Pictures of October

October and November (so far) have ended up being such hectic months that I just realized this morning that I never did my monthly photo roundup for October. There aren't many pictures that I didn't post during the month, but here are the ones that are left.

The Apple Barn

My friend Justin, from high school (and, I guess, junior high, too, now that I think of it) came to visit my neck of the woods for a wedding, and we thought it would be nice to meet up and be in the same room together for the first time since 1998. I suggested The Apple Barn, because we all know that I love the apple fritters and will make any excuse to eat them.

Despite the fact that we talked out this whole dinner in exacting detail on Facebook, Jud and I somehow got confused on which week dinner was actually taking place in, so I went to the Apple Barn two weeks in a row (a tragedy that I somehow endured), and we had a fantastic time together with his wife, catching up on old friends and acquaintances in between stories of my work with college students. (This was a sometimes inappropriate for dinner discussion, as in early October butt chugging was still in the news around here.)

While I was waiting for Jud the second time, I walked around and took a few photos:





and then we had a really good dinner.

The UT Arboretum

Kristin and I ran up the road to the UT Arboretum and tree collection because I had heard it was really nice, and it was, but it's also a bunch of trees. We had planned to have a nice picnic lunch, but when we got there we found out that you weren't allowed to picnic, so we just walked around for a while and I took some photos:



I tried to take a photo of a spiderweb, but I guess you're supposed to do that early in the morning when they are covered in dew and show up better:



The leaves were just starting to turn, though, so I did get one nice photo of that:



Gabby's Nasty Ass Soap

Somehow this didn't make it into my entry about visiting Albuqurque:



I didn't buy any.

Halloween Pumpkins

I saw these on campus on my way to rehearsal for my play:



And that was it for October.

Halloween Horror: Silver Age DC Strikes Again

In honor of last night's holiday, Halloween, I thought I would dig out some spooky comics and share a tale of nightmarish terror as only Silver Age DC Comics could deliver them, a disturbing blend of horror and wacky insanity marketed to children.

I'll let Ferro Lad and Invisible Kid take it from here:









Of course it is. This is, after all, a story of terror and insanity.







Our story opens with Lana Lang's dream come true:



Lois is dead. And sure, Lana looks sort of sad about it as she stands by Lois' flaming funeral bier on Rajah Satdev's lush estate, but I bet there was a scene they didn't show where Lana knelt by the corpse like Heather Duke in "Heathers" at Heather Chandler's funeral, thinking, "I prayed for the death of Lois Lane many times, and I felt bad every time I did it, but I kept doing it anyway. Now I know that you understood. Amen and hallelujah!"

But wait, it gets better:



Not only is Lois dead, but Superman killed her. Did I mention that this story takes place on Lana's birthday? I'm not kidding. It says so on page 7.

Superman barely acknowledges Lana, because he's deranged with grief and guilty remorse. So much grief and guilty remorse, in fact, that he starts talking to Lois' corpse, and then...





Then comes the necrophilia. Happy Halloween, everybody!

No, actually, we're spared the necrophilia. Instead, Superman flies off in another fit of grief, leaving Lana alone to wonder how long the mourning period should be before she calls Superman for a date. While she's thinking, Rajah Satdev, the owner of the estate, appears:



He waves a hand and says some magic words, and Lana's day gets even worse:



Lois is married to Superman, and she's alive again, but she's hideously disfigured. I guess Lana sees that as enough of a silver lining to ask what's going on, and Lois explains that this all started when the Daily Planet sent her to cover the Metropolis Exotic Animal Show:



Intrigued, Lois hops in the Rajah's limo for an interview, but something may or may not be amiss:





The collapsing skyscraper turns out to be a huge scoop for Lois, but even though she's the kind of woman who accidentally breaks cursed mirrors and is regularly abducted by aliens on a daily basis Lois never stops to think, "Hey, did I actually just sell my soul to Satan?"

There is something odd about that Rajah, though:





He also spends a lot of time drinking a secret elixir that Lois is gravely forbidden to taste, which is pretty much the same as handing Lois the bottle and screaming, "Chug!"

As soon as he falls asleep:



But it's not from the Fountain of Youth, and instead burns Lois' mouth. Wondering how the Rajah could possibly drink it, Lois grabs his turban:





Lois and the Rajah immediately start fighting about her betraying his trust and him not being up-front with her about maybe being Satan, attracting the attention of Superman, who happens to be carrying Lana, because it's her birthday. When Superman tries to intervene, though, disaster strikes:



Which brings us back to where we left off before Lois' multi-page flashback:



The Rajah's tigers attack Lana, who tries to fight them off with one of the torches around the bier. Lana's wild flailing with the torch accidentally lights the bier on fire, and Lois and the Rajah stand unharmed in the flames as nearby villagers cower in fear. (They might also be cowering because the tigers that attacked Lana, never mentioned again in the story, flee the flames by running straight toward the village.) In the middle of all of this furor, it suddenly dawns on Lois that hey, she's a demon now.



The Rajah spirits the unconscious Lois home, where it turns out that he's not the devil after all:



His people are aliens who just happen to look like Satan, like the aliens in Childhood's End.

Resigning herself to life on Satdev's world, Lois makes plans to marry him:



but harbors a secret in her heart:



When the big day finally comes, trouble rears its head yet again:



Lois never took off the ring that Superman gave her when she was dead and he was deranged with grief.





Lois realizes that she can't marry a man she doesn't love as much as she loves the man who accidentally killed her and continuously strings her along because he has a second girl on the side, and begs Satdev to send her home:







Happy Halloween, everybody.

Why does it have so many nipples?

I frequently find myself questioning the things I see at the antique store. What is that? Why would someone buy that? What kind of home decor does that fit in with? After my trip today, when I stopped in while I was running errands, I have another question:



Why does that white pig with the giant ears have so many nipples?

And who's going to buy that? Who walks through the antique store and thinks, "Gosh, I really need... a seven inch pig ceramic lactating pig! Oh, happy day! This is the answer to my prayers!" other than someone with terrible, terrible issues?

It's like a Halloween farmyard nightmare.

Pop Quiz and Halloween Photos

Pop Quiz!

While blanching green beans, or haricots verts if you are somewhat French or Martha Stewart:



which of the following do you think of?

1) Blanche Devereaux, sexpot Golden Girl
2) Blanche DuBois, who has always depended upon the kindness of strangers
3) Blanche Hudson, crippled prisoner of her sister Baby Jane
4) What the hell is blanching, and how do you do it to beans?

While any answer is acceptable, mine involved me stirring the pot while muttering, "But ya are, Blanche, ya are in that chair!" and giggling. I was blanching the green beans because I was making a bean and potato salad for our office soup and salad luncheon on Wednesday. While we don't have a fixed date for it, we've had one every year I've worked here to celebrate the change of seasons from summer to fall, the season of my birthday and of Halloween.

Even though the official holiday is today, my Halloween festivities started a little early when I was invited to judge the floor decorating contests in one of the halls. While some of them were pretty haphazard and low effort, some of the floors went all out in terms of theme and effort:







I voted for the "Nightmare Before Christmas" floor, but have not heard who actually won. I also forgot to take pictures of the "Batman: The Dark Knight" floor, which also had a student-made video playing for us, but it was very impressive. On my way back to my car afterward I also saw this impressive graffiti in one of the bus stops:



I love the way it looks like the heads are actually made out of the map. I didn't examine it closely enough, but it's possible that they actually are.

Today, Halloween itself, was also a home football game, and I was working. I wasn't sure what would happen when we mixed a dress up holiday with football, but other than a random costume here and there:





and a line stolen from "The Exorcist" to compare our football coach to Jesus:



there wasn't much difference from normal. The rain probably had something to do with it, but also the fact that most of what people wear to the football games borders on costume on a normal day means that we didn't see anything really outlandish.

Unless, of course, you count the Vols Team Grill:



or the Vols office chair:



but even those aren't that bad if you remember the basic rule that you can paint anything in Tennessee Volunteer orange and someone will buy it.

My shift at the game only went to the end of the first quarter, and since it was dark and raining I decided to just head back to the parking garage and go home:



but on the way I had to walk past Ayres Hall. According to internet legend, the lawn of Ayres is haunted by spectral phantoms of Civil War soldiers, a story grounded in the fact that the building where Ayres now stands was a hospital for the injured of the Battle of Fort Sanders. Ayres is a beautiful, collegiate-looking building, but is currently closed for renovation. Given that it is empty, fenced off, dark, allegedly haunted, and that it was night, raining, Halloween, and that I was alone, I crossed the lawn for a closer look in spite of the knowledge gleaned from years of horror movie viewing:





No ghosts, but plenty spooky.