Frozenween 2023

On October 31, 2023October 31, 2023 By Luther M. SilerIn idiocyLeave a comment

Pictured: the exact and precise moment that I decided Halloween was done for the year. I have sat outside on cold Halloweens before, and in fact for at least one that was much snowier than this, but this one defeated me. I had a Goddamn space heater right next to me and as soon as the snow actually started really falling– that accumulation took less than five minutes– that was it. I was done. We had one more group of kids after I went inside and they got the rest of our candy.

It cannot be literally true that I have never been colder than I was sitting outside this evening– it’s hit -40 around here in the last few years– but I think it’s fair to say that I’ve never been this cold when my body hadn’t adjusted to winter yet.

Pumpkins scream in the dead of night

On October 31, 2021 By Luther M. SilerIn Geek, Photography3 Comments

I carved two of these, one is “mine” and the other at my son’s direction. Feel free to guess which ones.

Also, I reread The Call of Cthulhu today, and it brought his to mind; I have probably linked it before, but you need to see it again.

This is happening

On October 31, 2020 By Luther M. SilerIn Parenting1 Comment

This … is my wife, wearing my son’s Halloween costume, as he’s discovered walking around in it is kind of annoying. So they’ve put her in it and they’re going out anyway, with the boy handling candy-collection duties.

I felt like it should be memorialized.

Calling all cosplayers

On October 25, 2020 By Luther M. SilerIn Geek, idiocyLeave a comment

This has been a surprisingly productive Sunday– I need to do some lesson planning, but all of my grading and tomorrow’s lesson are set, we went outside and finished off the rest of the huge pile of sticks from a couple of weeks ago, and I’m writing a blog post right now, so I don’t really have much to do other than play video games and read for the rest of the night, which I figure is the right way to end a Sunday night.

We went out and got the boy’s Halloween costume yesterday, as I said. He’s dressing as a giant chicken, for some reason. The costume is hilarious but I would never have guessed that he’d have picked it. As I’ve said, I traditionally dress up and pass out candy in the driveway, because we’ve always had either escape-adjacent or doorbell-hating pets, and frankly I can do without hearing the Goddamn thing all night myself. I have a go-to costume, but I wanted to do something different this year.

And thinking about my son’s inflatable chicken costume got me thinking that an adult Oogie Boogie costume was probably something that existed out there in the world. And then I looked for one, and discovered that they do exist, but they’re either crappy or expensive, and it is also somehow possible that a costume of a dude who is literally a burlap sack filled with worms might not fit me.

Then I thought that it might be fun to wear my Santa suit while passing out Halloween candy, only that idea got shot down because there is a good chance as young as our Trick-or-Treaters get that some of them will want to hug me, and I’m not down with hugging strangers right now, nor am I interested in putting parents in the position of explaining to their kids why they aren’t allowed to hug Santa.

So now I’m all like … burlap’s cheap. It’s not like the pattern is going to be complicated. The trickiest part’s the mask, and that can’t be that hard. Use black wool for the stitches, and they can be wide as hell and sloppy and it’ll still look just fine. He’s literally a burlap bag. There are just not that many ways you can fuck that up!

Somebody talk me out of this, please. There’s less than a week until Halloween so all I have to do is go a few days without ordering the burlap and inertia will take care of the rest.

Bullshitoween 2019

On October 31, 2019October 31, 2019 By Luther M. SilerIn life2 Comments

While the weather wasn’t as brutal as Whatthefuckoween in 2014, tonight featured a lovely fucking bastard of a snow and rain mix, and only a small handful of Trick or Treaters; my son, who has been talking about Halloween ceaselessly for weeks, tapped out after about ten houses. I kept my usual vigil in the driveway; while we no longer have the dogs to lose their damn minds every time someone rings the doorbell my anxiety issues are still juuuuust strong enough that I’m not interested in hearing the damn thing at random intervals all night long and I’d rather just brave the cold and be outside.

Total former student count: three. Level of joy at seeing the look on a kid’s face when you utter the words “you can take the rest of it” to them at 6:57 PM: infinite.

Here’s the thing, though: the last time we had shitty weather on Halloween it just snowed and left an inch or so of accumulation on everything. Today it has been raining steadily all day, it is going to continue raining for another three hours or so … and it’s then going to immediately dip below freezing and the temperature is forecast to be twenty-seven degrees at 7:00 in the morning tomorrow.

In other words, all of that water is going to freeze. And it’s going to stay frozen overnight. And the city of South Bend does not have salt trucks ready on October 31 or November 1. They are the same trucks that are currently kitted out for picking up leaves, and they aren’t going to be able to flip them all over overnight for one day of spreading salt on roads coated in black ice.

I would call even odds on whether we have school tomorrow, is what I’m saying. Because as slippery as the roads are looking to be, with no salting, it very well may be too dangerous for the buses to run. And as someone who has been advocating formally moving Halloween to the last Friday or Saturday in October for years, it would not bother me one tiny little bit to lose the day after Halloween to an ice day.

Halloweeeeeeeeeen

On October 27, 2017October 27, 2017 By Luther M. SilerIn Geek5 Comments

Not too bad for my first attempt at surface carving, eh? Please say yes. 🙂

#Weekendcoffeeshare: Halloween edition

On October 31, 2015 By Luther M. SilerIn Stories15 Comments

If we were having coffee I’d be on my third cup of the morning already, because I had two right after getting up. It’s kind of a sleepy, crabby morning around the Siler household this weekend, because Halloween tonight is probably going to be a washout and that’s putting all of us in a bad mood. It’s already raining and the hourly chance of rain for the rest of the day bounces back and forth between seventy and ninety percent. Should I be thanking Hurricane Patricia for this nonsense? Maybe. I know at least one actual meteorologist; maybe she’ll let me know.

Last Halloween, you may remember, we had a blizzard. Tonight, a torrential downpour. I’d rather have the blizzard; at least I got to stand outside in that, and there are few things that I dislike more than being outdoors in the rain. I have no costume and I didn’t carve a pumpkin because my brain fell into this annoying feedback loop where I wanted to come up with something neat and creative and I couldn’t so I just didn’t do it at all.

I am starting to think, after several weeks of these posts, that I am not a very fun person to have coffee with, and I’m kinda tired of that, too. Then again, if I remember right, I started writing these right after my medical bullshit started up and maybe I shouldn’t blame myself for all of it. I’ve been less fun for the people around me, too.

If we were having coffee, I think you’d probably be able to tell that I start work again next week. It occurred to me yesterday that if I made it through my mom’s surgery without an episode, I can probably get through a week of work, but I am noticeably blechy and jumpy at the moment. I need next week to go smoothly, and I need to not end up in the hospital again, and in particular if the hospital thing happens again I need to just start thinking about taking an entire grading period off, because I have no idea what the hell’s going on. For once, I want to go back to work.

I’m tired of writing posts where people feel like they need to wish me well in comments, honestly.

Later today or tomorrow, depending on my mood, I’ll talk about Searching for Malumba‘s launch. The tl;dr version: surprisingly successful! But more details later.

How are you?

REBLOG: Five Rules For The Jackholes Trying To Ruin Halloween

On October 14, 2015October 14, 2015 By Luther M. SilerIn ParentingLeave a comment

As someone who lives in one of those neighborhoods that kids get brought to… yes, this.

Drifting Through

Can we not suck the fun out of Halloween?

Can we have one day? One day where it’s just about having fun and there are no guidelines or parameters or judgement or rules?

I’ve been hearing plenty of grumbling on both mainstream and social media. Things that annoy people about Halloween. “Rules” for trick or treating.

There’s been an abundance of people who seem to have a stick up their candy bowl.

They have been lamenting the kids who trample their grass, don’t ask politely for candy. The ones who take the candy and don’t say thank you. People who wonder at the wisdom of giving candy when more kids are overweight. Remember the lady who handed out fat shaming letters to trick or treaters? And there are people who think it’s their job to determine how old is too old for trick or treating.

As a public service and…

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