Hallowe'en with a Bite, a Sequel

Last Hallowe'en, a goth cheerleader showed up on my doorstep. I had no choice but to take her in. She's been with me ever since, learning quietly how to be a tween and she seemed to have assimilated back into the human clan rather well.

But, as the moon burgeoned, I began to notice some changes. Some rather frightening changes. They say unconditional love and acceptance heals all; so that is precisely what I did. To no avail.

Soon, it was Hallowe'en and we screamed in terror when we saw what had become of our quiet child from another world.

As the time for the neighborhood party drew near, she grabbed my husband's hand and...

I tried to put the camera down but I was transfixed by this creature that was willing me to continue taking pictures instead of helping my husband keep his fingers intact.

It was a horrific sight. But at least there was finger food at the neighborhood party.

Mwa ha ha ha ha ha ha!

Happy Hallowe'en!

 

Is that Anne Frank?

It is!



And you guessed right. I have nothing. Nada. Zip. Zilch. Zero. I am exhausted and overworked, cruising on less than 3-4 hours of sleep for the past couple of weeks. But it's all good because it's great to be busy in this economy, right? At least that's what I keep telling myself. Maybe I will have a proper post coming up soon. For now, I am going to crawl into my bed and pass out.

 

Snow, snow and more snow

Rain turned into snow at about 7:30pm last night.

By 1 a.m, we knew this was not going to be one of those storms that just miss us resulting in barely an inch or two, even a dusting. Nope.

My dogwood was already bending over under the weight of the wet snow. Since neither of us was in the mood to bundle up and step out to shake the trees, we threw several things at the tree: a basketball, a sled, a stick, anything that was within reach in the garage.

We heard several branches come down during the night; one was so close that I thought it had come through the roof. A rough night and an overly snoozed alarm saw us scrambling at 8 a.m. to get Medha to school until I saw the high-schooler next door shoveling his driveway. I wondered if it was a Snow Day but dismissed the thought rather grudgingly, since our school district hardly ever closes for snow. Then I realized that the high school has a late start on Wednesdays. We returned to scrambling: brush your teeth, have hot lunch, money, give her money, wake up, the driveway needs to be shoveled, I need socks. There was about 8-9 inches of snow on the ground then.

Something sent me to my computer and I checked the web site for our school district - it was indeed a Snow Day. But the phone hadn't rung, not once and not on any landline, VoIP or cell phone. None of my Inboxes were overflowing with email message saying Snow Day. I'm not sure where the communications broke down or if this is the new way of doing things - where we have to be proactive, which is fine by me. We whooped in delight, each of us looking longingly at our warm beds but our joy was shortlived when we remembered that we had trees to take of.

One of my dogwood had lost 3 branches and my aspen had lost its tallest branch. 2 more branches snapped and fell later during the day as the snow was relentless. It was a good thing that the snow changed from wet and heavy to light and fluffy.

By 5 p.m. we had a total accumulation of 18 inches but very little wind and no white-out conditions like those of the blizzard of Dec 2006. Just relentless snow.

We now have 20 inches on the ground and more coming through the night. Tomorrow is also a Snow Day, making the kids a little anxious about their Hallowe'en parades in school on Friday. We expect to warm up to the 50s on Saturday and we're hoping that will mean clean sidewalks for trick-or-treating. But there is still tonight to go through and tomorrow.

I am exhausted from the thrill of the snow, beating of trees with large sticks, biting my nails as my husband climbed up to the roof and a lot of pain at all the fallen branches. But, we still have the Internet and power. Fingers crossed that this night does not bring more surprises.

Pinhole It

A little over a year ago, Medha chose to work on an independent research project as part of her Advanced Learning Plan. Her topic of choice was the camera. She made a pinhole camera following these instructions. She loaded it with a 24 exposure 200 ASA roll that had expired. Expired film is 'in' with film camera hobbyists as it leads to all kinds of strange effects and unwitting textures on the photographs.

Pinhole Camera

 

And she got some rather freaky results. Take a look:

Pinhole Sunset

Pinhole Chess Set

Pinhole Kitchen

Pretty darned cool, huh? I was so blown away with the results that I vowed to participate in the next World Pinhole Photography Day, celebrated on the last Sunday of April each year. But life took over and I didn't make the matchbox pinhole camera that I had wanted to. But there's always next year and if I miss that, I can do it just because simply at all, right? If you are interested in doing it with me, let me know in the comments and I'll ping you as the time nears. It's a great learning project for kids, many of whom haven't seen a film camera. Imagine that!

In other news:
- the deadline for IFR: Memories is this coming Saturday, on Oct 31st. So rev up that nostalgia and send me a well-written entry with a recipe. No rambling and please try to adhere to the rules mentioned here.
- we have a snow storm brewing. The last time I checked - about an hour ago - we already had an accumulation of about 3 inches on cold surfaces. We're all whooping in delight even though this isn't our first snow of the season. The kids are praying for a snow day so that they can sled to their heart's content but that seems unlikely even though the white stuff been coming down at a pretty good rate!
- I'm on the home stretch for NaBloWriMo, only four more posts and then perhaps NaBloSiMo would be a good idea.

My Fave Building in the World

Four years ago, I asked to be driven 100 miles north of our home in Chicagoland to see my favorite building in this entire world, as a birthday gift. It did not disappoint. It was even more magnificent than its pictures suggest.

Milwaukee Art Museum

Burke Brise Soleil

There is more to this pic than a wider angle of the previous pic.

Yes, it moves.

It's the Quadracci Pavilion, part of the Milwaukee Art Museum, designed by Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava. It is a building that flaps its wings. Literally so.

Unprecedented in American architecture, the Burke Brise Soleil is a moveable, wing-like sunscreen that rests on top of the Museum’s vaulted, glass-enclosed Windhover Hall. The "wings" open Tuesday–Sunday at 10 a.m. with the Museum, close/reopen at noon, and close again with the Museum at 5 p.m.; except on Thursdays when the Museum closes at 8 p.m.

Opening wing span

It's quite an experience to watch the building move. I saw the Burke Brise Soleil open at 10 a.m., flap at noon and close for the day at 5 p.m. It was a dream come true.

Poised like a bird about to take flight, on the shores of Lake Michigan. And a copycat.

Like a symmetric symphony...

...from the inside as well as the outside

The Windhover Hall

An architectural marvel

A few more pictures from my collection can be seen here.

The Museum itself is like any other small museum. We just missed a traveling Renoir show and the permanents exhibits are fine museum pieces. It's just that the building enthralled much more than anything that was inside at the time.