Frosty Halloween Weather

Brrr! I awoke to a chilly but sunny morning before Halloween. It was probably in the upper 40s-lower 50s, well below the norm for this time of year. At the very least, the storm hadn't seemed to have caused any trouble here. What very little snow and sleet we had was gone, and other than a few branches and more leaves, there was no indication anywhere that we even had a nor'easter yesterday.

I skipped Brunch With the Beatles in favor of Halloween specials and horror comedies. (I don't do actual horror movies, or anything with heavy gore. I'm not a big fan of blood.) Ran the Winnie the Pooh special, Boo To You, Too! first, then the tape with the three New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh episodes that goes under Frankenpooh.

Most of the stories in Frankenpooh involve Piglet and his imagination, which is a rather big one for such a small pig. "The Monster Frankenpooh", as you can guess, is a spoof of the famous horror film and book, with Piglet as a very unlikely mad scientist and Pooh as the title creature. "Things That Go Piglet In the Night" have the gang scaring each other when they venture into a dark night to investigate a strange sound (that turns out to be Eeyore and a spooked Piglet). "Pooh Moon" is more sci-fi than horror oriented. Pooh and Piglet wander around what they think is the moon after a close encounter with a mud puddle during a camping trip. The others think they're monsters.

Boo to You! reminds me of the Pooh Thanksgiving special and New Adventures Valentine's episode. All three involve a character wanting to cancel the holiday in question because someone raised a fuss or something isn't going right. In this case, the someone raising a fuss is Piglet. Pooh insists they not celebrate Halloween because it frightens their diminutive porcine pal too much. Piglet, however, ends up giving them all a good scare when he takes off and they go after him...and he realizes how brave he can be when he thinks his friends are in danger.

Called Mom during the tail-end of the Frankenpooh video. We talked for over an hour! It's hard for me to discuss a lot of my deeper problems, like my inability to move forward on finding a job. She suggested that I return to yoga, heel spur or no heel spur, and that I get cracking on posting advertisements for my new business and finding places to advertise at. She also suggested I talk to Jodie, Dad-Bruce's girlfriend, who is looking for a job herself, for advice on how to find a job. Whatever I've been doing for almost ten years hasn't found me a real job I can really enjoy. She also suggested looking for smaller college courses in something I could use for work, like doing medical filing. I may look into that.

Ran the original Ghostbusters while I ate a fast lunch and got ready for work. When three Columbia University professors of the paranormal are fired from their jobs, they strike out on their own as professional ghost-chasers. They get more than they bargained for when a lovely musician who lives in a spooky Central Park West apartment building requests their help in finding the evil deity who seems to live in her kitchen. Spooks suddenly start turning up all over the Big Apple, including one hungry little green ghost...

A classic comedy mixing elements of laughs and Dan Ackroyd's long-time interest in real-life paranormal activity, along with some of the most quotable lines of any 80s movie. My favorite was supposedly an ad-lib by Harold Ramis:

Peter Venkman (Bill Murray): Egon, this reminds me of the time you tried to drill a hole in your head.
Egon (Ramis): That would have worked if you hadn't stopped me.

Work was very busy all afternoon, the result of people avoiding the weather yesterday, this being the beginning of the month, and the Eagles playing the 8:20 game tonight against the Dallas Cowboys.)

(And at press time, the Eagles are smashing the Cowboys all over the place, 34-7. I knew they had it in them. ;) )