Halloween Have a Go

Cut and paste this verbage skeleton into the comments section and tell your Halloween Tale. The Chows will judge them at midnight tonight, announce the winner and award a $50 gift certificate to the restaurant of your choice. Let's hear your story!

It was a dark and ____ ____ [adjective for Northwest weather] Halloween night.
At home in ____ [The 'Kan EWA neighborhood], ____ [name of person in room] was listening to ____ [overhyped indie band], drinking ____ [cheap hooch], debating whether to wear ____ [hideous early ’90s clothing fad] and go as ____ [Saved by the Bell character] or a rumpled ____ [article of clothing] and ____ [comfort shoe brand] to go as ____ [local prominent real estate developer]. Suddenly, he/she heard a ____ [spooky noise] in the basement.
With visions of ____ [low-budget slasher movie] and ____ [early-career Jack Nicholson character] in mind, ____ [same person in room] grabbed the ____ [overpriced but brilliantly marketed cell phone/PDA model] and went to investigate.
Peering into the darkness, he/she yelled “____!” [gangsta rap lyric] and punched the air like ____ [aging action hero]. Startled, ____ [name of other person in the room] screamed and dropped his/her ____ [unspeakable and unusual prop].
Clearly, both thought to themselves, this was going to be a ____ [salacious adjective] Halloween.

The End.

~h/t Daily Candy

JBelle

Bellemaison

The 'Kan EWA

It's a beautiful day here in The 'Kan EWA and no finer day for a ball game. The Chows are doubly excited because it's Saturday night in Denver where the dream lives on. So the game here at Bellemaison is being played even as I write; this is the backstop where the catcher stands. Those of you who have partied here with us will recognize the wash tubs that I bought over in Vinegar Flats at a garage sale and the old baby's bathtub I bought at the Paris flea market; of course, the last time you saw them they were full of ice, beer and champagne. The Chows have put them to a better and higher use. They are pretty keen, those Chows. And believe that you can party anywhere, particularly in the Rocky Mountains.

Anyway, getting back to the ballgame at Bellemaison, if you're gonna play ball, you stand downpool by the pool slide and pitch up the pool deck into the back stop. While each player enjoys their unique defensive and offensive strategies, essentially the game is played with some people standing at midpool so as to try and snag the ball in the air while others stand down at the back stop or even to the side of the backstop at the diving board, hoping for a ricochet and a clean catch. In any case, the person who catches the ball gets to chew it hard all the way back down the pool deck to the pitcher where they drop it and trot uppool as everyone reloads. Is this a game or what! And the party starts in Denver at 5 sharp!

~a special shout out to those believers down in Oregon who live on the BOSTON side of I-5

JBelle

Bellemaison

The 'Kan EWA

O the Horror

Sylvie Ruth ran up to me and whispered in my ear that the Chows are not voting for David Hession. When she told me why they had changed their minds, I couldn't believe it.

JBelle

Bellemaison

The 'Kan EWA

The Chow Nation has a good snicker going. There has been a lot of running around in The General, what with fall here and all. Green Bluff, Hayden Farmer's Market, Egger's for good brats, all those places the Chows go to get their apples and pumpkins and gourdes and the things they need to do the entertaining they do once the weather turns fall. You know, tailgates and all.

Anyway, they saw a series of signs all over town last weekend that looked like this:

The Chows love this commando campaigning and think it's a far better nasty than the TV commercials and She's A Liar stuff on the front page of the morning paper. They think the hate boxes on the corner are better because if you're gonna be snarky, why waste money in the process? You could donate $40,000 to Catholic Charities, get you some boxes at the liquor store, take to the street corners and be just as snarky as you could with air time on Q-6. As Do' says quite matter of fact: You don't need an ad agency to go mean. Look at Jane Hession: she just hip checks 'em.

Do' always plays to win and sometimes forgets it's just a game of ball. I guess that's why she's not the Alpha Chow.

JBelle

Bellemaison

The 'Kan EWA

There's much talk these days about fishing on the Joe. Even the New Yorkers are some kind of experts about fishing on the Joe. My grandmother used to fish the Joe and wash her diapers in the Joe, no small feat in winter. I fished the Joe as a child and had a knack for pulling out the big ones. Entirely clairvoyant on my part, I can assure you. Seems the truly great women of the Great State of North Idaho fish the Joe with fine success, as seen here:

(see above)
Clearly, it's all in the pants.

But as mighty as it is, the all time great fish story in our family is not about the Joe. Seems my grandmother, the same one who did her diapers on the banks in the icy waters of the river behind their house, moved to Coeur d'Alene at a point. She got in the car and drove down Sherman to 11th. There she parked the car--one: because the road ended there and two: because the trailhead to Fernan was there. She got her pole and her tackle out of the car and hiked down to Fernan Lake, caught her trout, hiked back to the edge of town, drove home to Third Street and cooked her catch for dinner. My grandmother used to pull dinner out of Fernan Lake and hiked down there to do it. Now just go ahead and tell me we don't own the universe.



JBelle
Bellemaison
The 'Kan EWA

from lunch today:

Ego Tripping

I was born in the Congo.

I walked to the Fertile Crescent and built the sphinx.

I designed a pyramid so tough that a star

that only glows every one hundred years falls

into the center giving divine perfect light.

I am bad.

I sat on the throne

drinking nectar with Allah.

I got hot and sent an ice age to Europe

to cool my thirst.

My oldest daughter is Nefertiti.

The tears from my birth pains

created the Nile.

I am a beautiful woman.

I gazed on the forest and burned

out the Sahara desert.

With a packet of goat's meat

and a change of clothes,

I crossed it in two hours.

I am a gazelle so swift,

so swift you can't catch me.

For a birthday present when he was three,

I gave my son Hannibal an elephant.

He gave me Rome for mother's day.

My strength flows ever on.

My son Noah built an ark and

I stood proudly at the helm

as we sailed on a soft summer day.

I turned myself into myself and was Jesus.

Men intone my loving name.

All praises all praises,

I am the one who would save.

I sowed diamond in my back yard.

My bowels deliver uranium.

The filings from my fingernails are semi-precious jewels.

On a trip north,

I caught a cold and blew

my nose giving oil to the Arab world.

I am so hip even my errors are correct.

I sailed west to reach east and had to round off

the earth as I went.

The hair from my head thinned and gold was laid

across three continents.

I am so perfect so divine so ethereal so surreal.

I cannot be comprehended except by my permission.

I mean...I...can fly

like a bird in the sky...

~Nikki Giovanni

One of my old friends from IDAHO got the word week before last that she has double breast cancer and a few dirty lymph nodes. Just heard a few minutes ago that one of my closest colleagues in the business community will undergo heart surgery tomorrow, not exactly emergency but important enough to be scheduled after his MD appointment this morning. My mentor was just voted out of a business that he built and of which he has been a partner for 41 years.

I remember the week my dad died and the naif chapter of my life closed for good. I thought, is this it? You work hard, save your money, retire, get sick and die? For those that have seen it, that was the week I commissioned The Table of the Four Seasons. That was my response. I still don't have any more answers than I did then. But I have seen and tasted some fearfully beautiful, joyous, and wonderous moments since then. There is beauty all around me. And by God, I'm going to go out and find some.


JBelle
Bellemaison
The 'Kan EWA

The mist was heavy in the garden this morning. Now it lays deep and still, entombing the clocktower and all of the park in its mystery. I have much to do today, again, and continue to tilt with those things in business, those problematic enigmas, that bore me, exasperate me, occupy me.

Not that I am without inspiration. I have great inspiration these days, in the form of the goings and doings of my friends.

One of my oldest friends is running for public office. Instead of mucking up the blogs and wagging her finger in the air when we have coffee, she is acting on her strong opinions and convictions. She's running for office. I hear from a mutual friend that things are going quite well and that she will, in all probability, win. She's a true patriot.

One of my dearest friends just retired after working for the Red Cross for 30 years. Never worked for anybody but them. The last chapter of her career included 9/11, Katrina and the tsunami. She touches me deeply. She's struggling as she moves into the new rhythm of her life.

One of my newest friends is going fishing on the Joe this weekend. There's nothing like fall fishing. How is it that autumn can be such a clean beginning on so many levels? This friend has great courage and is fully present in the pain that each day brings. She is going to be fine.

As I write, the fog has lifted from the park and the sun shines softly now, the orange and gold of the treetops in the park clearly visible from my window. All the best moments move so quickly.


JBelle
Bellemaison
The 'Kan EWA

Okay, get off. Let the emails, phone calls, wailing and gnashing of teeth cease. I'm here. I'm fine. It's all good. And we've all survived--how many days has it been?

Initially, I was at a loss to continue the Russian saga. It is so difficult to describe completely and fully. I was stumped. I put it off. I have decided that whenever the wind up of Russia 2007 is written will be just fine. I'm reading Pushkin and Dostoevsky. Maybe I will understand better why describing it evades me.

I am busy with work, with friends, and with the things that I enjoy.

I am training for the Vietnam bike ride in November.

I am living my life. It was a beautiful end to summer. It's fall now. Cool, wet, misty.

I am soldiering on with the things that continue to plague me and happy for the new and different things that surprise me.

More as I know it.


JBelle
Bellemaison
The 'Kan EWA