The Big Day...

the Jolly Roger announced we were open for business...

...has come and gone...and we finally had good weather on a Halloween night...gave away 85 treat bags / boxes...each one filled with candy / toys and a gospel tract.

That's a dozen or so more than last year...happy about that.

Here are your hosts for the evening...

...along with a beautiful vampiress who stopped in for a bite...

...and my grandson who apparently is now some kind of rock and roll legend...

We had lots of happy faces and positive comments about all the decor...

the driver is a VERY old friend of mine...

...so we posed for pics...

...both of us have arrived at that age where we look better in the dark from a distance...

...there was the walk of fear...

...which included our zombie friend...

...found this guy climbing out of our Black Lagoon...

...and this guy hanging out in the courtyard...keeping time with a haunted clock...

...the harmonica playing skeleton was a hit...

...and Jack Skellington functioned as our greeter...

...while Mr. Bolts was his usual welcoming self...

Franky was spotted roaming here...

...there...

...and everywhere...

...and we bid a fond farewell to All Hallows E'en for another year...

Safe to say a good time was had by all.

I'm exhausted.

As a famous frog once opined, it's not easy being green.

Or formerly deceased for that matter.

Time for bed...

later, mcm fans...

A Mi'racle...

...on # 4...chipped in for a par 5.

That's pronounced "my-ra-cull" by the way...it's a contraction of "minor miracle"...not one of the big ones, but unusual enough to make the cut.

My usual plan when golfing is to try to be on the green with a chance to 1 putt for par.

I can sometimes do a little better than that on par 3's, occasionally hit my goal on par 4's.

Then there are those loooong par 5's...

In general I agree with Brookins and MacNelly's "Shoe" when it comes to them...

...but this time things were actually going along pretty well...after a decent tee shot with my brassie and 2 nice mashies, I was hitting 4 and only 100 yards away from the green.

That's too long for my niblick, but not a full mashie either...so I had to swing about 3/4 speed and ended up leaving it a little bit short of the green.

Apparently that was the exact moment all the stars aligned...

...and voila, I actually parred a 500 yard par 5 with my hickories.

I am hereby and officially retiring from golf since it's obvious I've hit the pinnacle of my career and there's nowhere to go but down from here.

Well, retiring until the next time I decide to punish myself with another 9, that is.

The fact that you have to plow through renditions like the above is really Karen's fault.

When I come home from the links I try to regale her with a fascinating retelling of my exploits but she's having none of it.

I usually end up chasing her around...

...shouting out random golf phrases...

"...and then a short niblick to the green left me 2 feet from the cup for a gimme!"

...while she covers her ears and sings snippets of polka songs...

"Roll out the barrels!  We'll have a barrel of fun!"

...to drown out whatever it is I'm trying to yell at her.

Can you believe that?

Scandalous.

Gotta give a happy birthday shout out to # 1 son, Micah...

...I won't say which one it was, but he recently enjoyed a big celebration for the 11th anniversary of his 29th birthday.

Happy birthday, Micah...as the Scriptures say, "...thou art my firstborn, my might, and the beginning of my strength, the excellency of dignity, and the excellency of power..."

God's richest blessings to you, my son...hope it's a great day for you.

All Hallows E'en is fast approaching and we added a new inflatable to our front yard...

...and a closer look...

Think I like this one best...left to right we've got a black cat, a ghost pumpkin (The Mummy would have been better), Franky (always my fave), some kind of purple bugaboo, a jack'o'lantern, and Count Dracula...pretty nice job covering most of the essentials.

And of course I've resurrected the star of the big day...the one and only, the incomparable, the tall, formerly deceased science experiment we all know and love...

...Mr. Bolts...wouldn't be Halloween without him.

Last night we watched "Benjamin Button" again...

...a  truly wonderful movie, based on F. Scott Fitzgerald's short story.

This is one of those rare movies that takes an unusual short story and vastly improves it, fleshing it out in ways the original author wishes he'd thought to...it's spectacular, cinema at its best.

You have to be over a certain age and of a certain mindset to appreciate it...but assuming you have the breadth of life experience and depth of personal character required, watching this will be a fabulous experience for you.

If you actually watch this movie without shedding a few tears you should check your pulse since you've obviously died and simply haven't realized it yet...but don't worry, the people around you know.

Reminds me I should visit New Orleans again.

And that, dear readers, catches you up on all the big doin's around the Atomic Monster Cafe and so I shall take my leave and exit gracefully, stage right...

later, mcm fans...

And This Is Why...

I love fall golf...look at that view...everything is so beautiful, calm and peaceful...well, until that treacherous water hazard lived up to its billing and swallowed my golf ball whole...

But to be fair, it was my 2nd tee shot...my first one was a line drive that drew to the left and since I wasn't satisfied with it, I teed up a mulligan, and...well, that's why they say don't insult the alligator until you've crossed the river.

Other than that little bit of unpleasantness I had a very enjoyable round.  I was able to par a couple of holes, bogeyed a few, and since it's not polite to swear in mixed company we won't discuss the others.

In Michigan in October sunshine is strictly rationed only to those souls who really need it...

...and I guess we qualified this weekend...

no, I did not make that putt...

course was too wet for carts, so I had the place all to myself...

The season will soon be over so I'm enjoying as much of it as often as I can.

Gotta give a happy birthday shout out to # 1 son, Micah...

...I won't say which one it is, but tomorrow is a big celebration for the 11th anniversary of his 29th birthday.

Happy birthday, Micah...as the Scriptures say, "...thou art my firstborn, my might, and the beginning of my strength, the excellency of dignity, and the excellency of power..."

God's richest blessings to you, my son...hope it's a great day for you.

Karen and Sarah toured the Holland power plant this week...

they have different scenes you can choose for your background...

Sarah modeling for the appreciative crowds...

Holland is one of the few cities in North America that uses hot water runoff from the power plant...

...to melt snow on the downtown streets and sidewalks during the winter.

Ain't we special?  You bet we are.

Watched a traditional favorite for this time of year...

What a fabulous send up of the 5 Frankenstein movies...the best being the original 1931 version of course.

Everyone in this classic does a great job, but this is Gene Wilder's movie from start to finish...

You should see this flick if only for the many "tribute touches" to the wonderful movies from the past...including a scene of the monster and Madeline Kahn that's an hilarious tip o' the hat to the Paul Heinreid / Bette Davis "two cigarette" scene in "Now Voyager".

Watch this movie...it's brilliant...

Next up...Shadow of the Vampire...

...another spectacular film, this one a fictionalized version of the making of that silent movie classic, Nosferatu.

The premise of Shadow is fascinating: suppose the actor who plays Nosferatu in the original film (Max Schreck) isn't really an actor...suppose he's an actual vampire.  What might happen then?

Chaos, confusion, terror for starters.

Very well done movie and both Willem Dafoe as Nosferatu and John Malkovich as Murnau are outstanding.

But as for the original silent movie classic...the eccentric to a fault / bona fide nuts German filmmaker, F.W. Murnau, wanted to make a movie out of Bram Stoker's horror classic, Dracula...but the author had died and his widow refused him permission.

Undeterred, Murnau simply changed a few names and made a thinly disguised version he called Nosferatu:

Yes, this is an early silent movie, but it's really creepy and probably the truest adaptaion of Stoker's novel.

Outraged, Stoker's widow sued and won, and all "known" copies of the film were mandated to be destroyed...thankfully not all of them were, and so it survives even today.

This is another one you should see, just to round out your cinematic education.

You do want to be educated, right?  You don't want to be an ignoramus, do you?

It was a busy Saturday afternoon, but I did take a few minutes to get my college football fix...

...and of course had to kick it old school.  Don't watch the NFL anymore, so if I watch football on TV at all it's college...but I still think small town high school ball in person is the best.

And while I was watching a little bit of the Corn Shuckers vs the Wildcats I heard a thump against the windows by the patio...looked outside and saw this pretty little feller...

...sitting there dazed and confused.  It was obvious the unexpected meeting with our windows had scattered his chickens and he needed a couple of minutes to compose himself.  Eventually I gave him a gentle nudge and he managed to right the ship and fly off into the wild blue again.

The big yank this weekend - besides enjoying the spectacular, crisp fall sunshine and colors - was having a gas line installed so we could put a gas log set in the mid century modern fireplace in our bedroom...

Our room is the coldest in the house in the winter...furthest from the furnace and all that ductwork is in the crawl space under the house...so now we'll have in room heat...insert excited "woo hoo" here.

Starting to get crowded around Mr. Tree Creature now...

As Rodney King once inquired, why can't we all just get along?

...as the squirrels have stepped up their food gathering activities.

And that should just about do it for this edition of the Atomic Monster Cafe.  Thank you for stopping by, taking your shoes off and setting a spell (with apologies to the Beverly Hillbillies).

later, mcm fans...

The Buck...

...stopped here...and so did the fawn...

...and a couple of raccoons...

...along with the usual assortment of birds, turkeys, rabbits and squirrels...it's been a regular menagerie lately...not exactly sure why...but we do enjoy it.

You may remember during this past summer I was able to briefly escape the drudgery of my forced labor by cleverly convincing Karen I was busy doing her bidding of mowing the lawn...

...when in fact I was instead summoning the dreaded tree creature from the arboreal nether regions...

...much to her terrified chagrin...well, since then it seems the local squirrel population have become accustomed to Mr. Tree Creature and now employ him as a convenient rest stop on their way to and from their treetop abode...

...here's a little closer view...

...it's not as easy to get pics of the little tree rats here as it was when we lived in the city of Wyoming.

There the squirrels were actually unionized with a heavy gang influence...they used to roam around in hordes terrorizing the peaceful city dwellers, demanding entrance to our homes and strong arming peanuts as payola in exchange for not gnawing on our ankles when we ventured outside...

...terrifying, they were...but out here they're much more skittish, preferring to keep their distance and simply pelt us with acorns from on high.

No, really.  You think I'd lie about that?

Been a tough week for hickory golf...

...it's been raining for days now...here are a couple of pics of my rain dials, formerly sun dials...

...here in Michigan once we reach fall and then winter, we've realized we no longer need to see the sun so we've conveniently replaced all that annoying sunshine with rain and clouds...

Even so I did manage to walk 9 on Thursday after work and had an ok round...parred the short par 4 hole 6, but that was the highlight...everything else was a study in mediocrity.

In spite of my less than stellar performance it was an enjoyable round...some solitude, some exercise and a very pleasant stroll through the country on a beautiful fall day.

Ok, so I don't wear "plus 4s" nor the loud argyle socks...but in the fall I do wear sweaters and a leather ivy cap.

And that is probably more than enough for this edition of the Atomic Monster Cafe...I hear Karen ringing her servant's bell, which is my cue to bring her coffee and a piece of apple pie...

later, mcm fans...