Halloween

I spent the first half of my life growing up in a tiny village in the North East of Scotland. The kind of place where you pass gas and the entire place knows about it. The kind of place where if your dad was the village clergy you were held to a standard most kids couldn't live up to. The kind of place where pumpkins didn't grow and on October 31st we carved turnips, yes turnips. The kind of place where it was OK to do the Halloween thing.

I remember one such chilly October evening my sister and I were knocking on doors, trying to do our best to fill our bags and rot our teeth. We decided to knock on the door of an older couple who were members of the church. The door opened and we were immediately lectured about the evils of Halloween, told that their household didn't endorse devil worship and that our bags of candy would be the weights around our necks which would eventually drag us straight to hell. OK so i embellished a little but it did happen something like that. Fortunately we were wearing masks to disguise our sinful faces otherwise i'm sure it would have escalated into an epic village incident culminating in my father being driven from the pulpit.

Later in life, living in New York and having children of my own, we followed the norm there. Halloween was typically frowned on by the church and most churches offered alternatives for kids which still allowed them to get dressed up and get all hopped up on MMs.

Living in Texas we again discovered a different norm. Most of the people here, even the church people do Halloween. So for the past 4 years living in Texas, October 31st rolls around and my kids go trick or treating. I've been incredibly impressed on each of these Halloween evenings, when walking around neighborhoods with the kids, at the incredible sense of community. People are on the streets, people are interacting and last year we even encountered a couple of homes offering free hot dogs.

I like it. I don't like the gruesome macabre side of things. I think some of it is downright sick. I don't endorse devil worship. What I do endorse is kids being kids. My kids love to dress up and they love candy and I don't think for a second and of this will lead them to joining a coven or sacrificing babies in the woods later in life.

As a parent I am ultimately responsible for the upbringing of my kids and my kids alone. If you choose not to do the Halloween thing with your kids thats entirely up to you.

So on Saturday evening, an eight year Snake Eyes from the GI Joe movie, a five year old rock star, their mom and I will touring the neighborhood trying to amass enough candy to rot all of the teeth out of their mouths several times over and more importantly so much candy that they'll never notice me stealing half of it.

We had a dress rehearsal tonight. They look great.

Blissful Solitude

I miss my kids. Simple as that. It's a situation that is not ideal, a situation which never gets easier but you do get used to.

So in the interest of taking my thoughts captive and turning a negative into a positive, here are my...

Top 10 Reasons Why It's Good To Be Alone

10. I can keep the temperature in my house the way I like it.

9. Lower utility bills.

8. My schedule belongs to me (when it's not baseball season, Thursday evenings, dropping the kids at school,  parent teacher conferences, every other weekend or any of the countless hours my schedule belongs to JC Penney etc, etc, etc...)

7. Smaller grocery bills.

6. I can leave the toilet seat up (even though after years of "training" I seldom do).

5. My house never gets particularly dirty.

4. I watch what I want to watch on TV (even though I don't watch much TV and when I do it's usually stuck on ESPN).

3. Peace and quiet.

2. My washer and dryer have it pretty easy.

1. When my kids are here it makes the time that much more special.

Great Expectations

Just read an interesting quote by a guy called Elliot Larson, who said...

"Anger always comes from frustrated expectations"

So true.
The fact is that for most of my adult life, most of the struggles, disappointments and anger I've experienced came about as the result of expectations which myself and others (but mostly myself) had put on me.

I have a terrible habit of planning out significant chunks of my life down to the most minute detail before they've even happened and when inevitably the reality of life plays out I get upset, uptight and downright disappointed which leads to feelings of failure, resentment and often anger.

Now don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with planning or having goals but this is something different. There are often a number of different roads we can take to get to our goals and being fixated on only one of these roads sets us up for failure before we even embark on the journey. I'm learning that the path we take is constantly evolving, packed with surprises around each bend and that flexibility is a key part of maintaining my sanity.

So as for those expectations; what does THE man say about them in THE book?

Matthew 22:37-39

"Jesus replied:"Love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: love your neighbor as yourself"

Thats it. I take the path God leads me on. I endeavor to live a life pleasing to him along that road. I love the people he puts in my way on the journey.

Great (but simple) expectations.

Friday Favorites

It's an otherwise dreary Friday morning but i'm listening to some awesome music so here's a list of some of my other favorite things this morning.

Favorite Song- "Crawl" Kings of Leon

Favorite Color- Purple

Favorite Drink- Large Tea, skimmed milk, 4 Splenda, sounds gross but i'm becoming quite dependent on it in the mornings

Favorite Texas season- Fall

Favorite People- Ben and Emily

Favorite Quote- That Which Does Not Kill Us Makes Us Stronger

Favorite state of mind- Confused

Favorite Super Heros- Spider-Man and Wolverine (B and E dressed as them for a special day at school this morning, i offered Emily Super Girl and Bat Girl costumes, she chose Spider-Man. Love it.

Favorite place to be right now- at my desk, good music, working

Favorite Place to be when i'm not here- kind of starting to dig my back patio lately

Favorite electronic gadget- my iPod Touch

Tales From the Crapper

I've heard from a couple of sources recently that people actually read this and a great multitude are eagerly awaiting my next installment of wisdom. Little do these people know that telling someone with the last name of Blackmore that you're remotely interested in what they're saying is like telling and Anorexic that they could lose a few pounds. The mind boggles but anyway...

So I recently took the plunge and moved out of the box I was living in and purchased a house in the well known rural homestead of Aubrey Texas.

One of the main differences between most of the houses I was familiar with in New York and the houses I've lived in in Texas is found in the master bedroom. If you're lucky enough to have your own exclusive "en suite" bathroom it generally has a special room within a room reserved solely for the porcelain throne or crapper.

And if you're ever lucky enough to enter my master crapper you'll find that as you're sitting there doing what nature requires us all to do, there are 3 picture frames hanging on the wall directly in front of you. This is no accident because I know for sure that on a daily basis or sometimes twice daily, depending on my fiber intake and certain Jewish holidays, I will find myself sitting there and the wall in front of me will have my full attention.

So here's my bathroom viewing...

1- There's a copy of a poster issued by the British government during WW2 which contains the simple phrase "Keep Calm and Carry On". It was hanging in an identical spot in my former residence and in a manner which only the Brits can do, has actually helped me a great deal during the last year of my life. The sky is falling, the bombs are dropping, tally ho, bangers and mash, fish and chips, stiff upper lip and get on with life.

2- There's a framed copy of Psalm 91, given to me by my awesome Mum a few years ago when I was facing a mountain of uncertainty and concern with serious health related issues. I don't have the whole thing memorized but love the opening lines...

"He who dwells in the shelter of the most High

Will rest in the shadow of the Almighty

I will say of the Lord, "He is my refuge and my fortress, my God in whom I trust"

3- There's another framed passage from the bible. this time from Proverbs 30. I remember sitting in church last year right in the middle of the stress of divorce, facing tremendous financial hardship and a hailstorm of lies and accusations. The guy speaking read these words and I knew it was destined to be framed in the crapper...

"Two things I ask of you O Lord

Do not refuse me before I die:

Keep falsehood and lies far from me;

give me neither poverty nor riches

but give me only my daily bread."

It doesn't hurt to choose some words to live by and remind ourselves of those daily. It doesn't hurt to keep those words in a place where we'll see them often. In my case it's the crapper. Nature calls. Goodnight.