On my drive back and forth from Columbus last weekend, I passed several signs for an attraction called “Haunted Hoorah,” which was a little puzzling. Zombie cheerleaders?
No. It’s a reference to the Marine…cheer? Don’t know what you’d call “hoorah” as it applies to U.S. Marines, and I bet Jeff Gill will set us straight presently. But the website offers more clarity:
Haunted Hoorah is a 15,000 square foot, ten acre facility located in Marion, Ohio. You become part of the story, in this unique, interactive, Military/Sci-fi themed haunted attraction!
Attacking your senses and fears with every twist and turn. The Haunted Hoorah’s fright begins on a military transport as recruits travel to the first haunted destination – Joint Research Base Hoorah. Each recruit comes face to face with the doctor as he determines whether or not you have the substance necessary to be used in his super soldier creation program. Do you have what it takes? Come to the Haunted Hoorah for an experience that you will never forget.
Um, no thanks! But thanks for clearing that up. A few days later, I caught a Marketplace segment on the business of “scream parks,” which is what haunted houses — and they’re much more than houses — are called.
Haunted houses are so 20 years ago. If a building can be commandeered for a month, almost anything can be haunted. When I was in college in Athens, the haunting was at a vacant hospital. (“Wait until you see the maternity ward,” one of the builders confided.) Here in Detroit, they’re cashing in on the decades of scary stories connected to the Eloise Psychiatric Hospital, closed 40 years ago but still OMG CREEPY. One of my great regrets was never visiting the — I love this name — Haunted Scary Building in Detroit, on Mack Avenue in Detroit. I couldn’t find anyone to go with me. They had a barbecue barrel set up across the street doing a brisk business. The following year, the Haunted Scary Building had been sold and demolished. Damn. There’s also a haunted car wash somewhere nearby. The Haunted Garage, at the end of my street, does a land-office business. On November 1, they strike the set and put up an over-the-top Christmas display, of course.
The various hauntings put on by evangelical Christian concerns were almost all terrible, inviting laughs, not screams. Oh look, a girl is having an abortion. Someone else is facing the fires of hell. Inevitably, you’ll hear someone in the crowd say they’re just not stoned enough for this bullshit.
Even worse was a haunted…something. Maybe it was a vacant Sears store? It was put on by the Fort Wayne police, and it was just terrible. A friend and I did a tour of several of these places for a column, and in that one, even the police couldn’t get into it. “Here’s a guy who made some bad choices,” one said, turning on a light that illuminated a skeleton lying in a coffin, still wearing his gang colors. So lame. I think the worse choice was trusting the FWPD to do justice to his story.
Back to the Haunted Hoorah, it’s a wonder they had to blend “sci-fi” into their military attraction. From what I’ve heard about Parris Island, it sounds scary enough just by itself. Battle a ghoul with pugil sticks! March for 25 miles before you’ve had coffee! Watch the rest of the platoon laugh at your girlfriend’s nudes!
Oh well, happy Halloween to all who celebrate.
Not much bloggage today, but here’s a gift link to an insanely long and even crazier story about the relationship between Kanye West and Adidas from today’s NYT. It is NUTS:
Just weeks before the 2013 swastika incident, The Times found, Mr. West made Adidas executives watch pornography during a meeting at his Manhattan apartment, ostensibly to spark creativity. In February 2015, preparing to show the first Yeezy collection at New York Fashion Week, staff members complained that he had upset them with angry, sexually crude comments.
He later advised a Jewish Adidas manager to kiss a picture of Hitler every day, and he told a member of the company’s executive board that he had paid a seven-figure settlement to one of his own senior employees who accused him of repeatedly praising the architect of the Holocaust.
This is what it’s like to work for an unmedicated manic-depressive, evidently. Amazing.
Have a great week, all.
Dexter Friend said on October 30, 2023 at 3:55 am
There is an office building in Toledo that was a mental patient facility of some sort we were told when my daughter lived in that area at Detroit and Arlington. The kids were told to keep away because it was haunted. At any rate, it was a creepy old building to look at. Here’s a little ghostly bit I grabbed from a long post of unknown origin:
“In the early 1970s, Toledo State Hospital began emptying out its buildings, transferring its patients to other facilities.
The facility sat vacant and unused, and quickly became an attraction for thrill seekers, vandals, and urban explorers. And stories of strange phenomena began to circulate soon after.
Those who dared visit the old asylum would often return with a laundry list of experiences that, to some, were too good to be true. Doors were seen to open and close by themselves. Strange sounds, such as moaning, was often heard coming from a second floor room in one of the buildings. And, then there were the phantoms.
Many have claimed to have seen human-shaped shadows moving through the buildings, one room to another, day or night. Ghosts appear out of nowhere, glide along a hallway, and then fade from sight. Some claim that they heard these spirits whispering, mumbling, and sometimes screaming as they would move about the buildings. Others have reported oppressive sensations of being watched and followed by some unseen presence.
Those who would sometimes venture into the old Toledo State Hospital looking for a little adventure often found something quite different waiting for them. And, they often had no desire to return to the place.
The buildings, themselves, are no longer there. But, perhaps the spirits who inhabited them still are.”
My wife had a relative at the old mental hospital for a year or so. We’d visit, and I would immediately be swarmed locust-like by patients begging for cigarettes. I learned to always take 2 or 3 fresh packs with me when we entered the doors. I’d give them away 1 or 2 at a time so we could move towards the visiting center.
2040 chars
alex said on October 30, 2023 at 8:01 am
My last haunted house experience was many years ago in Illinois. I was with a group of guys and we were all drunk and stoned. One of our party who had some exhibitionistic tendencies dropped his zipper and stuck his schlong through a hole in a wall behind which some people were running special effects. A woman emerged from behind a curtain and spat in my face evidently thinking I was the culprit. I asked what was that for and she said “You know what that was for.” I spent the rest of the tour fearful that police would be waiting outside and that was truly more heart-poundingly frightful than any haunted house experience I’ve ever had.
642 chars
FDChief said on October 30, 2023 at 8:40 am
The Marine thing gives off pretty strong “Starship Troopers” vibes. Wonder if the jarheads intended that? Their commercials seem to share a sort of “sci-fi action movie” feeling what with the bootneck morphing through fantasy combat and training scenes. Combat value aside, they sure have a great PR department.
I’ve never got the notion of wanting to be frightened. Fear kind of sucks! Plus, given the quantity of scary real-world things – cancer, nonalcoholic beer, Republicans – why invent imaginary spooks? Show me an Oval Office with a President Trump, 2026, and I’ll be chilled to the bone…
613 chars
Little Bird said on October 30, 2023 at 9:06 am
That Haunted Hoorah sounds a bit like an attempt to recruit kids. Not directly, but I bet at the end of the house there’s a bunch of people and literature extolling the virtues of the Marines.
194 chars
Jeff Gill said on October 30, 2023 at 9:16 am
Well, no.
There’s a (purported) history to each branch’s preferred exclamation, or “battle cry” (though it gets used more at PT than anywhere else) but oddly each has one.
The Marines use “oorah.” Two syllables. Ooh-Rah, if you will, up there with “Semper Fi.”
The Army’s is “hooah.” Supposedly the Air Force, and Space Force use it, too. “Hooyah” is the war cry for the Navy and the Coast Guard.
And now you know.
The origins claimed here for oorah are endlessly amusing, and entirely unlikely. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oorah
570 chars
Jeff Gill said on October 30, 2023 at 9:24 am
FDChief, I’m sure you’re aware of Harry Truman’s feelings about the Marines, but for everyone else: the old artillery man from Missouri tried to reassert that “For your information, the Marine Corps is the Navy’s police force and as long as I am President that is what it will remain.” Harry got shut down on his attempt to downgrade the Corps, later writing, “They have a propaganda machine almost the equal of Stalin’s.”
https://www.usni.org/magazines/naval-history-magazine/2019/june/propaganda-machine-stalins
535 chars
Mark P said on October 30, 2023 at 10:03 am
I think the common perception is that the Marines won the ground war in the Pacific during WW2. In fact, the Marines had six divisions in the Pacific, while the Army had 21 divisions, but apparently the Marines had a much better PR apparatus.
242 chars
Jeff Gill said on October 30, 2023 at 10:23 am
The equal of Stalin’s, they say.
32 chars
Dorothy said on October 30, 2023 at 10:37 am
Choosing to go to a fright event where you KNOW you’re going to be frightened is one thing. But I never understood Ellen DeGeneres’s fondness for scaring guests on her show. She evidently thought it was freaking hilarious because she did it all the time. For someone who espoused kindness toward others, to me this showed a cruel streak in her. How can you get enjoyment out of someone’s obvious fear and fright?
412 chars
Jason T. said on October 30, 2023 at 11:04 am
I was friends with a retired chief petty officer who referred to the Marines as “the Navy’s bellhops” (sometimes “sea-going bellboys”).
He usually did this in front of a couple of Marines of our acquaintance just to wind them up. It was like throwing raw meat to lions; they went for it every time.
300 chars
Jason T. said on October 30, 2023 at 11:07 am
Come to think of it, I think he’s also the one who told me the joke, “What’s the difference between the Cub Scouts and the Air Force?” “I don’t know.” “The Cub Scouts have adult supervision.”
191 chars
Suzanne said on October 30, 2023 at 12:00 pm
Dorothy, Ellen Degeneres has been unmasked in recent years as mean and nasty.
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/krystieyandoli/ellen-employees-allege-toxic-workplace-culture
Our daughter heard the same from someone she knows that worked for a household staffing firm that had Ellen as a client. Our daughter was told that Ellen’s spots were difficult to fill because she had such a reputation of being awful to her staff.
431 chars
Jeff Borden said on October 30, 2023 at 12:54 pm
Frankly, we should never have created the Air Force. It worked fine as an element of the Army, along with armor and artillery, but now it’s another bloated branch with its own bureaucracy. Let’s not even acknowledge the absurdity of Space Force, which emerged as a tRump brain fart.
282 chars
brian stouder said on October 30, 2023 at 1:07 pm
Alex @2 above; sounds like a violation of the penal code! (And the spittin’-mad lady certainly went off half-cocked!)
119 chars
Jeff said on October 30, 2023 at 2:25 pm
May, 1944 – Time Magazine reprinted this ditty from the South Pacific:
“The Marines, the Marines, those blasted Gyrenes
Those seagoing bellhops, those brass-button queens.
Oh! They pat their own backs, write stories in reams,
All in praise of themselves — the U.S. Marines!
The Marines, the Marines, those publicity fiends,
They built all the forests, turned on all the streams,
Discontent with the earth, they say Heaven’s scenes
Are guarded by — you guess! Right! U.S. Marines!
The moon never beams, except when the Marines
Give it permission to turn on its gleams.
And the tide never rises, the wind never screams —
Unless authorized by the U.S. Marines.
The Marines, the Marines, in their khakies and greens,
Their pretty blue panties, red stripes down their seams.
They thought all the thoughts, dreamed in their dreams,
Singing, “The Song of Myself—the U.S. Marines.”
https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,774908,00.html
1004 chars
Jeff Borden said on October 30, 2023 at 3:15 pm
Feel free to throw up in your mouth a little. . .
https://www.rawstory.com/ray-holmberg-2666099747/
But, yeah, let’s ban “And Tango Makes Three” and curse at drag queens for hurting our children. These fucking hypocrites. . .
231 chars
LAMARY said on October 30, 2023 at 5:23 pm
Ditto for what Suzanne said about E.D. She used to do mother’s day segments in the hospital where I worked. She’s not so sweet.
127 chars
Jason T. said on October 30, 2023 at 6:53 pm
In the defense of the USMC, I also remember Tom Lehrer’s salute, which stays relevant, year after year:
When someone makes a move
Of which we don’t approve
Who is it that always intervenes?
U.N. and O.A.S.,
They have their place (I guess),
But first — send the Marines!
…
For might makes right
Until they’ve seen the light
They’ve got to be protected
All their rights respected
‘Til somebody we like can be elected
506 chars
Jeff said on October 30, 2023 at 8:08 pm
Oorah, Jason. 😀
18 chars
MarkH said on October 30, 2023 at 11:09 pm
Bellhops? Lt. Kendrick disagrees.
https://youtu.be/vBO_RZMH6gk?si=fXxq6Mo4ORs8OEVn
85 chars
Dexter Friend said on October 31, 2023 at 2:41 am
My dad was a Petty Officer in the US Navy during WWII, training radio operators at Pensacola Ellyson Field and Oakland Alameda Naval Yards. He told of how the Navy fellas were always getting tangled up in bar fights with the gyrenes. I never knew how to spell that until this thread.
Shawn Fain is now being held up in the same regard as Walter Reuther. Ford settled, they’re all ready to finalize and ratify and I betcha the membership votes this in with 95+%. The UAW is not a dinosaur/relic of the past. It roared its head in a loud voice. The gains made my retired UAW head spin like a top. Congratulations President Fain !
No, this will not affect my pension, but I am so happy for those it does affect.
I am so glad I got to vote for the Shawn Fain slate in the International election earlier.
807 chars
FDChief said on October 31, 2023 at 7:36 am
Jeff: yeah…I was kinda thinking of ol’ Harry’s comment when I wrote that.
The USMC has a genius for image; you encounter it the moment you walk into the recruiting offices.
There are the GIs in their sad-sack greens (remember, I’m from the 80s before we had the sense to go back to the blues) and the Zoomies in their bus driver suits and the squids at least looking dapper in their crackerjacks…but the freaking jarheads are all male-model with the blue trousers and khaki blouse and white cover, a mix-n-match outfit the Corps specifically authorized for their recruiters because it looked so sharp.
God knows what the poor Space Cadets are wearing…
672 chars
FDChief said on October 31, 2023 at 7:48 am
And speaking of the UAW and Halloween tricks…I’m watching my Bride’s employer (Portland Public Schools) and it’s teachers union slow-walk themselves into a stupid and pointless strike.
Stupid and pointless because neither side can solve the problem they’re arguing over.
The District, despite having been spectacularly boneheaded in approaching this (giving admin HQ a raise while laying off educational assistants in classrooms? Dumb move, guys.) isn’t wrong; they don’t have the money for what the teachers want.
Which doesn’t make the PAT wrong! Their list – more assistance, especially in SPED, more prep time, smaller class sizes – is really realistic.
But the problem is in the funding.
Since legislation ended local property taxes going to public schools all funding comes out of the state general fund as a flat fee per body. So rich Lake Oswego gets $$ per kid the same as the poorest parts of Portland with the toughest kid issues to deal with.
Unsurprisingly, that means Portland takes it in the shorts.
So the fix is in Salem; a change in how schools are funded to get the kids who need it the help they need. But as of today – and the strike deadline is tomorrow – I haven’t heard a peep out of anyone in the lege or the governor’s office.
So we’re gonna do this stupid strike over who rearranges the deck chairs, I guess…
(And don’t get me started on the ridiculous goddamn “kicker”, voted “most moronic tax law in the Continental US” thirty years running. Jesus wept.)
1526 chars
4dbirds said on October 31, 2023 at 10:02 am
I joined the army when there was still a Womens Army Corps and I don’t remember hoorahs, oorahs or any of that. I also had make-up and manners classes in basic. Women didn’t have to qualify with a weapon although we could if we wanted. I don’t remember any woman opting to not qualify. A different army and the end of a different time. Making fun of the Air Force was common and we considered them slightly above the Coast Guard as a military branch. I find myself thinking more and more of my time in the army and also when my children were little. Part of the getting older saga. I bought some candy for tonight but if we have more than 10 kids come by, I’ll be surprised.
680 chars
alex said on October 31, 2023 at 11:01 am
I’m at my last day of work, taking a break from cleaning out my cabinets and desk. Finding unredeemed gift cards and gift certificates, some for businesses that no longer exist. I’ve never been one to carry around that kind of stuff and I forget I have it. Looking for a good plant parent for my red shamrock.
309 chars
Jeff said on October 31, 2023 at 11:22 am
Congratulations, Alex. May your retirement be all that you hope and a little bit better.
88 chars
brian stouder said on October 31, 2023 at 11:42 am
Congratulations, Alex! I crossed the finish line earlier this year, after 3 dozen years, and we then moved from Fort Wayne to Logansport (Pammy’s original place). Our Fort Wayne home sold for more than we asked, approximately 1.37 seconds after we listed it….so indeed, I can never complain about any fork in the road we happen upon, from here on!
351 chars
Mark P said on October 31, 2023 at 12:03 pm
Alex, welcome to the club! Retirement can be a wonderful time. It was for my parents. Not so much for me, but I can’t imagine going back to work. I was born for this retirement thing.
185 chars
FDChief said on October 31, 2023 at 12:58 pm
So I recall coming across the “hooah” thing at Ft. Bragg. At first it was just a sort of yelping noise intended to signify motivation. But before I got out in the Oughts it had evolved into an actual word – “hooah” – and was used as such in conversation:
LT: “So we’re gonna get the HQ-52 off the lube rack and back on line by 1400. Are we hooah?”
When I ran into Marines they 1) seemed to retain a lot more of the original yelpy enthusiasm, and 2) tended to pronounce it more like “oo-rah!” than our version.
531 chars
Mark P said on October 31, 2023 at 1:05 pm
I just learned that Microsoft will be our new neighbor. They paid about $13 million for some land we pass as we leave the mountain where we live. They plan to build a $1 billion data center there. It’s kind of an odd location. They will almost certainly need more power than the existing lines can provide, a sewer line, and probably road improvements. It’s on a rural two-lane that wasn’t meant to handle much traffic. So we have about three years of construction to look forward to. On the other hand, maybe we can sell our house for a nice premium. We’re about a mile and a half from the site.
605 chars
Dave said on October 31, 2023 at 1:42 pm
I was never in the military but I worked with many who were. I didn’t know that the Air Force was so poorly thought of by other branches, I’ve a brother-in-law and a nephew who both made careers out of the Air Force.
I worked with several men who served in the Coast Guard and my next door neighbor is a Coast Guard vet. To a man, they all loved it.
Alex, this is it, congratulations, before you know it, you’ll be saying you’ve been retired 13 years and how can that be? Oh, that would be me and may it be you in 13 years.
Mark P., that is going to change your area in ways you probably can’t imagine yet.
621 chars
susan said on October 31, 2023 at 2:01 pm
Mark P @30– Microsoft is a huge land-grabbing, power-sucking octopus, with its tentacles everywhere. They are taking advantage of really cheap power in our tri-county area, because it has the cheapest power in the country. So they spread themselves about equally over all three counties. All that “investment” in sweet electric power and land deals, create very few jobs from their capitalistic greed. Dave is correct: Microsoft will change your area in not-good ways for most people who currently live there.
510 chars
Mark P said on October 31, 2023 at 2:14 pm
The Microsoft announcement said they will have about 150 jobs for that billion-dollar investment. That doesn’t seem to be a labor-intensive development. The best outcome for us would be a significant increase in the value of our house. That might be the only way we could get out of here.
290 chars
4dbirds said on October 31, 2023 at 2:41 pm
No military person actually thinks poorly of another branch of the service. It is all teasing and thinking you’re tougher than the other service. Except for the Marines. They are the toughest.
195 chars
Julie Robinson said on October 31, 2023 at 2:44 pm
Congratulations, Alex! I really like being retired although I got sucked into a volunteer job at my daughter’s church and it’s more than I bargained for. Also, caring for my mom takes a lot of emotional energy.
Speaking of which, instead of a rant on her recent medical issues, who would like some creepy Jesus art? The Advent hospital where we were had some spectacular examples. LMK, I can email them to Nancy. I guarantee they will scare you more than any haunted house you might attend.
Data centers are vampire users of electricity and water and provide very few jobs. Mark P, I don’t think your house will increase in value.
636 chars
Sherri said on October 31, 2023 at 3:04 pm
Data centers don’t tend to drive up home values, because they don’t bring in people. People are just a problem in data centers; the fewer of them, the better. Data centers are a calculus of cheap electricity, cooling, cheap land, and proximity to where data needs to be served.
281 chars
Sherri said on October 31, 2023 at 3:13 pm
And I’m not saying Microsoft is happy to pay taxes or doesn’t love tax breaks, but if they want to build something and the infrastructure is lacking, they don’t let that stop them. They’re finishing up a rebuild of the oldest part of the campus here, and they paid for around 9 planning staff members hired at the city just to support that process. They also paid to build a pedestrian-bike bridge and replace a road bridge over the freeway near campus.
Would we be better off if Microsoft didn’t offshore so much of its revenue to avoid taxes? No doubt, but at least here at home, they don’t expect Redmond to build all of their infrastructure.
660 chars
susan said on October 31, 2023 at 3:38 pm
Sherri, around here the counties give them (Microsoft, Yahoo, Sabey, et al) big tax breaks to come on in, the PUD builds out infrastructure for them, the Port sells them land. And here they are, sucking up cheap electric power and precious water. But hey, future taxes! I bet it doesn’t “pencil out” in that future public BINGO.
328 chars
Mark P said on October 31, 2023 at 4:11 pm
I don’t expect much housing demand with only 150 new employees. But if there is a mid-level manager, our location would be perfect for them. I wasn’t really serious about increased property values. I suspect most of the new employees will not be particularly highly paid, and they won’t want to live out here in the boondocks anyway. MS is getting a 12 year tax break, but I read somewhere that they expect to pay for infrastructure improvements. That will probably include new power lines, road improvements, and an extension of the sewer lines. The existing water lines may be sufficient. They will obviously need really broad broadband, but that won’t help us up on the mountain. None of it will benefit us. I hope I’m out of here before any of that happens anyway. In the meantime, the sooner they start, the sooner we can expect muddy roads, and detours and delays on our way to town.
899 chars
Sherri said on October 31, 2023 at 4:35 pm
I’m just saying, if Microsoft wants to do something, a lack of tax breaks or infrastructure won’t stop them. They’ll happily let someone else pay for it, but they’ll build it if they think they need it.
Now, the flip side is, they can decide their priorities have changed overnight. Microsoft was completely committed to a campus in Atlanta, we kept hearing, it was a critical part of their DEI strategy, they bought land, drove up prices of everything around it, and then…interest rates went up, Microsoft laid of 20000 people, decide AI was more important than DEI, and has put the whole construction project on hold.
632 chars
Mark P said on October 31, 2023 at 4:57 pm
MS is reported to have paid almost $14 million for 347 acres, which seems high for that much land here. Maybe it was a good deal, but I suspect the price had a lot to do with who the buyer was.
193 chars
FDChief said on October 31, 2023 at 6:00 pm
Dave (re: the USAF…) I’ll cop to slagging on the zoomies a bit. Partially for their bijoux lifestyle – cushy apartment-style billets and K-cups in the dayroom, y’know – but most GIs think the birdmen dislike doing the hard work down on the deck supporting the grunts when the wild blue yonder is more fun. The close-air-support folks flying the A-10s were well-thought of, but the fighter jocks? Not so much…
All the services tend to rag on each other, though. It’s usually not particularly vicious.
But what do you get when you cross a Marine with a gorilla?
A retarded gorilla.
592 chars
Jeff Borden said on October 31, 2023 at 7:14 pm
Happy Halloween! Snow showers in Chicago, which is so sad for the kids who look forward to this one day for weeks if not months, but it might mean more left over candy for my sweet-tooth afflicted wife. (I prefer salty snacks, which I assure are just as unhealthy.)
More spooky is our new Speaker of the House, the very definition of a christofascist prick. He wants to gut the Biden plan to beef up the IRS by cutting it by the same amount Biden wants to send to Israel. Of course. Even the loudest Bible thumper around always seeks to coddle the wealthiest among us, who I seem to recall Jesus holding in rather low regard. Nothing for Ukraine, of course, because the MAGAts love Putin.
I guess the world-famous aviator is one of the few QOPers around here, but if there were more, I would only like to ask: When was the last time this ugly, rotten, rotting corpse of a political party ever do anything for the average American?
936 chars
David C said on October 31, 2023 at 7:40 pm
It was a slow night for Trick and Treating. We had 3″ of snow today and it’s around freezing and windy. We don’t hand it out we just put a bowl out front. The bowl was full and five minutes later it was all gone. I sure some kid poured the whole bowl in his bag. Bless his greedy heart. Trick or Treating time was almost over and I didn’t want the stuff around.
361 chars
Jeff said on October 31, 2023 at 9:07 pm
FDChief: but that gorilla will be no better friend, no greater enemy. Oorah.
Julie, now you have me curious. I consider myself a connoisseur of bad Jesus art.
And full disclosure — hospice care for a mean-spirited violent abusive narcissist is a real adventure into the darkest places of the human heart. I do not recommend it as a school for developing empathy or compassion. Endurance-wise, I’m learning some things. But I’m not a nicer person for all this.
462 chars
tajalli said on October 31, 2023 at 9:12 pm
A few homes have had Halloween decorations up but other homes have begun to decorate for Christmas (I kid you not) plus Christmas displays in stores have been quite noticeable for the past couple weeks. I’ve been celebrating the season by listening to Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events – 13 books – via audiobooks complete with spooky music, dolorous songs, and creepy voices.
This is all in keeping with the lack of an Autumn season – last week we had temps pushing 90°F and this week high 60s and overnight lows in the 40s.
546 chars
LAMary said on October 31, 2023 at 9:32 pm
Zoomies. I haven’t heard that word since I left Colorado. There were girls who only dated zoomies at my college. The zoomies I’m talking about were Air Force Academy guys.
171 chars
Deborah said on October 31, 2023 at 9:52 pm
In my Lutheran college years I had an Art professor who collected bad Jesus art and gave lectures about them. They were hilarious. One of the most memorable lectures I ever heard/saw.
183 chars
brian stouder said on October 31, 2023 at 9:55 pm
In this household, we’ve always referred to our kitties’ (Cleo’s and Winnie’s) daily bursts of energy as “the Zoomies”; usually they coincide with some interesting critter outside the window, but not necessarily!
226 chars
FDChief said on October 31, 2023 at 10:47 pm
Jeff: Shot, out.
Good one.
29 chars
Julie Robinson said on October 31, 2023 at 10:52 pm
Oh Jeff, I feel your pain, boy do I feel your pain.
Creepy Jesus art is in Nancy’s inbox.
93 chars
Mark P said on November 1, 2023 at 12:38 am
One of our local hospitals was bought out by Advent. I am not happy about that. I don’t care what your beliefs are, just leave your religion at the door when you come in to treat me.
184 chars
Dexter Friend said on November 1, 2023 at 2:13 am
25 years ago our local union sent me and another military veteran to Indianapolis to march in the Veterans Day parade. I remember standing with International UAW President Ron Gettlefinger passing out little Old Glory flags. Halfway through the route, I dropped back from the union delegation to march with the dedicated Viet Nam vets. I wrote the story for out newsletter, telling of how I was marching with a marine on my left and a sailor on my right and a couple other army vets like me ahead a bit.
No animosity there that day, we were one.
My son-in-law’s son from a precious marriage joined the Space Force after the Air Force rejected him because of his previous bone fractures from his high school
gymnastics career.
The Space Force kept delaying his entrance however. I do not know if he ever got in.
815 chars
Mark P said on November 1, 2023 at 2:30 am
We watched the Netflix Space Force series with Steve Carell as the commanding general and John Malkovitch as the chief scientist. I enjoyed it, mainly because of how true to life Malkovitch’s portrayal was of a chief scientist working for a big military program. It was comically exaggerated, but his attitude and interactions with Carell’s character were also comically accurate. I was disappointed when it was cancelled.
426 chars
ROGirl said on November 1, 2023 at 4:45 am
There was snow in the air last night, not a lot of trick or treaters. I had unopened bags of candy leftover from last year, and I still ended up not using all of it.
165 chars
Sherri said on November 1, 2023 at 4:47 am
Don’t know how many trick or treaters we would have had, because I wasn’t there. We’ve been going through our own crazy house of horrors, and I hope it ends soon.
The beginning of last week, I woke up with what I thought was a chest cold, with a deep cough that produced mucus and kind of a wheezy chest. No fever, so I canceled everything and hopped in bed to rest and knock that thing right out. And Tuesday. and Wednesday and Thursday, cough keeps getting worse, chest is getting wheezier, finally Friday I go to the doctor, doc listens, says it probably viral, but let’s do the chest X-ray just in case. Chest X-ray says pneumonia. No clue where that came from.
So start up antibiotics and head home, then late that night I get up to get some water, have a coughing fit, and the next thing I know, I’m on the ground and my face is bruised. Huh, that was weird, but it’s late, nothing seems like an emergency, so I go back to bed. In the morning, it looks a lot more like an emergency, cause my eye is completely swollen shut. Off we go to spend the day in the ER. After seeing many doctors, and many tests, the conclusion is that I have fracture the orbital floor of my left eye, and after hemming and hawing over the images, conclude that the best course is to wait and do surgery Wednesday after,the swelling has gone down. So it ends, our first day in the ER.
We have a lovely and pleasant Sunday with our daughter, resting and recovering. We need it because Monday morning I sit up in bed to change position,start coughing, and then am wondering what I’m doing on the ground and why the other side of my face is now freshly bruised. Thus begins our second day in the ER, more tests, the lung CT confirmed that yep I had pneumonia. Another antibiotic to the mix, and another all day ER visit is concluded, back home to await Wednesday, when our surgery scheduled.
But, alas, it was Halloween, and our story couldn’t calmly cross over into November without visiting the ER again! This time, transported by EMTs when the evil cough struck again, but rather than pass out, I got an uncontrollable nosebleed, of course on the side of the fracture. Several attempts at cautery finally stopped the bleeding, sending me back home for a few hour ps to rest before my scheduled check in at 8:30 for surgery. We’ll see what happens next, but if you hear about a 61 year old Redmond woman spontaneously exploding after a cough, you’ll know it’s me.
2469 chars
Jeff Gill said on November 1, 2023 at 7:32 am
Cautery… good times, good times.
Sherri, feeling your pain. Be well!
73 chars
alex said on November 1, 2023 at 8:43 am
Sorry to hear you’re having such a sucky week, Sherri.
Just awoke from my first day of sleeping in. Looking out the windows I see nothing but ass-deep leaves and the trees aren’t even half-naked yet. Looks like a job for Superman. I’ll wait until he comes home from his business trip.
So when you talk about bad Jesus art, do you mean the black velvet stuff that the carnies sell out of a tent? Or do you mean high-end stuff like the monstrosity that Ben Carson commissioned for his living room?
642 chars
Dorothy said on November 1, 2023 at 9:09 am
Sherri that is a horrific story! I sure hope you will not have any more falls and that the cough and all other issues start to heal very soon. My goodness you’ve been through several ordeals lately.
The play I’ve been rehearsing for opens on Friday night. We do 11 performances. We have an invited audience on Thursday – a senior citizens group and I sure hope they like it. I’m really tired of fake laughing at the jokes/stories we characters tell each other.
469 chars
Julie Robinson said on November 1, 2023 at 9:38 am
Sherri, I’m so sorry you’ve been through such a rough time. Your hospital story definitely beats my mom’s.
Alex, the hospital art is in a category all by itself.
Break a leg, Dorothy!
186 chars
Mark P said on November 1, 2023 at 10:12 am
Sherri, two of my friends in Denver came down with viral pneumonia after returning from a trip to Britain in late September. His wife, who has some health issues, ended up in the hospital. The husband suffered at home. No fainting, but continual coughing that prevented sleep. He still sounds nasal on the phone. I wonder if it’s the same virus.
347 chars
Deborah said on November 1, 2023 at 10:35 am
Alex, Bad Jesus art is all kinds of stuff, especially this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Head_of_Christ, which my parents had hanging in their bedroom.
151 chars
Deborah said on November 1, 2023 at 10:39 am
Wow Sherri, I just read your comment, what an ordeal, hope you’re feeling better soon.
86 chars
susan said on November 1, 2023 at 10:44 am
Oh man, Sherri. What an ordeal.
31 chars
Julie Robinson said on November 1, 2023 at 11:08 am
Deborah, we call that one graduation Jesus, for its resemblance to a senior picture. We were given a framed copy as a wedding present. Somehow it disappeared over the years.
RSV was supposed to be bad this year, with pneumonia as a complication. If you’re over 65 the CDC recommends the new immunization. RSV looks a lot like the common cold.
346 chars
Sherri said on November 1, 2023 at 11:43 am
The surgery has been postponed, we found out halfway to the hospital. Actually, the surgery got postponed yesterday because the anesthesiologist wasn’t happy about the pneumonia, he just never bothered to call me and let me know. I found out when the surgeon’s office called and said he wanted to see me in the office today instead. Whee!
I did get the RSV vaccine, when I got my flu shot on Sept 19. I didn’t get the Covid shot, because I had Covid the beginning of September. But I completely recovered from that, and did a powerlifting meet the beginning of October.
It’s so frustrating that I was perfectly healthy, exercising hard 4-5 days a week, and yet ended up with pneumonia and three ER visits in 4 days. Makes me feel like an old sick person.
764 chars
alex said on November 1, 2023 at 11:53 am
So if you have an RSV pee, does that mean you’re not going to make it?
70 chars
Suzanne said on November 1, 2023 at 1:26 pm
Sherri, what a mess! My brother and his wife both had pneumonia recently and can’t shake it. No hospital stays but several rounds of antibiotics and steroids. My brother still sounds terrible after at least a month. It makes me wonder if it’s a particularly nasty strain or something. I asked my oncologist about the RSV vaccine and he wasn’t wild about it. Said it was up to me but felt that there weren’t enough studies yet on long term effects. So, I haven’t made a decision on that yet.
500 chars
basset said on November 1, 2023 at 3:23 pm
Thirteen trick or treaters last night… someone a few streets away announced on Nextdoor that they were giving away full sized candy bars, maybe that was it.
I did, however, go through the entire Halloween season without hearing “Monster Mash” even once, so there’s that.
275 chars
Mark P said on November 1, 2023 at 4:59 pm
Well, thanks for the earworm. I’m hearing Monster Mash continuously now.
74 chars
Deborah said on November 1, 2023 at 5:21 pm
We’re getting our flu and RSV shots on Friday, hope I don’t regret getting them both at once.
We’re in Rockford for a few days for my husband to attend some meetings regarding his uncle’s foundation. Meanwhile I have nothing to do here, was going to get together with a friend but she had to cancel because she’s coming down with something, hopefully not Covid. It’s cold and depressing here, at least I’ve got a good book to read. It was hell getting out of Chicago yesterday while it was snowing, traffic was crazy.
535 chars
briAn stouder said on November 1, 2023 at 5:24 pm
Alex for Thread-Win! You cannot miss with a whizz-joke!………uhhh, wait a minute…
86 chars
Julie Robinson said on November 1, 2023 at 7:26 pm
Of course everyone’s different, but none of us had trouble with flu and RSV the same day. It was flu and Covid that wiped us out last year.
It was a rare Orlando day without sun and it left my fanny dragging. Next I’ll tell you it was only 72° and you’ll all be mad at me. Doesn’t take long to get spoiled.
311 chars
Suzanne said on November 1, 2023 at 7:32 pm
Bob Knight has passed. One less Trump supporter in the world.
61 chars
Jeff said on November 1, 2023 at 8:59 pm
As a Purdue alum, I have the obligatory feelings about Bobby Knight. But it’s worth noting that he consistently graduated 95% of his players, usually top of the the Big Ten, and always higher than the football or baseball teams, whose coaches he would goad. And when he had a higher grad rate than Digger Phelps (Notre Dame usually topped the rankings of D1 teams for graduation), he delighted in that as much as an NCAA berth.
Godspeed, Bobby.
447 chars
Sherri said on November 1, 2023 at 9:17 pm
The only winner in the situation in Israel is Putin. He couldn’t have scripted things better, and who knows, he probably did. This takes all the attention off of Ukraine, and it divides the left in the US better than almost anything else. The left in the US was one of the few places where Jews and Muslims were in coalition, if sometimes uneasy coalition, and this is straining that coalition to the breaking point.
We just got an email from a long-time donor and supporter that he could no longer support the ACLU since the October 7 attack. Not because of anything specific that either the national or state org has done or said, but because he believes it is a reasonable assumption that like other progressive organizations, they have “changed in ways that make the environment toxic and dangerous for persons who count Israel as essential for the survival of the Jewish people, and for persons who wish to practice Judaism or display their Jewish identity. “ The email contains copies of the images that expressed support for Palestine with a paraglider, in reference to the October 7th attack.
Putin’s army is full of poorly trained soldiers and ill-maintained equipment, but his biggest victories don’t come on the battlefield.
1251 chars
Heather said on November 1, 2023 at 9:53 pm
Sherri, that sounds scary and not fun. Hope you start feeling better soon!
74 chars