Have a fun Halloween!

GrannyJ sent us a story which goes very well with a Halloween theme. Thank you, GrannyJ.

Police work can be entertaining as well as dangerous.

Recently, a female sheriff's deputy arrested Patrick Lawrence, a 22 year old white male, who was fornicating with a pumpkin in the middle of a field at night.

The next day, at the Gwinnett County (GA) courthouse, Lawrence was charged with lewd and lascivious behavior, public indecency and public intoxication.

The suspect explained that he was passing a pumpkin patch on his way home from a drinking session when he decided to stop. 

'You know how a pumpkin is soft and squishy inside, and there was no one around for miles, 
or at least I thought there was no one around' he stated.

Lawrence went on to say that he pulled over to the side of the road, picked out a pumpkin that he felt was appropriate to his purpose, cut a hole in it, and proceeded to satisfy his pressing need.

”Guess I was really into it, y'know?” he commented with evident embarrassment.

In the process of doing the deed, Lawrence failed to notice an approaching sheriff's car and was unaware of his audience until Deputy Brenda Taylor approached him.

'It was an unusual situation, that's for sure,' said Deputy Taylor. 

'I walked up to Lawrence and he's just humping away at this pumpkin.'

Deputy Taylor went on to describe what happened when she approached Lawrence ...

'I said: 'Excuse me, sir, but do you realize that you're having sex with a pumpkin?' 

He froze and was clearly very surprised that I was there, and then he looked me straight in the face and said:

'A pumpkin? Sh*t ... is it midnight already?'

[This story is not true, but the guy's comeback is very funny!]

Amy and mrsgunka sent us this cute picture:

All Souls extravaganza (with cute update)

Every year, for three days, people around the world celebrate souls, saints and the dead: Halloween, All Saints and the Day of the Dead.

Trick or treating is most popular in the US, but this frightening group from Australia look very good too:

As we're very fond of a certain emerald island, I found some interesting tidbits from that part of the world:

Halloween is a widely celebrated cultural event in Ireland. It is known in Irish as Oíche Shamhna (Irish pronunciation: [ˈiːhə haunˠə] ee-hah how-nah), literally "Samhain Night". In Irish, Samhain is the name for the month of November. The medieval Irish festival of Samhain marked the end of the harvest, heralding shorter days and the "darker half" of the year. It is linked to the dead revisiting the mortal world, large communal bonfires and associated lore.

Houses are frequently adorned with orange pumpkins, or traditional turnip carved into scary faces; lights or candles are sometimes placed inside the carvings, resulting in an eerie effect. The traditional Halloween cake in Ireland is the barmbrack, which is a fruit bread. The Halloween Brack traditionally contained various objects baked into the bread and was used as a fortune-telling game. In the barmbrack were a pea, a stick, a piece of cloth, a small coin (originally a silver sixpence), and a ring. Each item, when received in the slice, was supposed to carry a meaning to the person concerned: the pea, the person would not marry that year; the stick, "to beat one's wife with", would have an unhappy marriage or continually be in disputes; the cloth or rag, would have bad luck or be poor; the coin, would enjoy good fortune or be rich; and the ring, would be married within the year.

I also found some music related to the theme:

According to legend, "Death" appears at midnight every year on Halloween. Death calls forth the dead from their graves to dance their dance of death for him while he plays his fiddle (here represented by a solo violin). His skeletons dance for him until the rooster crows at dawn, when they must return to their graves until the next year.




In France, La Toussaint is the holiday to celebrate all saints (known and unknown) and the departed, when they take chrysanthemums to the cemeteries. The shops and supermarkets get flooded with large pots of chrysanthemums:

The graves of loved ones look very colourful:

I couldn't leave Mexico out, where El Dia de los Muertos is widely celebrated:

La Catrina (la calavera Catrina) has become the referential image of Death in Mexico, it is common to see her embodied as part of the celebrations of Day of the Dead throughout the country; she has become a motive for the creation of handcrafts made from clay or other materials, her representations may vary, as well as the hat.

La Catrina also appears in a mural by Diego Rivera:

People go to great lengths to look spectacular. This dress is made of paper plates, plastic cups and plastic spoons:

There are many other countries that celebrate death at this time of the year. Every culture had its own way to address the theme, which certainly gives people the opportunity to let their imaginations fly!

UPDATE

I had to add this picture of Halloween in the Kalahari, courtesy of Shapeshifterbelly:

Jack-o'-lantern

Carved pumpkins are a familiar sight at Halloween. I decided to find out the origins of the ubiquitous Jack-o'-lantern:

The story of the Jack-o'-lantern comes in many variants retold in different forms across Western Europe, with variations being present in the folklore of Norway, Sweden, England, Ireland, Wales, Germany, Italy and Spain. An old Irish folk tale from the mid-19th Century tells of Stingy Jack, a lazy yet shrewd farmer who uses a cross to trap the Devil. One story says that Jack tricked the Devil into climbing an apple tree, and once he was up there Jack quickly placed crosses around the trunk or carved a cross into the bark, so that the Devil couldn't get down.

Another version of the story says that Jack was getting chased by some villagers from whom he had stolen, when he met the Devil, who claimed it was time for him to die. However, the thief stalled his death by tempting the Devil with a chance to bedevil the church-going villagers chasing him. Jack told the Devil to turn into a coin with which he would pay for the stolen goods (the Devil could take on any shape he wanted); later, when the coin/Devil disappeared, the Christian villagers would fight over who had stolen it. The Devil agreed to this plan. He turned himself into a silver coin and jumped into Jack's wallet, only to find himself next to a cross Jack had also picked up in the village. Jack had closed the wallet tight, and the cross stripped the Devil of his powers; and so he was trapped.

In both folktales, Jack only lets the Devil go when he agrees never to take his soul. After a while the thief died, as all living things do. Of course, his life had been too sinful for Jack to go to heaven; however, the Devil had promised not to take his soul, and so he was barred from hell as well. Jack now had nowhere to go. He asked how he would see where to go, as he had no light, and the Devil mockingly tossed him an ember from the flames of hell, that would never burn out. Jack carved out one of his turnips (which were his favorite food), put the ember inside it, and began endlessly wandering the Earth for a resting place. He became known as "Jack of the Lantern", or Jack-o'-lantern.

Here's a traditional version:

A traditional Irish Jack-o'-Lantern in
the Museum of Country Life, Ireland

Billy and his girlfriend Sandra carved their own:

Some people go to extremes. Here are some carvings by Ray Villafane (courtesy of mrsgunka).

Yikes!

Shapeshifterbelly sent me an item that had appeared on Facebook:

I did a bit of googling and found better pictures of the spooky event:

Known as The Tufty Terror, this poor squirrel managed to get his head stuck in a Halloween decoration in Fareham, Hants, England.

Thank you, Shapeshifter.

Happy ever after?

Mrsgunka sent me this Halloween themed joke:

Two brooms were hanging in the closet and after a while they got to know each other so well, they decided to get married.

One broom was, of course, the bride broom, the other the groom broom.

The bride broom looked very beautiful in her white dress.

The groom broom was handsome and suave in his tuxedo.

The bridesmaids brooms looked lovely.

The wedding was fantastic.

After the wedding, at the wedding dinner, the bride broom leaned over and said to the groom broom, 'I think I am going to have a little whisk broom!'

'IMPOSSIBLE !' said the groom broom.

'We haven't even swept together!'

Thank you, MrsG.

[I'm aware that some readers are unable to visit the blog, as they have this horrendous hurricane Sandy on their minds, not to mention the strong possibility of being without power. Please stay safe.]

Halloween treats

I haven't tried to make these "attractive" treats, but they look perfect for Halloween!

Ingredients
2 packs (3 oz) Raspberry jello
1 pkg unflavored gelatin (for extra firmness)
3/4 cup whipping cream
15 drops green food coloring
3 cups boiling water
100 flexible straws (or enough to fill your container)
Tall container (1 quart or 1 liter carton of milk)

Directions
1) Combine gelatin in bowl and add boiling water.

2) Let it cool to lukewarm and then add the whipping cream and the 15 drops of food coloring.

3) Gather your straws (don't forget to flex them out) and put them in the container. It's important that the straws have a tight fit so the jello stays in the straws. For this reason, a 1 liter carton may be better; you will probably get longer worms since there is a tighter fit. If you have a bigger container, a rubber band around the straws is helpful. Or you could just add more straws to fill the container.

4) Add the gelatin mixture to the straw-filled container and let it set until firm.

5) There are multiple ways you can remove the worms from the straws. You can roll a rolling pin over the straws and squeeze them out or you can hold the straws over warm water. The worms will slip right out.

Halloween!