Why I Oughta...

"Who's the leader of the club that's made for you and me?  Mickey Mouse of course." This month marks the 60th Anniversary of the founding of the club - per the D23 Wall Calendar.  If you're into that sort of thing, you should check out the newish podcast from the folks at The Dis Unplugged called "Connecting with Walt" over on YouTube .

This past weekend, we stopped at an Estate Sale on Saturday morning in Elmhurst and I immediately headed right where I usually go:  the basement.  There I found a bunch of 90's Christmas stuff and then after looking around, I spied a box of older Christmas stuff under the tables on the floor.  Digging through there, I found this beauty of an ornament. This appears to be a homemade/handmade ornament from who knows when, but it isn't new.  It is based on a styrofoam egg with quite a bit of pined bedazzling going on.  There has to be close to 100 pins of pearl around this thing and someone with a lot of patience put it together. On the front, there's a little plastic angel playing a violin with a little mirror behind her.  She's surrounded by gold and pearl. When I picked this thing up, it felt good.  Felt substantial. I know - based on where this was in the basement and the fact that this was the second day of the Estate Sale - that if I didn't buy this thin

One of my correspondents (Ahem...Nat) sent me this photo of the Christmas section all filled out over at the Target on North Avenue this week.  Christmas Creep - in all of it's glory - is alive and well at Target.  In the bottom right of the photo, you can see a little bit of Halloween stuff peeking through, but they're moving full bore on the Holidays. There's plenty of house decor what-have-yous and it appears that foxes are still 'in' this season.  (Or...is Target's mass audience always a bit behind a trend?  I dunno.  It seems like foxes have been 'on' trend - or is it 'in' trend?? - for at least the past few years.  Don't get me wrong...I like foxes.  But, I just wish there was a Christmas peacock or Christmas giraffe or something....) We're in a funny spot with Christmas this year since we're not in *our* house.  We normally go all-out with decorations and such, but I'm thinking this year will be far more subdued.  We&

When we were down in Orlando in September, we picked up these two pins at the #NotSoScary Halloween party at the Magic Kingdom.  The Haunted Mansion one on the left has a yellow card and is marked "Limited Edition".  The Mickey/Minnie one on the right is on a purple card and is marked "Limited Release". Have no idea what the difference is, but based on where they were located (The purple one was behind the registers and you had to ask for it and show your bracelet vs the yellow one was in the pin shop in Frontierland on a normal rack.), I'm thinking the "Limited Release" one is more rare (whatever that means!?!). I still haven't quite gone through all the pins that the girls traded for when we were down there and because we're staying in my sister's/Equation Boy/Man's house, we don't have a good place to display them.  Thus, they're just sitting in a Parks bag on my desk awaiting for the time to go through them.

Nat's alma mater got a plug recently from the King of All Media.  I paused the live stream, whipped out my phone and captured the audio.  I gleefully sent it to Natalie.  She wasn't that impressed.  Hrumph. As heard on his morning show:  " If you said Wash U in St. Louis, then I'd be impressed ."

This morning, on the walk to the train, I spotted the new window all set up for the Uptown Shop.   It moved from around the corner last month .  They don't appear to have their sign up just yet, but there's plenty of Halloween what-have-yous in the windows.  Get in there, folks.

If you have read anything (and I mean anything!  Heck... even People Magazine has covered it !), you likely know about the impending pumpkin-pocalypse.  For what seems like the second time in a few years, the agricultural experts are predicting an epic Thanksgiving pumpkin shortage. Brace yourself, people. And it is thanks to all the rain we had here in Illinois : If the beginning of fall means pumpkin is basically your only food group for the next few months, you better hurry to the supermarket.  According to crop experts, canned pumpkin yield could be off by as much as a third this year in Illinois. The Midwestern state — which is responsible for about 90 percent of the U.S.-grown pumpkins — experienced a record rainfall in June causing the shortage, say farmers.  “I would not wait until Nov. 20 [to buy canned pumpkin],” University of Illinois’s Department of Crop Sciences professor Mohammad Babadoost told the Associated Press. “I’d buy it whenever it comes to the store.