This is Halloween

TREAT OR TREAT:  We spent a couple of hours today working on Halloween costumes, because there's nothing like waiting until the last minute, right?!?!

CJ's costume was a breeze - we scored it at "Binwill" a couple of years ago. "Binwill" is the outlet Goodwill store in the Sodo district where clothing is so cheap, it's sold by the pound). CJ's Gumby probably cost us 50 cents. :)  I was cleaning out a storage area a couple weeks ago, found it, and CJ was all over being Gumby, The only thing we had to do to it was build a little box to ride atop CJ's head. Without it, Gumby's head didn't have the right angles at all. Gumby's head should NOT be droopy! 

Annabelle wanted to be an "OC" or original character - a My Little Pony with its own name and story. So she's Midnight Magic, a witch pony (and a unicorn, BTW). We had the great purple cape (I bought it years ago at a going-out-of-show business sale by a theater company), she had the skirt and shirt, we bought the hat for $4.99 and made ears and a horn (her OC is a unicorn). She's wielding a great grandma's broom, and was good to go! This was, by FAR, our easiest Halloween EVER.

Yesterday, I had CJ and Annabelle watch some Gumby cartoons on YouTube so they had a better appreciation for the green guy. Created by Art Clokey, turns out Gumby was featured in a 233-episode series on American television, in a feature-length film, as well as other media. We didn't have time to watch ALL of that, but they got a good idea of Gumby's essence, so to speak. So that CJ was well rounded, we even had him watch a bit of Eddie Murphy's version of Gumby (so funny!)

I can't even begin to tell you how much pleasure he brought to people today. Seriously - dozens upon dozens of adults gleefully exclaimed GUMBY!!! when they saw him. It was so fun. CJ wasn't expecting that universal, oh-so-warm welcome everywhere we went in the Village (like every 10 feet!). 

Kids, for the most part, just stared. One mom enthused "GUMBY!!!" and CJ heard her son ask, "Who';s Gumby?" and the woman responded, "He's from Mommy's time." 

One grown man wanted to quiz CJ to make sure he was worthy of wearing a Gumby costume. Fortunately, CJ was able to answer all his on-the-spot Gumby trivia questions!

In the end, the kids got way too much candy as usual. 

SOMETHING WICKED: We took time today to read a book we found at Goodwill (the 'expensive' one, not 'Binwill, LOL') months ago. It's a fabulous pop up book based on the musical "Wicked,"  which is an off-shoot of "The Wizard of Oz."

Interestingly enough, our book is autographed by two people. I'm guessing it's people on the touring show who came through Seattle. Even without the signatures, our $2 investment for the book seems to have been a good one. The book looks to go for $50 and WELL upward, unsigned, on the Internet market places. Happy Halloween to us. :)

OH SO HARD: Rough, rough week for spaceflight. Today, my Twitter and Facebook feed started filling up in a not good way. Posts from my spaceflight fan friends pointed to something very wrong. The latest awful news ... Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo catastrophically crashed during a test flight over the Mojave Desert today. One pilot was killed, the other is hospitalized with serous injuries.

Here's the statement from Virgin Galactic

Virgin Galactic's partner Scaled Composites conducted a powered test flight of SpaceShipTwo earlier today. During the test, the vehicle suffered a serious anomaly resulting in the loss of the vehicle. The WhiteKnightTwo carrier aircraft landed safely.
The Virgin Galactic team is cooperating with our partners at Scaled Composites and the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) as well as local authorities. We understand that the NTSB is scheduled to arrive in Mojave tomorrow morning (Saturday Nov. 1) to commence their investigation, which is expected to last several days.
Local authorities have confirmed that one of the two Scaled Composites pilots died during the accident. The other pilot parachuted to the ground and is being treated at a local hospital. All of us at Virgin Galactic are deeply saddened by today’s events. Our thoughts and prayers are with the families of all those affected by this accident.

George Whitesides, CEO of Virgin Galactic, provided the following statement:
“Our primary thoughts at this moment are with the crew and family, and we’re doing everything we can for them now. I’d like to recognize the work of the first responders who we work with in the Antelope Valley for their efforts on behalf of the team. We’re also thinking of the team members that we have at the companies that have been working on this program.
Space is hard and today was a tough day. We are going to be supporting the investigation as we figure out what happened today. We’re going to get through it. The future rests in many ways on hard days like this, but we believe we owe it to the team, that has been working so hard on this endeavour, to understand this and to move forward. And that is what we’ll do.” 

Sir Richard Branson is on his way to Mojave and is expected to arrive by early Saturday morning.

We understand your interest in additional information. It is our understanding that there will be another press conference over the weekend at the Mojave Air & Space Port. We will post any logistical details as they become available, and we will provide another update from Virgin Galactic at that time in conjunction with the press briefing.
http://www.virgingalactic.com/

This week's hardships bring to mind John F. Kennedy's masterful speech at Rice University regarding the Apollo missions. ... 

We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.