Is it too early?

I mean...July isn't even out the door and I walked into the Dollar Store yesterday and there was a whole end-cap of skulls and skeletons!

Now if that was xmas crap...I would be FURIOUS! Every year when xmas goes up and I'm still in flip flops I think, "How could they, for the love of baby Jesus, son of Oprah! Oh ya, I could pitch a downright fit about xmas stuff being up a day before Thanksgiving. I'll fight anyone that thinks the holiday season for xmas should start with the first day of school.

But the Halloween stuff, even the low grade Dollar Store crappy stuff, caused me to come up short, make my hands into a pyramid in front of my mouth and wiggle my fingers in hungry joy!

It's coming :)

To be honest, I've been on all sorts of Halloween sites for MONTHS now! One home haunter actually buries the clothes for his props in the summer so that they will be properly zombie-fied by Halloween.

Yes...these are the folks I idolize.

I signed up for the GarageOfEvil.com where 'weenies post their props with pride and pomp.

I have a list of things I want to make this year (flickering pillar candles, chicken wire dummies, a witch for the graveyard with a boiling cauldron, and some sort of projection show on the front windows from the inside of the house).

I'm already BEHIND and I haven't started yet!

Soon our basement will once again become the evil lab where I create Halloween goodies for my home haunt. And there might be some that pitch a fit that it's starting too soon.

To them I say: Boooooooo!

Summer time...and the livin' ain't so easy..it's busy. Very busy.

The one thing 'bout folks in upstate NY...they know how to make the most of their summer time!

There is not one weekend wasted here. Festivals, show, fairs, concerts, camping, hiking, the list goes on and on. Oh and there is that lawn thing. We don't have one of those for about 7 months and you need to keep up on it in the short amount of time it's there.

It's always amazing to me that, when the snow creeps away, there is living grass under there. It might be a lil brown and laid flat from the weight of winter, but it's still there baybee! A few rainstorms and a lil sun and all of a sudden it's a weekly chore to keep it at bay.

What makes these folks make the most of the very short 10 weeks of summer they are allotted? The dread that all that snow, like the dreaded Terminator, will be baaak. (said like Ahnuld) So before we are butt high in angel shit, we bake under the sun, withstand the skeeters, and add to the humidity with our sweat.

These are the days you look back on, when there is snow still on the ground in April, and think, "Remember when we complained it was soooooo hot last July?"

Heat = Hair

We are having a heatwave here in the North East. It's not pretty.

I've lived here 12 years now, and I do love 'hot'. It's the humidity that kicks my ass. It's like walking through soup! You get out of the shower, get dressed and you're drenched in moisture the second you walk out the door.

The car temp hit 98 yesterday. They have this thing called the "heat index" which mixes the effect of the humidity in with the temp. That's at 112 today, just in case you weren't hot enough.

Sticky girly bits aside...the worst part about heat? Men! Usually ugly, fat, bushy backed, old farts that decide it's ok to strip when it's hot. I can't tell you how many times I almost barfed just trying to get home yesterday.

One guy had a gunt on him that hung down past his belt-line by a good foot. He stood, watering his lawn, and burning my eyes.

Another fine specimen walked down the street with his shirt as a turban and his hair entrenched breasts swaying, as he lumbered down the street.

I'm sorry...but if you're going to insist that women cover up their chest, men should also have the same regulation for indecent exposure. 80% of the guys I saw, had bigger boobs than I do.

Then you have the guys, usually a lil younger, that insist on pulling just the front of their shirt up, so that their fat belly sticks out. I'm not sure if this is some ingrained mating tactic from caveman days, or their cooling panel is JUST in their belly. Either way....it's not working. Cover it or get a six pack. And I don't mean the one you drink. It's obvious you've had your share of the beer kind.

Let's talk hair for a minute. (and JUST a minute, cuz really...I will toss my breakfast onto my keyboard)

My sisters and I used the "puff factor" method of hair for men. A mess of hair just at the v-neck under shirt was a 1 or 2. Sticking out the sleeves or getting their gold necklace tangled in it, 4. If the shirt could actually stand up on the matt of curly mess that was beneath, then it was puff factor 10 and you should avert your eyes.

My sister Marlo and I were in the car one day, when I noticed ahead of us in a VW, was the only man who broke the scale with a 12. His tank top couldn't contain the hair that covered his body like a shitious halo of dark evil. The sun, setting in front of us, illuminated the height so that we could see where his skin stopped and the hair continued. It was a good inch and a half above his body. (oh crap...here comes my yogurt and granola!!)

I understand you guys are hot. I understand that, for every gross guy out there, I could find a woman wearing a tube top and hot pants that has no business doing so, but comeOHN! The worst part is you all think you look like Tom Cruise's sexy, younger brother without your shirt on.

YOU DON'T!!! Cover up or at least wear a bikini top. You're scaring the kids.

Hey batta, batta, batta...SWING!

We have a cute lil park at the end of our block. Just as we were moving into the neighborhood, they put in a little league field at the end. The park was more than big enough for the field, a snack bar, a tennis court, a basket ball court and a playground. But then the traffic problems started.



Then they decided they needed to move the playground closer to the field so that parents could keep an eye on their darling lil tykes that weren't in the game. So with that, there was a large grass space left at the far end from the field.



Neighbors got signatures for a dog park there, as many folks have dogs that walk in the park. But we came up against a brick wall and rumblings began that the LL wanted to put ANOTHER field in the green space.



Hackles people...my hackles went up.



It's been a couple years now, and it seems the LL has finally got what they needed to push this forward. A grant for $30,000 is helpful as well. What city is going to turn that down?



"Why didn't we think of getting a grant for the dog park?" my neighbor groused.



"Because the LL is a well oiled war machine that has for decades taken over park space like a militia on it's way to Tara, burning neighbors moods as they went." I grumbled back.



We went to the community meeting (re: dog and pony show) last night. They had hot dogs and hamburgers for us to enjoy. I chose not to share in the 'bribe'. Each member of the LL came over, somber and looking like a puppy that was just spanked for pooping on grandma's Oriental rug.



"Are you here for the meeting? I'm so glad you came. We just want to give everyone a chance to voice their opinion and we, the LL, want to work with the community to blah blah blah.....".



A lil bit of throw up in my mouth. They knew what they were up against. No one wants this park...they know it. You can read it on their guilty lil pusses. Lil did I know it was really deeper than that.



As the meeting proceeded, the president of the LL was a man with a 'tude a mile long. He was there with a chip on his shoulder and a disgusted look on his face. He tried to make it sound like we were a bunch of kid haters, which is the furthest from the truth.



I love them.....I just can't finish a whole one by myself. badumpah...thank you I'll be here all week!



But seriously folks....I went cuz I just think we are a kid-centric society. If you're a breeder, you get the benes. I'm childless (at least...that I know of :::wink wink:::) and I should have space in the park as much as anyone else. I pay the taxes for the city park, and I pay school taxes and I don't have kids! I like that green space for letting my pooch run around. I like that green space for laying in the grass. I like that green space for being...well....GREEN, damn it!



With an additional playing field there will be double the traffic. Double the parked cars lining the street. Double the children darting between cars.



The LL folks got frothier and more worked up the more folks brought up reasons NOT to have the field. One LL guy had this "What the fuck is wrong with you people?" attitude that really didn't help either when he pipped up.



I spoke my two cents and then it dawned on me: this is a done deal! They weren't acting all coy cuz they were trying to win votes, Oh no! This was in the pot and cooking and they thought it was a slam dunk! They thought we would show up, lift them over our heads and cheer them for saving our park from ruin with their t-ball field!



This turned out to be....a VERY differnt meeting, indeed!



"I just want you to go home and think....are your reasons for not wanting this field as selfless as mine?" said the president of the LL. "I'm just trying to make a place for kids to play...what are YOUR reasons for NOT wanting it?"



Ummmm...Ya JACKHOLE! I don't want to you dig up the park, increase the traffic and noise pollution with screaming kids. Let me just put it to you this way...I won't be having a picnic on your pitching mound. It's kind of in the way of MY park.