I watch the ripples change their size
But never leave the stream
Of warm impermanence
And so the days float through my eyes
But still the days seem the same
And these children that you spit on
As they try to change their worlds
Are immune to your consultations
They're quite aware of what they're goin' through

Friday, August 10, 2007

Because I'm a Lawn Decoration Wonk

For those of you who don't know, I love decorating my yard for Halloween and Christmas. My neighbor across the street (hi David) is also into decorating his lawn. We have a friendly competition going. And we like that cars now come down our streets to see our lawns. We even have waving inflatable snowmen (that we bought separately) that we position to wave at each other.

For me, however, Halloween is the bigger holiday. I love to decorate for Halloween. I have a plethora of those styrofoam jack-o-lanterns and I always like to put them in interesting configurations. I make my own decorations as well. Last year I took a standard issue scarecrow and added one of the smaller jack-o-lanterns as it's head and a package of plastic bones for it's arms and legs. It was excellent, but I need to adjust it for this year (maybe get a larger scarecrow, or just make it more menacing). A few years ago I scored big and during Trick-or-Treat I had a kid do a jump take when he realized that one of my decorations was right in front of him. I think he may have pee-ed himself a little. Imagine me with my evil grin as I remember that moment.

More on lawn decorations later, back to the story.

So when I was at Sam's Club yesterday I saw what will be this years "must have" Halloween Decoration (like last year's Santa's Train fetish, the year before was Snow Globes). I'm not saying I'll get one, and it didn't have the same effect as last year's 12' Pencil Xmas Tree (which I do have, don't we all have cathedral ceilings we can display that large of tree in?). But I did like it. I couldn't find a photo of the exact type, the one at Sam's had two horses and the coffin inside had a pop-up death/reaper character. But you can get the idea from this one.

6 comments:

ThatGreenyFlower said...

I want to see a photo of the 12' pencil Christmas tree!

Steve Buchheit said...

Greeny, that'll have to wait until I'm home.

Camille Alexa said...

Woohoo! Photos on the Story Bones!

Steve Buchheit said...

Well, not my photos for this one. But it would have been slightly harder to describe.

Writerswife said...

Toby wants to be like you with the Halloween stuff. We have a working porch light now--maybe this year we'll get trick or treaters.

Steve Buchheit said...

Hey Emily, I love giving out tricks and treats, although the parents can make it hard. I've been working on how to get decorations to move and interact. I have these ghosts I've cut from a white packing foam (low density) so they pick up any light. I attach them by floral wire to the trees in our front yard (three to six-foot lengths). When a breeze blows by they move like crazy. Unfortunately I lose about 3 each year and I'm having problems finding that material to cut more.

I guess I'll have to dig up some photos of my yard stuff and post them. One year, I used those jack-o-lanterns in the trees, at night they looked like they were mysteriously floating in the air.

Just as a reference we get about 200-300 kids (for a Village of just over 2000). The other townships ship them in for the event. I'm a big spender on them as well, each kid gets at least two pieces from me (although I do bulk up with bubble gum and tootsie rolls). For the teens and the adults with babies (toddlers at least can walk to the house), they only get one piece.