October 30, 2017 – Monday
It was a dark and stormy night…somewhere. Not here. Yeah, it’s a bit chilly and we’re bound to have fog in the morning but it’s been a decent month for us up here in the NW. Oddly dry, too.
I always thought that I should have gone into meteorology. I just love weather-related things. My catch phrase would have been “darkness clearing by morning.” Yes, I would have been great – the next Wanda the Weather Bunny! Especially after I shattered my wrist in a high school cheerleading gymnastic routine … because after that bone-crushing event, I could always tell when it was going to rain three days before the storm arrived. I would have had it made with forecasts!
But, since my move up here I’ve lost my wrist-ability. That wrist has given way to the frost forecasting fingers and the aqueous anticipating ankles. And it’s sort of a moot point here in the (dare I say it again) … North WET … as we are usually always soggy (at least in the fall, winter and spring) and my broken and bent bones are always talking to me.
However, we’ve had 4 months of dryness but the rains are to come in another day but if they hold off that’ll give us a dry Halloween for all the goblins and ghouls to trick-or-treat. That is, if we had any that roamed our neighborhood. Not many here – which is so disappointing for me. I love trick-or-treating and seeing the kids costumed up!
And, so I’m here on this eve before All Hallow’s Eve thinking all things Halloweeny and Vincent Price and monkey paws and crawling hands and ghosts crying for Elizabeth to jump off some cliff to a raging ocean below or some vampires insides made of blocks of colored gelatin. It seems I’ve read far too many creepy stories or watched too many late night Creature Feature scary movies (while alone babysitting no less!) because all those images haunt me still. It’s been 50 years since I watched The Tingler in my basement on the old black and white tv set and the mere thought of the 18″ centipede attached to some poor guy’s spine nearly does me in!
I’m glad it’s not a stormy night as I’m creeping myself out! It’s bad enough that it’s dark out! My imagination around Halloween goes wild and thoughts turn to vampires and werewolves and witches and chain saws. See? Too many scary movies!
When I was a kid we must have had 200 kids on our block – or so it seemed – especially around Halloween. More kids than you could shake a stick at … or a peanut butter kiss … either one. My mom made our costumes … my favorite one was the year I went as a cannibal. I wore a black leotard and tights and we made a skirt out of brown burlap. If you’ve never fringed burlap – go out and buy some right now and do it. It’s oodles of fun! I strung steak bones that our dogs had cleaned off around my ankles and wrists and as a necklace and had another one in my pony-tailed hair (hairdo ala Pebbles Flintstone). If I do say so myself, I was darling. It definitely beat the Little Bo Peep costume from another year that my mom stuffed with rags to “froof out” the side pockets of the costume. That skirt weighed about 258 pounds! Why didn’t we stuff the pockets with tissue paper?
We had great parties when I was a kid … and when I had kids we continued the Halloween traditions … parties and homemade costumes every year. What the hell was wrong with me? I laugh now and think I must have been out of my mind channeling Martha Stewart in late September to get the costumes done in time and to out-do the previous year’s party. But we had SO much fun!
I made a full T-Rex costume one year and a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle the next. There were years of the kids being a pirate, Tinkerbell, a princess and of course, Ariel – the Little Mermaid. Living in Colorado, we never knew what it was going to be like at the end of October … it could be 60 something out or 3 degrees and snowing! I remember, too many years, trying to stuff the kids into their winter coats or snowsuits with their costumes underneath – somewhat visible – or over the coats. One year we drove the kids from house to house is was SO cold out. But, there were other years when it was perfectly perfect … a crisp breeze, fallen leaves on the sidewalks, scuttling gray clouds before a full moon … a lone coyote sending chills up our spines.
We had fabulous parties. I miss those days! We had the bubbling cauldron of dry ice, the house decorated with spider webs (seriously, Halloween was a troubling time for me with my hatred of spiders!), skeletons singing, bats hanging upside down in strategic corners or on bathroom mirrors. The kids played all sorts of games but my favorite was when an adult would tell a spooky story and we’d sit in a circle (in the dark) and pass around bowls of witch fingers (pretzel sticks), bones (dog yummies), guts (cooked spaghetti), and brains (jello) … and the kids would squeal with a mixture of delight and disgust. Good times.
I carved a sugar baby (pie pumpkin) the other day – I’ve got him lit and he’s keeping me company on this dark and not-so-stormy night. He’s the first pumpkin I’ve carved in a long time. And while my house is decked out for fall and looks like something out of Autumn Monthly, the skeleton hanging by my front door is about as Halloweeny as I get these days!
I’ll wear black and orange tomorrow. I’ll put costumes on the dogs. (Oh, yes – they love it!) And, I’ll be ready to eat the leftover candy (it’s a tough job but someone’s gotta do it). But most of all, I’ll be reminiscing about all the past All Hallow’s Eves and how much fun they were.
I’m off to bed and hopefully I won’t hear any things that might go bump in the night … but if I do, my inner meteorologist will calm me down cuz I know that the darkness will be clearing by morning and if I hear a chainsaw, I’ll tell myself it’s just Gertie snoring.
Happy Halloween!