We took our son trick-or-treating, for one thing. This is the first time he's really been old enough to get it, and he got it big time. Between the costume (Thomas the tank engine) and the candy, he was thrilled.

I have always loved Halloween. Part of that is candy, part of that is an inclination to the theatrical and macabre. Last year changed that; my mother-in-law died last year, after a protracted struggle with lung cancer.

So this year, on the anniversary of her death, our family decided to make a picnic lunch and take it to the cemetery. There were eight of us, including my three year old son. We spread out a tarp, because the ground was wet, and put a tablecloth on top of that. We poured champagne, and ate cold chicken, and pasta salad, and corn, and deviled eggs, all next to the grave marker, which says SEARS in big letters.

My son climbed up on the grave marker and started tracing the letters with his fingers. Spotting a learning opportunity, I spelled it our for him as he traced each letter. When he was done, I said, "Do you know whose name that is? That's your last name."

I looked up, and my husband and my brother-in-law were watching me with funny, sort of horrified expressions. I hadn't thought about it; I was just trying to reinforce the alphabet.

But I took my son to a graveyard on Halloween and showed him a tombstone with his name on it.

My mother-in-law would have laughed her head off. It was a really nice picnic.

So, Ben and I are going out tonight to celebrate our anniversary. (Seven years! Actually, it was yesterday, but Ben had to work. But I digress.) I put on nice clothes, and, since I had a few minutes, straightened my hair. I almost never do this, because it takes too long & I have better things to do. Anyway, I walked out of the bedroom and asked my three-year-old son, "How does Mommy look?"

"What are you dressed up as?" he asked.

Heh heh. Good question.

We recently had lunch with a friend who seems to attract odd happenstance. Some of his stories suggested comics to me. Here's one about laundry.



( big comic under the cut )

My sister has produced an adorable offspring! Tonight, I drink to nephews.

page twelve

...and that's the end! Goodbye, Cat and Ghost. May you have many exciting adventures.

(So playschool just started up again, after a summer hiatus. During that time, the tiny human moved up to the 3 and 4 yo class, or as we've been calling it, Big Boy School. I almost always dropped him off in the morning last year.)

A conversation in my house, 7 a.m., this, the second day of playschool:


Tiny Human: I want Daddy to drive me to school today.

Me: Daddy can't drive you today. I'm going to drive you.

TH: But I don't want you to drive. I cry when you drive me.

Me: You don't have to cry when I drive. You can choose to be happy that I'm driving you.

TH: But I don't want to go to little boy school.

Me: Oh! You're too big for little boy school. You're going to big boy school even if I drive you.

TH: Yay!!

It hasn't all been slap chopping and History Channel around here. Back in art school, one of the exercises we used to do was a page-a-day (or panel-a-day) comic. I recently purchased an extremely small Moleskine notebook, and it seemed like the perfect vehicle for one of these comics.

Part of the fun of these comics is not knowing how they end ahead of time. So! Tiny comics:




page one

This isn't so much a review, since I just this second finished reading this book, but just a reaction of wow. Flygirl, by Sherri Smith, follows Ida Mae Jones' struggle to join the Women Airforce Service Pilots -- a task made more difficult because to do so, she will have to pass for white.

The airplane neepery is convincing without being too jargon-y for the layperson, and the picture of wartime society feels absolutely real, but it is the characters that leave me wishing the book were still going. The women that tried out to be WASP must have been something special, and Flygirl really gets that across.

The complications of Ida's situation are presented in a straightforward fashion, but the situation itself grows increasingly complex, and the stakes for Ida get higher, both in the WASP and at home. I don't know whether Smith plans a sequel or not, but the characters could certainly support one (my fingers are crossed that one is in the works.)

I have a feeling I will be recommending this book a lot.