A Scary Story (or Two) - The Call

Observing Halloween at work is twice as tricky when you work remotely, and this year we didn't even have a team meeting where we could briefly parade our costume on camera for a bit. But instead, they asked for folks to submit pictures of their costumes or decorations or kids or pets dressed up, and also asked folks to share scary stories.

After a decade-and-a-half of weekly blogging, it is probably obvious I like to write, so I figured I would submit something...but what?

While thinking about things that scare me, personally, I recalled the time ten years back when Glory called me as I drove to pick up Fenya from choir, terrified that there was an intruder in the house. People had commented to me about just how apprehensive my relating the episode on my blog back then had made them feel, and I thought,"well, what if I started with that...and then changed everything else to make it as scary as possible?"

I guess it worked, as my story got the most votes and won the contest, so here it is; let me know what you think!



THE CALL

I’m not supposed to have my personal phone on in the prowl car, but when my own home number appeared on the call display, I pulled over and took the call. “Hello?”

“I’m sorry…” a little girl’s voice – my little girl, who turned eight last week.

“Hi Bethany, what’s wrong sweetie?” I put the phone on speaker and pulled back into traffic, being careful to keep the annoyance and tension out of my voice. “Is Daddy not there yet? He was just picking up supper.”

“No, not yet.”  I noticed now that her normally breathy voice was even lower than usual, barely a whisper. It was just starting to rain and turned up the volume to compensate for the drops hitting the roof; hear breathing sounded ragged, like she was upset.

“Baby, what’s the matter?” I prompted again.

A long pause while I felt sweat condensing on my upper lip, and then a terse whisper, “I’m scared…I thought I heard something upstairs.”

Probably an overactive imagination – but why was I still uneasy? I had locked the door before I left, so I knew there was no real chance someone was in our home.

And yet…

“I don’t think that is too likely baby girl,” I said confidently, “but do you want me to come home?”

Silence on the other end of the line.

“Should I come home Bethany? Would you feel better if I did?”

Another whisper, almost a sob of relief, “Yes, please.”

I threw on my signal and pulled a quick U-turn while calculating routes in my head. “Okay sweetheart, I am on my way. I will be home in…six minutes, okay?”

“Okay mommy.”

An unpleasant realization sprang into my mind, and I cursed under my breath. “Now, I am on my way back, but I have to let work know I am going to be late, okay?”

“Okay,” but not really, that tone of resignation in her voice, pushing the guilt button in my brain that was already worn smooth from having to leave her alone in the house for 30 minutes until her father got back.

“Do you want me to call you back?”

The quietest whisper, barely audible: “Yes, please.”

“Okay, I will call you back as soon as I can, okay? Promise,” and hung up. I called dispatch and told them I was going 10-7 for 20 minutes, hoping it wouldn’t get logged, knowing it would be, and began going through an unpleasant interaction with my sergeant later tonight in my head.

The rain was intensifying a bit but traffic around the arena would be ridiculous by now, so I took a left onto the thoroughfare to get a bit of breathing room and depressed the accelerator while asking my phone to call home.

By the third ring I had a knot in my stomach. Why did I think it would be okay to leave her on her own, even for half an hour? What if there actually was someone in the house and she picked up mid-ring? That would be a dead giveaway someone was home. But before I could even chide myself for that thinking, Bethany picked up, but I could barely hear her hesitant “Hello?”

“Hey sweetie, it’s me – where are you?”

“I’m in the basement, underneath the couch. Mommy, I’m scared…”

A sharp pain in my chest. “Why are you scared, honey, what did you hear?”

My tension matched hers as she tersely whispered into the phone, “I saw something out by the back fence before I came downstairs, like a big dog but with weird long legs, and then I heard a thump.”

Picking up speed now, I tried to lighten the mood, “I haven’t given any spare keys to any dogs, honey, so I don’t think one will get in.”

Silence.

I pressed on. “You think it’s a monster, don’t you?”

Her whispered yes sounded like the hiss of a snake, as if fear was keeping her teeth from parting. She had feared the woods behind our house, where the lot backed onto a ravine, ever since we’d moved in last year.

“Bethany, sugar, we’ve talked about this…everyone has bad dreams, and I know you see terrible creatures in yours, but you and I know they aren’t real, right?”

I looked up and saw city workers dragging orange sawhorses onto the thoroughfare up ahead. I threw on the lights and siren and flew over to an offramp I was far too close to, as other drivers braked to accommodate my maneuver as a curse slipped through my lips. A choked sob escaped through the phone’s speaker. “I know mommy, I’m sorry, but I saw it and it looked like last night and I got scared…”

I grimaced and shook my head, “I’m not mad at you baby, just traffic, but I am nearly home. And going to the basement was smart, that is a good place to hide.” I pulled onto an arterial road while a thought occurred to me. “Hey, what’s Scraps doing right now?”

A pause. “I don’t know. I don’t hear her…”

“And would she be quiet if someone was in the house?”

“No, she’d bark her head off…” Was that a trace of confidence entering her voice.

“Well, there you go,” I said assuredly. “I am almost home, honey. I have the siren and lights on and I am going really fast, can you hear me yet?”

“No,” she replied, “but it is really quiet under the couch.” I could hear her grunting as she wriggled out from underneath.

“How about now?” I asked, pulling past a van taking its sweet time to pull over.

She was still whispering, but her voice was less shaky than it had been. “Not yet…when you get here, can you yell ‘I’m home’ really loud so I know you’re here?”

In spite of the accumulated tension, I chuckled. “Of course I can, darling.” I reached down to turn off the siren and lights. “No more sirens now, I don’t want to upset Mrs. Kapour again.” Peering against the glare of the streetlights reflected in the raindrops on my windshield, I said, “I can almost see the house from here and –“

“Mommy, Scraps is sick…”

I immediately became acutely aware of every hair on my body. “What?” I replied dumbly.

“She’s lying at the bottom of the stairs and she isn’t mov-“ her voice cut off, the line silent.

“Hello? Hello? Bethany? Bethany!” I shouted at the phone. Despite being less than a block away, I floored the accelerator and came screeching to a halt directly in front of a suburban split-level. I raced out of the prowl car and vaulted the gate in the short iron fence, sprinting up the front steps, barely noticing the porchlight didn’t come on despite the motion sensor in it.

The front door was locked, and I had to suppress the urge to kick in my own door. Fumbling through my keys, I finally got the deadbolt unlatched and flung open the door. Stepping into the darkened house, I shouted, “Bethany, I’m home!” like I’d promised.

But there was no reply.

I unsnapped my holster and drew my service weapon, reaching behind me for the lights. I found the switch but throwing it didn’t illuminate the entryway.

I pulled the Maglite from my belt, switched it on and steadied my pistol over it. Moving through the living room to the kitchen, I shouted again, “This is the police – anyone here needs to have their hands up if they don’t want to risk being shot!” Bethany really dislikes my police voice, but now I was more scared than she’d been, and I prayed that my fear wasn’t audible.

Making my way into the kitchen, I checked the blind spots reflexively and swept the bright beam towards the door. My heart fell as I saw it wide open in the gleam, the storm door banging against the railing on the step.

Racing to the door, I peered out into the darkness, seeing nothing, crying my daughter’s name, hanging onto the doorjamb like a lifeline as I felt the strength fading from my legs.

Only after my voice started to give out did I finally look down and notice the tuft of matted fur stuck into the splintered doorframe where the deadbolt had been, a good four feet above the ground.

Runyon's Holiday Spirit: The Hot Tom & Jerry

NOW one time it comes on Christmas, and in fact it is the evening before Christmas, and I am in Good Time Charley Bernstein's little speakeasy in West Forty-seventh Street, wishing Charley a Merry Christmas and having a few hot Tom and Jerrys with him.

This hot Tom and Jerry is an old time drink that is once used by one and all in this country to celebrate Christmas with, and in fact it is once so popular that many people think Christmas is invented only to furnish an excuse for hot Tom and Jerry, although of course this is by no means true.

But anybody will tell you that there is nothing that brings out the true holiday spirit like hot Tom and Jerry, and I hear that since Tom and Jerry goes out of style in the United States, the holiday spirit is never quite the same.

The reason hot Tom and Jerry goes out of style is because it is necessary to use rum and one thing and another in making Tom and Jerry, and naturally when rum becomes illegal in this country Tom and Jerry is also against the law, because rum is something that is very hard to get around town these days.

For a while some people try making Tom and Jerry without putting rum in it, but somehow it never has the same old holiday spirit, so nearly everybody finally gives up in disgust, and this is not suprising, as making Tom and Jerry is by no means child's play. In fact, it takes quite an expert to make good Tom and Jerry, and in the days when it is not illegal a good hot Tom and Jerry maker commands good wages and many friends.

from "Dancing Dan's Christmas," by Damon Runyon

I cannot say for certain where I first came across the once-common warm holiday cocktail called the Tom & Jerry, but it may well have been in the writing of Damon Runyon; I came across "Butch Minds the Baby" in either a short story colelction of Dad's or some anthology or another in junior high.

Runyon's potent mixture of high vocabulary lowlifes and antiquated dialogue spiced with Prohibition-era slang sank its hooks deep into my brain at first exposure so that when I stumbled across a used copy of Runyon - On Broadway in the Leduc Bookshop, I snapped it up.

Runyon taught me what a Roscoe was without spelling it out:

Good Time Charley says he does not blame him, at that, as Miss Muriel O'Neill is so beautiful that he will be dancing with her himself no matter what, if he is five years younger and can get a Roscoe out as fast as in the days when he runs with Paddy the Link and other fast guys.

...how even bodily assault can be made humorous and potentially justifiable:

It finally becomes necessary for Charles to tap him on the pimple with a beer mallet, and afterward the constables come around, saying what is going on here, and what do you mean by tapping people with beer mallets, and the only way Charles can wiggle out of it is by stating that the character with the beard claims that Mae West has no sex appeal. So the constables go away saying Charles does quite right and one of them has half a mind to tap the character himself with something.

... and conveys the difficulty of minding one's own business while interacting with fast guys who have handles like Kitty Quick:

'Listen,' he says, 'do you know anybody in Europe?'

Well, this is a most unexpected question, and naturally I am not going to reply to unexpected questions by guys from Philly without thinking them over very carefully, so to gain time while I think, I say to Kitty Quick:

'Which Europe do you mean?'

I owe the majority of my love of language and turns-of-phrase to my father, but Mr. Runyon definitely has a hand in there as well.

As a result, when I came across a container of Tom & Jerry mix at a store the night before last, and remembering the important role it plays in Dancing Dan's Christmas (readable here and highly recommended), I really had no choice but to pick it up.

Bear in mind that the Tom & Jerry was an old-timey drink when Runyon wrote about it in the 1920s, going back a century or so at that time, and was possibly created as a promotional aid to a play by Pierce Egan called Tom & Jerry or Life in London, the first production to run for 100 consecutive performances in London, but whether this is due to the quality of the play or the assistance of the spirit imbued in the beverage is unknown.

The proper drink is like a warm milk punch or egg nog and normally comes from a batter made by mixing separated egg whites and yolks, sugar and butter and one thing and another before adding it to hot milk (or water, cocoa, or coffee) along with brandy and dark or spiced rum.

The Collins mix is more like a syrup or paste, similar to a jar of hot buttered rum mix, and I added two tablespoons to a cup of milk heated in the microwave, then dutifully added an ounce each of Captain Morgan and VSOP and stirred them together.

Now, I am pre-disposed to liking hot boozy drinks when the weather starts turning cold and I am also a fan of egg nog (until I am not) so this creamy, aromatic and gently spiced cup was right up my proverbial alley. Give me a hot Thermos of Tom & Jerry and I could be convinced to try out for the Iditarod, and I might even forego the dogs.

Furthermore, Audrey's version, made with hot water due to her fear of phlegminess, was also quite tasty, just not quite as creamy - a difference more of texture than taste, really.

While sipping, I looked up the Damon Runyon passages where I had first encountered this elixir, and ended up reading her the entirety of Dancing Dan's Christmas while she showered - Runyon's prose is a joy to read aloud, as I hope the excerpts above make evident. We also discovered that Tom & Jerrys were once served in their own bowl and mug sets, many of which can be found on eBay and Etsy and the like:

Man, I do not like to think of myself as a materially driven fellow on the general, but if I had the kind of domicile that would facilitate storing a bepoke bowl and mugs for a seasonal hot cocktail, I would find that most copacetic.

Regardless of serving vessel, however, I hope I have the opportunity to make hot Tom & Jerrys a more routine part of my holiday hospitality - after all, it is no longer illegal, and while it might not increase my wages, we can all use the friends it can bring, as Mr. Runyon asserts in the passage above.

From The Badger #46, by Mike Baron and Ron Lim

10th Affirmiversary with a Dangerous Senator

St. Albert United Church became an affirming ministry in 2014 and celebrated its 10th 'Affirimiversary' today; 10 years of being overtly inclusive to sexual minorities. It's a strange time to reflect because I personally thought we would be farther along now, societally, in terms of accepting people of differing sexualities or gender identities.

And yet, here we are. Disinformation, misinformation, outright lies, discrimination and hatred cloaked under religious freedoms or ersatz protection of children set the agendas of the day and continue to polarize the electorate. Manufactured rage, duping 'low information voters.'

But someone told me today that ten years of holding your ground, maintaining a safe and inclusive place, may not be an outright victory, but it certainly is worth celebrating.

That person was one of the speakers at todays' service, Kristopher Wells, and I got to introduce him. Here's what I said:

Kris Wells is an educator and activist with tremendous ties to 2SLGBTQ+ communities Edmonton and Alberta and beyond, and was also a key participant in one of the very first panels we held when we became an Affirming Ministry ten years ago. He’s been a public school teacher right here in St Albert, a diversity consultant for Edmonton public schools and helped develop the first sexual and gender identity school board policy in Western Canada. 

He’s been the faculty director of the University of Alberta’s Institute for Sexual Minority Studies and Services, MacEwan University's first Canada Research Chair and was the founding director of the MacEwan Centre for Sexual and Gender Diversity, as well as the editor-in-chief of the international Journal of LGBT Youth and co-creator of Pride Tape, 

He is also one of Alberta’s most recently appointed Senators and has been described by some pundits as ”the most dangerous senator in Canadian history”! He has some information to share before taking questions previously submitted by the congregation, so please welcome the Hon. Dr. Kristopher Wells!

Kris gave a wonderful address about our Affirmiversary coinciding with LGBT history month, and then answered some great questions that had been submitted beforehand by members of our congregation.

Throughout his talk, he consistently touched on the importance of allyship, of being there for people, both institutionally and individually. He expressed his gratitude for the warm welcome and sincere well wishes on his appointment, saying that it helps mitigate some of the backlash, like our own premier calling him a "radical leftist agitator," or the 'most dangerous senator' designation hung on him by the right wing blogosphere. (He confessed to me when I was outlining his introduction that he was trying to feel out if it was appropriate to get t-shirts made with that on it, as he does treat it as a badge of honour.)

Kris' remarks made it clear that we are in a rough spot right now, particularly given the agenda of the current provincial government. He made it clear that policies and legislation passed and yet to come are going to cause harm to a vulnerable community, and those passing it will have to live with their consciences after facilitating them - as will any of us complicit in our silence.

But he also made it clear that the best solution is to just keep telling the truth. To combat and refute mis- and disinformation when we encounter it. To be active and informed and to vote.

As he put it, "Education has always been the answer. As a senator, I now have a larger classroom, but I don't see my job as having substantially changed."

I am going to love having this guy in Ottawa - if he is a danger, it is only to a pernicious status quo. And ten years from now, I bet SAUC will still be holding its ground, flying a rainbow flag and continuing to welcome everyone.

Jasper 2024 - Rocky Mountain Heartbreak

We had booked a campsite for our recurring late-season trip to Jasper back in early July, looking forward to what we were calling Campsgiving Weekend.

By the end of the month though, wildfire proximity had prompted the evacuation of the entire townsite and many structures in the town and surrounding area were lost, including some in the Wapiti campsite where we were booked. 

In late August, Parks Canada refunded our fees and cancelled our reservation, but with word that Miette Hot Springs might reopen before the end of the season, I booked a campsite at Jasper Gates, just west of Hinton.

Sure enough, Miette announced they would be open until Thanksgiving weekend, so we loaded up Bride of Frankentrailer and hit the road Friday, but the trailer got a flat on the Henday before we even reached St. Albert. 

We called Tuber Towing because I wasn't about to change a flat on that thing beside Edmonton's fastest roadway, but they also told us the other tire wasn't looking great. So we ended up leaving it at Trail Tire so they could replace both of them - the tech didn't think the other would even get us out of the city... They hoped to get us underway late the next morning, but once we got home I transferred our reservation from the campsite to a motel room on the same property (Jasper Gates was so nice about it too!) so we could get to the mountains on Friday after all.

After cooking French toast in out kitchenette and visiting the hot springs (perhaps our favourite spot in the Rockies), we bought a park pass there and drove into the townsite. We wanted to see for ourselves just what was left of a place all three of us knew from our childhoods.

It is about a half-hour from Miette Road to Jasper, following the Athabasca river for the most part. Along the Yellowhead, the visible destruction was limited to the burnt trees you could see on the mountain slopes across the water. As you got closer to town, however, there were burnt trees on both sides of the river, some of them very close to the highway. (All the photos are Glory's.)

The eastern entry way to the town was closed so we drove on to the western one on Hazel Avenue that comes off of 93A. Last year we had seen an immense grizzly bear lounging in the shade of the trees by the intersection - almost all those trees were now gone, a few scorched trunks all that remained. 

Heading up to Connaught Drive, the main drag that parallels the train tracks, I audibly gasped - almost everything west of Hazel Avenue was gone, starting with the gas stations that had been on the corner, and all the homes that had been beyond it. My eyes dampened and I questioned my presence there.

On Connaught itself, the damage is less visible save for a gaping hole where a building housing some businesses or another used to exist. Presumably, firefighters knocked it down to save the neighbouring structures.

Looking across the tracks, the proximity of the fire from the other side is visible as well, and a ridgeline of burnt timber is particularly haunting.

We turned up Pyramid Lake Road, noting Bears Paw Bakery, a staple of prior visits, is closed. Patricia Street is currently one-way, so we went up to Geike Street and hung a left, noting that everything east of us looked largely intact.

But a few blocks down we came upon the burned out remains of Jasper Anglican Church, and a sign on the fence surrounding it warning of asbestos in the ruins. It was consecrated almost a century ago, in 1929.

Turning left on Hazel so we could proceed down Patricia Street, we saw a fire-damaged garage that was still standing and probably reparable, but with no obvious burning of the adjacent house - miraculous. Past that street though, there were almost no structures standing.

Just before Patricia Street, north of the Esso station, I think this was a steakhouse or Greek restaurant with a retro blue and white sign - almost nothing remains.

On Patricia Street we saw a section of stores and restaurants where the bottom floor was largely intact, but the roof and upper floors were gutted, with exposed roof beams silhouetted aginst the bright blue sky. But of course, even if this building doesn't require demolition, all the contents are undoubtedly wrecked by smoke or water damage.

All in all, a pretty disheartening visit. So much damage, so quickly, and impacting thousands if not tens of thousands of people. How does a small town come back from the edge of destruction like this? I had hoped we could shop or grab a light meal there, and even though I knew such an act would be fine, it still felt ghoulish somehow, so we headed back to our motel near Hinton.

But before we left, Glory wanted a picture of her with the cartoon bear namesake of the town, and I was happy to oblige. 

Somehow the fact that this statue had survived gave me a glimmer of hope, as did seeing the mountain sheep and elk so prevalent on the way out of town.

From the highway, the signs of the fire are much less visible, and in time, I hope the townsite will look more familiar as well.

Gourd Help Us All - Smoky Lake Pumpkin Fair

It turns out there are a number of good reasons to attend the Smoky Lake Great White North Pumpkin Weigh-in and Fair, less than 90 min northwest of Edmonton.  

The show and shine they host is one of the biggest I have ever been to - well over a hundred exhibitors. Now, I am not a big car guy, but I definitely appreciate a distinctive, vintage or even nostalgic ride, and all that well-represented there. Cars, trucks and vans from the '20s to today, cruisers, hot rods, even a few boogie vans, but there was a tremendous showing for muscle cars throughout the ages, including a lot of vehilces from my childhood. I was too busy being preoccupied to take enough pictures but got this one for a friend:

Food trucks are always a mixed bag for me - tremendous variety but long lineups and longer wait times. My brisket poutine was pretty solid though, I have to say.

We got back into the weigh in at the Agricultural Hall just in time for the last two pumpkins, large enough they had to be brought in by forklift. The runner up was a solid half-ton of gourd, but the entry from Don Crews of Llloydminster tipped the scales at 2137 lbs! Afterwards you can stay and bid on the entries, with half the proceeds going to the local Christmas hamper charity.

Following the weigh-in and a trip to the artisan's market for Audrey to pick up some earrings, we caught the shuttle bus over the the corn maze. A poor season for corn meant you could see over most of the maze, but it still made for a nice walk. There is also a midway where I spent enough money on darts to win a narwhal stuffy for Glory.

There was a beer garden we didn't partake in and a threshing demo we didn't make it to, and a Metis Kitchen Party at nearby Metis Crossing, but the pinnacle of excitement comes at 5:30 Saturday afternoon, at the pumpkin drop.

This is where an enormous crowd gathers around to watch the local firefighters affix a gigantic pumpkin (like, at least 500 lbs, but possibly close to half a ton) to an enormous Mammoet crane, which then hoists said pumpkin some 200 feet in the air before dropping it onto an automobile directly below. 

Spectators are kept at a safe distance by a perimeter rope, and a lucky raffle winner is apparently given the opportunity to push the button that actually drops the pumpkin, and the excitement builds to a fever pitch as the final ten-second countdown begins.

As you might well imagine, that much weight, from that height, makes a sizable impact.

In addition to shattering the pumpkin and scattering its innards over several yards, the rear roof of the car was totally crushed, it was shifted back a few inches on its axles, and we could feel the hit from where we were seated on the ground some thirty yards away.

A second pumpkin was set up and winched into position high in the air, and the eagerly shouted countdown yielded results that were at once predictable yet spectacular.

After the firefighters made sure there were no sharp shards of metal strewn amongst the shell and guts of the fallen pumpkins, a final countdown unleashed the crowd from the safety perimeter and onto the impact site, where they grabbed shards of the shell and other souvenirs - and, presumably, some seeds to perhaps grow their own mammoth squash?

I am almost embarassed to admit just how entertaining I found this entire enterprise; perhaps it was the ridiculous scale of a ton-fractional gourd being dropped by a nine-axle industrial crane from a height greater than most grain elevators.

In the end though, I think it is the simple atavism of kinetic discovery, to see and hear and feel such an impact. It feels a suitable way to commemorate the changing of the seasons, the significance of the harvest, and a chance to be outdoors before the weather turns too bitter.

I think we may go back next year as well.

Sundog spied on our journey home

The Family That Stickers Together...?

On most weekday noon hours, I can typically be found walking Canéla around our neighbourhood. The layout of our streets gives me a few alternate routes I can use to keep things from getting stale. And even more if the backalleys come into play. 

Like most suburbs, there are not a lot of interesting sights at first blush, but if you know where to look you can find a toy figure of Sesame Street's The Count wedged onto a small tree branch, an empty house that appears to have had a kitchen fire, and a startling number of people whose RVs and trailers prevent them from accessing their garages with their vehicles.

Even without trailers and such, there is a lot of street parking. Heck, our next door neighbours don't even have a garage, and they seem much happier with their increased yard space anyways. But walking past the various parked cars and trucks, I always like to check out the ones with stickers.

Surprisingly, none of my routes have brought me into proximity with Alberta's ubiquitous "F*** Trudeau" decals, but I have seen at least one for country radio station CFCW, an "I Brake for Reptiles", a variety of non-home sports team affiliations and one that grimly states "Nature Bats Last". One of the most intriguing sets I have seen, however, combines the once-common stick figure family with local hockey fandom in a kind of unsettling way.

So, for those of you reading this in the distant future, first of all, thank you! Next, you need to be aware that in the early 21st century we saw the peak of people putting simple icons representing their families on the rear windows of their passenger vehicles. Even as a person who loves stickers, I never saw the appeal myself - why would you want strangers to know how many kids you have, or whether or not you are a single parent? Is it so bystanders can let you know if you have left a family member behind?

Before it began to drop in the mid-late twentyteens, we saw this trend evolve in two significant ways around the time of peaking: the first was backlash stickers, saying things like "My T-Rex ate your stick figure family and they were delicious" with an outline of the aforementioned Cretaceous dinosaur, usually with spindly arms and legs hanging from his slavering jaws. The other was a nearly unlimited variation of the families themselves, often representing some sort of fandom of another, e.g. zombies, Star Trek, Star Wars, etc.

This window appears to have originally depicted a zombie family of four, plus an undead cat and dog, presumably pets.

All the humanoids, save one, have been obscured by large, Oilers Nation stickers, a popular sports blog (based on the number of stickers I've seen overall).

I am going to level with you - my first thought was that this was perhaps an act of bitterness, possibly p[receded by a messy breakup or relationship breakdown of some kind. But while obscuring an ex-partner is easily explained, what about the children?

On closer inspection, however, the sole unobscured figure is smaller in size than the two on the far left of the tableau, suggesting an offspring (supported by the placement on the far right, suggesting the younger sibling)... perhaps the child is now of driving age and has begun using this vehicle on the regular? And if so, perhaps they don't want strangers assuming they a) are partnered up and b) have a pair of children - certainly an awkward thing to explain in the high school parking lot.

Regardless, if I walk this route enough times, perhaps one day I will encounter the driver as they are coming or going and I can ask them.

If, like those zombie stick figures - I just have the guts...

Still the Ghost With the Most? - Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, Reviewed

We recently watched the 1988 Beetlejuice with Glory, as she had very little recollection of watching it on video as a youngster. It holds up pretty well, actually, and it is fun to remember what a breath of fresh air Tim Burton was at that time, going from Pee Wee's Big Adventure in '85 to Beetlejuice, Batman and Edward Scissorhands in thre successive years. I started running hot and cold with him as a director around Mars Attacks, well before this College Humor video articulated precisely why much better than I ever could.

Anyhow, we all enjoyed it, and I appreciated reading the trivia on IMDb about how little the studio understood Beetlejuice, trying to convince Burton to rename it Ghost House, to which he countered with Scared Sheetless...and was horrified when they almost went with that instead.

Knowing that, as well as the fact that Michael Keaton doesn't do a lot of sequels but has wanted to do one to Beetlejuice for ages now, and learning that Winona Ryder had a shooting exemption for the very possibility of this movie placed into her Stranger Things contract almost a decade ago, Audrey and I decided to check out the sequel Beetlejuice Beetlejuice last Tuesday.

So, first the bad news - it is not as good as the original. How could it be? The first one was not just an unprecedented blend of comedy and mild horror, it had its own remarkably unique take on the afterlife, with its rules and bureaucracy and suicided staffers. Every time you turned around Burton and his writers were throwing something new and unusual at you, whether it was procedural or another fascinating character.

It really feels like the first half of this movie is devoting too much time for the setup, but when it finally hits its stride, it becomes almost as entertaining as the first one which is still pretty entertaining. 

Set 30+ years after the first movie, Lydia Deetz (Ryder) now hosts a cheesy supernatural reality show called Ghost House (ha!) and is estranged from her teenaged daughter Astrid (Jenna Ortega). Stepmother Delia Deetz (the sublime Catherine O'Hara) draws the family back together to the old homestead in Winter River when she learns her husband Charles (the now-incarcerated convicted and largely shunned Jeffrey Jones in the original) has survived a jet crash in the Pacific, only to have been eaten by a shark. 

Part of the reason the first half of the film feels underwhelming is there is just not enough Beetlejuice (72 year-old Michael Keaton!) in it, and when he is, he is not given nearly enough to do. It had me concerned that maybe the role is too much for even the most committed septuagenarian, but I needn't have worried. Once he gets more opportunities to interact with the rest of the main cast, there are not too many wasted moments - after all, Keaton says this is his all-time favourite character. And the Frederico Fellini-inspired backstory sequence is absolutely marvellous.

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice also lacks a lot of the living/unliving tension of the first film, where half the angst came from watching the adorably ghostly Maitlands come to grips with their new (after)lives, while Lydia struggled with her own existence in the real world - containing Beetlejuice was almost a secondary consideration. 

This largely familiar cast is rounded out by Delia's producer and partner Rory (Justin Theroux), who is just as new-age cringey as Otho in the original; Monica Bellucci as the mysterious Delores, now hunting for Beetlejuice, and Willem Dafoe as Wolf Jackson, an afterlife cop (originally an actor) trying to contain an uncontainable situation.

Now the tension is all on the living side of the equation, with the exception of Delores' pursuit of the title character, which never feels that threatening, honestly. But resolving the relationships between Lydia and her boyfriend and her daughter feels high stakes enough to keep you going. Astrid's potential romance with a bookish outsider (with a mop of dark hair and unconventional musical tastes who can't wait to leave his small town? in a TIM BURTON movie? I am shocked!) is a fun diversion, as is Delia coming to grips with being a widow by experiencing it as artistically and in as many media as possible. 

And I think we can keep this review spoiler-free but still mention offhandedly that those looking for a bizarre retro musical number will not be disappointed...or maybe they will, depending on how they feel about Richard Harris as a vocalist. Nothing could equal "Day O."  Nuff said! 

Anyhow, in the end, we all came out less surprised and delighted as we did the first time around in the '80s, but still thoroughly entertained. Best of all, it doesn't smack of desperation or selling out like some other decades-later sequels seem to. If you liked the first Beetlejuice, I think you will enjoy Beetlejuice Beetlejuice as well.

I only wish they could wait 30 more years before rounding out the trilogy as I suspect they might.