vovat | Going to Blazes (Reply)

Beth and I went to the Great Jack O' Lantern Blaze last night, which has become an annual thing for us. The past three years, we also did other stuff in the area. Due to the pandemic, however, it was more difficult to get tickets, which is why we ended up going on a weeknight. It was much like last year, although I think the First Responders display was new.

I noticed a few rotten pumpkins in the planetarium, but they might well have already been switched out by now. I can hardly imagine how difficult the whole thing is to maintain, as not only do they have to carve the pumpkins and make the elaborate designs with them every year, but also constantly make replacements.

Not all that much else has been going on recently. Last weekend, I wanted to visit a Halloween store, and there's a Spirit not too far from home. I noticed there's a lot of focus on evil children and clowns. There was one clown yard decoration on display that was way too loud. We didn't end up getting anything, even though I have a few ideas for costumes I want to put together. Of course, they often tend to focus on complete costumes rather than parts that you can mix and match, which you pretty much have to do if you want to dress as an obscure Oz character. There's a Halloween-themed virtual OzCon this Saturday, and they're encouraging people to dress up, but I don't have anything prepared. I did think a good costume would be King Harum Scarum from Jack Pumpkinhead of Oz, who's described as having a horn for a nose, a lion's mane, pig eyes, donkey ears, and billy goat whiskers.

I looked a little online, and while most of those things are available as parts of masks or headbands, I'm sure I'm not crafty enough to get them to work together. I'm also not sure how to attach a party horn to my nose. Having a vivid imagination and no practical abilities has been the bane of my life.

I've also started taking guitar lessons recently, at a music school near where I live. I got an acoustic guitar for my eighteenth birthday, and every once in a while I'd take it out and practice a bit, but I usually gave up due to lack of direction. I'm hoping a teacher will be able to identify my problem spots. I know some difficulties I've been having are getting the fingering wrong when I'm not looking and covering extra strings when I try to play chords, but I'm sure a lot of that comes with practice. I should probably get the strings changed soon, since I've had them on there for twenty-four years, and it even came with replacements. Any advice any of you might have? I know I have some online friends who are musical types.