Message board topic:

This time of the year it seems like I have to do a lot of driving straight toward the Sun.  Seems like it's always setting when I have to drive west and it's usually dangerously blinding.  No smoke or anything else in the air to dim it down either.  Tonight, as usual, I drive directly west, right at about sundown.  Only about 45 minutes away though.

One of my singers is in the Air Force and my bass player is in the Army.  About once a month the Army drags the bass player away, but we've got that covered.  The Air Force on the other hand, has given orders that the singer is not allowed in where we're playing because of the virus.  He's not allowed in any place we work until the policy changes.  Until it does, which could be any time, all the load is on one person.  Well, as I often say, "Work with whatcha got".  John

Wow, it was a lovely moon on the drive to work this morning and yesterday. Yesterday there must have been upper atmosphere smoke as it was a pink moon, today it was more normal. Totally clear skys except the stars and moon. I just love that kind of morning drive. :)

I never was much for decorating outside.  Even when I was a kid, we might hang something on the door and that was it.  If you live in an area where no one can see your house, there doesn't seem to be much point in it unless you just enjoy it.  Inside of course, was different.  I don't remember having much aside from the tree, but the tree was always a big deal.  To some people, that stuff becomes less important over time.  To people like me, I think it gets more important, perhaps trying to maintain a connection to the past, if not somehow trying to relive it.

Christmas was always huge when I was a kid.  I only realized later how important it was to Mom.  I got to tell her a year or so before she died, that I knew how hard she worked to make it special, and that it unquestionably worked.  That's just one more thing I've tried to pass down from Mom to the next generation.  Huge Christmases and trips to Florida.

This stupid virus business must make it especially hard for you to get anything done, with travel restrictions, visiting restrictions, and I imagine the housing market is in the toilet right now, and I know you have a ton of work to do.  John

I have not put up decorations in a long time. When we moved here I used to put up lights and lighted deer in the yard, but I have long given up on that. No one can see the decorations but me when I go outside and it gets way too cold here to want to put them up in December or take them down in January. I suppose I could put up those sparkle lights that shine on the house, that would be quick and easy. 

My mind had been on my childhood decorations a lot more now, I need to get back out to NJ and start to ready to sell moms home and store belongings. Knowing I would be doing that sometime (once covid is over and travel can easily happen and we have no cats ready to die) makes me think on all the stuff growing up, if that makes sense.

  I never thought about the masks.  I can't really think of much that has a face.  A witch or 2, a couple of haunted houses, a couple of ceramic pumpkins, one with a black cat playing on it.  My guitar case is shaped like a coffin, complete with a sort of tuck & roll, purple velvet inside.  Sometimes I'll take the guitar out and hang this ghostly thing in it.  A couple of pictures, some black, sparkly roses, and some other odds and ends.  I always decorate on October first.

I always decorate for Christmas on December first.  Drives Cheri a little crazy to have stuff up that long but I'm insistent.  I let everyone vote this year on whether to put up my aluminum tree or a more conventional green tree this year.  Everyone else voted for green, so that's what it'll be.  I'd still put up my aluminum tree in my office but I also do my workouts in there so there really isn't room.  I can't think of anywhere else to put it.  John

I never made a pie from one, just a canned one. ;) But I used to cook the seeds. Yummy!

What kind of decorations do you put out? Of anything with faces, make sure to put a mask on them! ;)