Let Me Tell You a Bit about Judith.

     I never thought this early on in my blogging hobby that I would have to write an apology and a retraction all in the same post. Wonders never do cease! I have to do both, retract, and apologise because the other  month I learned something new.

     In my previous post I wrote about C and how she thought a book of the bible was called "Judith" and then quickly learned while rifling through her bible that indeed there was not a book called Judith. Well, not in our King James version of the Bible, nor was the book of Judith found in the New International version and we took peek in the little Gideon Bible and Judith was not found anywhere. We looked in all of our Christian/Protestant standard bibles that we have in the house and no Judith. I am now standing corrected.

     How was I corrected? Very nicely, by a cleaning client of mine, who has bible knowledge that is much much greater than mine, that every time I chat with my cleaning client I walk away knowing a little more than when I walked in.

     I did a quick Google search on the book of Judith and indeed there is a book in the bible called Judith. Who would have thunk it? Not me! I do know that Catholic bibles have a few extra books in their bibles that Christian bibles don't have. Now I don't know why that is, I have not gone to seminary nor is that in my grand plan for the future. But, I do know a little bit about Catholics, like just a teeny tiny bit and I'm going to get to that part in a minute. Now for the retraction part of this blog and little FYI.

     I'm going to tell you a bit about Judith, that mysterious and wise woman Judith.  I'm not going to write a lot about her , because you can do your own Google Search and read it for yourself. Plus I have the apology part of this blog that I need to get to at some point otherwise C will be a teenager full of extra angst.

     According to Wikipedi, this woman Judith was a daring and beautiful widow, and she was mad at her fellow Jewish countrymen for not trusting God to save them from their enemies. Judith and her loyal maid (why does the maid have to go too? I don't get that.)  head off to the enemy camp and basically, with her feminine ways and her allure, promises the General of the enemy camp  information on the Israelites which are her people. When she gains the General's trust with her allure, the General invites Judith into his tent  for a lovely nightcap...very "Loveboat" style. Well, the General can't hold his liquor, and Judith, she does what all daring ticked off widows do, she decapitates the General and brings his head home as as a trophy. The enemy just can't keep it together without their leader so they disperse, and Israel is saved. There's a lesson here, always send a woman in to do a man's job. Nuff said about Judith, and no one really knows if this story of Judith is fact or fiction.

     Now for the apology part:

Dear C,
     Sorry for not believing you about the book of Judith. Seriously, who would have thought that your Catholic brain would have kicked in overpowering your Protestant brain? You have only been to a Catholic church a handful of times, when you were little. I guess it's true, little brains are sponges and soak everything in, and you soaked in some Catholic knowledge and didn't even know it. Don't use it all up, your Catholic knowledge may come in handy one day, you may never know when you need that information, like when you are on a game show or a trivia contest that's being held at a bar in unversity.
Once again, so sorry for doubting you and thank goodness for Google.
Love Mom.

     As for C's Catholic brain, she's a bit of an Irish Rover song, but in reverse. The Irish Rover version is, "Oh, it is the greatest mix up that you have ever seen, me father he was Orange and me mother she was Green." In C's case, her mother she is Orange and her father he is Green.  Orange being Protestant, and Green being Catholic.

     As a little girl, C would be sent every once and awhile to visit her Green grandma, and Green grandma would bring C to church with her...Catholic church, a very cute Catholic church on top of a hill. For the most part, C didn't ever mind going to the Catholic church, which was so different from her own Orange church. She was a keen observer of Catholic rituals, from the kneeling, the standing, more kneeling, the light in the little box, the stained glass windows, kneeling again, and the wafers people received at communion.

     Oh, that wafer, it holds such disappointment in C's eyes. For years she watched people go up to see the priest, receive the blessing, the wafer, and walk back to their pew, savouring their little morsel of goodness, in C's eyes, lip smacking goodness. She waited her turn patiently for a few years, and finally one glorious Sunday morning, it was her turn to be invited up with her Green grandma to receive what all the other parishioners were receiving, that little morsel of lip smacking goodness that the priest slid onto their lips.

     "It's not chocolate Mom." Is what I heard when C came home from Green grandma's house. "All these years, and waiting for my turn to go up and get a piece of chocolate, and it's not chocolate at all. It's just a dry piece of nothing. I thought people were getting something good, it looked like something that would melt in your mouth, like white chocolate. I thought it was a white chocolate wafer, like the kind you get at the Bulk Barn store. It's not."

     From that moment on, the Green part of C's brain was turned off and the Orange part was back upfront and centre. She felt as if she had been lied to and never returned to the little Catholic church on top of the hill. Although, she did mention if the Catholic church did start handing out pieces of chocolate, she would consider going back. I told her not to hold her breath.

     Thus concludes our story of Judith, that wise, daring and apparently beautiful woman. I hope you all leave this blog a little wiser in the Orange and the Green. :)

From the 4th line,
Arlene

   

   

   

Just one moment please.....

     Please bear with all. I have been super busy reading the book of Judith, which to my surprise does exist! I have a retraction slated to be posted ASAP.

     I will get back to blogging as soon as my children are done with the barfy flu and I don't have laundry to catch up on, whilst I also run around spraying Lysol on everything. Oh yes, a nasty sinus infection kept me on the down low as well.

     I'll let you know how the book of Judith turns out.

     Now back to your regular schedulded program.

From the 4th line,
Arlene

Who's JUDITH???

     This tale took place not on the 4th line, it took place on a street, in the little white house we used to live in. The little white house that became too small for our growing family. Fun times happened on the street and street tales need to be told too.
 
     Ah.... darling C. So many things can be said about C, my endearing high school daughter. Nice things can be said, not so nice things can be said, but for today I'm going to stick to the laughable things that can be said about C. For a long time, she did not find this so humorous, but I beg to differ, it's funny, it's become a bit of an inside joke for my family and I'm going to let you all in on it. Jokes are much more fun when everybody is in on them!

     Cue the going back in time music, the wavy coloured lines, because I'm going to take you back a few years, five years to precise, when C was just a wee girl, on the edge of teenage hood and when of course she knew it all.

     Now just for arguments sake, I'm going to say that this occurrence happened on a Wednesday evening. I can't really remember the exact day, but Wednesday is in the middle of the week, so I feel as if Wednesday is a friendlier day, not quite the start of the week, not quite the end, but a good well rounded day. To make the picture a little bit more clear for all, I had a baby boy, a brand spanking new baby boy, the first of two boys. I'll save that story for another day. Which means I still had control over the TV. See? I can pretty much incorporate TV into any situation or have anything happen and relate it to a show on TV, usually I can bring it back to a Seinfeld episode, or an old Simpson episode, even the Flintstones. You get the point and I'll get back to my point.

     The TV show Jeopardy was. The game show, where Alex Trebek is the host and the player needs to answer in a form of a question, there are different categories to pick from and if you are studious and quick to buzz in you can win big money!!!!

      Category.......? "Books of the Bible for $400 please Alex."

     I can't quite remember what the question was, but the answer was a book of the bible. Now, having grown up  going to a Christian school and going to church, I am pretty confident in my books of the bible. I one point in my life I had the old and new testament memorised, not well, the end of the old testament always throws me off, lots of big names ending in "iah" and then the odd little name thrown in like Joel, and Amos to mix up a bit. The new testament, once again it's the end, lots of first and seconds and sometimes a third apostle and lots books ending "ions". Confusing, but....I know where the books are in the bible, I don't have to spend a lot of time rifling through the pages to get to what I want, in that regards I am confident I know the books of bible.

     "Books of the Bible for $400 please Alex." Before I even had a chance to open my mouth, let's remember....a brand new baby was in my arms and I was bit slow on the draw due to lack of sleep, I was about to give the answer....when Charlotte shouted out, "The book of Judith!!!"

     I almost dropped the new baby out of arms. "The book of Judith? There's no book in the bible called Judith."
    "Oh yes there is." That response came from C complete with a knowing head bob and arms crossed in front of her.

     This is the part where I got all up her in face with a sleeping baby in my arms trying to do that yelling/whispering voice because I'm super tired because I just had a baby and someone is trying to tell me that I'm wrong. Well, I was having none of that.   "And pray tell, where do you find this book in the bible, is it in the old or new testament, because I'm telling you, in all my years of memorising bible books, never once did I come across the book of Judith."

     "There is so a book of the bible called Judith."
     "You go find your bible and you go show me the book of Judith, and if you find it I will read the book of Judith, because I am interested in what Judith has to say to me." I did my own attitude head bob with that statement.

     Off she went to her room. I heard drawers opening and closing, papers being rustled around, opening and shutting of closet doors and then, quiet in her room. The bible had been located. I heard pages being flipped back and forth and then a quiet, "ohhhhhh." She emerged from her room, bible in hand.
     "It's Jude."
     "Pardon me? What did you say? Did you say there is no book in bible named Judith? It's Jude?  Who was right? Oh me?  That's right, I told you so. Here's your lesson C, never play against me in basic bible trivia, I will win. You are forgetting that I had years of Christian schooling, going to church, not once, but twice on Sunday, years of Calvinettes, and years of dreaded catechism."
No, I wasn't a gracious winner, but it was her head bobbing attitude with her teenage ways, that brought out the mother angst in me.

     That's the family joke. We joke that if C ever teaches Sunday School, is she teaching from the book of Judith?  We joke that when it's time for her to do profession of faith in church, we hope she selects a passage from the book of Judith to read out loud for all to hear. When she gets married, we joke that her wedding scripture will be from the book of Judith, because from what we understand, that Judith is a wise and wonderful woman, much like C's mom.

From the 4th line,
Arlene

Excuses A'Plenty

     Hey!! I've been away for a bit. Took a break to enjoy the holidays with family and friends. In one week I had three parties at my house! That's a bit much even for me, and then I grew tired...so very, very tired. The pre Christmas and New Year's prep work  wiped me out, and then came the actual holidays and they wiped me out even more, so I stopped doing things and concentrated on what I do best. The people who know me the best will be able to answer what I do best...and if those people answered, "WATCH TV!!!!" those people will be right and they are now high fiving each other.
     I got into a movie marathon of Harry Potter. I'm so not current on movies, and everyone has watched Harry Potter, but me. I found myself with all the Harry Potter movies at my doorstep, begging to be watched, and so I did. I hunkered on down in my big comfy chair and watched all seven movies in basically 15 minutes increments, day in and day out. It took me a month and a half to get through them all, because my children can not watch them with me, as my  3 year old son M says, "It's scwary." What I wanted to say back to the 3 year old M is this, "You came downstairs with a blanket, put it over your head so you can't see the scary parts." But the good mom in me, would shut Harry off so that my boys' heads would not be filled with dementors at night and I would not end up being so, so, very tired from my boys who would not sleep because I was already so, so, tired from parties. So, I had to watch Harry when my boys were in bed, and because I was so very, very, tired, I too, went to bed neglecting even my movie duties. Thus, the explanation of why I had not written anything of great length in a very long time. Just a side note...Harry Potter, the movies were excellent. I may  need to read the books.
     The cold. The cold weather came and I know it's winter, I don't usually complain about winter, I rather like it, but it was utterly, bitterly, cold. You know that kinda of cold, when you sniff your nose when you're outside and your nostrils stick together, gets inside your bones,  that good old fashioned kind of cold. This super cold weather made my house cold, really cold. Now, this year we put in a wood stove, to help keep the kitchen warmer and it's doing its job, but....it doesn't really keep the rest of the house warm. The living room is decent temperature but as you move further away from the wood stove and into other rooms, well, they are a tad bit on the chilly side. The upstairs is the Arctic!! Everyone sleeps with some sort of heating device, the high school daughter C has an electric blanket, the boy D, has his bag that you heat up in the microwave, and M has a hot water bottle. I learned to embrace long underwear. The dad about the house is keeping warm by grinning away at how low his oil and electric bills are this winter.  This cold weather made my old farm house cold inside, which meant that I did not want to expose my digits to type anything. I had both hands in my pockets and I wasn't about to give anyone a high five or play the piano.
     A few months ago I was joking with dad about the house, the wood stove was new, the cold was upon us, not the freaking cold....normal cold, the house was a balmy 72 degrees and the dad was grinning away. Grinning away as he opened his hydro bill and noticed how we had saved on energy by turning off a few out buildings for the winter. I joked with him, "Before to long, you'll have us walking around with oil lamps and reading by candlelight." And then when the oil bill came in and it was not what it was last year, the dad once again had a grin. With the furnace not coming on and us relying on the wood stove for heat, I joked  with him again. "Buffalo robes! Before to long, you'll have us living like pioneers. I'm cooking on the wood stove, heating the house with wood, you're dimming the lights, what's next? Buffalo robes?!
     Buffalo robes did not appear, and I so wished for some buffalo robes this winter. With my upstairs being the Arctic, it's a mad dash to the bed, to get under covers, and don't let your feet touch the floor! I think some nights I could see my breath, the dad said I was exaggerating, but it was and still is on the frigid side up there. There is nothing that wakes you up better than slipping on your ice cold bra, a cold pair of socks and doing the mad dash down the stairs to finish getting dressed in the washroom, where the nice heated floor is located.
     See? Not too exciting. I haven't travelled anywhere, I haven't done anything of great extravagance, I just have the two excuses as why I haven't blogged, it was that darn Harry Potter,  and the cold.

From the 4th line,
Arlene

Oh, Baby!!

     M stole a baby. Let's all remember that M is not quite 3 years old. Still a baby himself in my eyes. M doesn't believe he stole a baby, in his eyes, he was saving baby. Baby was snatched or I should say rescued from a closet where she was living in a box that was filled with Legos. Baby also lives with one of my cleaning clients who kept toys in one closet for when nieces and nephews came to visit. My cleaning client's  nieces and nephews are now grown and no longer play with the toys in the closet. So, I like to think that M thought he was doing Baby a favour by saving her from a lifetime of sitting in a dark closet in a box with sharp cornered Lego poking at her rubber limbs. It's not that M snatched her maliciously, he didn't stuff her under his shirt and tip toe out the door. It happened all very innocently, "Baby come home with me."  Baby came home with us.
     Baby was only supposed to stay with us for two weeks, and then go back to my client's house,  but she has managed to extend her stay to 3 months. Now, it's like we are fostering her, which I don't mind, she requires no maintenance at all. She doesn't even wear clothes, except for a bib. M thought she needed to wear it, but he uses the bib to drag Baby around.
     If you have ever seen the movie Toy Story 3, M's baby looks like the Toy Story baby, but less creepy. Baby has rubber limbs and a rubber head and her skin has a lovely olive colouring to it, I like to think she comes from Italian heritage. Her body is an off white cloth, stuffed with what feels like rice, I'm pretty sure it's not rice, but it makes her squishy but still firm. Oh, her hair, is a shade of brown, moulded onto her head, she never has bed head, because her hair and head are all one piece. Her eyes are her best feature, electric navy blue, with long lashes that flutter when you lay her down or pick her up. Her lips, a perfect pout.
     Baby has been places since she has come into our lives. We call her a "she", M informed us that Baby was a girl and that he was the daddy. Baby has been grocery shopping, she's been to the bank, but mostly, she just travels around with M and waits for our return in the van. She hangs out at home with M, she enjoys watching kid shows with him, and at night she has the prime spot in bed, right beside M, only the favourites get the coveted spot, and only M seems to the rotation schedule of his thirty stuffies that congregate in his bed. I like to feel that we have enriched Baby's life since she's left the closet. I know she has enriched ours these past few months, in around about way
     A few years ago, a movie came out, that I just recently watched. It was called, "Lars and the Real Girl." Ryan Gosling played socially awkward Lars who ordered a mannequin to fulfil a void in his life. Lars took his pretend lady, "Bianca" everywhere. He had her dressed nicely, gave her an occupation, and treated Bianca as a "real" lady. At first the townsfolk where taken aback with Lars and Bianca, but soon learned that Lars needed Bianca, and the townsfolk embraced Bianca with open arms. The townspeople embraced her so much that Bianca was booked solid with people of the town keeping her busy with bowling and visiting shut ins. To make a long story short, Lars gave Bianca a sickness and she passed away, with the townspeople giving her a real funeral and letting Lars know how much Bianca had enriched their lives and how they had been taught by her.
     Sometimes I feel this way with Baby the same way Lars felt with Bianca. We treat Baby like she's real. D doesn't have the maternal instinct that M does. M usually has Baby wrapped in a blanket, usually because she's been crying and needs her mommy. The mommy is me. Yes, I carry Baby. Only for a minute, I let M know that Baby is quiet, so I sit her down. D doesn't treat Baby like a football. He isn't punting her around like he does with other stuffies. D and M seem to have a mutual understanding that D is to keep his mitts off of Baby. In fact D tries to help M out with Baby, by picking her up, usually by a foot, and dropping her on the couch. Last night, Baby came out to D's swimming lesson. The dad about the house had Baby wait in the vehicle while we were all in the pool area. I really don't know what the dad about the house was thinking, leaving her in a cold van like that, and when I voiced this concern, he reminded meand rolled his eyes at me, that she had a blanket. "Rather she freeze in the van, than lose her at the pool."
     Today, Baby hurt her head. M told me so. I asked him if she needed a band aid and M responded with a "No." Doctor D was on duty. And then the things that happen when I leave the room. When I came back into the kitchen, Baby was lying with her back down on the kitchen table. M was sitting on the kitchen table, hammer in hand. Doctor D, was sitting on a kitchen chair with a screw driver...square head. I can only assume that an operation was taking place. I guess I saved Baby's life when everyone needed to head out the door to begin the day.
     I'm not quite sure what will happen to Baby. Maybe her fate will be that of Bianca's,  M will have her grow sick and then just pass away. Or maybe I'll  just take her home, to her rightful home, back to the closet with the box of Lego.

From the 4th line,
Arlene

Cursive or cursed writing?

     I have a love/hate relationship with a pen. Not so much with a pencil, pencils come with erasers on top, so you can quickly do away with an error with a few vigorous rubs on your paper, try to keep your paper intact, rubbing to hard does produces holes in ones foolscap. Pens are different story, you can't erase pens. I know in this day and age you can go out and buy fancy shamcy erasable pens but from what I've seen, you can still see the error. And I don't like the ink in those pens, it's weird ink, doesn't flow as nice it gets kinda gloppy and smeary when you accidentally glide your hand through it.. I know there's white out you can buy to "paint" over your mistake, put everyone knows the mistake is there because white out isn't the same white as your piece of paper.  And then there's the white out tape, which just bugs me, or maybe I don't work it right, but I usually end up covering too little of the mistake or covering too much of the mistake and end up with letters just sort of hanging about in a sentence. When I find a great pen, and what I mean when I say a "great pen", I like the way it feels in my hand, a fine point, not to thin, not too thick, the ink runs nicely, doesn't glomp out leaving gobs of ink on your paper, doesn't leak and leave ink all over hands, and then you take so much time trying to figure where this ink is leaking from and by that point your piece of paper is a mess so you crumple it up and look for a pencil. When I find that great pen, and when I want to use that great pen, chances are, highly likely, that someone with the initial "C" who lives in my house, has taken that pen to school because she can't find her big box pens that she bought at the beginning of the school year in her messy room and so she leaves me with the crappy pens that won't produce ink or skip ink along the paper.

All that being said........It's Go Time!!!

     I learned how to cursvise write in Grade 4. with pencil, with an eraser on top. The day that we learned how to write a capital letter"I" in handwriting was the day that I was absent from school. I can remember where I was too, at the eye doctor,  getting fitted for my over sized, pastel coloured, googly, upside down armed glasses to help me see the chalkboard better. I missed the whole lesson on how to write a proper capital letter "I" so when I returned school a short while later, everyone in my class was happily writing capital letter "I" the proper way.
     The school that I attended was a little rinky dink country  school that put penmanship in high regard. If you had great penmanship, you were going places. With this all being said, I figured out on my own how to write a capital letter "I". I did ask the teacher for help, and she did show me but I wasn't too keen on her way. I liked my way better. Her way was to start with the big loop and swoop over to the tail. I showed her my way. My way was to start with the tail, and end with the loop. Backwards. That's when my teacher asked me to write out a sentence for her. That's when I ended up with a "corrective red rubber triangle shaped put on my pencil" thingy mabobber. Apparently I held my pencil wrong, and this corrective device was going to guide me along the path of perfect penmanship.
     WRONG!!!!
     Let's fast track through a few years. My rinky dink school was big on doling out "lines" as punishment. I have done my fair share of lines. "I will not forget my homework" was one. "I shall not talk" was another. "I shall not talk back" was another goodie. Those were the main ones I received and please write  out one hundred times! As you got up in grades, writing dictionary pages and long passages out of the bible were favourite punishments for teachers.
     I like to think that this is why my penmanship suffered. I just wanted to write my lines out quick and get them over and done with. I didn't care what my lines looked like, I wrote them out on the bus on my home. I wrote them in bed, late at night with a flashlight clamped between my teeth so my parents wouldn't find out that I had lines.....AGAIN!! I wrote them on the way to school on the bus with friends helping so my teacher wouldn't dole out a hundred more because I had forgot to do them. I got good at doing lines. I still forgot my homework, I still talked, and I still talked back. Can you tell? Those lines did me a lot of good.
     Then one day, a whole bunch of us got lines. Usually, there was a small select group that received lines and I was in that select group. But this time, people who never got lines, got lines. One girl, in my class, who never got lines, got lines too. When she handed in her lines, with all us regular "writers of lines, my teacher held her piece of paper with one hundred perfectly written penmanship lines  up the wazoooo, and went on and on how he had never seen a punishment written out so beautifully. He went so far as to pass it around the class for all of us to see, I believe it was even thumb tacked to the bulletin board as a lesson for us regular line writers. Clearly this girl had not written her lines on the bus.
     Penmanship was making me angry. The little rubber thingy on the end of my pen certainly had not worked for me. We kids were writing things out all the time and being marked on penmanship, and there was a few us that were being scored all time lows on the cursive scale. I never thought that was fair, some were just more gifted in the art of using a pen, but I never voiced it, I would have ended up with lines again.
     One of our Grade eight teachers had the brilliant idea to hold penmanship writing contests for each grade. And each winner would have their piece thumb tacked to the big bulletin board in the library. An hour, one afternoon, for a few weeks we wrote out poems on pieces of foolscap. Never once did my work appear thumb tacked to the centre of the board, it did get thumb tacked, but it sat on the outskirts on the outside looking in.
     A buddy of mine, and I, well, we had had enough. Our fingers hurt from clenching our pens tight trying our best to coax out flowing and twirly letters. We revolted, held a mutiny, we schemed and devised our plan. When the next poem was handed out for us to copy, we set to it. Every week poems came to us in photocopied, handwritten form and from this we had to transpire our own cursive art. My buddy and I we cheated. We traced. We took our foolscap, placed it over our own teacher's handwriting and traced her letters. We were sure we were going to win that penmanship contest that week. We were willing to bet the farm on it. But alas, cheaters never prosper and neither did we and our traced work was regulated back to sides of the bulletin board. We didn't make centre stage.
     As much as my dad thinks that I have missed my calling as an auctioneer, I think I have missed my calling as a doctor. I could have been a great doctor with my indiscernible handwriting skills. I could just skip the medicine part and go straight to writing out "scripts" for patients.
     It was my highschooler C that brought my attention back to my penmanship skills. She needed notes for missed classes, stating where her where abouts were that day. I quickly wrote in cursive, a note. C took one look at her note and asked what it said. It was the usual, "C was not in class that day because blah, blah, blah...." note. I wrote another note and took my time with it. It started out neat, but by the end, it was a scrawly mess. I read it to her again, and she took off to school.
     "Mom, I had to read your note. Out loud. The secretary took one look at it, and gave it back to me to read to her. Maybe you should just print things."
     Christmas card season will soon be upon us. I will receive in my mail cards that will be handwritten, not all beautiful, but they will be legible. Some will be hand printed, some will be written loopy and on a slant. Some will be handwritten in twirls, swirls with swoopy swoops, so fancy that it will be a hard to read who it comes from. Each card that reaches my home, whether it's a penmanship mess or a proper penmanship work of art, each card will find a place thumb tacked to the centre of my bulletin board because in my house penmanship doesn't count!
   
   

The Ghost from Halloween Past

     It's the most wonderful time of the year! That time of year when kids put on scary costumes and go around to houses begging for candy! Of course it's Halloween!
     My 2 little guys of course will be dressing up and heading out to get some candy from our neighbours. D will be a dragon. He's the dragon from the movie, "How To Train Your Dragon." Which means I have to pet his dragon head when he wears his costume, and train my dragon. I was trying to train my dragon to pick up his toys, but apparently dragons are not trainable to do that sort of thing. My dragon also breathes fire or he tries to. It's more like a dry cough, hairball style. M is a cow. Which is wrong, M is a bull. All I need now is a china shop. He is dressed for exactly what he is...a bull in a china shop.
     Their warm fuzzy costumes, and Halloween made me think of my Halloweens growing up, in the past, eons ago.
     Cue the dream music, waving lines, up and down and let's flashback to a different time, different place.

     I grew up on a dairy farm, outside a little town, like the coal miner's daughter, but not quite the same. My dad didn't have the  black lung like coal miners did, but he did have farmer's hands, which were rough, and calloused, and hurt like a son of gun, when he spanked. Or so I've been told, I was of course always an angel, not worthy of spankings...  I was the dairy farmer's daughter and so was my little sister.
     Growing up in the country, you don't get trick or treaters to your door. I was always some what jealous of the town kids. Houses decorated, jack o lanterns lit, the fun of answering your door and shellling out to kids.
     Store bought costumes were not asked for when I was growing up, Halloween and trick or treating was a custom my dutch parents were not brought up with. My mom went along with this Canadian tradition and did her darnedest to make sure we kids got to go and have our night of candy. Mom was a busy lady with four kids, limited resources, her ideas of costumes consisted of using our barn clothes, tin foil, whatever odds and ends were in the sewing basket, and orange red Tangee lipstick for clown makeup.
     When Halloween night would arrive, us kids would be all a twitter, looking forward to our night of begging for candy. Of course, we would be dressed as farmers, throw on your barn clothes, rubber boots, your barn toque, your winter barn coat and we were ready to hit the streets of our small town. Yes, it was slightly awkward when we were asked what we were.

     "What are you 2 dressed as? Aren't you John's daughters from the sixth line?" townfolk would ask.
     "Why we're farmers and yes, he's our dad," my sister and I would reply.
     "You're dressed as farmers! Aren't you farmers all the time?!" they would ask.

     We tried changing it up from year to year. Still in our barn clothes, but when you add a stick with a hankerchief stuffed with rags tied to the end of your stick, you're a hobo. When you take your barn clothes, the stick with the stuffed hankerchief stuffed with rags tied on the end and paint your face with your mom's Tangee red lipstick, you become that French speaking clown from the 1970's that you used to watch on TVO and even though you didn't understand that weird mime clown, you watched him anyway because there was nothing else to watch. Still barn clothes were the main part of our Halloween costumes. Tin foil taped to our hats...TA DA! Alien Farmers!!!
     One year, I don't know where my mom got them, I think she got them from a lady at her work. At this stage in her life,  mom went back to being part of the work force. She came home with the most wonderful costumes my sister and I had ever seen. She held out for me a beautiful pink full length spaghetti strapped evening gown, and for my sister, a velour forest green with gold threading jumpsuit. I was a princess that Halloween year, with my bristol board, tin foil covered  cone shaped crown with an old sheer curtain glued to the top. My sister was my jestor. Also with a bristol board cone shaped crown on her head. No barn clothes that year! We were trick or treating in style! We flounced up and down those sidewalks, knocking on doors  and we answered mightly, that YES! we were John's daughters from the sixth line! And NO! we don't know how many cows he's milking right now, but we'll be sure to let him know that you asked!
     Grade Eight was the last year I got out trick or treating, and that was the year I got to go with my friends and I was trick or treating in a different town. We were giggly girls dressed in garbage bags and  on the look out for boys. I remember it being cold that night, and garbage bags don't  offer the same protection agaisnt the cold as barn clothes do. I was missing my barn clothes costume that night.
   
     My boys in their store bought costumes will have a wonderful time trick or treating. By the time this is posted, trick or treating  will have come and gone. The night of Halloween my kitchen looked more like a dressing room. It was like a night at the Oscars, with the numerous costume changes that had taken place. D was a dragon at one point, but that was quickly discarded and he was busy trying to cram his too small spiderman suit on his big self, and then was happy to discover that I had remembered about the too big Ninja costume and he happily put that on with me making modifications to keep it from off his arse. M started his day out as a penguin, morphed into a zebra, and finally settled on his Batman costume with Spiderman mask. It was when I looked at the pile of costumes on the floor, that I missed the days of just slipping on your barn clothes and being the farmer.

From the 4th line,
Arlene