Shocktober

Welcome back, readers. 

I frickin' love this month. 

Outside of The Holidays and Summer, this is my favorite time of year: cool but not cold weather, Halloween, changing leaves, the school year has settled into a well-oiled machine for all parties involved. Aside from the time consuming raking-of-leaves - which I loathe more than shoveling snow - there isn't even any yard work to speak of, since all the grass and plant life are starting to go dormant for the winter (I'm mowing my lawn every other week, on average. . . and it barely needs that.) I would 100% be okay with October lasting a few months and shortening, say, August/September or March/April (my least favorite times of year.)

Our October, in keeping with our unusual 2024 trend thus far, has been quieter than in previous years. We had nothing major on our calendar outside of the usual Halloween obligations towards the end of the month, with no big plans or social events that required their own, special posts on this blog of ours. That's the indicator right there, folks - if you look over off the right, where you see The Archives, and click on any random month, the more posts within that month, the busier it was for us.

But I was fine with it. This year's been nuts at work - my students, though all great kids, are some of the most talkative I've ever had to deal with, and the downtime over the weekends to recharge my mental batteries has been much appreciated.

So as we close out the month, here's a look back at what all went down during the day-to-day usualness around these parts. Check it out. . .

So one day when Kris came home she stumbled over this crack in our garage floor. Now, this crack isn't anything new - we've noticed it for the last few years but it's been relatively small and hasn't grown much. Not sure what caused the dramatic shift in the last little bit, but instead of being a hairline crack that is has been it's now gotten to the point where it's noticeable when your foot hits it.

This canyon is forming when water from outside seems in under ground into the crack, freezes during the winter, and consequently widens the gap in the cement. It's now gotten to the point where we need to have the stupid thing fixed. . . so that should be nice and expensive. 

The first Thursday of the month saw Abby and the MHS JV Pom Squad performing at the Freshman and JV home football games, like they usually do. I wasn't able to attend this one because I was heading to Lodge for the first time since, like, May (we don't usually meet over the summer.)

(Not sure if this was Kris or Alayna taking these.)

Hey look, we actually have some routine footage for you this time around. . .

One of the professional photographers that cover the home games for MHS shared out some of the team pics he captured while they did their Halftime routine.

Kickline is a lot better than what it was a couple years ago. When they do Highkick competition next month the coaches are going to be letting some of these 'football pommers' go so only the super-good kids can complete (thereby increasing our chances of placing first.)

The girls' current Halftime routine.

Sisters at the football game.

The next day, while the kids and I were at our respective schools, Kris went out on her weekly grocery/errands run and stumbled upon this life-size skeleton at one of her go-to stores.

So now we have this giant skeleton just chilling on our otherwise non-Halloween, Fall-ish porch. Right next to the homosexual scarecrow she refuses to get rid of.

Posing for a selfie with it (most likely to send to her fellow mom friends.)

She also picked up these matching sweaters for our dogs. You know, for Halloween.

Later that evening, we met up with the Johnsons for one of our two-hour walks (we canvas the greater Chestnut Hill quadrant of the City.) Weather and foliage - as you can see - is pretty badass these days.

Early the next week, after the girls both got home from school - but before Kris and I got back from our places of work - the girls took some selfies in the living room. We were both pretty excited to find these pics of Abby on Alayna's phone. . .

On Oct. 7th, Kris and I celebrated our 18th Anniversary. Had to get Abby to help us this year for our usual hand gimmick because Alayna picked up a shift at Taco Bell.

Since 2021, our kids have not really been involved in the rest of the family's Halloween Costume Theme. Kris and I usually dress up according to whatever our annual party's theme is (Dream Job, Heroes and Villains, etc.), but starting with our '90s Party the girls have gone rogue and dressed up as whatever they want. Last year, Abby was Cookie Monster - not a hero or villain by any means - so this year we didn't expect the kids to adhere to our Famous Couples theme. Sure enough, Abby (and Ella, of course) decided to go as Bruno Mars (from one of his album covers, I'm told.) She has the hat, too, she just has to finish drawing on it.

Kris' dad's old friend, Don, has become our go-to 'handyman' over the last two years. He fixes all kinds of small things around the house, having background in construction, and charges us next to nothing because he views Kris as a niece (he was around a lot when she was in her teens.) Anyway, she reached out to him about the crack in the garage, and he came out and gave us an estimate - about $400, which we were cool with it, fearing our foundation was crumbling or some shit. He came back the next day and ground down the cement edges, repaving it (or something), and sanding it smooth again.

This was going to be one of those 'three day' sorta jobs, though - not that he had to put a ton of hours in, but there was a lot of 'do something for an hour and then let it dry for 24 hours' crap. Here, once it was grounded down and filled, he had to put some kind of an epoxy over it to seal it and make it water-tight.

Another day of sanding, filling in, and whatever. One more day of fixing left to go.

While Yours Truly was slaving away at my annual Fall Parent/Teacher Conferences down at my school (the second Thursday of the month), Northeast Pom joined Midland High JV Pom for a Northeast home game at Midland High's field. They let the middle schoolers play under the 'big lights' once a year, and the middle schoolers love it. While I was busy talking with kids' parents, Kris joined the Johnsons, Larsons, Colliers, and MacLeods - all who have kids on either the football or pom teams - to watch the big event. At some point, they got a combo pom team pic in, I guess.

Abby, Teagan (Colliers' middle child), and Ella, after the game.

So, when all was said and done, our garage floor was fixed for $450. We were definitely cool with the discount price, but damn - I can think of a lot of things I would have rather spent $450 on, folks. . .

During one weekday evening, there were some 'cool' Northern lights to check out in our area, and Kris took the girls up the street to find a place in our neighborhood without as much light pollution. She took some pics, but hers turned out like crap compared to what she was seeing on Facebook (because, you know, everyone and their brother deemed it necessary to take pics of the Northern Lights and post it online, as if they were the only people to experience this quasi-regular thing.)

So she like awake in bed, later that night (while I was trying to sleep), tossing and turning over the fact that her Northern Light pics sucked. She had looked online and realized the setting her phone camera was supposed to be on in order to get decent pics, and so after dealing with her inability to fall asleep for far too long, I told her to just go out into the backyard and try getting her damn pics again.

They definitely turned out better the second time around, as these pics show (taken in our backyard.)

(You bet your ass I made fun of her - severely - for this.)

Can you tell it's a Friday?

Mt. Vernon Street - nearby our house - has a pretty cool spread of fall foliage every year. This is about a week or two earlier than I would like, but I wanted to get at least one while I remembered (I'll most likely forget to better ones later, knowing how insane the latter part of this month can get.)

These trees (ash or beech, I forget) in our front outlawn get super colorful early on in the season, then dump all their leaves a few weeks before the maples and oaks (the oak in my backyard is the last, and it has more leaves than all my other trees combined, I think.)

Part of cleaning out our garage in preparation for our annual Halloween Party was organizing, wiping down, and decorating my workbench. That skeleton is just happy to be here, folks.

So a few of the dads went out golfing up north one Saturday at some random course they were wanting to check out. Afterwards, they found themselves driving near Bellaire and made a detour to hit up Short's (where we had all previously visited on our Brocation 2021 adventure.) Erik sent a pic of the drink menu to all of us and asked me what I wanted a growler out of, so I pulled the trigger on this Junk & Rubbish imperial stout. Pretty damn good, I'll say that - I'd buy a sixer of it for sure.

Our new trophies for the Halloween Party this year. Our usual 'Best Costume' trophy, which we've bought the last few years now from the same seller on Etsy, was a given, but this year we decided to upgrade the 'Best Couple Costume' trophy, seeing how this year's theme was based on Couples.

Not sure what's so hilarious in the girls' bathroom. . . 

Kinda hard to watch TV when the front blinds are open. At least we're well-guarded around these parts. . .

I decided to skip the gym one evening after work (my day at work had been horrible and I didn't have it in me, so I went later on in the week instead), and so Kris, Alayna and I hung out in the garage working on decorating the basement. Alayna had really wanted to decorate an old sheet like you'd see in a horror movie, with blood splatter and whatever, so we let her work on the garage floor.

She made lots of bloody hand prints on it that turned out pretty cool.

While she worked on that, I hung up this giant 16' x 8' backdrop across the back of our disabled garage door. Definitely harder than it needed to be; it was so heavy that I had to hang it up in stages and to keep it level and flat I had to rehang sections over and over again.

Alayna's finished product, hung up in the basement at the base of the stairs.  She did a good job on it.

This was pretty cool, finding this stained onto our newly re-cemented garage floor. Alayna didn't put anything down underneath the sheet she painted on, so it bled through. Two decorations for the price of one, right?

Abby, hanging out with some of her crew at school (I assume.)

Not sure what the deal is with this video. I think they're auditioning for a skit or something for an upcoming Midland High vs. Dow pep rally, but I'm not sure what this is supposed to be, exactly.

Kris decorated our backyard garden for Halloween on one of her Thursday half-days. Not sure why, though - it's gonna be like 50 degrees for our party next week, ain't nobody hanging out in the backyard. 

Hallway marching, kicking off another Friday home football game at MHS. . .

And some of this.

After school, Alayna went over to Ella's to work on bracelet's for the night's theme - Pink Out (you wear pink and you get into the game free.) Abby was meeting with her counselor so she met up with them later.

The girls and some friends in the bleachers during the game.

At one point that Kaden kid asked Abby if she wanted to 'walk,' which is a thing kids enjoy doing more than anything else at these football games: they just walk along this long, paved walkway, around both Home and Visitor bleachers, and interact with other kids along the way.

Apparently all of Abby's friends knew that this kid was going to ask Abby out, but Abby herself had no idea. She was pretty stoked, though (if you recall, this is the kid she slow-danced with a few times at Homecoming a few weeks back.)

So yeah. Abby has a boyfriend now. Which is weird.

That professional photographer that hangs around at these home games - I showed you some of his pics earlier in this post - managed to get a couple of Abby and her friends after the game when all the students rushed the field.

Not sure who the girl on Emily's back is, but the rest are fellow JV pommers.

After the game, Alayna drove Ella, Abby C, Kaden, and her sister over to McDonald's for a nightcap before dropping folks off at their homes. There's some definite gray area when it comes to how many kids you can have in your car if you're coming from a school event - like, if Alayna was driving folks straight home that would have been fine, but we weren't sure if stopping off at McDonald's on the way was legit. Regardless, we gave her a stern talking-to when they walked in the door later that night. Frickin' teens. . .

The next day, the girls lounged around the house like a bunch of bums while Kris and I did yard work and got the house around for next weekend's big party. 

While Abby and Samson took advantage of the rare, 80-degree weather in late October (thanks again, Global Warming), Yours Truly moved approximately four tons of rocks and boulders from the front of our house into the backyard in order to line the ground around the Shed. Took over an hour with a wheelbarrow, and pretty sure I dislocated both of my elbows in the process, but at least we got it done.

While she was out and about with the other moms, Kris ordered me to whip together a chicken pot pie for the girls that evening, and afterwards I took a pic of it to prove to her that I had managed to provided sustenance for my offspring (because as a dad, you know, I'm apparently incapable of doing so.) In your face, gender roles.

Once I had that chicken pot pie cooling on the stove - I drove over to Erik's house around the corner to drop off the dozen or so frickin' buckets that he had used to bring me the rocks. He was golfing and Courtney was with Kris at that Witch's Night Out thing, so I just piled 'em in front of their garage.

More neighborhood foliage on the drive back from the Johnsons'.

Alayna wanted to host another karaoke party with the orchestra kids the weekend before our Halloween Party. Same deal as before - about two dozen kids crashed our basement from 9pm 'til midnight-ish, devouring food and pop, screeching into the microphones, and taking weird selfies (this time in costume.) We were anticipating a lot more pics of people in costumes, but our kids barely took anything on their phones all night (this one's of Alayna and Ella, towards the beginning of the night.)

Abby and her friends broke into one of our costume totes so those kids who showed up not in costume could wear something. In the process of doing this, she decided to wear my Fred wig from our 2016 Halloween Party, when me and my roommates dressed up as Scooby Doo and the Mystery Gang.

Kris had been away at that Witch's Night Out event for three or four hours, but returned home around 9/10pm, about an hour after the orchestra kids started rolling into my house. When she did so, her and Courtney offered to hang out in the kitchen and drink seltzers and do their nails and what not, freeing Yours Truly up to head on over to the Collier residence, where some of the dads were hanging out around a fire, watching football and having a few drinks. I pounced at the opportunity to get out of the house, if only for an hour or so - folks took off somewhat early for a Saturday night due to early morning obligations the following day.

Abby and her new boyfriend, Kaden (wearing the muscle suit from that same Fred costume mentioned earlier.) 

There were definitely those kids who wanted to do nothing but belt out karaoke numbers, and those kids who just hung out on the couches downstairs all night. Abby and Kaden definitely fell into the latter category.

Making a valiant attempt at braiding Abby's hair.

Kris went downstairs at some point to check on the kids and saw this f***ing nonsense. Kaden didn't move his arm when Kris walked into the room, which obviously sets off some red flags for us parents. At first, we were like 'Can you believe the balls on this kid?', but, after learning more about him (we may have perused the text thread between him and Abby), we've come to the conclusion that he was probably frozen in awkward, teenage fear. He's pretty harmless (thank God).

Watson, enjoying a Sunday nap. 

Later on in the day, Kris and the girls went over to the Larsons for their weekly Sunday Funday get-together. I don't remember if I mentioned this before or not, but every Sunday the Larsons host a very informal get-together over at their house. No set time frame, people just kinda swing by for a bit and leave whenever, but it usually falls in the 1 - 7pm window, and on average about three or four families are in attendance. We go over about 2/3 of the time in order to watch the Lions, have a beer, and enjoy whatever food they're putting out. I haven't been over the last two weeks (due to needing the time to work on stuff from around the house), but I try to get over there whenever they're hosting. Kris and the girls go almost every week in order to visit with the other families who, by this point in time, are more or less extended family of ours. And to hang out with the Larsons' new dog (whose name I don't remember.)

Abby, hanging out and being weird in Alayna's room.

So even though Homecoming '24 is over and done with, Midland High still had one, more Spirit Week up its sleeve. This time around, the week was culminating in the biggest football game of the year: Midland High vs. Dow High, the greatest rivalry in the area. One of the Spirit days this week was Hawaiian-themed, so this is what Abby put together (Alayna was able to snatch up my Hawaiian shirt before her sister could get a hold of it, like last time.)

Alayna took this pic of Watson, trying to have some privacy in the backyard.

Halfway through the week, one evening at the school, the students all gathered in the gym and divided up into their respective grade levels. The annual Yell Night - a traditional, Spirit Week 'pep rally' of sorts - has each grade level competing against each other in order to determine who can yell out the loudest. The winners get nothing but bragging rights (I guess), and the whole shebang is just another ready for kids to get all hyped up for Friday's big game against Dow. Most kids (so I'm told) come back from Yell Night hoarse as all hell from all the noise. Of course, neither of our kids took any pics or video of the event. . . except for this candid pic of Kaden and Abby from behind.

Like I mentioned before, we upgraded our Costume Contest trophies and medals a bit this year. Instead of the generic ribbons that we used in 2022 and 2023, Kris found these slightly-better medals that have the same awards as our voting box ballots (at least these were metal and not just ribbons.)

Abby sneaks a selfie in class on Thursday of Spirit Week, the day of the week that the Freshman and JV football teams play (this week just so happened to be a Home game, which means the JV Pom Team was set to perform.)

Abby makes sure her hair is all cemented into place prior to the game(s).

Meanwhile, back at home, Kris took this pic of Alayna and her special needs companion. Seriously - what f***ing dog sits on a couch like that?

Abby and Nica, all ready for the evening's games.

Abby and some of the other pommers, assembled on the sidelines. Because Midland High and Dow share a football field, the schools take turns every year for which school gets the 'Home' side of the stadium. This year was Dow's turn, so the Dow supporters got to sit in the bleachers that we usually use, and we had to sit over in the visitor's section. Kris, Alayna and I joined the Larsons, Johnsons and Keyes for the first half of the JV game (we usually leave after the kids perform at halftime - none of us really care all that much for JV football.)

Dow's JV Pom Team was going to join ours for a collaborative performance during Halftime, but because it was Dow's turn to be the 'Home Team,' the pom squads would all be facing those bleachers. We all walked over to the Home bleachers after the end of the 2nd Quarter before the pommers' took the field, and were able to snag some decent seats for their Halftime show.

We were trying to figure out how the two teams were able to perform this routine so well together, then realized it was probably one of the routines they learned at the Pom Summer Camp back in July.

(Abby is somewhere off to the right, maybe a half dozen or so in.)

(Not sure who took this video, but it wasn't me - got it off Abby's phone.)

Walking off the field, following a surprisingly decent Halftime show (considering they had never performed together.)

(You can see Abby at center.)

One of the usual photographers at the game got a pic of the pom teams doing this usual 'fire up' thing that they do (pretty sure Abby is off to the right.)

Alayna sent us this pic Friday morning while we were having coffee in the Study and listening to a record. Kris and I both had the day off: I took the day off because I squeezed together an optometrist and a doctor appointment into the same day (I hate taking days off), and Kris, well, never works on Fridays. 

This custodian is getting shit done. Mission accomplished.

While I was off taking care of my various medical appointments in the morning, Kris ran out and took care of all the last-minute groceries for our upcoming Halloween Party. She also made the time to complete her Beer Pong Tournament 'trophies' (we decided to bring back the fan-favorite activity for our party, but this year made it an official tourney, with brackets and everything.)

So Reliable Plumbing finally got around to filling up the pit trap in our storage room, pouring in concrete from when they re-hooked up our drain lines and new sump pump to the city's main line in the street. After two years of back-and-forth'ing with the city, attending city hall meetings, scheduling with plumbers and excavators for various appointments, having our house and yard torn apart, we're FINALLY done with this whole clusterf***. But now we're flood proof (we hope.)

Abby and some kids from her class participated in Friday's big pep rally at the high school, performing some kind of trending Tik Tok dance for the rest of the students. They had to audition for a spot in the assembly, were accepted, and ended up winning 2nd Place (it was some kinda talent show, too.) She was pretty excited about it.

Kris and I were in full-blown 'party prep' mode Friday night, seeing how our big, annual Halloween Party was the following evening, so we didn't end up joining up with the Johnsons, Boses, and Colliers for our usual tailgating. We didn't end up going out at all, preferring to have one, chill, night in at home before all the craziness descended on our house. The girls went, though, and while they didn't take any pics of the game itself (in which MHS defeated their rivals, Dow), they made sure to get a pic of Abby and Kaden afterwards on the field.

#Sisterz

The theme for tonight was 'Black Out,' hence everybody dressed up as frickin' ninjas.

Madelyn (the girl on the far right, holding another kid) is related to one of the professional photographers who always takes pics at these games. Hence why our kids always have pro-level pics taken of them at these games.

The afternoon of our party, BP and I made a quick run down to Cork n' Ale - my favorite beer store in town - in order to grab him and Sam some drinks. While there I picked up a four-pack of that Tiramisu imperial stout from Southern Tier, my favorite specialty stout brewery around. Will definitely have to go back to check out some of these other ones (though I plan on just grabbing singles, as none of them sounded good enough to warranting dropping $15 for a four-pack.)

The morning after our Halloween Party, I realized I had to man up and get my leaves to the curb for the following day's first 'leaf pickup.' Wasn't ideal, but I was able to leaf blow, tarp, and rake my back and front yards in about two hours. Won't be the last time I have to do it this year - usually I have to do two big ones, plus one, smaller, final raking - but at least the first batch made it to the street in time.

Once leaves were done, I headed over to the Larsons for Sunday Funday and to watch the Lions whip the holy bejesus out of the Tennessee Titans. Lot of folks were either tired, hungover, or both, but it was nice to just be able to chill, have a Bloody Mary, and edit Halloween Party pics on my laptop in a low-key setting.

Today, on my way home from work, I swung by the Grace A. Dow Memorial Library for Early Voting. Election Day is next Tuesday, and, well, it's gonna be absolutely insane at the polls. I want no part of that, so I was willing to wait an hour in line in order get it out of the way in advance. Fortunately the whole shebang took exactly 30 minutes (I was keeping track): signing the affidavit, waiting in line to have my ID scrutinized, receiving my ballot after they double-checked my Ward and Precinct, filling out the ballot, and waiting in another line to submit the ballot into the machine. My civic duty done, I got to pick out an I Voted sticker, and you can bet your ass I took the coolest one there. . .

- Brian