boo!!

Am I the only person that has "issues" with Halloween? As a kid, it was easy. My mom hooked me up with some great costumes - a leopard outfit she crafted on the sewing machine, a Raggedy Ann costume I wore in Nursery School that I think was just a gingham pinafore and one of those plastic masks with the elastic strap. I really hated those masks - they made my face hot and moist from all those trapped exhalations, and the elastic inevitably pinched my head and my ears.

As I hit the teenage years, the pressure to come up with a really good costume made me anxious. I would usually put it off, then I would run out and throw something together at the last minute. I tended to find something wacky to wear--my favorite was a crushed purple hooded dress I found at a thrift store, with embroidered flowers around the neck, hem, and sleeves. It was floor length, had slits up to the knees, and was form fitting. (Damn, what happened to that dress?) My idea was to get decked out as Mrs. Roper, the tacky landlord's wife (or was she technically the building manager's wife?) on Three's Company. But unable to find or figure out the necessary acessories to finish the outfit, it was simply just a wierd dress, and I felt naked. People kept asking me, "what are you?" and the reply was "well, i was trying to be Mrs. Roper..." But do not fear, what I lacked in "costuming skills" I made up for with a considerable talent for beer consumption! I have never been, dear reader, afraid of some fun.

Now that the pressure is off in the costume department, its on in the homemaker department. People around here are really into Halloween. Stoops and lawns are festooned with stuffed scarecrows, staged death scenes, orange colored christmas lights, ginormous cobwebs, giant inflated pumpkins, and some really wierd pumpkin people! For example, along the road I travel to and from work, there is a dude stuffed with leaves, wearing denim pants and a flannel shirt, on his hand and knees, with his pants lowered to reveal two pumpkin butt-cheeks. Pumpkin plumbers crack! I prefer the understated approach. A jack-o-lantern and a bowl of candy will do just fine, thank you very much.

Tonight our block is relatively quiet--there is a haunted house a few blocks down that is pulling the candy cravers away from here. But every now and then there are waves of laughter and screams on the sidewalk, and little knocks at the door. I gotta say, I haven't paid too much attention to the costumes, but I couldn't miss the giant, inflated, sumo wrestler, his girth created by an internal fan.

So, happy halloween. Here is a cute picture that an old friend just sent me. I think the costume we were shooting for was "babies", but as my friend described it, we're "little girls dressed as little girls."