What kind of car does Frankenstein Drive?

A monster truck!

Love love love Halloween! We’ve got Taylor Swift and Ted Williams in the house this year. And snow boots. Because what would fall be if not totally intruded on by winter? Alas, we will miss past years of fun trick or treating with your crew. Also love that it’s the home stretch to Turkey Day. Not sure if the best part of this card is that the turkey is 1.) wearing a kilt or 2.) holding a cocktail? Must be the latter because he would just look silly if wearing a kilt without a cocktail.

Went to Wrigley’s bookstore today for lunch with my friend Anna. She’s great and you would really like her BUT she only drinks iced tea and doesn’t order dessert. WTF? I thought lunch mom code required both with actual entrees being afterthoughts.

The latest from UM:

Embarrassingly written on stolen printer paper from the Southwest kiosk when the gate agent wasn’t looking. They don’t waste printer ink giving me a seat assignment, so I don’t feel bad. They do print up the occasional drink coupon which I fully appreciate. Again tough with the business class travel sell – if I get stuck between two dudes that smell like a combination of beef jerky and B.O. I’m not gonna be happy.

The Hampshire Woods HOA delivered letters to all neighborhood mailboxes citing – verbatim – the bylaw which prohibits you from posting signs in your yard with the lone exception of candidate signs the week prior to early voting in local elections. This is TOTALLY directed to the Fanucci’s who moved their “Slow Children!” (which realistically refers to the mental aptitude of their offspring than the speed of cars) sign in their yard with “Brakes Saves Brains! A future Hound lives here” (referring to none other than our Hampshire Hound high school mascot). The Slow Children sign was subtle; the latter is not only neon yellow but also awfully presumptuous that even our top caliber local school will be able to get any of their children to a graduation stage.

The letter says the HOA meeting will be held next week and any discussions will be added to the agenda by formal motion at the meeting. The meeting is at the local clubhouse which uses this as an annual recruitment opportunity. I haven’t gone to a meeting in person in years (always vote by proxy and I don’t complaint about anything specific I have not raised – don’t vote; don’t bitch). I am thinking this year may warrant paying a sitter to witness the impending lunacy. Kara Consuelos is HOA VP and self proclaimed mayor of The Woods. Kara LOVES bylaws, HATES yard signs and almost always gets her way. We know how the Fanucci’s feel. A seat, literally firing distance away from the discussion could be this season’s version of local fireworks.

Here in HW, people do not usually attend the HOA meetings because if you are present, they guilt you into serving on the HOA board. By laws say you must be present or provide written proxy (which no one is ever dumb enough to submit their names) to be voted into office.

Conversely, I grew up in a neighborhood called Stokes Croft of about 35 homes where EVERYONE attended the HOA meeting because you need NOT be present to be voted into office. I was Treasurer one year because I missed the meeting on account of attending a varsity swim meet in which I was participating.

My dad was a super junior captain with a beeper holstered to his belt buckle as a reservist on call with no say over his schedule when we first moved there. So he could not make those meetings and was HOA president for at least three or four years until another airline family – since the airlines were the major employer in the area – moved in with less seniority and dad could confidently bid off the meeting dates.

Aside from recruiting child labor under the guise of Treasurer (of which not once did I have access to a budget), Stokes Croft was known for two HOA related activities:

1. A Halloween party held in the community park in front of our house each autumn; and,
2. Peace Sign Luminaries.

Each home was asked to line their lot with luminaries on Christmas Eve. The roads, from an aerial view, formed a peace sign, which was kinda cool. My big win as HOA Treasurer was to get EVERY house to participate.

The two Jewish families acquiesced when I said I’d cut the milk jug luminary containers (which I bet they’re STILL using as those things last FOREVER) and light them with the HOA provided candles. And the other holdout, Mr. Blum, agreed IF I did the work and lit them without upsetting Bernie.

Bernie was the least friendly ginormous German Shepherd ever to walk this earth; he was Stokes Croft Stand By Me version of “Chopper, sick balls.” blum was a crotchety old bachelor with a mean dog, a weedy yard and zero social graces.

That feat cost me $10 in babysitting money to buy three huge butcher bones. I hefted them as far as I could, one by one, as Bernie devoured them and I lit candles with impressive fervor. Blum made sure to release Bernie out his front door the minute I started placing the luminaries to light them. Instead of helping me, Kelly and her friends watched this spectacle from my bedroom window which looked down onto Blum’s house about two yards away from ours.

All was HOA well until the spring of 1986 when two things occurred:

1. the McManus’ – first and most visible house by the Stokes Croft entrance – refused to take down their bay window Christmas Tree even though it was almost Easter; and,
2. the Robinsons bought a house.

The McManus’ eventually replaced the unlit more subtle Christmas tree with a giant bright pink inflatable Easter Bunny that wreaked of animal fetish porno gone all wrong. It was mounted in their bay window until Labor Day when folks started choosing their battles a little more wisely.

However, Ralph and Stella Konig – our across the street neighbors in their seventies – show up on our doorstep dressed in their Sunday Best even though it’s midweek. They ask to speak to “The Stokes Croft Officers” of the house. They stood their citing the need for us to call an emergency meeting to discuss enforcement of the HOA bylaws.

Once we realized that Dad and I WERE the “officers”, my dad said he didn’t need to see the circa 1890 bylaws to speak to looney Sistie McManus about taking down her Christmas Tree.

Mr. Konig said they could care less about an outdated oversized pipe cleaner, but that they VERY MUCH cared about the denigration of the neighborhood, that the bylaws clearly said blacks were not permitted to won property in Stokes Croft confines and that they expected us to inform them of the same.

My dad told me to leave the room, but from my perch out of site at the top of the steps, I am certain I heard the phrases “There is NO WAY I’m TELLING the Robinsons they can’t live here and if YOU tell them, then YOU”LL be the subject of our special meeting.”

The Konigs left the printed 22 page bylaws on my mom’s foyer table and slammed the door in huffed retreat when they left. I was called back downstairs and told that by the time my dad got back from his four day trip (for which he was about to walk out the door already dressed in his uniform when the Konigs came calling) , he expected:

1. The yard to be mowed; and,
2. Anything that seemed illegal to be redacted from the Stokes Croft bylaws.

In hindsight, I think this was my very first legal assignment.

We’d just learned about Jim Crow laws in social studies, so it wasn’t that hard, but did leave us with only about 8 lines of official bylaws by the time I was done. I tried to add a “mandatory luminary participation” clause but was vetoed on account of infringing on religious freedoms. When I suggested we also do blue luminaries for Hanukkah, I was told that I was being insensitive to Christians. Proof yet again that you can’t negotiate with crazy. I was also told that the illusive budget probably could not accommodate two holidays of candles.

I’m guessing that since Hammurabi came up with the concept of independent land ownership, that folks have been trying to enforce bylaws. I can picture it:

Hammurabi: Leon, he has too many sheep. They crap in my yard and take away my property happiness.

Leon: Ah, then I will build a fence to contain my sheep.

Hammurabi: Oh, but the bylaws do not allow fences! And we are 1200 years away from the services of the magic electric underground fence. What to do?!

Anyhow, I’ll be sure to tell ya’ if anything interesting comes of the HOA meeting this week. Hope you are feeling on the upswing. Sure thinking of you and upside is even though lifting a 50 pound turkey isn’t in the cards for you right now, teaching kids to cook and quality kitchen time with grandparents is in its own right kinda cool.

We are hosting 26 people. Pete’s dad is coming. He is super sweet despite strong against my core understanding of religious beliefs and staying at the local Inn. That gives him his space and reduces the number of casualties if God finally decides to strike deserved wrath on the house of hedonistic premarital sin. I’ve bought really good wine, festive table decor, outsourced all of the sides (the gourmet catering shop will make their sides in YOUR dishes – genius!), ordered a back-up ham and so all we have to do is not botch the turkey and pull off a salad.

Hang in there – xoxox love ya’, Stormy