pundits can read this election as close. How can this thing be within the margin of error? God forbid McCain and Palin win this thing afterall. (I saved you from my Palin Is Evil analysis a few weeks ago. Or did I?) As I study it, and as others have remarked, McCain would have to win all of the red states and all of the "too-close-to-call" states, including Ohio, Florida, North Carolina and Indiana, steal Pennsylvania (I don't see it happening), and still take something like Nevada, New Mexico, Colorado or New Hampshire. If that doesn't happen, it's likely it will be a real landslide for Obama, and they're talking almost supermajority numbers for Congress. As scary as that must be for the GOP, that would be good for our country. Time for the Republican old guard to exit. The red states aren't a lock for Republicans, the South is moving in a different direction, and McCain's even losing ground in his home state. Locally, there's not a Republican I could vote for in the partisan races. Apart from the whole Palin charade, McCain and his pundits just look mean and shameless and now they're just whining. (Reminds me of when George Bush told us during an early crisis, "It's hard to be president." Whiney babies.) That's what irritates me, but I have to add that Olbermann has been equally irritating. (I give him credit for being the first "news" person--cable news is really entertainment isn't it?--to stop kowtowing to Bush and Cheney and the forgotten secretary of defense before Bush's favorable rating plummeted and it was safe again to be critical.) Obama will be a breath of fresh air.

juno

We're watching the first few minutes of Juno. Remarkable language. Funny. Jackson asked, "Is she pregnant?" Yes. "Is she married?" No. "Then how can she be pregnant?" This is a 7 year old's question.

Halloween preview

bumblebee redux

We have now entered the fourth day of Rylee in his bumblebee costume, and I'm sure we will continue to count until Halloween. Like his infatuation with everything baseball, when he insisted on taking all his gear to bed with him, Rylee asks every morning, every day and every night if he can put on his costume. It goes over clothes and pajamas. He marches around with the mask always on, along with the gloves. He thinks he looks like a ninja or a stormtrooper. He wears it in the stores, in the hospital, and in the gym. He gets many reactions. Last night, a young guy going in the gym as Ry and I walked out said, "Cool, dude." He loves it.

Today it rained, and it is cool. The leaves are turning and falling. The last events of the balloon fiesta were canceled due to wind and, on one day, a vicious thunderstorm that rolled in and brought hail to some parts of the area.

Jackson has a new game. He makes a list of things and then asks, which one doesn't belong? Last night it was red, green and orange. At first I thought orange because it was not a primary color and then remembered that green was also not a primary color. He knows his colors. So I said red. The answer was orange. Red and green are both Christmas colors.

I wonder what our Alaskan family think of the continuing coverage of all things Palin.

Bennie continues to get better.

bumblebee

Well, the bumblebee-that-buzzes costume did not come in the package delivered to me. Instead, they sent a pair of black children's gloves. I called them, and they said there wasn't any in stock. So we went to Party City and sure enough there was a bumblebee-the-transformer costume, which Rylee has been wearing all day. Even to Trader Joe's. He loves it. The materials to make Jack's costume cost more, but think it will be great.

What a difference in Bennie! He looks so much better.

balloons & bennie

The balloons are up this week. That means wonderful fall weather. Cold and rainy on Sunday but sunny, blue and warm since then. Jackson had a tough time with asthma earlier this week. It seems to be triggered by colds. He's a tough guy. He's a boy now. Handsome and sweet. He works hard on his room. It's part library, part office, part classroom. It's his "cousins club." Did I mention his clipboard he takes to school for the cleaning club? He got a new computer CD called brain power that he loves. He's off tomorrow for a balloon day.

I saw Ry's classroom today. He goes two mornings a week. He brought his new bumblebee transformer for show and tell. He's been talking about it for weeks. He has very few toys of his own, and this one is his. Even Jackson seems to acknowledge that. Apparently, everyone with a three or four year old boy knows about bumblebee transformers. Ry's a sweetheart. Likes jokes. Likes to tumble. Isn't afraid to slug Jack.

Rylee has decided to be a bumblebee (the kind that buzzes around flowers) for Halloween. Jack's going to be a laptop.

So good to have Ariel here for a while. We all went to PF Changs last weekend: sea bass, marinated tofu, and lots more. It was fun. I haven't seen her during the week. She went up to the cabin the night of the rain.

I think Bennie is on the verge of some noticeable improvement. The pain and a fall prior to the surgery took its toll on his mobility, and the surgery must have been very difficult. I think the first almost two weeks after the surgery, he just needed to deal with the trauma of the surgery and the pain. He's staying at a rehabilitation center about a mile from our house. Cyndi goes there before 7 am to join him for breakfast, goes late at night, and at least once during the day, while her sisters, brother, and brothers-in-law also go daily, usually staggered throughout the day. Her mom is there daily, making the trip from Belen. I think Marty or Michael almost always drive her up. At the beginning she stayed overnight with Dorie, but the trip from the hospital to Dorie's was almost as long as returning to Belen and I'm sure she must find some relief to be in her own home at night. I don't think anyone thought there'd be so much recovery needed. He's been bedridden, but his appetite is good, the pain is being managed, and I think there will be some obvious improvement in being able to get around again. No one seems to know, so I'm guessing it may be another 3-5 weeks before he's home and certainly before the holidays. I happened to visit on Monday when he had physical therapy. It was difficult, but it was really only the beginning. He was determined I could see and in good spirits, despite the circumstances that, as I said, I don't think he or anyone expected.

Dixon's 2