Dress Your Family In Tortoise Shells and Pumpkins

In case you live in a hole - this is David Sedaris

And now for the epic finish to the great couple of days that I had.  Monday, Carrie and I had tickets to see David Sedaris - hands down one of our all-time favorite authors.  He was hilarious!  I'd seen him read two years ago when his last book When You Are Engulfed in Flames came out and loved it but wasn't able to stay for the meet and greet afterward because I had rehearsal. (Blast!)  But since my friend Angela was able to stay, I had written him a short note expressing how Naked, my favorite book of his, had helped me learn to laugh again after a rather hard time in my life.  In my copy of Naked he simply wrote "Thank you for the kind note," at which I was quite overjoyed. :)  So Carrie and I resolved that we had to stay no matter how long it took to meet him.  (She had never met him or seen him read).  Towards the end of the show he mention that he had a friend who cuts hair at a mental institution and how it seemed like there was real potential there for a hilarious hair salon name.  All he could think of was "Hair Brains" though.  He also mentioned that he collects jokes from people in the meet & greet lines.  Carrie also had a couple of misogynistic jokes to tell him but since anytime I am put on the spot to tell a joke I choke like a baby on a button. (Booya - offensive simile joke.  Ah but the pressure's off now.)  So I pulled out my moleskin and resolved to present something I could handle - creating a list of possible mental institution hair salon names.  This proved to be an excellent idea as it passed the nearly two (yes TWO) hours we spent waiting in the sheeple corral and helped diffuse our nerves a bit.  The list we ended up with included:
- Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow
- Electro Shock Hairapy
- Freudian Snips
- Wrist Hair Cutters
- The Shampoony Bin
- Loony Trims
- and Nuts About Cuts, Cuts for Nuts, or simply Nuts Cuts

He loved The Shampoony Bin - my spin on the Loony Bin. :)  I was so proud.  I asked him if he wanted the list and he was thrilled to take it.  David Sedaris has a page out of my moleskin notebook!  How surreal!  He was even still chuckling and muttering it under his breath as we left, smiling our faces off with pride.  "Make someone famous for their humor laugh" was not on my bucket list, but I think I just might add it and cross it off because I was so proud of that accomplishment.  Like I said, he taught me to laugh after a time when I really didn't think I could anymore, so I think it was kind of poetic that I was able to give him some laughter back.  And guess what he wrote in my book this time? :)

Carrie and I ended our night celebrating with some beer and hummus at one of my favorite Southside bars The Library - quite apropos, eh?

And finally yesterday (Tuesday) I went to Hozak's Farm with my good friends Elaine and John for our second year of pumpkin picking.  Last year we went to Reilly's Summer Seat which is hands-down my favorite pumpkin patch.  The scenery is spectacular and they really have it all - hayride to their authentic pumpkin patch, farm dog, boo barn, corn maze, caramel apples, scarecrows, and even the Great Pumpkin from Charlie Brown! (What more could you ask for really?)  Only bad thing was that last year we visited the last weekend before Halloween and there were about three pumpkins left in the field.  Also, Reilly's is a bit more expensive and I wasn't sure if they have hayrides to the patch during the week because Mr. Reilly talks you in circles on their automated answering machine.  So, I decided that we should try Hozak's where my family gets our Christmas tree since I found out that their hayrides are free (fist pump!) and they have the best old gift shop with stuff that you could only find in the attic of your great-aunt Beulah.  We all had a blast in the gift shop finding everything from several books that were over a hundred years old to some demonic Easter bunnies to a giant tortoise shell!  The pumpkin patch itself was hilarious.  It was less of a patch and more of a forest of strategically placed pumpkins.  John said that the heavens must have opened and chosen this spot to dump these pumpkins.  We did find some winning pumpkins in the magical pumpkin forest and the best part was that they were cheaper than both Janoski's and Reilly's!

By the way, here are some of the treasures we found in the gift shop:

Demon Bunny

Book Published in 1902

An Ancient Cash Register - apparently no on had more than $6 when this was made

What I didn't know before this trip was that Janoski's was on the way to Hozak's so I decided to stop and show them their giant selection of different gourds and cute farmer's market.  We ended the day with a little wine tasting at their new Volant wine tasting room before heading back to Robinson and parting ways.  Oh yeah, almost forgot, we began the day in Robinson having lunch at the Ikea food court where I had a gargantuan plate of Sweedish meatballs.  Overall quite a successful couple of days, I'd say. :)

Forever and ever et magical pumpkin forests,
Your favorite loony toon - Cara

Halloween Film of The Day: The Shining

My prize pumpkin

This Year's Halloween Playlist (less Halloweenie than the other one - I kind of used up most of the staple songs last year):
1. Abracadabra - Sugar Ray cover
2. Ghost Town - Shiny Toy Guns
3. Victor's Piano Solo (from Corpse Bride)
4. This Is Halloween - Panic at the Disco cover
5. Superstition - Stevie Wonder
6. Teeth - Lady Gaga
7. Psycho Killer - Talking Heads
8. Monsters - Funeral For A Friend
9. Blood - My Chemical Romance
10. Boris The Spider - The Who
11. I Put A Spell On You - She & Him
12. Of Moons, Birds, & Monsters - MGMT

13. Decode (from Twilight) - Paramore
14. Hello - Evanescence
15. On The Rise (from Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog) - Neil Patrick Harris & Felicia Day
16. Miss Murder - AFI
17. I Never Told You What I Do For A Living - My Chemical Romance
18. Spooky - Classics IV
19. The Piano Duet (from Corpse Bride)
20. My Boy Build Coffins - Florence & The Machine
21. Purple People Eater - The Neanderthals cover
22. Monster - Lady Gaga
23. Zombie Jamboree - Rockapella

John inspecting the magical pumpkin forest