October

Autumn is the favorite season of most. And, ironically, it's not because some of us find it perfectly acceptable to plaster bloody handprints, the shadow of knife-wielding maniacs and emblazon a dripping plea of Help me! in red paint on our windows as Halloween "décor". It's certainly not because our neighbors can trick-or-treat us for a whole month with the most grotesque, gaudy decorations on their lawns, trees and walkways.

It's most people's favorite time of year for far subtler reasons: the cool, crisp weather, the changing leaves, the many harvest festivals and the joy of consuming heartier meals. Halloween is a small part of it, a really fun part as long as it entails black cats, wide-eyed owls, jack-o-lanterns, family costume parties, some self-regulated ghouls and a sprinkling of grinning skeletons. In the Southwest we also get the much more culturally interesting and wonderfully artistic Dia De Los Muertos.

Here in Phoenix we have reason to celebrate when we get that first whiff of fall weather. It usually comes in early October on some delightful breezes, though the native tapestry does not change in any perceptible way. But we hear the whispers of exotic, colorful, cooler climes on that welcome wind. Those breezes quickly shimmy somewhere else, spooked by goblin summer as it comes back to tease us in the middle of the month, stamping our dreams into dust and sending a few of us to therapy...or the northern mountains. But - at last! - by late Halloween we actually stand the chance of being chilly in our sandals and Bermuda shorts.

Except for this Halloween. It's in the 90s right now.

Despite some anger issues tied completely to summer's leftover temps, I love fall in Phoenix. I love it because of our dear friends. These selfless people spread Autumn joy around by hosting parties and entertaining our children, so that Matthew and I can actually talk to adults without that truly terrifying manifestation of the spinning head that parents in large families so often acquire when taking their brood out to crowded places.

Every year my friend Kim hosts a Halloween party, and whole families dress up. Her house is decorated to the ghoulish nines, and we walk in and gasp anew at her knack for weaving the perfect ambience. I could not attempt to describe her decorations, many of which she designed herself. She even has a marvelous painting of a haunted house lit by an eerie moon in her kitchen. Everywhere you turn you find yourself in a Halloween wonderland. It's her favorite holiday, and it shows in the eyes of all the cats, owls, scarecrows and skeletons peering at you from shelves, walls, hutches and tables.

Our children will someday reminisce about attending Mrs. Kim's parties - how she had the best piñatas that wouldn't break until the big kids had their turn; how there was wicked food including deviled eggs with olive spiders, donuts with vampire teeth, and jack o' lanterns throwing up guacamole; how every year as a party game they got to toilet paper their friends instead of neighbors' houses; and what they and their friends wore to the Halloween party. It's all dark, good magic, and someday they'll realize how lucky they were to experience it. Heck, I'm lucky to be included! I get excited every year and cannot wait to find my costume. It's the only time I get to play pretend.

A week later our family's trick-or-treat fortune increases, for tonight another good friend, Dana, will have the gang over to her house for trick-or-treating, and we'll all party and feast again. Her neighborhood is one of those rare conclaves where everyone decorates their house. They don't just decorate, in fact; they make the whole block scream Halloween with elaborate facades! Our massive group will head out to be spooked and wowed again as we wind our way through the candy-seeking crowd along ghoul-infested streets. I'll snag every chocolate treat I spy in my kids' bag, and they will ask to eat a piece every couple houses. The adults will have beer, talk and laugh again, and the young ones will have far too much sugar and terrorize each other, and it will be a very merry Halloween.

And it's all because of friendship. Our dear friends open their houses to us for celebration. I couldn't thank them enough for all the memories they've given my children. That's what now makes this season so wonderful to me.

Happy Halloween! and a break from routine

The next posts here are going to be from two very special guest writers...though, honestly, I don't really think of my dad as a guest writer anymore. His posts are always hugely popular, and he will soon publish the fourth book in his Kelven's Riddle series. I like to think of him as the co-writer and mentor of this blog. The other guest will be a surprise, someone new to you.

At any rate I'm taking a break, and I know you'll enjoy it. I'm leaving you in good hands.

But before I go, I wanted to share this pic:

That was my costume this year for my friend Kim's fabulous annual Halloween party. The dress was clearance, and the beautifully matched mask ($12) and simple gloves ($5) were both from Target. I pulled it all together by sheer luck the day before the party. My husband wore a beer boo t-shirt, something he hopes to do every year forever. Only when someone suggested he should have been the Phantom of the Opera, did I hit my head and bemoan my lack of vision. I probably couldn't have gotten him into that sexy little face mask and nice dress-shirt-plus-cape, but I wish I'd tried.

I also wanted you to know that I have been published again at Erma Bombeck Writers' Workshop. It's a Halloween post about a 13 year old who wants to give up tricks but not treats and about the wonderful big sis who takes her on her last candy hunt. Get over there and read it before the Jack-o-lanterns are beset by black mold, and your candy-induced guilt (hopefully the mature chocolate variety) has settled in.

To all my brave readers and their little spooks, I wish you a very happy Halloween!

Halloween and the Ghost of Costumes Past

Ah, it's in the air - the smell of candy corn and melted chocolate and pumpkin pastries! It's 102 outside and there's not a breath of wind, but I can smell Halloween creepin' round the corner, its arms laden with spider rings, glow sticks, and toilet paper.

You know what it is? It's the fact that my kids have already been in school more than a month. It doesn't matter that it'll be hot as blazes here til late October, that autumn does not fall on this desert. From my childhood I have associated going back to school with a change in weather, a change in scenery, and the forthcoming parade of holidays.

My friend Kim throws a huge party every year. You walk into her home, and it is decked floor to ceiling with fantastic Halloween décor. I can't conceive how much effort it takes to get it to that point of spooky perfection, but just passing the threshold of her home is a treat. The kids always let out involuntary oohs and ahs.

Along with the kids, I admire my friend's flair for creating atmosphere, and I always dress up for the festivities. That's part of the fun, a whisper of a different time when adults went to masked balls and wore exotic apparel to escape the ordinary, and the children, for an evening. The mulling over ideas, presenting of options to friends, and the wondering about how much your husband will let you spend on a fling worn for one night (two if you wear it trick-or-treating) is all part and parcel of the excitement.

If I had unlimited funds, I would of course dress up as Elizabeth Bennet or Jane Eyre, elegant period clothing complete with bonnet and ribbons. But I would want to do it right, and my husband would never agree to dress in the top hat and period suit of Mr. Darcy or Mr. Rochester - though he would look so damn irresistible in them; I would have to speak softly and carry a big stick the whole night to beat back other women, especially if he wore something like Colin Firth's forest green jacket in the movie. So, fantasies aside....I must be a flamenco dancer, if not too dear, or dress as the quintessential 1940s or 1960s woman - any era, really, of the twentieth century. And I must lay a heavy guilt trip on, slyly convince, or plead with Matthew not to go as "a sensitive guy" - something he threatens to do every year by painting a big blue teardrop at the corner of his eye.

In years past I've had a fairly easy time of it. Last year, my eldest boy, Berto, went as Anakin Skywalker, so I was his daughter, Princess Leia:

Princess Leia

I decided to be the nerdy version instead of the sexy Leia. Yeah, yeah. Princess Leia didn't wear glasses, and her robe wasn't a satin lingerie robe, but details like that don't matter; I had the ear buns. It was gold, baby.

 

The year before that I went as a Wild West sheriff. I'm still a little bitter. I found a genuine reproduction badge of the AZ territory Tombstone sheriff's badge, and my husband wouldn't let me get it. It was too "expensive". Ah, well, he obliged me by dressing up as my outlaw. Too bad I cut the neck hole on his poncho too wide. He was an outlaw running from a bad tailor.

 

Sheriff and her no. 1 outlaw (photo by Kim)

My hat was from our honeymoon in Fredericksburg, Texas. The suede semi-duster I got for dirt and pennies and had for years, and the denim vest was borrowed from a friend. I go in for cheap, as you can tell, maintaining the time-honored, non-spoiled-brat tradition of digging through all the junk in your closet to compile something truly jaw-dropping.

 

Now (rubbing hands together) for this year! What shall I be? What can I convince my Man to wear? What will our friends choose as their persona for a day? The anticipation, like pumpkin-chocolate cake, is to die for.

Weekend Bookends

I had just given birth to another baby. TMI, but I remember seeing the baby's head and reaching down to touch her dark hair when she crowned. The nurses gave her to me shortly after, loosely wrapped in some kind of blanket, and then they acted as if they were just going to leave without checking her vitals or cleaning her up.

Well, I should have known by my surroundings that this wasn't going to be a normal delivery. I was giving birth in what looked like a garage. And not a small one. No, it was one that seemed suited to car thieves dismantling stolen vehicles. There was even a huge tool crate nearby in addition to the hospital monitors at my side. The nurses were dressed in short skirts, crazy tights and tall boots, and they had glam, dark make-up on their faces. They brushed off my protests that the baby needed a good washing up, and they headed for the door - no doubt for a date with their felon boyfriends.

 

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That odd dream began my weekend. It is, I believe, what convinced me to go out to my dining room Saturday morning and sort through my toddler boy's baby photos in order to finally put them in his album. The project was arduous, but I prevailed, even filling the last several pages of our family album with a year's worth of birthdays, vacations and holidays.

After recovering for sometime from the headache of looking down for two-and-a-half hours, I then hauled the kids' white metal table out into the gravel of our front yard and unfolded camp chairs around it. My three youngest and I had a pleasantly simple alfresco lunch under the huge eucalyptus tree. There was a fine breeze, and clouds provided an enormous, benevolent canopy above. In general the weather was so gorgeous and unexpected that I swear we could see Autumn waving to us from behind a saguaro just down the street.

Reluctantly, we returned to the indoors for my Danny boy to keep his appointment with a nap. I then sent off a guest writer's submission to another site. (The anticipation of that was probably the source of my strange birthing dream.) Then I switched out the bunnies and pastels on my hutch for decorations that will hopefully entice Autumn to stride down the street in plain sight.

Of course, my kids also pleaded for the Halloween bin. I felt some of their excitement. I dreamed of stealing their chocolate bars on that ghoulish holiday as I watched them try on old costumes, turning themselves into mutant soccer-monster, pirate, vampire superheroes.

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This morning at approximately 12:38am, my Danny whispered in my ear, "Milk, Mama. Milk."

The whispers become more insistent the more I attempted to poo-poo them, so I grumpily stomped down the hall to retrieve a sippy cup from the fridge, That bought me about five more hours, and then he leaned close to my ear anew and breathed, "Mama, Max and Ruby. Max and Ruby, Mama."

Dear heavens, he was asking for television! How long had he been awake?

"NO! No Max and Ruby."

He humphed at me, and then proceeded to his sisters' room to wake them up. They were already up (at 5:30 am!), so I scolded them and told them to force themselves back to sleep. Then I told my toddler that if he wanted to sit in a dark living room by himself, so be it. I just want sleep, dammit, so I returned to my bed down the short hall to snuggle against my Man.

Presently I heard a doorbell.

"Ding-dong, Mama! Ding-Dong!"

Maybe he was being a doorbell, or maybe he was calling me a ding-dong. Lately, though, this is something he has been doing whenever he wants someone's attention, and they are not properly engaged in what he's doing or saying.

The doorbell was only going to get louder, so I kissed my bed goodbye - with tears and sad, weak waving that went on too long, and I promised we would someday be together for real.

There's nothing to do but stagger out, kiss your children and face the day, opening the curtains and praying the sun's rays have all the mood-enhancing and energizing power they're said to have.

My mood improved a great deal by the time I was driving my oldest two to school. I put on a Beatles CD and sang and bobbed along to Baby, you can drive my car, looking back at my smiling son who has not yet learned to roll his eyes at everything Mama does.

"Beep-beep, uh beep-beep, Yeah!"

Here's looking at you, Week. You'd better be a good one.

Trick-or-Treat, Elephant Snot

Come late October, fall reigned in Tennessee. The changing leaves, overhead and under foot, always thrilled me on the walk down the lane to catch the bus as a child. The cooler weather with its sighing breezes invigorated me, and though it stripped away, patch by patch, its exotic, multi-hued cloak that hid our little home from the world, late October brought with it Halloween. In all its trick-or-treating glory, it presented us with a new multi-colored splendor to relish: candy.

There was very little decorating in our house. The only thing I can remember is a scarecrow with accordion legs dangling from our living room closet door. How I loved to see that scarecrow! He cemented my admiration for all such persons fashioned from straw, sticks and old clothes. But no ghost, witch or ghoul friends bore him company in the vigil for Halloween.

It didn’t matter that decorations were sparse; no trick-or-treating would take place at our home or those of our neighbors. Trick-or-treating would have entailed walking the half mile or so between houses - uphill both ways, of course - and likely as not, if we had attempted it, we would have been greeted by bemused stares and given a crumbly corn muffin, hint of mashed potatoes on the corner, left over from our neighbors’ dinner.

So we ransacked our house on Halloween night to find the things that added up to a presentable costume (like a scavenger hunt, you couldn’t be sure what it all might signify at the end), and anyone who needed make-up of some sort presented themselves to Mom. Then we drove 30 minutes into the town of Dickson, and Dad navigated the car into one of the fancier neighborhoods where we were certain to amass a splendid cache of sweet booty. Out of the car we four kids spilled onto the sidewalk. Costumes straightened, treat bags ready, Dad would point out the first street to attack and away we’d sprint.

Looking back, Halloween was like a date night for my parents. I envy what they were able to glean from it. They strolled down the tree-lined sidewalk, holding hands. They had their conversation, and Mom’s laughter would drift through the air to us kids as we stood before a door with treat bags spread wide. They seemed so relaxed, so thoroughly in the spirit of things, and thankfully oblivious to the school day usually waiting on the morrow.

Occasionally, they did call out to us to keep us in line, prevent us from tripping over garden gnomes or yard lights or from decimating flower beds in the eager rush from door to door, and to keep us from grabbing more than our fair share from unattended candy bowls with signs that courteously commanded, “Please Take One”.

We cut through a lot of yards on Halloween night, flashing through the easygoing grass. The only lawns to which we gave a wide berth were those inhabited by vampires and smoke, webbing and bubbling witches’ brew. Inevitably, Nate and Annie egged each other on to those houses, returning with abundant candy for their bravery.

When our bags strained our wrists, we beat it back to the car where Dad popped the trunk for us to spill our treasure into waiting receptacles. Then with empty, expectant bags we felt re-energized and doggedly pursued fresh streets with untried houses.

So it continued until we stumbled to the car at an hour when most respectable revelers conceded to give up the treat hunt, leaving the teenagers to toilet paper houses and smash Jack-o-lanterns until some ungodly hour of their own choosing.

The car ride back to the boonies let us weigh the fruit of our efforts by the amount of pressure our bags put on our tired legs, and it also served as a necessary opportunity for our stomachs to settle with all the candy we had sampled between doors. Heaven knows, as soon as we dumped out the glorious piles of booty on the living room floor, we would eat a hearty second round of gut-busting sugar with unabashed glee.

And that’s when my sister Vinca and Dad unleashed their strategies. Vinca waved all kinds of miraculous bite-sized chocolate bars and little bags of candy corn in the air to beguile us into relinquishing our stores of bubble gum. We were weak and took what she proffered, trading over fat rounds of Dubble Bubble. Unfortunately for us, our candy always disappeared much quicker than her gum stores. She would make them last for months afterwards, and we were left to ask covetously now and then, “Is that from Halloween?” Vinca would nod, chew, and blow boastful bubbles without even looking up from her book.

Dad, of course, sat in his chair and called for his “daddy tax” (most have heard of this tax, because dads are upfront in their claims on candy, while moms, cackling like wicked chocolate-seeking witches with lusty thighs, simply raid the bags when their sweet, silly children are asleep). My dad demanded his share of Sugar Daddy suckers, and, as most would agree, they had his name on them, so it was only fair. Besides, we couldn’t begrudge him the suckers, because the only other thing he really took was something we didn’t want at all: Elephant Snot.

“Ewww,” we’d say when we’d find them, “Gross!”, or “Uggh, not these again!”

And then Dad would grin and wave us over, “Bring them here,” he’d say. “Bring me the Elephant Snot, kids.”

So we’d pick the plain orange or black wrappers out from our decent candy between thumb and forefinger, taking handfuls over to dump on Dad’s lap. He’d unwrap them and stuff the wrappers in the corner of his recliner as he chewed comfortably on their peanut butter filling, saying for our benefit, “Umm, Elephant Snot – good stuff!”

I never knew the proper name of the candy. Dad’s pet name for it seemed so much more appropriate, especially given its color. They were bite-sized chews with peanut butter inside and I don’t know what kind of horrendous coating on the outside, almost like peanut taffy. I haven’t seen any in years. Perhaps people wisely stopped patronizing their manufacturer, perhaps they were banned for their atrocious flavor by the FDA, or maybe my dad orders buckets upon buckets of them for himself each Halloween, and so there’s none left for the stores. But if I ever see any Elephant Snot come through my kids’ treat bags, I know just where to send them, along with the memories that spring from their gaudy little wrappers:

For you, Dad
With love
Some elephant snot
Happy Halloween!

Love, Hoodoo