On the hallowed evening

Friday nite the 29th of October we put the kids to bed a bit early and ventured down to Lincoln to go to Stephanie and Ben Clark's annual Halloween party. Amy and Bonny dressed as faeries, while I dressed as a caveman-type. We arrived too late to participate in the limbo contest, much to my dismay, but there was plenty of food and music and mostly fun to be had. And in fact, after people had started to leave, Jake and I had a limbo-off of our own, and this year - I was victor. I was quite proud, my nimble but stout body performed rather well. Good job. And that was that.

For the weekend, we decided to brave the battle zone of Apple Hill. Amy had already been a couple of times this year, but for me it was a 2005 first. We briefly stopped at High Hill Ranch to gather the rather famous kettle corn - a six dollar bag that we halfway polished off within an hour, letting about three pounds of its contents sit somewhat unpleasantly in our bellies - and then continued on our merry way. The kids took intermittent naps, so we took that excess time as a privileged moment in which we drove around Apple Hill proper, something we've never done before. We made our way out past small orchards and farms, on Camino backroads that lengthened on and on. We are so lucky, with all this beauty in our literal backyard, and this only the first time we'd even attempted to trek out so far. We stopped at El Dorado Orchards after Jarom woke up, and all four of us went on a small train ride around two very small duck-occupied ponds. The weather was perfectual and it couldn't have been more inviting. Jarom nabbed a pear for a quarter and then we took our trail to Abel's Acres, taking the usual babyfaced pumpkin photos, feeding the dwarf horses with clover, and watching the kids ride toy John Deere tractor-bikes and hop about the bouncehouse.

So then the festive day arrived. Halloween! Again, the hairy hoodmask made its way onto my head, and I arrived in town just as the sun split and downtown Placerville's Main Street turned into a blockaded festival of children and costumed madness. Lines stretched behind each shop's door, and we pushed Bella in her stroller while chasing Jarom to each new doorway of candied ecstasy. He proclaimed "trick or treat!" with a vigor I could only previously imagine. I don't recall Halloween being as personally fulfilling and satisfactory as Jarom experienced it. Having such excitable and spirited children really changes the way I see new things, and even the way I remember older things. After we filled those little orange pumpkin cauldrons with priceless bounty, it was time to leave and head to the trunk or treat at Camp Nauvoo.


The Pleasant Valley ward had a mini Family Home Evening prepared in which chili and cornbread were provided potluck-style, and this presented me with the maddening half hour wait before the true trunk or treating began. Children flew in all directions and it was apparent that mayhem would overtake the evening. We bobbed for doughnuts in the air, and then made a few trunk or treat rounds to expand upon our already growing inventory of sweets.

At this stage, the day-long festivities were starting to wear on the impressionable young wildren, and we headed home to feast and get them ready for bed. They ended the night with screams and shouts, fittingly, and slept like angels after a long flight home.

It's interesting to remain close to home, where I grew up and went to high school, the only place where I can run into old friends and pseudo-friends and see what the future held for them in their highly distinct lives of an alternate dimension. We see where people end up, and who they end up with. The only difference here is that I have some slight vested interest in their bouts, whereas another town will only hold strangers and newcomers and everything they've done will be foreign to me at the start. I saw Bryan Brazelton and his wife Megan (formerly) Todd - as Mario and Luigi - and their daughter Lillian. I saw Stephanie Fairchild at Camp Nauvoo, -hardly- recognizing her but feeling a moment of fleeting time joining me and her in the vicissitudes of time. A few days prior we saw Ty Blankenship waitering at Lil' Johnny Di Carlo's; he had married Lacy Reid and had two children, he mentioned that Shane House had married Katie Millen.

Time is a cruel prankster, and yet at the same time a melancholy gentleman with a white cane and calloused knuckles.

Tuesday night I met the family after school and we saw Charlie and the Chocolate Factory at the Sunrise Theater's cheap showing. The kids liked it.

Audio: Figure 8|Elliott Smith
Video: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory [2005|Tim Burton]
Text: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy|Douglas Adams

My word of the day: dovetail
[Why: It was used in an interview with Mike Strayer, and he didn't know its meaning for the context it was used in. I rarely, if ever, hear it used in any conversation or writing. It is definitely a more obscure, odd use. The funny thing is, the very next day, my English professor used the same word!]