HALLOWEEN

We dressed up as our other selves...

Miles, as the scientist..Caroline, the princess....








Our friend Monse was a monkey...
....and Nick was a fat ballerina. That was the best five dollars he ever spent at Longs.....

Pumpkin carving

When it was time to gather pumpkins from the garden, it turned out that we only had one or two worth doing. Then it turned out that they "had slugs" on them, and some people would not touch them. You know, they really are not very expensive....BUT on the Sunday before Halloween, the pickings are slim. So we got huge ones!!!Kristina invited us and Geni over for an afternoon/evening of carving pumpkins and eating Ancho-pumpkin-black bean soup. Yum!! She also made a ginger cheesecake which was really good, too. So we slimed up her kitchen, taking all the guts out.....
Roy helped Asher with his....
When Miles was little, he would not come within about five feet of pumpkin innards....he's so grown up, now....sniff.
Fearless, as always.
The Carnage.
Miles's own design. I almost passed out on Halloween when someone asked if we were Astros fans. He thought that was their logo. It does pretty much look like it, but really, it just came out of his head--we are NO fans of Houston anything!
Caroline's cat on a tree branch.
I made this from a book design the kids picked. We saw the same one down the street!!
Hick never got around to carving his, so I did this with a carving knife about 5 minutes after trick or treaters started coming....
Well, we had to have at least one with a face....

Show Me What Democracy Looks Like...

This is what Democracy looks like!

This morning we got up at the crack of dawn for soccer....we came home, and made some signs,


.....met up with my friend Sonia (aka SuperGirl), and headed downtown for the Peace Rally. It was not as crowded as I expected, but plenty of people there, from every walk of life, protesting the stupid war. We showed up at the park with "thousands" of other people.

The kids really liked the giant Earth ball....they got interviewed for local cable, and when they asked Caroline why was she at the rally, she sweetly informed them that she just was really sick of this war. Miles piped in to say he doesn't like all the money being spent on this war by our government, for making money for corporations....Hey, we are for peace, man.

I would love to make a giant paper mache head someday....
Hey there she is, SuperGirl!

The 3 counter-protesters.....Had to explain the Canada sign to Miles.

Here are some of the sights of the 2.38 mile walk....
SuperGirl was a Super photo -op. Tons of people wanted their picture taken with her, plus she was super easy to spot in the crowd. Always go to a protest march with someone dressed as a superhero.

Atlas here....
Caroline made a friend with a cute 4 year old named Zian. She was getting tired of walking and reached out to hold Caroline's hand, and then talked her ear off for the entire walk.Cops.... act cool. The anarchists were out in full force, Miles was rather perplexed by their slogans...."Wait, no laws at all?" Someone gave me a pamphlet about what to do in case of nuclear war or Marshall Law, apparently we all go down and meet at the Space Needle to organize...
I somehow missed my photo, but I saw a lot of signs supporting Ehran Watada. And other random stuff..Stop violence against women, Sally Soriano for School Board....
There were also signs comparing the cost of the war to the cost of education. Very Scary.
That one in the back says One day of Iraq war equals 84 new Elementary Schools. Egad.
.
Well we made it to the end, in Pioneer Square, milled around a bit and then got out of there.
We took the bus home, and behind Miles and Sonia was a guy who got into a conversation with them, and I looked over, and Miles was giggling, and said, "Mama, that guy just told me that scientists are really close to proving that God is the 11th dimension!" Of all the information he gathered today, he can add, there will always be crazy people on the bus.

Miles and the Mushrooms

Saturday, my resident fungus enthusiast and I went to the Puget Sound Mycological Society (PSMS) annual Fall show. Here he is on the way in....
SO excited. We went in and saw rows and rows of tables of every mushroom you can imagine, and some you cannot!! Miles doesn't even need to read the signs, he was just telling me about them, he has been studying them for so long.

I learned that Chanterelles that we eat have veins, and False Chanterelles (which are poisonous) have gills. That is how you tell the difference. Miles has been eating his eggs scrambled with Chanterelles all week.

A mushroom as big as your head!

So pretty.So weird.
Who knew there were purple mushrooms? (well, Miles did)
There were celebrity chefs there cooking mushroom dishes, and we got to taste a fritatta that had black trumpet mushrooms in it. Oh yum.
It was held in the Center for Urban Horticulture at the U, so afterward, we walked around a bit, it has really nice gardens. A gorgeous fall day...

I love Fall

The trees look so pretty.....
I also love cooking in the fall, there are reasons every day to make soup!! This one is black bean:

Finishing up the "harvest". Here are 3 of our 6 ears of corn. It was really good.
Here are some garden carrots, I just thought they looked nice in the blue dish.

Caroline gets in on it,
This one is lentil and swiss chard, it was really delicious.
Excellent loaf of bread from the Grateful Bread Bakery....
Roasted veggies!! Squash, yams, taters, parsnips, onions and carrots. I went a little crazy here and ended up eating this every day for lunch for a week....
Did I mention how pretty the trees are getting??