Happy Halloween (In Costume)

Norah was supposed to be Arlo for Halloween...but she kept wiping the face paint and wouldn't leave her ears on. So everyone thought she was a kitty. By the fourth house...I just started agreeing.





I was worried she'd be afraid of this mask...but she just giggled and focused on her very first lollipop. When I took the mask off later that evening, she kept trying to put it back on me.

Happy Halloween (Mostly Wordless)

Arlo, our very own church grim



Queasymodo



"I got my costume ready...let's go get some candy!!"

Norah's Boyfriend

Note: For those of you following along with Piper and the Gren, Part 3 has been posted. The link on the left-hand side menu will keep you up to date on the story posting.

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I know someday she’ll be old enough to read this. And at that point, young Norah will most likely be horrified at my choice of the word “boyfriend.” But in the meantime, I get to write this unfettered by my daughter’s impending realization that boys have cooties. So, boyfriend it is.

Norah and David go way back. For over a third of Norah’s life, she’s been joyously pushing David down and steeling his toys. He doesn’t seem to mind, so I guess it works out for everyone. They met at the Little Gym where they were a perfectly matched little pair. Same size, same hair, roughly the same development level although David had a few words and was a bit more stable on his feet (when he wasn’t being pushed.) Based on the kids’ budding relationship and the fact that his folk’s seemed like cool people, Moonshot and I made an effort to chat with David’s parents. A weak effort, mind you, since we’re horridly introverted and small talk is painfully awkward. But, they seemed nice, so we kept up the unnatural at of…meeting…new…people, and eventually got comfortable conversing with them.

When the Little Gym class ended, we set up a play date for the kids and have since got together with David and his family twice for social functions.

I don’t have nicknames picked out for David’s mom and dad yet. Partially because I don’t know them quite well enough to label them the McCheeses (after we learned together that no matter how much you beg, a gas grill will not melt fat-free cheese…it’ll just make cheese-flavored rocks atop your pizza) and partially because my wife refuses to join me in my thought experiment.


Me: What’s the opposite of a kangaroo?


Moonshot: Nothing, that’s stupid.


Me: It’s…I’m trying to think of a good nickname for David’s folks so I can mention them on the blog.


Moonshot: You are such a dork.


Me: True, but what’s the opposite of a kangaroo?


Moonshot, sighing a she realizes I will not go away until she plays: Fine. Um, I don’t know. Some animals have opposites. Like if you said dog, I’d say cat, but….oh, my God, I can’t do this. It’s too stupid. I’m going upstairs to read.

So, for now I’ll just call them David’s mom and dad.

Anyway, before I sidetracked myself, I was meandering this post toward our recent trip to the pumpkin patch. The 90-degree weather made it slightly difficult to get into the pumpkin selection mood, but we did our level best to make it festive. And since the kids had no pumpkin related expectations anyway…fun was had by all.

Don’t they make a cute couple? (Sorry, future Norah!)

Happy Birthday, Uncle Jet

An Introduction to a Gren

Saying that I’ve been working on a story for almost 10 months makes it sound like a pretty impressive story, yes? As if for these past 10 months, I’ve been hunkered over my keyboard, tweaking sentences in an artistic quest for just the right word to make my audience burst into spontaneous applause there in their distant cubicles and home offices. The truth is somewhat less thrilling. The story whiled away most of its ten-month life sitting unloved and untouched. Oh…I spent a great deal of time thinking about it in my car or as I drifted off to sleep. But actual work has been pretty sparse. Unlike previous stories I’ve attempted, however, I never lost my love for the characters or the story premise. See…some one had asked me, early in my life as a blogger named Moksha Gren, what in the world “gren” meant. After mulling over the best way to answer that, I fell in love with the idea of simply introducing everyone to the twisted, little creature called a gren. So, after a few months of neglect, I would always slink back to my computer and peck a few extra words here and there before drifting away again. Then, I made a deal with myself. Since the events told in the story take place in October, I figured October would be a good time to post it. And since I came to this conclusion in July or so…it fit nicely into my natural inclination toward procrastination.

And suddenly it was late September and I hadn’t opened the story in months. Panicked, I began rushing around, squeezing in writing time wherever I could, forcing my poor wife to edit at a frantic pace. My cousin Tony out in Reno had agreed to draw some sketches to accompany the story. But my lack of time management now means the story will be posted sans artwork since Tony hasn’t even seen the story yet.

But……the story will be posted.

And that in itself is an amazing thing for me right now. It’s the first story I’ve completed since I was in college. And though I tried valiantly to follow my usually routine…I did not let this one slip silently into the forgotten recesses of my brain without ever seeing the light of day. I’m proud of that. True, it’s got some cumbersome sections. The linguistic artistry is not what I had hoped and I don’t think I was able to capture everything I had wanted. But, I still love the story and my wife tells me that it’s “better than she expected.” I’m taking it as a complement.

So, I’ve set up a new blog called From Erebus to house this and any future fictional writings I do. It’s just an empty shell as I type this, but on October 11th I’ll lift the curtain on the first section of my first story, Piper and the Gren.

I’m a bit nervous.