JJ Litke

the neural pathways less traveled

Easy Halloween Fence

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My neighborhood is into Halloween, and we get a lot of trick-or-treaters. That makes Halloween a perfect time for fun craftsy projects.

I wanted a fence to guide trick-or-treaters up to the house (and, you know, just to add decoration). But the ones you can buy are insanely expensive for just a short segment of fence. Plus they tend to be really short, and they’re flimsy, making me think they aren’t likely to last long. So this year, I decided to make one myself. This is the result:

A simple black chain fence with little skulls on the posts

Sorry I didn’t take pics all the way through, but the steps are pretty simple. I started with some cheap wooden stakes from Lowes. I got 36 inch, I probably could have used the 24 inch ones just fine (though this does have a nice bit of height). Fair warning, these stakes are meant for construction zones, they’re super rough, and you will get a thousand splinters if you aren’t careful with them.

The other materials were a 25ft black plastic chain, and a set of tiny skulls. Since there were eight skulls in the pack, I only used eight stakes, which turned out to work great for the length of chain I had.

I spray-painted the stakes black with some leftover paint I already had. We seem to accumulate a lot of leftover paint. After painting the stakes, I debated about how to fasten the chain to the stakes. I finally got the idea to just drill holes through them with a 5/8″ bit. Then it’d be an easy matter to thread the chain through the holes—and added bonus, I can take the chain out after Halloween and the stakes will all store nice and flat. So I drilled holes in them. Okay, MrJJ drilled the holes, but I held the boards for him, so I helped! They’re secured on the end stakes with black twist-ties (MrJJ’s idea, he’s a pretty smart guy).

Finally, the skull cap pieces were added. I had thought I’d glue them, but there was a nicely convenient hole in the base of each skull. So I tapped a nail into the top of each stake—MrJJ was into this project by now, and he found some leftover 3″ nails and flattened the heads down so the skulls could fit over them. I could glue the skulls down, but they don’t seem to need it. Plus, again, storage will be so easy if I can just put all the stakes flat together.

Closeup of a little skull on a black post, with a black chain running through a hole in the post

Drilling a second set of holes and running another chain through would make the whole thing look a lot more like a serious fence. Or, the shorter stakes would work great if you wanted a short fence.

I’m thinking about getting something like some Spanish moss to add a little more character. Or I’ve got some orange string lights. Anyway, this is a good base to start with.

Happy trails!

A little skeleton riding a skeleton flamingo

7 Tips For Sharing COVID—And The Holidays—With Your Family

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So you’ve been social distancing and wearing a mask. Great! And now you want to cash in your good karma points on visiting extended family, stuffing yourself insensible, then zoning out by the TV. And surely coronavirus will honor those karma points, right? It pays attention and thinks in its tiny little ‘rona brain, “Hey, that guy’s been good, I’ll give him a pass and not spray out of his mouth into his Grammy’s face when he hugs her. Nah, that’s not how I roll.”

You owe it to your Grammy to go. The best thing you can give her is the gift of you, even if it comes with a side of antibiotic cocktails, lung fluid, and blood clots. You don’t have to risk her life, you could just call her more often and listen to stories about her walking fart problems. But you’re so bored with staying home, and she’s had a good run. A gem of a guy like you deserves some fun!

So here we go, tips for the COVID holiday season.

  1. Wear a mask. Masks reduce the viral load you’re exposed to, which affects how ill you become. Of course, you won’t wear the mask while you’re eating. Even though your brother Jerry talks with his mouth full, so he’ll be spitting flecks of turkey gravy and mashed potatoes at everyone. And you won’t wear a mask while hugging Grammy. Her memory and eyesight are failing like Kanye’s presidential run, and she won’t recognize you with a mask. You know what, forget the mask. It’s not going to make much difference for the five to six minutes you’d actually have it properly covering that face penis you call a nose anyway. 
  2. Wash your hands. This one is important. Grammy is always after you to wash your hands, right? Even though she just wipes her hands on a kitchen towel after handling raw meat, but you know, do as she says, not as she does. Handwashing will make a difference in how many germs are spread around during that maskless, gravy-and-potato-spittled dinner. Especially after Uncle Chester has a few drinks and keeps grabbing your arm to make you sit and listen to stories about his basic training days and pranks involving toothbrushes and rectums. Or when Grandpa starts up with the latest conspiracy theory about 5G-induced STDs, and cousin June helps out by escalating it into a screaming match. Family gatherings are fun, huh?
  3. Use hand sanitizer. Hand sanitizer should be at least 60% alcohol. If you run out, try sneaking some vodka from Uncle Chester’s glass that he’s pretending is water. Bonus game, refill it with water and see if he notices (spoiler: he won’t, he’s drunk on hand sanitizer).
  4. Social distancing. Yeah, you already broke that one just by showing up. Next.
  5. Cover coughs and sneezes with a tissue, then throw the tissue in the trash. Have the kids do this as well. Make them stop wiping boogers on each other, or on Uncle Chester after he passes out on the couch. In fact, make sure you keep the kids away from Uncle Chester. His yell-sneezes that sound like an exorcism in progress can set off every car alarm in the driveway. Bound to be a few germs in there, too.
  6. Clean and disinfect frequently touched surfaces. Give the kids some Clorox wipes and make up a new game: how many surfaces can you wipe down every hour? The winner gets a peppermint that Grammy dug out of her purse with just a little bit of lint stuck to it. Be sure to warn the kids not to get bleach in their eyes or up their noses. Or on the food. Or each other. Actually, this might be a bad idea. Just get some of Chester’s vodka and spritz it around every hour or so. Be sure to get Grandpa’s nether regions. He’s having a little trouble holding things in, if you know what I mean.
  7. Take vitamin D. And zinc. And some C for good measure. If you weren’t sick before, odds are good you just got the new version of the gift that keeps on giving. So hunker down and brace yourself, you’re in for a rough few weeks. Call your Grammy one last time. Happy holidays!

The holidays approach, plan accordingly

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Ah, the winter holidays! Halloween gives us a nice prelude to the looming specter that is Thanksgiving and [December holiday of your choice]. And what makes these festive times so very unnerving?

Family. Those people you’ve avoided all year until now.

Okay, maybe it’s not really that bad. Somewhere in the world, there are happy families who all love and cherish one another and are always genuinely happy to be together. And the rest of us hate those guys. For most people, it’s not really one extreme or the other, and the truth lies somewhere in the middle. You want to see your family, but you’re really nervous about putting on a good front and appearing successful next to your overachieving cousin (that smug bastard). Or you know you’re going to be forced to deal with that jerk uncle who just can’t shut up about his political views. Maybe it’s that you just don’t get to see them often enough and you’re not sure how to get in enough time, which likely means you’re going to spread yourself thin and be exhausted by the end. Whatever your particular flavor of drama, the holidays bring us all the gift of stress.

One of the best ways to mitigate some of that stress is to manage your expectations. Don’t engage in magical thinking about how you’re going to finally get every detail right, or tell off Jerk Uncle this time, or finally earn Smug Bastard Cousin’s respect. It ain’t gonna happen. Accept it. Embrace it. It’s okay. Seriously, it is. You don’t have to be perfect, and you don’t have to be right (and that’s a topic that deserves an entire post on its own–hell, an entire blog). If you routinely feel disappointed at the end of the holidays, start managing those too-high expectations now.

Family isn’t so bad. Except when they are. But they’re every bit as human, and amazing, and flawed as you. If you can find a way to accept that, you’ll all be a lot happier. Especially after the holidays are over.