Halloween night 2010

I'm pretty sure I get more into Halloween than my own children, maybe with the exception of Matthew. This is Utah so, of course we celebrated the pagan holiday on Saturday instead of Sunday in order to keep our sabbath day holy and all. Is that kind of an oxymoron, that we mormons celebrate our pagan holiday and then go to church the next morning? Oh well, I guess Halloween lost any real meaning a long time ago. Anyway, as I was saying I get pretty into the festivities. I wanted to dress up as either wonder woman or Lady Gaga, but neither of those were suitable to don while taking my kids trick or treating so I ended up as a witch again.

Matthew decided to be a dinosaur way back in September when he saw a dinosaur costume hanging in a store window. I bought it for him right then, excited to finally steer him in a direction away from super heros genre. Well guess what? Yep, you guessed it, a few weeks ago he decided that he just had to be Captain America. After much argument I lost and bought him a Captain America costume. Well, yesterday at about 3:00 in the afternoon Matthew decided that he just couldn't live without going trick or treating as a were wolf. Apparently he'd been watching some kind of were wolf show on Disney. I would say that I'm a sucker for Matthew, but I prefer to justify it by saying I'm merely encouraging his creativity. I have to say, he really does get into his characters. He did the best impression of a were wolf I'd ever seen!

I spent about three hours getting myself and all my children ready for trick or treating. Then we went outside to light the jack-o-lanterens on the front porch. Thats when the rain started. What a bummer. but, being the die-hard Halloween lover that I am, we braved it. well, sort of. I drove the kids around the neighborhood in my minivan. I wish I could have video taped their faces when I pulled up to the first house and told them to get out. They looked at me like I was nuts or something.

"You want candy or not? geeze."

Kids have no concept of work and reward these days.

After last night and the school party on Friday, I'm worn out completely. Nate is too, but I really don't know what his excuse is. He made it home for like the last half hour of trick-or-treating and he never bothers to wear a costume. At least he didn't miss the house with the "Naughty nurse" handing out candy. Gee, I was glad for that! ( I guess you could say she was handing out all kinds of treats last night.) Anyway, as I was saying, after all that fun last night celebrating my favorite pagan holiday I'm afraid I just didn't have the energy to get up and go to church this morning. Oops.

Will Robots win out over Humanity?

Today I was watching Dylan Ratigan on MSNBC prattle on with some other know-it-all about the threat robotics presents to the human job market. Now, this is not an issue I would normally concern myself with. My ears did, however, perk up a bit more when Ratigan and his guest clarified that these robots are not only threatening to take the place of assembly line workers, but advancing on more middle class jobs as well.

 Healthcare, for example, is one industry that scientists have already been working on making robot replacements for. Of course, they aren't saying that in the future we'll be visiting the local radio shack to get a diagnosis on an illness, but there are many analyzing areas of healthcare that can quite easily be replaced by robots. Developers have even began discussing a possible robot replacement for in home healthcare nurses.

"I don't know how these robots could give the warmth and nurturing that a human could, but then again I haven't met the robot." Said Ratigan.

When I was done laughing, I realized, once again, just how out of control this electronic society of ours is getting. And how there is a lot more at stake here than jobs. Think about it, if scientists are creating a robotic nurse to take care of home-bound patients what could be next? A robot to raise our children for us? We're already half way there.I could go to the local Wal-Mart right now and buy an electronic device from Leap-Frog that reads books to my children for me. How far off are they from developing a robot that can change a diaper, or prepare a lunch?

Robotic gadgets could be very convenient yes, but what about a human's other needs? What about our need for human companionship? A child's need for his mother's comforting touch when bathing him or changing him, his father's reassuring voice reading him a bed time story? These are the basic human needs that are so vital to all of our lives, but that may very well be cast aside in the name of convenience.

 A few months ago I remember being disgusted over a headline out of Japan where a couple neglected their six month old baby unto death in order to care for their electronic baby! Some may say this was a ridiculously extreme, isolated incident, and they would be right but how many times have we seen an isolated incident repeat itself again and again until it became common place in every day life? How many people in this nation or world for that matter spend more quality time on their computers than they do their spouses? Was this a common problem as recent as fifteen years ago?

Dylan Ratigan and his expert  have a right to be concerned for the security of American jobs. As a healthcare worker, I'm concerned too. The last thing I want is for some robot to come in and draw blood from my patients. But as a mother and a human, I'm even more concerned for the security of the Americans' psyche.

Because I love Halloween and Candy Corn!

I only bought the candy corns to fill the little pumpkin candy jar in the kitchen, thus creating a festive center piece. Now, after only three days, I have eaten over half the jar all on my own. I love candy corn. I love candy corn almost as much as I love Halloween itself. Unlike my love for the dark holiday, my love for candy corn goes completely unrecognized all year long then all of a sudden the leaves change color and bam! I'm craving orange cone-shaped candies. But, awe, Halloween itself could last all year long and I would never tire of it.

My love for Halloween started back when I was just a little girl. My brothers adored the holiday and started preparing for it months in advance. I remember spending hours letting Kirt practice his garish makeup applications to my face, transforming me from a little girl to a dead victorian-aged ghost. The look didn't fit  well with the summer time, which made parading around outside in ghoulish makeup and costume even more fun for me.

When Halloween night itself finally arrived, I felt like a movie star about to hit the red carpet. Usually, my brothers had me (in full costume and scary makeup) standing in my parent's long windows upstairs, a green light luminating my eerie figure from behind. I would pantomime a desperate scream and slide my hands down the window as if trying to escape my  evil captor. It was always a big attraction. Children who came trick-or-treating in their rainbow bright and he-man costumes would stand under the window for extended amounts of time staring up at me in horror. It was all I could do to keep from cracking a smile and killing the whole effect.

Sometimes my brother, Troy, would dress as a mad-scientist and bring some real science "accessories" from his laboratory into the fun. One year, my brother, Kirt made my brother Ryan's face look as though it had been hacked to pieces by a meat cleaver then told him to hide in the irrigation ditch out in front of our house and slither up out of it whenever kids came trotting by. That one actually got us all in a little trouble later.

Halloween always had this way of bringing me and my family closer in a way that no other holiday could. Some families bond while sipping egg-nog and singing christmas carols, but a family as strange as mine, well, we bond over the screams of small children.

I love Halloween. I love the crisp air, the brightly colored leaves littering the walk ways outside. I love the spooky decorations and eerie black lights. I love the dusty old costumes and smell of pancake makeup. And, most of all I love being able to be someone else for a night. Someone uninhibited, who dares to be dark or strange or mysterious. I love the memories I have that  shaped my perception of this magical holiday. Memories I have of my brothers and I collaborating ideas to make a haunted house that could put any Hitchcock film to shame. Halloween reminds me of these things, and of us being together and happy and uncomplicated. And, of course I love it for the candy corn.

Silly Bandz and other annoying trends.

Are we done with these silly things yet?

What started out as a semi-cute little trend for kids, Silly Bandz are now driving me batty! I find these little rubber bracelets everywhere. They're all over the car, my living room, bathroom, I've even found some hiding at the bottom of my purse. And thats the least of the problems I have with  Silly Bandz.

I can't even tell you how many times my seven-year old has come home bawling over an unfair Silly Bandz  trade or whining that so and so has the glow-in-the-dark ones and why can't she have them. Feuds between my girls have ended in the mutilation of many of these bands. Personally, I can't wait until this trend is completely extinct. Luckily, for me,  extinction doesn't seem too far from the brink.

Many schools across the nation have already banned Silly Bandz from the grounds for being disruptive. With any luck the rest of the elementary schools won't be too far behind that ban-wagon. In the mean time, popularity of these stupid things does seem to be diminishing rapidly. I've only seen Brooke wearing a band once this month and that was because a friend at school gave it to her in exchange for a fruit snack. And my older child has completely grown out of them all together. This fact does much to ease my conscience every time I suck one of these bracelets up in the vacuum cleaner. 

So, I can't say I'll be very unhappy to see these things take their place in the book of one-minute trends along side the "M.C. Hammer happy pants" and slap bracelets of the early nineties. The only draw-back: What annoying, messy trend will be next?

The strange people I meet while working!

I work part-time as a phlebotomist, (I'm the one who draws your blood) So I see a lot of the same people when they come to get their blood levels checked for medications or whatever. Anyway, there is this one guy who comes in about once a month or so. He's quite tall, quite thin and very bald. He always wears scrubs, so I assumed he was coming straight from his job in something medical. His scrubs, however, are never just the typical solid colors you see most men wear, but have cartoon characters or race cars on them.

I never put much thought into this gentleman other than to mentally write him off as a weirdo, based on his choice of scrub tops, and eery habit of staring me in the eyes.  The other day, however I must have been in an unusually charitable mood because I actually engaged in friendly conversation with the man. What I discovered during our conversation was a whole new way of looking at life.

As I gloved up and prepared to poke Mr. Cartoon scrubs, he told me about the motorcycle accident he was in a few years ago.

"Yeah, the other guy got the ticket and I got life support." He said. "Since I woke up from the coma, I've just been so happy to be alive that nothing really gets me down."

Geeze, I was totally bummed out for an hour today because the pharmacy was out of peanut butter m&m's.

The gentleman went on to tell me that once he recovered well enough to leave the hospital he never took another moment for granted. After discussing it with his wife, he went back to college to work on a nursing degree. He now works at a Veterans hospital helping soldiers recover from their war injuries. I'm betting that his inspiring recovery story and genuine sunny disposition is better than any medicine he can dole out to these guys.

I asked him what the secret to being happy is and he told me to "love life". "Get out there and enjoy every moment. Play with your kids, take them on trips and experience new things together. Create that bond with them and raise them right because they are our future."

His words really made me think about how much time is wasted every day with mundane activities that really don't matter and all the moments that could matter slipping past me. How much time do I waste for instance, fussing over the toys on the living room floor when baby and I could be playing on the living room floor. How many times have I raised my voice to one of my older children when a soft tone would have been just as effective.

Mr. Cartoon scrub man will probably never know how much his words affected my mentality. He'll probably never know that because of him I was happier today and really enjoyed just being home with the children, cleaning off the inch of dust that collects on the top of the refrigerator. Mr. cartoon scrub guy will never know that its because of him that I remembered to love life.

I will leave you with the last thing Mr. cartoon scrub guy said as he left my lab and I arbitrarily told him to have a good day.

"They're all good!" He said, with a smile.

They're all good.

"Mockingjay" My thoughts. (spoilers)

So I finally finished "Mockingjay" last week.  This week, I worked tirelessly in an attempt to catch up on all the housekeeping that went neglected while I was sucked into the book last week. Today, though I should be cooking or whatever, I will instead use my time to jot down my thoughts on this national addiction that is the "Hunger Games" series and more specifically "Mockingjay".

I'm going to start by being brutally honest. I wasn't really into "Mockingjay" until the last half of the book when Katniss and Gale travel to district eight. Other than a few intriguing snippets of life underground in thirteen, nothing really happened up to that point. I'm sure Collins was merely using the first half to convey the feeling of sadness and loss as well as the uncertainty of starting over, I just think it dragged on a bit too long.

One of the most disheartening parts of "Mockingjay", for me, was Peeta's torture and mental hijacking. I could feel Katniss' heartbreak over what had happened to Peeta and the realization that he may never recover. Then, Collins masterfully twists this knife when Katniss is forced to recall her fond memories of Peeta in an attempt to help him separate his true memories from those that were hijacked. It was sad and horrific and very well done.

I thought it was interesting that Katniss had reservations about being the rebels' face of the rebellion. Wasn't this what she had been hoping for all along, a rebellion? I understood, better when she finally decided to go through with it and the leaders like Coin and Plutarch brought in the make-over team. It was a sickening deja-vu feeling. Here these people are trying to change the horrors the capitol had been reigning down on them for so long, then showing no better character.

Another very disheartening part for me, was the slow digression of Gale from spirited warrior to calloused killer. I had expected more from Gale and I was deeply disappointed.

One thing that didn't hurt as much as I think, Collins wanted, was the death of Prim. It was ironic and fitting that she end the series killing off the one person Katniss wanted to protect more than anyone else. She just didn't make me love Prim and so her death wasn't as jolting as it could have been.

Overall, the one feeling that stood out more than any other,  despite the supposed "happy ending" was sadness. Sad for the fact that in war there is no completely happy ending for anyone. Sad that this story was so true to the nature of human beings. That there is no end to what horrible things people will do to one another all in the name of money, or power, or entertainment. It makes you think, and wonder if a real life hunger game is not really that far off.