Can some kind soul tell me what a "spig" is?

I've been told children dressed as this for Halloween.  The children were in Delaware, USA, but the claimer was in the UK.

I will gladly  pay a sweetie for the info.  Thank you very much.

Courtesy of Clansoup, we meet the Spig.

Did you ever have a day that started with someone treading squarely on your very

last nerve?

Happy Friday.

Hmmmph!!!

A whirlwind of a girl, nine years old, had been uncharacteristically motionless, sitting on the woodchip covered ground in the middle of the area where the playstructure stands.

She is a busy, busy girl; a boy chaser, a clueless pesterer, a sqwauker.  She is persistantly puzzled by the way other children process social interaction and often has meltdowns, which is a strange  term for the frequent loud combustions that her meltdowns are.  Her meltdowns are your and my blowups.   This is just the way she is and the world is no doubt a lot harder on her than she is on the world.

Anyway, she'd been sitting in one spot, the sole static being among the kids who were sliding, climbing, swinging, running, hiding and seeking all around her.

Suddenly the loud rough voice piped up, overpowering all of the other voices,

"What am I doing just SITTING HERE?"

and whooosh, she was up and off. 

Fall is late this year and leaves are just starting to color and drop.  I have the habit of tucking one or two (or, let's face it, more) in a safe place as I work; one year I really will make the quilt that is calling me through those leaves.

This year I've gotten as far as tracing the leaves to use as templates for the quilt.  Like all dedicated craftsmen, I traced them as I waited in my car for a train that was going to be three hours late and a week early. 

I'll explain that in a minute.

Having nothing but time, I had opportunity to really look at the leaf I was holding.  Graceful shape coming to a long point, smooth leather to the touch, deep dark red with touches of translucent yellow barely visible, it is stunning.  It took years for its home tree to grow and a summer to make this leaf, to make it this size, and the weather of the summer and fall to make it just this color.  It had turned sunlight to nourishment, had fed the tree that made it, blending in with the other leaves doing just the same thing, all of them green as the other tree leaves were, green as the other trees' leaves were, green as the grass, as the weeds, as the shrubs and the vines were.

And now it's a treasure,  a crimson flame nearly as long as the hand that cradles it.  It was a standout among the other leaves on the grass that day;  that's why I picked it.

And I know, I know it would much rather be one of many, still green, still in the sun on that tree, alive.  

(I nearly forgot to explain the three hour late train that was a week too early.  Jean was to arrive the NEXT Friday, not the Friday I went to pick her up on.  Next Friday is tomorrow.)

This weekend was looked forward to so much that there was no way that reality could hit the mark anticipation had set for it.  Sometimes it surpassed reasonable expectations and sometimes it disappointed.

Emotions elbowed each other for top position for the past three days.  One minute happiness, the next disappointment, misery, pleasure, satisfaction, and guilt, all of them and more had their time this weekend.  I've still to take Jean to the train station and tuck her back on the train to Minneapolis, still to feel the deep blue that will bring.

But whatever the emotion, there was certainly the feeling of things being life, or rather Life.  There was nothing static, not from Friday afternoon on through the night, to today's comings and goings that will get everyone where they need or want to be when they should be there.

A big kettle of the special soup Jean requested is simmering on the stovetop.  It's a putzy job to put it together and I usually do it over several days, but all of the work, and it's something like two meals worth in one pot of fragrant savory sustenance, was done this morning as Parker and his friends called back and forth on the phone nearby.  I've been promised as the picker up-per and dropper off-er for his friends and the movie has been chosen with train times and the drive downtown and back in mind.  Jean is at the mall with her dear friend, a girl scout chum from elementary school.  The shopping we did yesterday didn't quite include that pair of cowboy boots that will blister her feet so attractively at school.  They'll bop in for soup and crusty Italian bread and say goodbye until Thanksgiving brings them back again.

And of course, I think that the weekend has been like the soup.  Rich flavors, strong feelings.  Careful handling, and some matters of judgement.  Respect for the  enterprise and faith that effort and time will bring a good result.  The soup isn't perfect, you know.  I rushed and the tiny little meatballs are not as tiny and perfect as they could be.  The whole thing required more time, as the day and this whole visit have not been long enough.

I've just enough time to get myself pulled together for the drive downtown, while they are eating.  I'd better attend to it.

A full weekend indeed.

So much for the sentimental reflections in my last post.

This morning I read the two emails Jean sent me after she got back to her dorm room late last night.  She writes better at eleven PM after a six hour train ride and schlepping three bulky, overstuffed bags from the train station by bus to the stop near her dorm than I do at my least taxed moments.  Her ride included an unusual new acquaintance and her account of how they looked out for each other was charming, no other word will do.

The post script on the email was part of the story too:

P.S. My thermos broke because it fell out of my purse when I got inside my
room, so now my soup is full of broken glass.   My friend on the train
made me eat some on the way, though, so all is not lost.
"You go this whole long way, no eat no drink?"
"Well, my mum packed me some soup..."
"You have somezing then?"
"Yes..."
"Have some!"
"Well, okay, since you said so..."
(Shortly after)
"Do you feel better now?"
(to humor him) "Yes"
"I KNEW eet"

Thank you train companion.  You were wiser than the girl's mother.