Every Party Has a Pooper, That's Why I Polled All of You

I can't believe so many of my friends and family are party POOPERS and voted against my fabulous banana costume!!! :o( (Though, as always, I very much appreciate the participation!) Now Robert's never going to go for it. Mew. So, I offer a less-restrictive costume alternative - the spider:

I know you're still against costumes of any variety and I'm 99% sure I won't be buying one. I just thought I'd make one last ditch effort to spice up Funk's life.

Very Belated Halloween Post

In trying to prep a few posts to finish up today, I came across this post which I'd prepped awhile ago... and promptly forgot about. I realize Halloween has long since come and gone but since I'm still within a two-week window, I figure I'm still okay to post. :o)

My sister, Michelle, and my two nieces, Sarah and Claudia, were in California the weekend before Halloween and indulged Grandma Donna with some Halloween activities while they were here. Grandma always procures their costumes each year (because my parents usually head to Chicago for Halloween but her health precluded them from doing so this time) and so the girls tried on this year's costumes to make sure they fit before they made the trek back to Illinois...

They look pretty darn good, I think.

Then, it was on to pumpkin carving!! Robert and I didn't get a chance to carve any pumpkins this year so we lived vicariously through the Tani ladies. I helped Sarah and Claudia adjust their templates to fit their pumpkins and pushed a couple of pieces through for Claudia. I was also super anal and cleaned out the pumpkins after the girls finished. It was helpful to them, yes, but mostly I just can't stand the residual little threads that hang behind the eyes and whatnot so it was really helping me. :o) Hey, it's a win-win so it's fine! Anyway, I also picked out an elaborate design for Michelle to carve (talking her out of her original pick) and then offered no help whatsoever. :oD


Sarah was very professional and did everything on her pumpkin herself, from gutting to carving. She was awesome!

Claudia's pumpkin

Sarah's pumpkin

Michelle's pumpkin. It turned out fantastic! I do nice work... picking stuff out for other, more skilled people to do. Heh.




Grandma and Grandpa got to keep the girls' pumpkins but Robert and I got to take Michelle's pumpkin to our place. They all wound up dying a bit before Halloween but they sure looked great while they lasted.

Halloween @ The Bay

This year I decided to take my camera and snap a few photos of my department so that you all have a better understanding of to whom I am referring when I mention Coworker X. (You're welcome.) As I mentioned in an earlier post, the theme for this year's party was 'Celebrity Look-a-Likes' and I had not intention of dressing up. My boss really wanted me to go as Marcia Brady but I refused. Then I mentioned that Christina said I look like Helen Hunt and a bunch of people agreed. But what the f&%$ does a Helen Hunt costume look like?! 1994?!!! C'mon now. So, I just wore my festive garb as I'd planned... only I made myself a "Hello, my name is ____" tag and wrote in Helen Hunt to be a smartass. Some people thought it was funny but most didn't get it. Oh well. I still looked Halloween-y, I think.

This is me and Gladys, my one actual friend in the department (as opposed to coworker or acquaintance). We've been friends since I first started at The Bay (I posted a few photos of her and her daughter in my birthday post earlier this year.) She went for the not-a-real-costume-but-still-festive look, too. My headband got a lot of raves - I made it myself from a Martha Stewart kit I bought at Michaels. Woohoo! ;o) And check out my name tag; you can't even tell it is homemade!! I got skills.


Gladys - and everyone else in my office* - loved the Barack-o-lantern and wanted her photo taken with it.


I helped set-up the room for the pot luck...

Beth is on the left; she won the costume contest. Gladys is on the right; she decided at the last minute to dress up as Cruella de Vil. Her hair looked great but OY was it toxic!! It really fogged up our work area something fierce.

Here's a stealth shot of Big Mel (on the left). Anita, dressed as Ugly Betty (but sans her glasses at the moment), is on the right and one rung below the big boss in the department.

Here are the three pumpkins entered in the carving contest. A nine-year-old carved the one on the left, Robert (obviously) did the center pumpkin and our resident artist carved the one on the right. And I'm not being facetious when I say 'resident artist' - the woman that carved the third pumpkin really IS an awesome artist... I don't know why her pumpkin was so generic. In any event, her pumpkin won. I was (and am) confused. I told Robert one of three things happened: (1) the pumpkin was too political; (2) it was so above the rest of the field that it would've seemed unfair to win; or (3) people thought it was Pat (the winner)'s pumpkin. Seven out of ten people that would comment on the pumpkin in my presence praised Pat and I would then have to correct them. Lots of people told me mine should've won, though, so I guess I'm happy with that. And the prize wasn't money - it was dark chocolate-covered nougat (blech!) - so I'm OK with that, too. :o)

And, finally, here I am looking festive at my similarly festive desk. I look like a winner!! Actually, now everyone's pestering me to have Thanksgiving decorations for my desk. I'm going to have to do some scouting this weekend, I guess - Thanksgiving stuff is hard to find!

* One woman did make the comment that she didn't know such political pumpkins were allowed on State property. Ugh. She's a big Hilary fan, though, so she was probably just bitter. Suck it, lady! You can carve yourself a Hilary face in '12 or '16, okay?

Barack-o-Lantern, Take 2

Sorry for the lack of posts the past few days... I have been under the weather and, much to my chagrin, the blog does not update itself! So let me begin by going back to last Thursday night: as I mentioned in an earlier post, my department had a pot luck on Friday and part of the festivities included a pumpkin carving contest. Of course, I asked Robert to do mine and, of course, he said OK. Everyone at the office was quite taken with Robert's Barack pumpkin, so he definitely wanted to do another for the contest. However, he didn't want to do the same one he'd already done so he scouted out a harder template (at Barack's official pumpkin carving site, Yes We Carve). Being the big-headed, award-winning carver he is, he picked a difficult template - minimal cutting, lots of shaving. He set to work with a scraper and a box cutter and, two hours and many test lightings later, came up with this:

Not too shabby!! I took about a million photos of the darn thing because Robert was never satisfied wtih how the pictures came out... it was hard because it was either too dark without the flash or too bright with it. Hopefully, you can get the idea. I think it came out quite well - even if Robert was at first dismayed by the shortness of the pumpkin. (I told him he was the last person who should hold a grudge against something short! Sheesh!!)

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!

More Halloween Photos

I think I shamed Robert into lighting the pumpkins... first thing in the door on Monday night he was on a tear to find tea lights! And when I asked him if his newfound fervor for lighting the pumpkins was due to my calling him out on the blog he didn't deny it. Success!! So here are a few more photos of our jack-o-lanterns in all their glory.

First, with the camera flash:




And now - full darkness:




You guys know how much I hate being nice to Robert but - I think his Barack pumpkin turned out awesome!!! You can really tell who it's supposed to be when it's lit. Very cool. In fact, I've commissioned him to carve my pumpkin for my office's carving competition on Friday (we're allowed to take the pumpkins home on Thursday night... probably because they don't want to clean up the pumpkin mess at work). Don't worry - my boss OK'd it. :o) Although, when I called Robert to ask him if he'd do it, all I got out was "We're having a pumpkin carving contest at work..." before he said "So you're calling for some award-winning services?" Jackass.

Dinners & Pumpkins

Saturday was the 2nd of Robert's three scheduled birthday dinners and this time we headed out to Banchero's with Cindy, Biji and Biji's girlfriend, Laura. (You might remember Laura from our horrific Yosemite trip... not because she made it awful (she most certainly did not!) but because she was with us. You know what I mean.) Here we are at the end of our meal, (please excuse the Swiss chard sitting front and center), one of only two groups still in the restaurant at 9:30. Now, I love Banchero's but I'm not so in love with their early closing hour. I hate being the last person in a restaurant!! And I guess I could just suck it up and go earlier but we got there at 7:45... I kind of figured an hour and 45 minutes would be an acceptable amount of time in which to finish a meal. It's very sweet that the waitstaff doesn't rush you out the door but on the flip side, they don't really rush themselves, either! Oh well. We still had a lovely dinner and I'm very glad we got a chance to celebrate with Biji, Laura and Cindy.


On a completely different topic, Robert and I carved our pumpkins last night. Robert has been giddy about carving pumpkins this year for some reason so Saturday afternoon we headed out to the pumpkin patch. Small problem - there are no friggin' pumpkin patches in Fremont!! Or if there are, we could not find them. Finally, we went to the one at that weird little fruit stand on Fremont near the freeway onramp but it wasn't so much a "patch" as a "corner." You could stand in one spot, spin around in a circle and see all that was before you. Still, we refused to buy our pumpkins at the grocery store - unfestive!!! - so we picked our pumpkins and headed out. I, of course, selected a Charlie Brown pumpkin as I always do. You know, pretty on the front side but dented or otherwise undesirable on the back. I had my eye on another rejected pumpkin at first but Robert felt it was a wee bit too far gone to be of any use. And, I have to admit, he was right - I think there was definitely some moldy soft spots on the bottom. :o( So I picked another deformed guy, Robert chose a tall one and off we went.

I haven't carved a pumpkin in years (I think 2002 might've been the last time I did) and I wasn't about to de-goop my pumpkin when Robert was perfectly content to do so. So, I set him to work...



Robert tells me every year about how he won a pumpkin carving contest at his dad's company two years in a row and was then prohibited from entering ever again. Every year he tells me. (*sigh*) So, of course, he had to show off and pick some super-squiggly design with lots of little pieces - the Barack profile. I, on the other hand, am not quite as talented and even less patient so I picked a pattern with big, chunky pieces to cut out. I'm the Lennie half of our relationship, pumpkin-wise.

See? I had already lost my patience - Robert is taping my pattern on my pumpkin for me because I couldn't get it to lie flat enough. Yeesh.




I have only just begun poking my outline holes and already I'm annoyed. I don't understand when the fun is supposed to begin...




Outlining? Done. Now I must start cutting.



Success! Completion! Thank goodness.



Robert had no trouble with his and he was annoying me by being so friggin' efficient so I didn't care to take any photos of him. Pbbbttth! Still, here he is with his finished Obama face:



I was pleased that mine actually came out as well as it did and I think Robert was happy we finally got to carve our pumpkins. He's a total square, though, and doesn't want to put candles in them because it's a "fire hazard." That's what you're supposed to do with jack-o-lanterns, you loser!!!! I'm working on him... and even if ol' Barack doesn't get illuminated, my spider sure as heck WILL!

In the Halloween Spirit!!

So, here are a few (grainy) cell phone images of my newly decorated desk at The Bay:

This is the general gist of my desk, as seen from the doorway of my 'office.'




See the little spider in the corner? I hope he's noticeable enough for the people in my office. They're kind of... unobservant. Yes, that's a nice way to say it. ;o)



The only item not crocheted is the spider candy bowl (which only has 6 legs, not 8, which annoys me every year. But whatever). My aunt made all these and I know I purchased some from her but, of course, I don't know where it is so I swiped this stuff from my mom. Hey, she's always with her grandkids at Halloween and so doesn't usually decorate - it's not like she needs it!

Some people at my office are excited that I'm in the spirit and others think it's weird I've decorated so early. Early? Early?! It's October 17th, people! When do you want me to decorate - the day before? Please. The people in FinAid always have a costume party on Halloween and this year the theme is Celebrity Look-a-Likes. So far, people have suggested that I go as Sarah Palin, Britney Spears or Beyonce. (Yes, you read that right.) I'm not too keen on dressing up so I'll probably just wear my Halloween shirt and my bat headband. Besides, I don't think I look like anyone in particular - do you?