Good morning. It's *that* time of year! MEOW OW OW OW OW. Coastal low formed and then ripped up the coast of the northeaster US last night/this morning. Oh, those *hurt* the fibro. Dang nor'easters. Ouch.

Did my usual cat juggling. LilMiss was freaked out by the wind and ran into our house and freaked out again b/c she realized it was the wrong house. Took forever to calm her down, poor cat. Poor Hubby, too. He is *so* unnerved by cat behaivor sometimews. You'd think being married to me would've clued him in by now.

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PLEASE KEEP PETS INDOORS THE NEXT DAY OR TWO. Halloween is a prime time for animal mutilation and killing across North America. Please, especially if your pet is *black* (cat or dog), keep it INSIDE. Yes, people are that way. Case here about 15 years ago, someone found their black cat stuck to their porch by a kitchen knife. Why? It was Halloween, and black cats are evil and witches and all that other bullcrap.

Why is it unlucky to have  a black cat cross your path? I've no idea. Mostly I think  of it as a chance to pet a cat. Then agian, we adopt black cats in my family. They're animals who need homes. Natch.

On black cats: THey're first to be euthanized and last to be adopted in North American animal shelters. How dumb is that?

Even mostly-black cats or tuxedo cats are at risk too, btw, so be aware. Ditto dog owners. Black dogs, particularly smaller ones, can get treated nasty too.

BTW, the only time I've had bad luck when ANY cat crossed my path? I was walking downstairs with a crate of stuff, and the kitten was underfoot. It was fall down or squash the cat. I fell. Broke four bones in my foot. Didn't hurt the cat, though. And, btw, it was a calico!

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Halloween-ish thoughts from my oown life...

My dad hated coffee. When my mom is mad at him, she puts a cup of coffee by his urn of ashes.

My dad was an atheist. (Actually, a believer who was angry God didn't do a Dumbledore and magic everything better.) So my mom put all her religous statuary on or next to his urn, too. To "keep him in there".

When alive, my dad really disliked my mom's fluffy calico cat (the kitten in above story, actually, died of cancer about 15 years ago, poor gal). Nobody knows why. He liked other cats. Anyway, when the cat died, Mom put the urn of the cats ashes on top of my dad's ashes and said, "There! Now she'll sit on you and you can't bitch about it!"

When my mom is really upset, she turns my dad's urn upside down. (It's shaped to do that, fortunately. Or unfortunately.)

Allt his, btw, predates her brain tumor by, oh, well over a decade. Mom holds grudges. Why, I don't know. Too much trouble. *yawn*

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For those who want to know, a quick tutorial in Halloween history: http://www.history.com/topics/halloween/history-of-halloween

Interesting to note, many cultures celebrate these in-between moments (halfway between the four major solar holidays of solstices/equinoxes, sometimes called "cross-quarter" festivals). In my mom's culture, this was when you set out a feast to remember your deearly (or thank-God-they're-gone) departed, and you left all shots of liquor on the table *untouched* so the "old men" could have it. (That is,t he spirits of your departed.) Presumably, if the old men spirits weren't drinkers, then every other spirit got the chance to down a shot. Yes, that's odd to some, but is it really that much stranger than, say, going around in costume so angry ghosts can't find you and wreak vengeance? ... Hmm.

May Day, btw, is the counterpoint to Halloween. Flowers, life, dancing, celebration... and winding ribbons around a pole  like you're adoring a phallic symbol. I've never been able to see those May Day ribbon dances without rolling my eyes. "Yay, let's decorate this big stick!" Ummm.... Sorry, but no way a girl thought of *that* tradition.

The "may pole" was originally an actual living tree, and they just danced around. The use of a big dead stick and ribbons came along later, when traveling troupes of entertainers would perform the dance or one similar to the original, to entertain audiecnes in general. By the 18th century, the maypole dance we know now was more or less adopted, and the point is to dance in pattern so the ribbons held by the dancers plait beautifully around the pole, then the dancers retrace their steps exactly to unplait the ribbons, and tie the ribbons off to the ground. Presumably, this represents something, but given my hubby's sniggering adolescent sense of humor, I'm not gonna venture any guesses beyond "yeah, it could be weirder..."

If you want a scary-funny movie, I recommend Monster House or Hotel Transylvania. Both are kid-oriented, fun, and one has the following dialogue (Hotel Transylvania):

"So, you're not going to drink my blood?"

"Human blood is so fatty, you never know where it's been."

Of course, for those of us who like not-that-scary, there's also all the classics like "Young Frankenstein". (Gene Wilder nad Peter Boyle performing Puttin' on the Ritz. Oh. Em. Gee.) And Monsters Versus Aliens (snarky riff off every sci-fi movie ever in history) by Dreamworks. "Shaun of the Dead" is a brilliant UK film that takes on the zombie genre, but beware the very salty language. (American audiences may faint. Seriously. Uses words we don't use in polite company. That said, many slang terms in the UK aren't used identically as they are in the US, and the vulgarity is definitely more teen-boy-friendly, but still... it's a fun movie. I'm not too put off by foul language. My dad was Navy, and my hubby cusses worse than *that*, especially if he drops his toothbrush in the toilet while peeing at bedtime. True story, alas. Oh, and "fag" in the UK is  a cigarette. Just to illustrate how odd the slang differences are.)

And just about any Tim Burton film is a horror movie on some level, sooo....

Of course, there's the spoof of the "Scream" flicks, AKA "Scary Movie".

Or, like me, you can simply watch Mystery Science Theater 3000 (MST3K) reruns, b/c those guys mock anything, and I've been a fan since it debuted in my youth, soooo.... Yeah, I'm that nerd!

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And now that I've avoided depressing history (other than the personal kind)...

MERRY MONDAY to all and to all a good day:-)

(And if DS gives me a "form submission error", I swear....)