Joyous Samhain

It's the wonderfulest day of the year. Unfortunately, I don't feel like I have a chance to adequately enjoy it. Recent Halloweens, like this one, end up as a last-minute scramble to carve some jack-o'-lanterns and put candy in a bowl beside the door. I suppose it's like that for most people, and that's all they want; but I want this to be my Christmas. It will be, perhaps, when Erin and Jillian are older.
"Dad, we want you to turn our front yard into a fairy princess pumpkin forest for Halloween."
"OK, girls."
"We also want you to carve fifty jack-o'-lanterns."
"Whatever you say."
"Will you take us trick-or-treating to five hundred houses?"
"Well, girls, how about one hundred houses, and then we come home and give out prizes to the best costumes that show up at our door?"
"Well, maybe."
"We could make the older kids who are trick-or-treating really
earn their candy. Let's build a coffin with a trap door!"
"Yayyy!"

I attended a Halloween party at Pat and Laura's house on Saturday. The theme was Steven Spielberg movies. I went as Schindler's List. My original idea was to go as Schindler's grocery list, but after I thought about it for a while, I decided the Schindler's list was much better. I thought about the events, the movie, and read about Schindler on Wikipedia, then used The Google to find a copy of the lists. It moved me and made me feel weepy and I felt like it would be a fine costume. However--and in retrospect, it was inevitable--the execution just wasn't to great. I copied part of the list (I only got up to the Fs) onto a white shirt and incorporated it into a suit. It was OK.

Lots of nice costumes at the party. Pat was the shark from Jaws and Laura wore a bathing suit. A red sash-thingy around her waist was a nice touch. Pat's costume was made by Laura. It was a shark made from cut-up and painted packing foam. The eyes, which were eery black things that glistened with death in their depths, were simply small speakers hooked to an I-pod that Pat wore and through which he played music (the "Jaws" theme, hip-hop).

There were other costumes that were good, but Chris G. showed everyone up by coming as one of the South American Indians from the beginning of "Raiders of the Lost Ark." He was wearing nearly nothing, had a shaggy black wig on his head, paint on his face, and a blowgun. He was horrifying to look at, and hard to look away from, sort of like a hairy car wreck.

Also, there was good food and good conversation.