cellio | weekend bits

Today's Halloween, so I've been assuming that costumed children (and some non-costumed non-children, based on past years) would show up on our porch seeking sugary tribute. I saw nothing in the newspaper about scheduled hours for this, so I applied the power of Google. I wonder whether this means that the web really is pervasive, or if people who have kids (or otherwise care) have alternative sources of information. Silly me; I just naturally assumed that this was one of the jobs of a local newspaper.

I did buy some sugary tribute; we'll see how many people show up before we leave for dinner with friends. We didn't get a lot of people last year or the year before; it's possible we have a a reputation as the house that hands out weird stuff due to Dani handing out comic books for a few years in the past. On the other hand, we might just live on a low-payoff street; the houses are more spread out than a few blocks over and I'm not sure how many neighbors participate.

This afternoon we visited with my parents (and sister and one of her kids, though said kid preferred the computer's company to ours). My parents are taking the death of their dog (about a month ago) pretty hard. Thor was a 14-year-old golden retriever; they'd had him since he was 2.

They had him cremated, and my mother showed us the urn that contains his ashes. I'll have to look that one up in Miss Manners. I mean, what's the proper response? "It's a pretty urn"? "I'm so sorry" (but I said that already)? Silence? (Oh, and a wise move: they seal the urn, so accidents that don't involve breakage are harmless.)

I knew that dogs could be trained to do a lot, but I was surprised to read about the assistance animal that called 911, barked persistently into the receiver until the folks on the other end reacted, and then unlocked the front door for the ambulance crew when his owner fell.

We had a visitor Shabbat afternoon, and the three of us played games for a few hours. Aha -- that's a good way to spend (part of) long Shabbat afternoons! (I can't just read all day -- I get headaches from eyestrain.) Of course, with the change of seasons and now the time change, long Shabbat afternoons are going to be much less long for a while. But I must remember this come summer and try to arrange for it on a regular basis. Besides, I like having company and I have friends who like to play games, so what's not to like in this plan?

Friday night at services someone was wearing a Kerry/Edwards button -- transliterated into Hebrew. Some words should just not be transliterated into Hebrew. "Edwards" is one of them. Boy did that look funny.

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Silly me; I just naturally assumed that this was one of the jobs of a local newspaper.

It may have been one of the geogrphically-specifric sections, but my post gazette had a blurb that said all the communities' schedules would be on the web...

I'm still somewhat amused/baffled by the idea of "hours" for trick or treating. We start getting kids as it turns dusk-ish (especially on a school night, which tonight is), and the last teens came past at just past 9. About what I expect. Why publish hours?

Me too, actually. When I was a kid we went out at dark and came in when my parents made us. :-)

The city of Pittsburgh has some goofy ideas about which hours are appropriate, too. They seem to like 5:00 as a starting time (this year it was 5:30), including when Halloween is on work days. That may have been a fine idea in the days of single-earner households and stay-at-home moms, but that is not the norm now. So last year the official hours were 5-7, and I was home for about the last 20 minutes of it. Fortunately, the kids here seem to be better about the vandalism thing; in my prvious neighborhood I once came home from work on Halloween to find eggs and mud spattered on my house. Hey brats; if no one's home to give you candy that's not license for a "trick" (and "tricks" like that are never appropriate anyway).

When I found it on the web it was on the Trib's web site, for what that's worth. I just never saw a print notice.

That's a good idea. Thanks.

How was Kerry spelled in Hebrew? If spelled kuf-resh-yud, it's the Talmudic word for semen. Which is an odd thing to see on a button.

Yeah,

kr1mz0n_ghoti was suprised last night when we got a small group of trick-or-treaters after dark. He said "I thought kids weren't allowed to do that after dark anymore." I said, "Well... maybe their parents aren't as worried." but was kinda freaked out by the "it's against the law" subtext in his voice. To me... trick or treating always seemed something.... too decentralized for that.

Same thing with the idea of 'looking up hours'. That just seems... strange :)

I mean, sure, one place I lived, the downtown stores published a "bring your kids trick or treating at our establishment" time... but.... that was a group of businesses. Not like "this is when you're allowed to go"

*shrug* :) But then I myself never went trick or treating until I was.... 11 or so? (where I lived when I was small was _very_ rural and... my dad was about as anti-pop-culture as it is possible to be without living in an armed walled community of like-minded people)

Oh, here's another difference from my childhood (which might be related to the times thing): police presence. The police were all over the place last night, keeping the streets safe for kids or something. My guess is that the "official hours" correspond to the times the city promised to have the police out, for the parents who worry about such things.

Kuf-reish-yud, yes. Wow, that is odd. I assume the folks who made the buttons aren't fluent in talmudic Hebrew (and/or Aramaic).

Or they're subtly implying that Kerry is a Real Man, unlike our incumbent.

Or they're subtly associating him with the peace and prosperity our country enjoyed under Clinton.

:-)

When I was a kid, all the kids in my parents' building (66 apts) would gather in someone's apartment, start at the top (16th floor) and work down as a group. That way, everyone was safe - we were just in our own building.

When we lived in Park Slope, the parents were so paranoid that there was almost no residential trick-or-treating. Around dusk, the commercial street (7th Avenue) would flood with a sea of cuteness, as the little ones trick-or-treated the stores. We bought sugary tribute once or twice, but wound up eating it ourselves, since no kids came by.

Ah yes, fond memories of long Shabbat afternoons at Hillel House. One day 5 of us decided to play a game together. Monopoly? Half of us were horrified at the idea of using even play money. Gin? With **playing cards**? Parcheesi? Nope, I wouldn't use dice on Shabbat, and we didn't have a spinner. Scrabble? No, Bruce said that putting letters together into words was "building".

Eventually we had to split into 2 groups to accomodate all of our quirky little Shabbat prohibitions.

(Nobody ever said "that's wrong on Shabbat", just "I don't do that." Ah, the beauty of religious tolerance...)

BTW, you can keep score on Shabbat by moving bookmarks to the corresponding page number in a large book.

One day 5 of us decided to play a game together.

*laugh* Sounds challenging. I can understand the Scrabble objection (though I would have said "writing", not "building"), and I can sort of understand the Monopoly objection, but what are the issues with cards and dice? The only person I've met who doesn't play cards do so only because it's family minhag (he doesn't know why it arose), and I hadn't heard a problem with dice before. Are these tie-ins to gambling?

I grew up in suburbs, and we were only allowed to go a couple blocks in each direction. (Most of my classmates were allowed to roam farther, but my parents were over-protective.) One of my parents accompanied us when we were younger, but I think by the time I was about 8 or 9 they weren't doing that any more.

I remember arguing the limited range with my parents by pointing out that they had bought much more candy to give out than my sister and I were bringing in, so clearly our expectations were out of whack -- we should be able to go to every house that would be sending kids to us, net balance 0. They didn't buy it, but they commended me on the ingenuity of the argument. I thought it was obvious, not ingenious, myself. :-)

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