Happy Halloween!

I have always loved Halloween, not the way some people do who get into the grimmer aspects of the holiday, and not because of the candy, but because of the creative aspect of it. In grade school, while the other children either wore sheets and went as ghosts or bought expensive commercial costumes, I made elaborate papier-mache creations. My best costumes were undoubtedly Mushroom (first grade) and Unicorn (sixth grade).

At the University, Halloween has always been a big deal, with a huge party down near campus, and one year my best friend and I dressed as a nun (her) and a devil (me). (Although it would have been funnier the other way around, since it would have fit our personalities less!) The next year she told me to find another costume for her, but she didn't make that mistake again! I was a lion, my roommate was a witch, and we found a big cardboard box in the attic marked "CLOTHING WARDROBE" for my friend to wear. Let's just say she wasn't too excited about wearing a cardboard box...

A good base to begin any Halloween costume is one of those little cardboard crowns you can get at a burger chain that will remain nameless, but it has royalty in the name so you can figure it out yourself. One year I took two and made a black and a white castle top, then my best friend and I were the white and black rooks from a chess set. (She didn't like that costume too much either - too much face paint.) Another year I used the cardboard crown as the base for a palm tree top, and my friend used one as the base for the capital of an ionic column. We had another friend who was a pirate, and a friend who is about 6'3" who was a 50's girl in a poodle skirt. Those photos are hysterical: a giant Barbie doll towering over a tiny pirate, a small ionic column, and a little palm tree. At one party a guy approached my friend the Ionic Column and said to her, "That's a capital idea! You must be a pillar of the community!"

I have gotten lazier in my 30's and usually just wear something I have sitting around, like my old Tai Kwon Do ghi, a kimono from a Japanese friend, any of my dresses from my time playing in a Renaissance band, or the Mexican dress I bought somewhere deep in the jungles of Quintana Roo, the one my best friend says makes me look like one of those "Dolls of the World." She just got back from Curacao and brought me a sundress, so today I am a Tropical Girl. Of course, since I am notorious for wearing Hawaiian shirts and tropical sundresses during the summer, I'm not sure my coworkers realize it is supposed to be a costume...

Because I have yet to spawn, I have to borrow a kid to go trick-or-treating, and Hardingfele is my usual source. Last year she got me a little Russian boy. This year she has promised me a little Somali girl. Her daughter is going as a rock star... again. She is going as a cat. I don't know what the kid I'm borrowing is going as. Guess I'll find out tonight! Last year we were really disgusted to see parents driving their kids from house to house, I kid you not. They say kids these days don't get enough exercise, and I guess not, if they can't even walk twenty feet from one house to another. For candy, no less! I can tell you that no borrowed kid of mine is getting a ride like that. She is walking her own self, uphill both ways if necessary, just like we did when I was a girl, dagnabbit.

Famous Hat