Halloween: Rubik's Cube Costume

Best Halloween Ever - 1980, Halloween birthday party. Pre-Pinterest, Mom put together a haunted house in our terrifying-under-normal-circumstances basement. Party guests were blindfolded and touched a dead man's "eyeballs" (peeled grapes), "intestines" (cold spaghetti noodles), and hand (surgical glove filled with wet sand). I dressed like a fortune teller in some hippie clothes borrowed from Mom's artist friend.

Worst Halloween Ever - 1993, Austin, Texas. I woke up to find out that River Phoenix had overdosed outside the Viper Room and (unrelated) that my Toyota Carolla had been towed to a dump/impound lot in southeast Austin.  I spent November 1st bumming a ride to the lot (guarded by an actual junkyard dog) and retrieving my car from a guy who, between his lack of teeth and heavy Texas drawl, was nearly impossible for me to understand. Okay, technically that was the worst November 1st ever, but since the precipitating events actually occurred on October 31st, I'm calling them for Halloween. If only the Internet had been around, I could have crowd-sourced my $75 towing fee like this girl did when she took an unexpectedly pricey Uber.

In other news, someone needs to come up with a funny Uber picture, because this is all the Internet's got:

2010's favorite meme subject, Ryan Gosling:

Oprah:

and, of course:

Let's get some new meme material. I'm old and I've grown bored with Hey, Girl and The Most Interesting Man. I will never say a bad word about Oprah because she could find and destroy me. Plus, this will never not make me laugh. That Oprah, rich as she is, would take a road trip is amazing (even if she made her BFF Gale King do all the driving). You'd never catch Streisand and Walters on a road trip; no makeup, dirty hair, eating Corn Nuts and drinking Mr. Pibb, nary a soft focus filter in sight.  

Least Sexy Inspirations for Sexy Halloween Costumes

Halloween is just around the corner and I am SOOO excited to see all the people dressed like Ebola doctors in their Tyvex suits:

Via

Of course there will be the inevitable sexy Ebola doctor outfits:

Via

The post-exposure spray down is what makes it sexy. It's just like the water scene in Flashdance:

Via

Ghosts of Birthdays Past and Present

Happy Halloween everyone! So, for the two to three people who are reading this blog and don't personally know me, thanks, first of all, and second of all, today is also my birthday. When I was growing up I loved having my birthday on Halloween. As a kid, you're guaranteed to hang out with your friends and get a lot of candy.  What's not to like? When I was in college, there were always tons of parties and I definitely worked the birthday angle to my advantage and scored some free drinks.  Having a Halloween birthday when you're an adult with small-ish children is a totally different ball of wax.  Now I spend my birthday getting costumes together for the kids and doling out candy.

This year, Mom had sweetly offered to take me shopping, but the Baby was still nursing a cold, so I wasn't counting on that happening.  In fact, I'd say that I set my expectations pretty low this year.  When I was cleaning up from breakfast this morning, though, I had this birthday surprise:

Can you see her in there?  Someone hid our Russian nesting doll inside the pumpkin. She was peering out of the nose like she was in the gulag. Then when the Baby and I released her from her pumpkin prison she wouldn't totally close.  That's because this was inside the last doll:

We're still not sure who set up the little surprise. I suspect the Boy, but the Baby's money is on Audrey the Moose. I don't think I've mentioned Audrey before, but she is a major player in our household. Whenever some kind of mischief or mess is revealed, the Baby insists that it is Audrey. She lives in our neighbor's car and has telescoping antlers. Audrey has a way with the paintbrush that is surprising for a hoofed (hooved?) animal. Remember our fabric paint project from the other week? Well, old Audrey got into the paint a couple of days ago and made quite a mess. She also left a paint handprint that was just about the size of the Baby's hand. Hmmmm.

In any case, we chuckled about the dolls for a little bit, but then we found an even bigger surprise when we opened the front door:

My sweet friends had rigged up a ghost right outside the front door as a birthday treat. Underneath that sheet is a life-sized cardboard Batgirl. Batgirl has clearly been working out with Jackie Warner. Get a load of that v-taper:

Batgirl-ghost remains up to greet the trick-or-treaters. Her sheet keeps slipping off, which makes her fit in perfectly with our other deteriorating decorations.

The Baby's nose was running, but I thought she could make a go of it at school. I tried to talk her into it by mentioning that everyone would be wearing costumes and she totally freaked out and refused to go, so that was that and I had a companion for the day.

Around mid-day, Mom came by with this random assortment of balloons:

Yes, that's a Sesame Street balloon. I'm not sure if it might have been a political message? Mom is very obsessed with the election.  Since the Baby wasn't that sick, Mom took us to lunch at Taqueria del Sol. If you've never been to Taqueria, you totally have to go. They put something in the food that is positively addictive. We got really lucky because the K was able to join us.

Right before we left for lunch, Dad called from the hurricane zone. They still don't have power and the stores and restaurants are all still closed. The thing about Dad is that he basically subsists on cappuccino, so he's had a rough couple of days. I think that the DTs have set in. He borrowed a french press from my step-brother and his wife, but he didn't know how to use it. So he called to wish me a happy birthday and to get a french press tutorial (never mind that he actually lives next door to my step-brother and probably could have gotten directions that way). I gave him the 411 (does that exist anymore?) on the french press and let him get off the phone so he wouldn't waste his minutes.

After we got back from lunch, I opened Dad's gift (which arrived about a month ago) and, in keeping with the randomness of the day, it was, well, random. Here are some pictures:

The first picture is of a really old blanket with patriotic symbols. The second item is an Amish birth record that is entirely in German. I feel like I'm describing lots in an auction. Clearly these are about as far from a generic gift card as you can get. In my *ahem* youth, I probably would have been annoyed by this and wished for a J. Crew sweater, but I've grown to appreciate these unique gifts. I put the blanket over a chair in our study. I use the term "study" loosely because it's really a room with all the things that don't go in any of the other rooms. Y'all know what I mean? Don't pretend that you don't have a room like that in your house. We should come up with a name for that room.

So, as far as birthdays go, this birthday rated pretty high for me. I loved all the quirky little things that happened - the babushka in the pumpkin, the Batgirl ghost, the Sesame Street balloon, Dad's call about the french press, and my unique gifts. I loved my lunch and wasn't even upset to lose my day of shopping because the Baby's cold/masklophobia. It was really nice to just stay at home and do nothing. Our schedule has been so crazed, that I felt like I got a chance to breathe for just a second. Best of all, tomorrow I get to take down the Halloween decorations! Happy Halloween everyone!

P.S. I added a gadget so you can sign up to get blog posts by email. Let me know if it still doesn't work and I'll try to troubleshoot it. Seeing as my computer skills are on par with my photography, it may take a while to work out all the kinks. Thanks for your patience!

Halloween Fatigue!

So, before I start trying to cheer everyone up, because, let's face it, today totally sucked for a lot of people, I'm going to repeat something that Sister shared on Facebook.  It's from one of New Jersey's greatest ambassadors, Bruce Springsteen:

Everything dies baby that's a fact
But maybe everything that dies someday comes back
Put your makeup on, fix your hair up pretty,
and meet me tonight in Atlantic City.

My thoughts and prayers are with so many of my friends and family who live in the areas hit by Hurricane Sandy.

Okay, are you all so ready for Halloween tomorrow?  I am, and I tell you why.  We can finally be finished with the do-a-fall-thing-everyday-insanity that I began on October 1st.  Confession time: the last two days it's been really windy in the ATL and my fall-themed thing has been to keep fixing our Halloween decorations when they blow away.  This brings up another reason that Halloween can't come fast enough: all of our decorations are all falling down, ripping, and rotting.  I'll show you what we've got going on here:

Clearly, I need to call an exterminator for our spider problem.  I already had to toss a pumpkin (the Baby's "favorite" naturally) because it was turning black and slimy.  I realize that black and slimy is pretty on-target for the holiday, but even I have cleanliness standards.  You see that orange banner above the door?  Here's a better picture of it:

So, the K is 6 foot 3 and he basically garrotes himself when he walks into the porch.  Garroting is also pretty spot-on for the holiday, but it's not very hospitable as a general matter. I keep shoving sticks in the mortar between the bricks and tacking the flags up that way, but they keep blowing down.  Does anyone have a suggestion for me that doesn't involve the words "masonry bit?" See the Baby in the window?  She was home with a cold today.  More on that later.  I should have prettied up the porch a little before I took the picture, but it was cold and windy today and it was all I could do to run out, snap my crappy pictures, and run back into the house.

Next up outside is the source of all those spider webs:

This guy got blown off his web shortly after the picture and is now lying eight-legs-up on our porch.  I've officially given up on him until the wind dies down or November 1st rolls around, which ever comes first.

Inside, we have another infestation, rats (and possibly some possums):

 
These are from Martha Stewart's decorations line and I got them at Michael's. The kids keep moving them, which is why the two on the bottom are doing burpees or downward dog or something. Look at that big guy on the bottom step. Doesn't that one have to be a possum?    
 

 
Rats are just the most vile creatures.  I thought everyone felt the same way until a message came across one of my listservs.  A woman posted that she found an injured rat and she wanted to contact an animal rescue group to help rehabilitate the little fellow.  Shut the front door!  Seriously?! I'm sorry, someone feeding a rat with an eyedropper so that he can one day return to scavenging garbage and spreading the plague seems like a wasted effort at best.

We also have bats:

which keep curling up and falling off the mirrors.  They're from Martha, as well.  My cleaning people are incredibly patient with the props, although they practically chortled when I reminded them that the next time they come, all the decorations will be down.

So there you go, my scary Halloween decor.  I want it all gone, folks.  I'm ready for Thanksgiving because it means no nylon spider webs blowing across the front yard and no more pumpkin banner strangling my house guests.

Remember how I told you that the Baby was home from school with a cold?  So, since she wasn't really sick, she was up to all sorts of shenanigans. For instance, while I was working on the computer she kept coming up to me and poking me in the back.  It felt kind of nice, to be honest, so she did it for like five minutes before it occurred to me to look at what she was actually doing. When I turned and looked at the back of my t-shirt, I saw this:

  
This is when I wish I were a better photographer.  But, can you see it?  The Baby was stamping all over the back of my shirt.  Here's a close up:

If I don't miss my guess, that's an airplane, two speed limit signs, an ice cream sundae, some hearts, and an Easter egg.  Sigh.  I hope that Melissa & Doug aren't fooling when they say the ink is washable. Although, I suppose it's a good excuse to get some new workout clothes now that this one smells like sweat and negligent parenting. Happy Halloween everyone!