22 Days Later

Since my last post, that is

One of the reasons I don’t have a paid subscription option is for that reason: three weeks! With no posting regularity, I’d feel squirmy asking people to pay.

Anyway, the silence over here was because I was putting paid to my last post: I spent most of my free time (which was pretty scarce, anyway) cultivating joy for me and my neighbors. First I finally finished this, A Little Free Library of Trinkets and Treasures. It’s been enormously popular in the neighborhood, particular the smaller residents. This photo is from the day I finished it:

I got an old curio cabinet on Marketplace, removed most of the glass, added wooden shelves and sides, and built the gable for the roof out of an old ikea shelf. The roof itself is what I think was an old kitchen shelf (yard sale find). It’s covered with a tar-and-asphalt sticky roof I also nailed down, and I changed the wooden knob to something that seemed more fitting. I love hearing the neighborhood enjoy it. One tiny neighbor has even started bringing her sculptures as offerings. It’s adorable.

The second bit of joy we’re working on is our annual Halloween display. My husband LOVES Halloween, and has built displays of increasing scales for many years. His first major endeavor was in 2020, when he built a drive-in movie theater in our yard. The cars were cardboard and driven by skeletons, but all the neighborhood littles and their parents, stuck in the house together every single day, would sit in the yard to watch whatever we played on the screen that night. He built it to give everyone a break, and ever since the neighbors have been asking what we’ll build next.

Daytime view of the drive-in’s denizens, including an homage to Joe Bob Briggs, who has hosted shows dedicated to drive-in movies for years

A night view at Intermission.

We’ve been scaling up ever since. 2021, we turned our yard into a functional carnival with midway games like ring toss (on bones) and stick the spider to the web. Halloween night we staffed it with our skeleton employees and handed out prizes in addition to candy. The best part was the super creepy fortune teller’s booth, which my husband made by creating a pepper’s ghost with a video of the head from the Haunted Mansion. I created “answers” in the video so you could ask it questions, not unlike how you’d ask a magic 8 ball.

Skully and Boney at their posts.

I was pretty pleased with this booth.

2022 had a western theme with “real” shadow puppets on a screen (it was a youtube video) and a crackling campfire.

2023, a pirate ship with enormous sea monster tentacles.

Chicken wire, masking tape, lots of hot glue, fiberglass, and tears.

Last fall I was on sabbatical, so I encouraged us to lose our damn minds. We integrated motors that year as part of our very meta “skeletons are filming a universal monster movie featuring skeletons as the characters” featuring a whole set. It was INSANE. It had easter eggs, too, little giggles for those who noticed, like when my husband drew a kraken where the mermaid would be on a faux starbucks cup. Behold:

Now I know the news has hardly slowed down and that there’s a lot of stuff I could use this space to talk about, and I will. But one reason I’m sending you this now is to encourage you to smile a little. The days are often hard, the headlines often unbelievable. And I promise, I’ll come back here—maybe even tomorrow—to tackle some of those, and ground them in some history. But for today, take a minute to breathe.

Here’s why it matters:

If all you do is worry and panic, you’re only robbing yourself of the ability to have some peace every day, which you need to keep fighting. The administration loves your worry and panic. Don’t give it to them.

Instead, spend a little time with me in our boneyard, watching some skeletons put on a show.

Nolite te bastardes carborundorum.

© 2025 Jennifer Cote. All rights reserved.