BOO!

Halloween is tomorrow, but TPTB decided we would trick or treat tonight.

Here are the Glees.



Gilbert is the Tenth Doctor, Bede is Scrat, Faith is a gas mask "Muuuummy" zombie, Trixie and Gloria are both Dorothy Gale, and Abaigeal is Queen Elizabeth.

This was the first time out for both Bede and Gloria and they both did smashingly well. Bede attempted to go in the first house we hit, then gradually got the drift and by the last house was scripting the whole thing like a pro! Gloria's adorable "Happy HalloWEEN!" thrown over her shoulder as we walked off each time was awesome.



Gil and Faith



Dorothy #1, telling me "I don't know how to make a Dorfy face."



Scrat shows us his squirrel tail.



Queen Elizabeth



Dorothy #2

list

1. Last night I made chili and cornbread. It was delicious, and is now all gone. I'm kind of surprised by that, because I made something like ten pounds of chili. That happens with bananas too: however many we buy is how many we eat, immediately. It helped that Josh and Sophia came over and ate some too.

2. Speaking of Josh and Sophia, they went and got married, those crazy kids! Aren't they lovely?





3. Today I must, simply must clean the living room and dining room floors. They are both covered with little pieces of paper from small children with scissors.

4. And make bread.

Lay on!

We went to fighter practice tonight for our SCA barony, Wiesenfeuer. I went with Faith, Abby and Gilbert.

There was no heavy combat (that's the armor-and-swords-and-shields) but there was youth combat!

Here are some pictures I stole because I didn't want to steal bandwidth. They are from http://www.housetaivassalama.com/youthCbt.html and are not from today, but from a tournament.





Faith LOVED IT. She didn't hit any people (she will need more practice before she can be authorized) but she spent an hour learning stance and hitting the pell (a large block of wood, covered with carpet) with a padded rattan sword. She ate it up and only stopped because she couldn't see in the dark. Also, her arms were so tired by then she was pretty wild with her blows. She was doing drills with the edge and the point, since her age group allows thrusts as well as edge blows.

Abby took a few shots too but she didn't adore it like Faith did. She does like it enough to make a sword, however! And Gilbert liked it too. Truth be told they both had more fun running around with the other children than they did with the swords.

But Faith now. I tell you. On the way home, she summed it up thusly:

"Mama, it's like I was born to hold a sword."

Just One More Thing

So we finished Rome, which was great. That tipped us back into the world of Netflix Watch Instantly, and we decided to continue working our way through Columbo.

I love Columbo. The disheveled coat and messy hair! The ancient, sputtering Peugeot convertible! The dog! Sigh.

Everyone underestimates Columbo, of course, which is part of the fun; watching the killer as he goes from magnanimous and self-assured to agitated and hostile, peppered incessantly by Columbo's absentminded but penetrating questions, is one of the best things about the show.

Last night Sean and I watched "Mind Over Mayhem" from Season Three. It was fun. It has

A clunky chess-playing Robbie the Robot
A child genius
Charlie X of classic Star Trek fame
Jose Ferrer
Beep boop beep cybernetic supercomputers
Dog

While not the best Columbo ever, it was tight, and watching the robot type! on some sort of teletype machine! was awesome. The entire series is on Netflix Watch Instantly. I especially liked:

"A Stitch in Crime" with Leonard Nimoy
"The Bye Bye Sky High I.Q. Murder Case" about a Mensa-esque group
"The Most Crucial Game" with Robert Culp and Dean Stockwell
And, probably my favorite of all, "Fade In To Murder", with William Shatner, playing a television detective in a delightful bit of meta.

That's all for now, ma'am. Oh, wait, just one more thing...

late night

I was up for a large part of the night because Trixie had a coughing fit and needed the nebulizer (she had fallen asleep before taking her nightly antihistamine, and woke at around 3:30 wracked with spasmodic coughing) and also because Sean and I stayed up too late to watch the series finale of Rome.

That was a pretty good show.

So I slept late, and as a result I'm useless today. The girls are ready to learn some new concepts in arithmetic and I don't think I have it in me. Later in the week. We'll do our read-aloud and perhaps a smidgen of some other subjects. I think I'll reteach one or both of them how to knit.

I need to make bread. Best get that going. Yawn.

Rome: The Complete Series

Waiting for Godot, or maybe Bede

Bede typed this, printed it out and gave it to me and my niece, Sophia. She read it aloud, which pleased him greatly.

The following is word for word, by Bede Gleeson, autist, age 7.

So, you have a best very quick you been everything you like that now think about.

With a reason for a different one get do at see us.

Just have like thought be so that. You would think so, oh.

I had so just ever got someone was me did as with us.

trick or treat!

The Halloween costume decision-making has begun! Here are the current top runners for each kid, by order of age.

Faith: an Empty Child. "Are you my mummy?"


Abby: Queen Elizabeth the First.


Bede: The Flying Dutchman's Ghost, as portrayed by Sponge Bob.


Gilbert: The Tenth Doctor!


Trixie: Dorothy Gale


Gloria: The Wicked Witch of the West