Random Thoughts
It's time for more: Random thoughts from the right hemisphere of my brain.
1. While I know the guy has a lovely voice, and his story is extremely inspirational, I just can't get past Paul Potts' name. Sorry, but it's just too close to Pol Pot, the Cambodian marxist dictator who presided over the slaughter of between 3 and 7 million of his own people through overwork, starvation, and outright torture and exectution in an effort to create an "agrarian utopia".

I was in Costco on the weekend, and saw the CD, and made the remark out loud that he was a great singer, but I had trouble with his name. I heard a laugh of agreement, and looked up and there was a roughly 50 or 60 year old Asian woman, with a huge smile on her face. She probably would have been in her early to late 20's when the Khmer Rouge took over Cambodia, and coming from Asia, she got the joke. I went off a little on the theme, and she was so excited to find someone else who "got it", that she couldn't squeeze the words out. She just laughed, and shuffled away.

2. Hallowe'en is supposed to be a fun time, but sometimes it's scary too. Last week was the big occaision, and we went up and down the street, and Isaac was quite frankly a superstar.

Now keep in mind that he has a very slim grasp on reality as we know it, and if you put him in a full blown Firefighter suit, complete with hat and mock boots, the grasp slips entirely. He was, however on a full frontal charm offensive.

He would walk up to people's houses and say "Nice pumpkin!" Or at one house, he slipped going up the stairs and remarked "I'd better be carefull, I don't want to crash into your nice cobwebs" while the couple were sitting there watching him. He was a hit.

But his full fledged make beleive take over was walking back to the house, when he pretended the whole way to talk into a radio watch, and summon various rescue vehicles. People were practically falling off their porches they were laughing so hard. He was the height of cute.

Then we went to visit a friend from work on a street we were told would have a little more action. It was a zoo. By 7:00 Rachel had given candy to over 200 kids. Well, up the block from her was a very well done up haunted house. They had the tombstones, and the music, and everything. So the whole way up the street Isaac was saying "I'm not scared, lets go to the haunted house. I'm not scared" and so on.

So we get to the house, get up to the porch, Isaac says Trick or Treat, and gets his candy, and then the 5 foot tall manequin with a sheet over it and a goalie mask starts shuddering and cackling and waving a big fake knife. To which Isaac responds "Lets get out of here!" And we make our way very quickly down the path. "Are you scared?" I ask him. "YES!" was the emphatic answer.

Then all the way up the block to the car he was saying things like "We'd better get out of here, there's lots of ghosts and goblins on this street."

So that might have been a little too much, but it was all good in the end. He got tons of loot, so he's quite happy, and it is being appropriately rationed by the parents.

3. We went for the first professional photograph sitting of our family (which includes pre-kids, so that's nearly 15 years now) on Saturday. The photographer was the one who shot the photo of Sam for the DSAH Calendar. So she's good, even if she tends towards the cutesy.

So we went to a farm near her, and got some amazing photos of Isaac on his own, and the whole family up against some lovely old weathered barn wood. It was great.

And then we went back to the studio to get some photos of Sam. She was going to shoot Sam in a diaper cover, lying in giant sea shell, and to make a long story short: Noelle put her foot down.

So it took the Photographer several minutes to recover from Noelle's unequivocal objection to anything cute, but we ended up with him in a basket sitting up with a few fall themed leaves and pumpkins.

The other challenge, is that Sam doesn't smile when you want him to. Sharon must have snapped 30 or 40 shots, of him with barely a grin, with daddy and Sharon't assistant trying everything we could. Then Sharon went to put away the camera and give up, and Sam started grinning to beat 90. So she brought it out, and he got all solemn again. We think Sam is part cat.

So there should be some good photos for all this Christmas, we will let you know when we get the proofs.
TTFN