Remember how I said last year that I didn’t believe in buying pre-fab Halloween outfits for my kid?

That was before we bought her this:

Hit of the year in our house. Jim and I obsessively photographed/videotaped her all afternoon, which was easy, because Eliza was beyond thrilled to be “wearin’ a TIGger outfit! You got Tigger HAT, an Tigger SOCKS, an Tigger MITtens, an Tigger COAT!” You gots a TAY-uh!” (This last said while spinning in circles attempting to catch a glimpse of said tail).

We convinced her to take it off for dinner, but she insisted on putting it on again after dessert.

She even wore it to brush her teeth.

As you can see in my sidebar, I’m doing NaBloPoMo again this year.

For those of you who didn’t play last year, that stands for National Blog Posting Month. It’s a blog response to NaNoWriMo, National Novel Writing Month. As I did last year, I thought about doing NaNoWriMo, and it’s not entirely off the table yet as I really do need to cowboy up and just start writing someday soon, but I so enjoyed NaBloPoMo last year that I had to participate again. I discovered some great bloggers out of it, specifically Erica, Cagey, Jo, and The Pioneer Woman.

I discovered the latter because I was the lucky winner of a $75 gift certificate she donated to the month’s-end prizes awarded to random bloggers who successfully completed the challenge. I decided to pay it forward this year and am donating a $40 gift certificate to iTunes to the random lucky blogger who posts for 30 days straight this time. So you should sign up and maybe you can win it!

The rules, for those of you who don’t know, are simple: Write a post a day in November. Every day. Including weekends. It can be about anything.

Last year I took the random approach. I am planning to make this a writing exercise this year instead of just an endurance test, so I will be taking this month to choose a theme and meditate on it in the hope that something that is actually literary comes out of all that time I spend blinking at the screen.

I know Sarah’s in — who else?

Because the current political situation is so tiresomely grim, I will tell you a story from olden times now.

When I studied abroad in the spring of 1993, one of the classes I took was a politics class that focused on European-American-Russian relations in the post-World-War-II period. The man who taught it was a mid-level bureacrat from the former West Germany — important enough that he was going along on top level negotiations to Russia, but apparently not important enough for me to be able to find any record of the course online. I’m guessing his name was Georg (for real teutonic flair, say it gay-ORG, not George) or Johann.

The course quickly devolved into Georg-or-Johann sharing war stories from his time in the service of his country. He was a good storyteller, and what he told us confirmed that the Soviets really did play the kind of dirty spy-game politics you sometimes read about: complimentary “prostitutes” appearing at your door at random hours, bugs everywhere, etc. (Note: I am sure our side pulled the same kind of stunts.)

This is my favorite story that he told us, and I swear I am not making this up.

Sometime in the 1980s, Georg-or-Johann traveled with a contingent of western diplomats to the USSR for yet another conference. Apparently, they didn’t know their counterparts, and at the getting-to-know-you lunch, the Soviets proposed a toast of vodka. The western diplomats were leery of doing vodka toasts at lunch. With an entire afternoon of meetings ahead, they wanted to stay sharp. But the Soviets downed the stuff and (I’m interpreting here) wanting to be polite and also not wanting to appear to be wusses, the westerners followed suit. The Soviets kept drinking. A lot. Like, a LOT-lot. The westerners, apparently, decided the pressure was off and tossed back a couple more shots, too.

Everyone was sitting around in a convivial haze when suddenly, the Soviets got up and filed out of the room and the real diplomats came in.

On Saturday, Jim and I will have been married 5 years.

I wanted to get him something to commemorate the occasion, so last week I went online to find out what the traditional gift is for this anniversary. I just want to know which joker picked wood, because my inner teenage boy has apparently kicked in and I have been muttering to myself like an extra from Beavis and Butthead: “Wood, heheheheheh!”

I keep girding my loins and trying to think up a gift, and every time, I get distracted and think about the episode where Beavis and Butthead go to the Army recruiter’s office to enlist and sign the contracts as “Major Woody” and “Private Parts.” This is comedy at its lamest, but I cannot stop sniggering.

Sigh. Maybe I’ll get him a spatula.

(EDITED TO ADD: Jim just came home and we were discussing the anniversary and whether there would be gifts. I told him wood is the traditional gift. He asked me, without the glimmer of a smirk, “Is there anything wood that you like?” The double entendres are flyin’ tonight!)

Speaking of Beavis and Butthead, remember that episode where Vanilla Ice comes on the TV and does Ice Ice Baby and they sit there, expressionless with disbelief?

I played this for Jim last night and it was the first time I’ve seen an actual human being replicate that expression:

This song is absolutely nefarious. It’s been stuck in my head ever since I found it yesterday, and nothing, not The Killers, not Madonna, can shake it out.

Apple Progress Report

Latest recipes:

Mashed apple and rutabaga — weirdly popular with the small person
Recipe: Peel and cut up a rutabaga, 3 apples, half an onion. Sautee onion, add rutabaga and apples. Put lid on pan, let simmer for a while. When everything is done, throw in processor with a bit of milk, salt, pepper, teensy bit of paprika and nutmeg. Beyond awesome with smoked porkchops.

Apple “kugel” — inhaled by the small person
Recipe: Cook 20 oz. noodles. Mix hot noodles with tub of lowfat cottage cheese and cup of leftover whatever yogurt you have (peach vanilla for us), 2 eggs, half cup brown sugar, handful of nuts, cinnamon, 2 peeled grated apples. Bake for 40 minutes.

On deck: carrot-apple slaw.

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Head Wound Progress Report

Headwound has not proven dramatic enough to be sent home from work and/or receive boxes of bonbons. Am disappointed. Will have to hit my head in more visible/gruesome manner next time.

Look! Staples in mah HEAD!

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Quick, guess who Eliza’s going to be for Halloween!

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A boatload of turtles on a log. Or would that be a logload?

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Here is proof that although she looks like me, Eliza may not, in fact, be genetically linked to me.

Saturday, we took her to the Big E and she went on 9 rides:

1. “A Merry-go-roundwiffa HORsies”! Three times.

2. A train (by herself). That expression? The totally deadpan one? Is the Carousel Coma, and it means she is mightily chuffed.

3. One of those spinning swing things (by herself)

4. A dragon rollercoaster. Please note “rollercoaster arms.”

5. A bug rollercoaster. Note again enthusiastic deployment of rollercoaster arms; this time she stuck her hands in the air before the rollercoaster even took off.

6. A BUMbabee! You want to ride-a BUMbabee! You want to ride-a BUMbabee! You want to ride-a BUMbabee! You want to ride-a BUMbabee! You want to ride-a BUMbabee! You want to ride-a BUMbabee! You want to ride-a BUMbabee! You want to ride-a BUMbabee! You want to ride-a BUMbabee! You want to ride-a BUMbabee! You want to ride-a BUMbabee! You want to ride-a BUMbabee! You want to ride-a BUMbabee! You want to ride-a BUMbabee! You want to ride-a BUMbabee!
Etc., for the entire 15 minutes we stood in line. Amazingly, there was no crying. Also, more proof of Jim’s awesomeness, because, dude, he’s riding a bumblebee.

7. You are riding a VERRIST Wheah! And wooooh, is she ever impressed with herself. I am the biggest pansy in the world about these things, but she just wanted to peer over the side and talk about how high up we were. Seriously. This is NOT my child.