A few items

 I have several unrelated things to discuss this week, so I'm dividing my post into sections.

A Big Change

On Friday, I went to Moran Eye Center for a consultation for LASIK surgery. I don't qualify for LASIK (my corneas are too thin), but instead I qualify for PRK, which is the same idea, except that it has a longer recovery time. So this coming Friday, I will have eye surgery! I am nervous (the recovery will take several days) and a little sad—I have worn glasses for twenty-five years, and they are almost a part of my identity. But I will be happy to have good eyesight. There are so many things I don't like:

• My glasses fogging up when I wear a mask
• Being blind when I'm swimming or paddleboarding (because goggles fog up)
• My glasses flying off when I workout (only certain styles of glasses do this)
• Not being able to trim/shave around my ears because glasses are in the way, but if I take the glasses off I can't see
• Not being able to see when I wake up in the morning
• Not being able to see where my lenses end, and having the edges of my lenses blurrier than the center
• Not being able to conveniently wear sunglasses
• Having to plan Halloween costumes around glasses
• The cost of glasses

This will be a key moment in my life!

A New Musical

This year, my cousin and niece have been attending musicals and inviting other family members as well. One of the musicals was Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and I knew I had to see it. I was a huge Roald Dahl fan in elementary school, we used to watch the 1971 movie all the time at my grandparents' house, and I was borderline obsessed with the Tim Burton movie when I was in high school. 

Tuesday was the day, so I accompanied my sister and niece to meet my cousin at Eccles Theater for the play.

When it started, I worried it would be too sweet and not subversive enough. It ended up being overly subversive. The book and the two movies are dark, but there's a subtlety to it. This musical was not subtle at all, and it strongly implied (at least) that Augustus, Veruca, and Violet actually died. I didn't like that (I like the scene in the book and the Burton movie when they see all the naughty kids leaving the factory). I was also surprised to see a twenty-first-century musical lean so heavily into Bavarian, Russian, and fat stereotypes. But it was still entertaining. They kept some of the songs from 1971, and they incorporated elements from the book and both movies. 7/10.

Picking Things

Longtime readers of this blog will remember that every June, I like to go find goathead plants to pull up in an attempt to eradicate them. This year, I'm taking a different approach. I used to like to go to lots of different spots on one or two occasions each. This year, I'm going to only a few spots on multiple occasions. I think this will be more effective. I will be able to catch the plants while they're still in their early stages, while they're easy to kill and haven't developed seeds. And if I keep up on it, the plants will be so small that I can continue eradicating them all summer, instead of just the month of June. (The plants get too sharp and dangerous when they get big.) This way, I think I will be able to notice a bigger difference. 

Baby goathead plants. They're so cute! Just like Chucky the doll.

But I never have time to do everything I want in June. It's also the season for picking cherries from my sister's tree. I wish I had all the time I wanted to pick cherries, pit cherries, and bake with cherries. But pitting cherries just takes. so. long., even with a cherry pitter. I looked online for an electric one, but I could only find impractical industrial ones.

So many cherries! So little time!

And speaking of plants, here's a butterfly on some Wasatch penstemon. (I started running up North Canyon yesterday, but it was so dusty and windy that I didn't think it was wise to complete the run.)

The Best Halloween Ever?

OK, so, I feel a little awkward geeking out over my own very niche fandoms, but this is my blog, so I can do what I want. I know this is four months early, but you guys, this is going to be, like, the best Halloween ever!

Back in 2018, they released the soundtrack for It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, but the original recordings were lost, so they lifted the music from the TV special with all the sound effects still intact. People were understandably disappointed. But! This week they announced that they had found the original recordings, so they are rereleasing the album, the original versions, this August! I know this is insignificant for most people, but this is a huge deal for Vince Guaraldi fans. (I think August is too early for a Halloween release, but they release Christmas albums in October, so I'm happy to see the holidays get equal treatment for once!)

Also, this year there will be reboots of both The Munsters and The Addams Family! I hope they both get Halloween release dates. I don't know how the Munsters movie will be, but they totally nailed the look. 

This year will also see the release of Hocus Pocus 2. I think the original is shockingly overrated, but it can still be fun. (Once in a while I see posts asking which is better, Hocus Pocus or The Nightmare before Christmas, and how is that even a question?)

And back in 2018, my favorite Christmas album for that year was JD McPherson's Socks. Ever since that time, I've thought he should make a Halloween album, because his sound perfectly matches all the monster songs from the 1950s and '60s. Last October, he tweeted, "Which is funnier behind the wheel of a crashed vehicle: A: A ghost. B: A Frankenstein. I’ll show you why later." I don't know what that means, but I'm hoping and speculating that that was for album art for a Halloween album. That would be simply amazing! And I'm hoping that DBone and the Remains make more music, because they are by far the best Halloween music I have found.

And I'm also looking forward to the 2022 Halloween Squishmallows.

So, thanks for letting me geek out!