The Big "T"

The problem with mothers is that we never stop trying to educate our kids, no matter how old they get. Any experience is fodder for learning material. Take last week, when I used a haunted house photo shoot as a chance to teach my daughter (the artist) about the importance of spiders in the ecosystem. Amy thought we were there to shoot pictures... and so we were. But Haunted Verdun Manor does have quite a bit of acreage that's simply left to run wild. It's great atmosphere for a haunted house and a great habitat for all sorts of creepy-crawly-fluttery-flappy things to write about -- including spiders. And spiders are the perfect accessory photo for Halloween.

Spiders aren't overly cooperative subjects. I hunted fruitlessly for some of the eight-legged darlings while Amy photographed dead trees and dead brush. You'd think that any disaster- prone gardener could destroy enough vegetation to landscape a haunted house and anyone who can make one of those garden gnomes fit in ought to be able to do something with zombies and plastic body parts, right? The truth is that landscaping with monsters is challenging -- the coleus you forgot to water just won't do. Werewolves running amok amid dried up potted plants just aren't as effective as when they're rampaging through real dead trees and real creepy wildlife on the grounds of Verdun.

As night fell, we finished our shots of the landscape and outdoor props and headed towards the smaller house for the second part of our shoot. Soon we were stalking down the dark hallway of the smaller (and less spooky) house on Verdun's grounds. I fiddled with my camera while Amy got a death-grip on her camera, my shirttails, and my long hair.

It's probably a mistake for an artist to wander through a haunted house with a mother who's a defrocked biologist. Artists want experiences -- they don't want details. Amy followed nervously as I dawdled along, admiring the anatomy and physiology of the victims nailed to the walls and bottled in jars. We passed the black light paintings and entered the Hall of Cobwebs where bodies were glued to the wall with sticky white strands. I paused to take a picture, noting a whispery shuffling sound behind me.

Suddenly my ears were assailed by a noise that sounded like a Boeing 747 jumbo jet having a panic attack. Fortunately, mothers are adept at interpreting the shrieks of their offspring. This bellow translated loosely as: "MOTHER! A BIG UGLY ZOMBIE JUST SHUFFLED AROUND THE CORNER AND HE'S WAVING A

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