Happy Halloween!

Got corn?

Today is National Candy Corn Day! This probably isn't as exciting to you as it is me. Most people I know either love the stuff obsessively, or hate it passionately. I'm one of those first people. I've been eating candy corn for longer than I can remember. One year when I was in high school a friend of mine drove me home and I noticed she had a bag of candy corn in her car. Turns out she always had candy corn in her car. It was like a staple for her and I knew we would be friends forever. I'm picky about my candy corn because I don't like Brachs. I like other things by Brachs, just not their candy corn. It has a funny taste to me and the white tips always break off. I'll chose any brand over Brachs, even store brand names. I did try the Brachs Caramel Apple Candy Corn this year. It was okay, but I prefer the original. Here are some facts about candy corn --

1. Candy corn has been around for over 100 years.
2. It was invented by George Renninger.
3. A serving of candy corn has about 140 calories.
4. Over 35 million pounds of candy corn is produced each year.
5. That's over 9 billion pieces of candy corn.
6. The variety with brown ends is called Indian Corn.

So, what is your stand on candy corn? Do you love it or do you hate it? I was on a lady's blog the other day and she posted how she hated candy corn and used it as punishment to hand out to kids who were too old to trick-or-treat. Candy corn hater! I wonder what she'd do if I showed up at her door every night? For me, it's a year-round obsession, but I mostly buy it at Halloween. Here today is National Candy Corn Day and I don't have any in the house. Perhaps I'll stop on the way home from my dentist appointment and pick some up -- heh heh.

Which witch?

When you hear the word witch, what's the first thing to come to mind? Is it an image, the Halloween holiday, a movie character? There are so many witches from television, movies and cartoons and I'm sure I come up with a long list of famous ones. When I was little, I often dressed up as a witch for Halloween. I was never into witches much, other than dressing up a few times. I do however, have a few favorites. One is the witch from Looney Tunes. She cracks me up with her cackle, how she falls in love with Bugs Bunny and how her hairpins fly out everytime she runs away. My favorite animated Disney film has always been "Sleeping Beauty". Malificient is more of an evil sorceress than a witch, but that's close enough. One movie my family watches each Halloween is Hocus Pocus. It has so many classic lines like Penny Marshall saying, "Aren't you broads a little old for trick or treating?" as well as Sarah Jessica Parker bouncing up and down saying, "Amuck! Amuck! Amuck!" It's one of those must-see movies for my family each Halloween. So many famous witches are coming to my mind right now. How about you -- do you have any favorites?

Today is ...

National Chocolate Day! Not to be confused with National Chocolate Covered Cherry Day, which is in Janaury, or with Chocolate Mint Day, which is in February. Remember not to confuse today with National Chocolate Caramel Day or National Chocolate-Covered Raisin Day, which both land in March. Be careful not to mix up today with April's National Chocolate-Covered Cashew Day or May's National Chocolate Chip Day. It's especially important not to confuse today with National Milk Chocolate Day because everyone knows that comes in July. If you're not from the US, you probably know that International Chocolate Day is in September, which also includes National White Chocolate Day. Whatever you do, don't think today is National Bittersweet Chocolate With Almonds Day because that's not until November. And if by now you're really confused, just wait until December 16th because that's National Chocolate Covered Anything Day and you won't have to worry about it. And finally, if you have a headache from reading all this, do yourself a favor and go eat some chocolate. It is National Chocolate Day, silly!

Big, Bigger ... BLAM!

A few days ago, Christy posted a newspaper clipping from when she was in the 6th grade. She challenged people to do the same. I haven't been in the newspaper nearly as much as my husband, but he worked as a cop for 20+ years so he was always in the paper. I do, however, have a few and wanted to share one from when I was 11 years old. This paper was from 1976, so it's yellowing and falling apart, but I managed to get the pictures scanned. Considering the newspaper is 32 years old, I'm surprised it's still in one piece. This was for an afterschool program at a local park. One time they had a bubblegum blowing contest and my friend & I entered. I don't remember if we won anything, but I do remember getting gum stuck in my hair. Check out the Mickey Mouse earrings -- was I cool or what? Don't answer that ...

Home Sweet Home

It might seem silly to celebrate, but today is the 2-year anniversary of the day we moved into our new house. As I posted before, we moved from California to Montana in 2006. Our house in California was only 2000 square feet. This house is twice that size. It's almost like 2 homes in one, since the downstairs has a large family room, mini kitchen and walk-out basement. We got to Montana a few days before we could move in, so we had to camp out in our travel trailer. We moved into it on October 26, 2006 and our truck still hadn't gotten here with our stuff. I remember the day we had new sofas delivered. It was like striking gold because we finally had something to sit on. It wasn't until Halloween day that the truck came. Up until then, I was sweating bullets because I had packed the boy's new Halloween costumes in the truck. They arrived just in time for the boys to go trick-or-treating. After about an hour, they were ready to come back home. They wanted to unpack their toys! A lot of our belongings had been in storage for about a year while we tried to sell our CA house. As much as the boys love Halloween, it was more like Christmas that day.

I started thinking about all the homes I've lived in. I know some people who have lived in the same home all their life. I know others who have moved more times than they can remember. As for me, I've lived in 9 different places, including apartments. They've all been in the same general area, with the exception of the house I'm in now. How about you -- how many homes have you lived in?

In loving memory ...

Thirteen years ago I had to say goodbye to my best friend. CJ may have only been a cat, but he was a once-in-a-lifetime cat. I've had four cats since and if you added them all together, they'd never come close to what CJ was. He was truly special. Rick & I came home from school one day in 1981. As we were getting out of the car I heard a faint mew sound. I followed the noise up to a brick wall in my yard and there sat this little ball of fluff. He was the cutest thing I'd ever seen. He was way too young to have wandered off by himself. He wasn't even weaned from his mother. We're pretty sure someone had gone around dumping kittens off at various homes in the neighborhood. Rick & I took the kitten inside and tried to get him to eat. He wouldn't eat much, but then went off to sleep in my arms for hours.

He was a playful little guy, so I named him CJ, which was short for claws & jaws. He didn't have a mean bone in his body, but he liked to rough house, so the name fit. At the time, my brother and his wife were living with us and they had a cat named Mosh. The cats got along great. At that time, I let CJ come and go as he pleased. He was able to go outside through the dog door whenever he wanted. When he was just about a year old, I heard people outside yelling for me. CJ had gotten hit by a car right in front of my house. The driver didn't stop. I ran outside in horror and saw him by the side of the road. When we picked him up, a stream of blood rushed out from his behind. I knew he was hurt bad. This was in the evening and our vet office was closed, so we had to drive CJ to a pet emergency clinic in another town 30 minutes away. He was examined by the vet and given a "grave prognosis". The vet told us CJ had a broken hip, a concussion and a femur was broken in 3 places. He also had internal bleeding and there could be other things going on. The vet said his chances didn't look good. I had the option of putting him to sleep or going with surgery, which would be very expensive. In addition, surgery had no guarantees. I decided on surgery. It was a long process and the vet bills were outrageous.

CJ did very well with the surgery. It took a lot of time to heal. He wasn't able to move around, so Rick built him the cage you see in the picture above. The top lifted off so we could get to him easily. We put his cage in our living room so he could look out the window. He used to rub his head on the chicken wire and I remember being grossed out when he'd rub where his concussion scab was. He had a favorite blanket too. We had to keep clean blankets in his cage and since he couldn't use a litter box, we'd set him on unfolded disposable diapers. When the day came to wash his blue blanket, he wasn't happy. We'd put others in, but he'd push them aside. He loved his blue blanket. Eventually, his wounds healed and he was back to normal. He became an indoor cat from then on, which he didn't seem to mind.

Eventually, I moved from home and CJ went with me. He was our first baby. He was with me when I got married, he was with me during my first 2 pregnancies. He was the type of cat that would announce his appearance whenever he walked into a room. If I was sad, he was right with me. He used to lay on my chest and put his paws around my neck. He'd knead for hours like that until my hair was a teased mess. I could sit in one position for hours, just so I didn't disturb CJ. In 1990 he got a job as an editor of my newsletter, PET PALS! It was a pen pal newsletter for people who loved their pets. CJ was the editor and the whole thing was written in his voice. It was a lot of fun. CJ was even published book called Uncommon Cats, where he was featured in a chapter about working cats.

Over time, the effects of his accident took a toll on him. He had arthritis built up in his hips where they had been broken. He also developed renal failure, which he lived with for a long time. When he was 14 years old, it started getting the best of him. We were in the process of building our house and we were living next door at my ILs, all crammed into one big room. We finally moved into our new house, but by this point, CJ's health was deteriorating rapidly. As soon as we moved in, he started hiding from me. I knew his days were coming to an end. After 14 years, I had to make the decision to say goodbye. It was the worst thing I've ever had to do. I have 2 main regrets. The first is that I never got a picture of him in the new house. By that point, he was so sick and didn't look like himself. The second is that I had to take him to the vet at lunchtime and the office was closed. They took him in, but said they couldn't put him down until the staff came back. I couldn't stay because I had to pick my girls up from school. CJ perked up at that very last moment, as if he was saying goodbye. I regret not being with him, but in hindsight, it might have been for the best. I remember that day like it was yesterday. I remember a CD I had playing all that day, which I haven't been able to listen to since. I remember what clothes I had on as we drove him to the vet. It was an awful, awful day and I continued to cry for months.

Not a day goes by that I don't think about CJ. It's hard not to because I have his pictures everywhere. I have 2 on my bed stand, another on my dresser and one in my bathroom. In my living room there is a framed poster of CJ and he's on a digital photo frame that changes images. I have photo magnets of him on my fridge, he's in picture frames in the boy's playroom, the basement and in our office. I have a picture of CJ in my wallet and even in a little sunglasses holder in my Jeep. We buried his ashes at our home in California. When we made the decision to move to Montana, I couldn't leave him. I had Rick dig up his ash tin for me. I have it with me and I won't bury it again. Cats like CJ don't come around often. I've considered writing a story about his life. However, I'm not sure if anyone would find it interesting enough to publish, but who knows. Today is a hard day for me and I'm amazed how 13 years ago can feel like it was just yesterday. If you've read this entire post, I thank you. I realize it's very long, but CJ was just that special to me. I miss him terribly.