Good grief! Is it the
29th already?! Where the hell
did October go?

OK, obviously I’ve been slacking. Let’s get back to business. Back when I asked for help
for post ideas, Chag asked me
for some favorite Halloween memories.

So many parties over the years. First I had them as a teen, as I had the
parents that let me have parties (and all my friends were “good” kids – that
kind of helps, when you know they’re just coming to hang out and not get
drunk). Then later, other friends started throwing parties. I have a friend who (in his bachelor days)
would transform his entire house into a haunted mansion, rave club. Every year it got a little more
elaborate. You know those movies where
there are impossible clubs with all gothic décor and twisting corridors of rave
lights and gyrating bodies? Yeah, his
Halloween parties ended up looking like that.

However, there are a couple of parties in particular that
stand out. The first one was out on an
airstrip. I had a buddy who was into
skydiving. He invited me and Keen out
for some festivities, but I was really wasn’t prepared for the scene we walked
in on.  At first, everything seemed
mellow… there was the airport building in the middle of fields with the
airstrip next to it; groups of people standing around talking and drinking,
some music playing. The costumes all
seemed smartass and fun; like my buddy who was a nun with his mustache extra
bristly. We chatted with a few folks and then walked around the corner of the
building… where things were really going. We got there just in time for the fire-breathing to start. Now, understand, skydivers are a little crazy
in general (they do jump out of planes) but I hadn’t really understood how much it extends to the rest of their
lives. Watching these guys breathing
flame, (which basically means you take a mouthful of alcohol and spit it as far
as you can while holding a flame to it), and watching how… damn… close… some of them let that flame crawl back to their
faces… yeah, these guys were nuts. A
few of them got flames out six feet or more and wouldn’t cut off the flame until
it was only a few inches from their mouth. After they ran out of fire-breathing fuel, the party moved onto liberal
amounts of mooning each other, random maniacal laughter, and (I heard, we
missed this part) some light-hearted titty-flashing, too.

My other favorite party was much more mundane. I was pregnant with Chance. Keen and I got the Oriental Trading Company
catalog and were seduced by the splendors within! Spur of the moment we decided to throw a
Halloween party for all the kids we knew: godkids, friends’ kids, family
members. We made goodie bags, a menu of
Halloween themed treats (severed finger wieners, spider cookies, etc.), and
decorated up a storm. All the kids came
over for trick or treating and partied down (as much as 1 to 7-year-olds can
party). It was pandemonium and chaos and
really, really fun. I was exhausted
after two hours and could only sit (in my (pregnant) bee costume) and watch but
I would do it again. There is nothing
like watching kids have a blast, making their own memories.

Yes, I’m just getting more sappy every year.

I regret not having any cool spooky stories from childhood…
breaking into a haunted house, spending the night in a graveyard, really
spectacular tricks, etc. Though I do
have this, our
family ghost story, that the Phoenix
posted a couple years ago. (Phoenix does a really excellent collection of scary stories every year, check them
out.) 

When you’ve accidentally experienced the real spooky stuff,
it’s hard to go looking for it.

– the
weirdgirl