So, some of you think I should blog about Halloween. And one of you thinks I should blog about lipstick.

Because I am magical, I will now blog about both these things together.

We like Halloween here. My cousin-down-the-street always throws a big party with lots of decorations and themed food and appropriately spooky music.  I especially like the food part, but I also like dressing up. Most years, I plan out my costume in advance, but this year I got distracted and lost track of time. I figured if push came to shove I could drag out the black robe and Griffyndor  scarf and do the wizard thing, but that seemed like cheating since I'd gone the wizard route a few years ago.

Right about the time I needed to figure out something, I got a message from a different cousin asking if I had a red lipstick. Another cousin (yes, I have a lot of cousins) was dressing as Snow White and needed something for that "lips as red as blood on the snow" look.

It just so happens I have lots of lipstick. I'm forever buying lipsticks and then throwing them in the drawer because I don't really like the color or they make my lips peel off or they taste funny. And I always hang on to the free with purchase lipsticks. Because, free. I am dangrously close to being a lipstick hoarder, I think.

In any case, when my cousin asked if I had a red lipstick, I pulled out the drawer and began rummaging. In the process of trying out some potential blood-on-the-snow shades, I ran across a really, really, really hot pink, which made Middle Daughter laugh.

As we tried out the lipsticks, I mentioned to Middle Daughter that I didn't have a costume. She ran to her room and did some rummaging of her own, and came back with some fake hair from a years-ago Libby Lu's birthday party. She has lots of fake hair, by the way. She is dangerously close to being a fake hair hoarder, I think.

It just so happened that the fake hair had some hot pink strands that exactly matched the hot pink lipstick, which made her laugh even more. Who would wear that? she asked. At which point, inspiration struck. Because I knew who would wear that...

 

So, I just realized that I made ONE POST in October. ONE. I'm bad at math, but even I can count to one. And know that October 2009 is now my worst blogging month ever. Is there a trophy for that?

I've just had a hard time getting started. Which is all ironical and stuff, seeing as how I started this blog in the first place to overcome a bad case of writer's block.

Obviously, I need help. So give a girl a hand, and leave a comment with something you'd like me to blog about.

Am I rockin' it?

It's a DITL day! Ever wonder about the exciting life of an IT manager?

 

You are no doubt wondering where I've been. (Go ahead, humor me) Where I've been isn't all that interesting, but where I am is pretty cool. As in, I have goosebumps and my bff annie is sitting at the next computer googlemapping the nearest Target so we can go buy sweaters.

Ayah, I am spending time in New England with the bffs, tooling about the countryside before meeting up with the gang in New York for the Komen 5K on Sunday. I've never been this far North on this continent before. I was half expecting to burst into flames or turn to stone when my Southern feet landed on Yankee soil, but it's been lovely.

The land goes up and down here. There are trees I don't recognize. Everyone talks funny. And it's cold. Which I was not expecting, and did not pack for. Thus the impending trip to Target.

Yesterday, we spent the day in Salem. I am mightily amused by the idea of travelling to a different state and back in one day. I was also mightily amused by Salem, which is a pretty little town geared for tourists. I love touristy stuff. Although it was also very odd, because there are all these shops selling witchy stuff, and the whole point of the Salem witch trials is that the accused weren't witches. So you leave a museum that has a live re-enactment of a trial, and a recreation of the dungeons the accused were kept in, and a diorama of Hanging Hill, and enter a gift shop selling brooms and spell candles. Milli commented, "It's like touring a plantation and seeing the slave quarters and then having someone say, Here, try on some shackles!"

No idea where where' headed today - maybe Boston. It's early enough that I can still claim I've never been to Boston in the Fall.

Last night, The Boy got himself thoroughly stuck in one of the dining room chairs. The chairs are small lyre backed chairs somewhat like these:



He was on his stomach, with his legs stuck through the space between the seat and the crossbar on the back, and his head hanging off the front. Husband looked up from the dishes to see The Boy's legs sticking out the back of the chair.

What are you doing, Son? Husband asked.

I'm getting my dice. I dropped them, replied The Boy.

You need to get off the chair before you break something or hurt yourself, Husband advised.

There was  short pause, and then the voice under the table came back with, Well, I've already taken care of the hurting myself part.

Extra Credit to Husband for getting The Boy unstuck without damaging the chairs (or The Boy). Minus points for not getting it on camera.
 

Now that my tree is gone, so is almost everything else in the back yard. A couple of years ago (or was it longer?) I gave up trying to tame the wilderness. Once or twice a year I'd spend a morning ripping out as much of the not-kudzu vampire vine as I could before the mosquitoes or my aching back gave me an excuse to quit, but everything else was left to fend for itself.

And fend it did. The east bed was bursting with ginger and hostas. Cannas marched along the back fence, occasionally breaking formation to stagger out of the bed into the yard.  The neighbor's trumpet vine not only spilled over the fence but crept under it.

But now it's all laid waste, burned to a crisp by the long-hidden sun. I briefly toyed with the idea of replacing it all with plants of my own choosing, but I couldn't bring myself to do it. I felt too guilty stalking the aisles at the garden center, knowing anything I chose would be headed for certain doom. I'm sure something will come up eventually. It always does. After all, the ginger and the cannas and the trumpet vine weren't there when we first bought the house.

Today my random lillies bloomed. They pop up every year around this time, but I never know exactly where or when, blooming for one day and then disappearing as quickly as they sprang into existence, reminding me that life has a way of surprising us if we let it.

Speaking of random, I think I need this sweater.

So, I'm in IT. This is a recent development; although I have been working as a systems analyst for years, I've always been on the business/ops side. But a few months ago, I was lured over to the Dark Side and joined my company's IT staff.

Earlier this week, we had a meeting to discuss a new proposed migration schedule. (Admit it - you want to be me right now, don't you?) At one point in the discussion, when there was concern that there wouldn't be enough time to complete all the work within the scheduled window, I commented, Unless someone has a TARDIS I don't think we're going to be able to manage it.

No one blinked. No one cracked a smile, not even in a boy-that-was-lame-even-for-you way. After the meeting, I was talking with some of my colleagues and it turns out none of them had ever heard of Dr. Who.

How? How is this possible? How can I be in a room with 25 IT people and none of them are as nerdy as I am?

I am starting to get used to the tree being gone, but the rest of the plants in the back yard are not. Those of you playing along at home may be familiar with my ongoing (and losing) battle with the back yard. A couple of years ago I more or less just gave up and let everything run wild. Except for the kudzu (which I have since found out is not kudzu, but some other annoying viney thing), which I rip out once or twice a year.

On the west side of the yard, in the places where the Annoying Viney Thing had not yet taken over, there were mostly tropicals - overgrown ginger and hostas and cannas. Which apparently were able to thrive because of the ash. Because now that it's gone, they have burned to a crisp.

The ginger was the first to go. The same day the tree was hacked, the ginger began to shrink into itself, curling into a fetal position. By the next day, the hostas were starting to fade. By the third day, it was apparent that they were goners.

Yesterday morning, in an attempt to salvage something, I dug up about half the hostas and moved them to the other side of the yard, under the overhang of the shed. I did this disgustingly early, to avoid the heat. About the time I finished, the sun rose high enough for me to discover that the bed under the shed gets full morning sun. Oops.

On the bright side (no pun intended) the sun is also killing the Annoying Viney Thing, which is apparently a vampire vine. Maybe I should have tried staking it the last seven years.

The area where I live used to be coastal prairie. The exact spot where my house sits was at one time a dairy farm.  After WWII, the land was bought by developers and filled with bungalows.

The developers put in a mix of fast-growing weed trees in the yards and slower growing oaks to line the streets. As people moved into the houses, they added their own trees - pines, cedars, elms, palms. I am always amazed when I look at pictures of the neighborhood from those days. The trees were short and thin and sometimes missing altogether. When I was young, so were the trees.

When I was nine, we moved from this spot to what was then the middle of the country, on the fringe of the Big Thicket. I spent my formative years tromping through the forest. I went to college in the heart of the Big Thicket, surrounded by tall pines.

And then we moved back here, to the former dairy farm prairie. The trees I grew up with are mostly gone; weed trees grow fast, but they die young, the arboreal equivalent of rock stars. The tallows and mimosas and cottonwoods are just memories. But the oaks and the elms and the pines in the neighborhood remain. 

One of the redeeming things about this house was the number of trees on the lot. It's not a big lot, but I had a Chinese Elm and a cedar and a sweetgum in the front, and two oaks and a huge Arizona Ash in the back. There was also a palm tucked away in the corner of the back yard, and a redbud that lazed about in the shadow of the ash.

I especially loved the ash. It had been badly neglected and we had it pruned not long after we moved in, but it still canopied the entire back yard. The ash is why I don't have any grass in the back yard, but it was also why my house was shaded in the summer and why sitting in my living room was like being underwater, all green and wavery.

Hurricane Ike cut the cedar down to half size. The ash lost a few branches, but seemed to hold up well. Ash trees are technically weed trees. They tend to get hollow in the middle, and the branches get too heavy and start to drop. Generally, they're good for about twenty years or so, but this one has been around for at least twice that long. A couple of weeks ago, a large branch dropped off the ash for no particular reason and landed on the roof. It didn't do any damage, but it did signal that it was time to cut the tree back.

It breaks my heart. I love this tree. But when an ash starts to fall, you can't really prune it. You have to seriously whack it. Technically, I should have taken the whole thing out and planted another oak, but I couldn't bear the thought of losing the tree completely. So we called a tree guy and he brought a crew and went to work. I also had them neaten up the oaks a bit.

I know the ash will come back; in a year or so it will look like a dandelion, and then ten years from now it will look like it was never trimmed at all. But for now, my heart is heavy.

 

I kill plants. I am whatever the opposite a green thumb is (brown toe?). But one thing I've had minor success keeping alive is hibiscus.

And now the crazy ants are killing them. Because crazy ants are tenders. They tend aphids and mealyworms and other annoying hibiscus-eating pests, which have all of a sudden covered my hibiscus.

Yesterday I sprayed them all down with insecticidal soap. Which with my luck will probably kill them. But if it does, at least it was me and not the ants, right?

We have been invaded. With Crazy Ants. And it's driving me crazy. They are everywhere.

They're in the yard. In our cars. In the house. Last weekend, Husband washed his car and they swarmed the driveway so thickly it looked like it was moving. Three crawled across my arm while I was sitting at the computer.

At least they don't bite. But it's unnerving to have them crawling everywhere. And I'm afraid they're going to eat the wiring and burn the house down. Or get in the computer and short it out.

I'm thinking of buying an anteater.

How is it I'm on antibiotics and my face is still broken out? And me with my 30-year reunion tonight. Well, technically it's not my reunion, since that was last year, but the class of '79 is having a combined reunion with several other classes, including mine, so I'm dropping in. Which means even more people will have the chance to be amazed at how I'm twice the size I was when I was in high school.

Hey, maybe the breakout just makes me look like a teenager. A girl can wish, right?

What to wear, what to wear...