Halloween continued...

Did I mention that the boy and I are making his costume? He wants to be a LEGO™ minifig. Currently, he wants to be this one. The big challenge is going to be the head. Will he be willing to wear this on his head for the tricks or treats?

Halloween's a coming...

I told my son that we would have a halloween party on 10/25. I'm only inviting 5 kids, but I'm a little worried, as I have never planned a kid's party on my own (he's 5). Worst case scenario, I buy lots of candy and crap from orientaltrading.com and put on our copy of The Nightmare Before Christmas for a couple hours.

That's not so bad for a party, now, is it?

While it is always unusual to have your mother belong to an underground revolutionary movement...

...it would have been far less unusual in the Russian Empire in the early 1900s than in most other times and places. By the turn of the century, women made up almost one-third of the Social Revolutionary's Combat Organization, the terrorist wing of Russia's most popular revolutionary party. Young women built and threw bombs, plotted and carried out assasinations, and showed they were the equal of men in fanaticism, selflessness, and ruthlessness.
~ Tom Reiss, The Orientalist

It was as though the movable features of the face, once forcibly subdued, had now likewise attained their true freedom and now were clothed only by dull-witted, animal, "free" expressions....Bolshevism began with the transformation of the human face into a grimace.
~ Lev Nussimbaum (aka Kurban Said, aka Essad Bey), as quoted in The Orientalist, by Tom Reiss

Xena, Warrior Princess

I finally got a copy of my Halloween costume from 2005. The night was a total disaster, but damn I looked good!

The boy started Kindergarten this week. 'Three thumbs up,' he says. I am so glad he's not having the awful time that his therapist promised us.

Here we go again...

"Pour me some more slivovits," said Klara, and I wasn't against it. It was by no means unusual for us to open a bottle and this time there was a genuine excuse for it.

Milan Kundera, Laughable Loves