October 31, 2009

October is coming to a close again. We have but hours left until the dreaded November arrives.

What is October to us?

October is...

falling leaves and changing colors

the change of the seasons

the end of the harvest

hunting season

football season and the local high school homecoming game

the World Series

an abundance of candy

orange plastic pumpkins and the enormous effort it takes to shove candy through the tiny hole in the top

little kids dressed up as ghosts

Mary Shelley and Frankenstein

Peter Boyle and Young Frankenstein

Ichabod Crane and the Legend of Sleepy Hollow

Charlie Brown and the Great Pumpkin

Apple pie

Apple sauce

Apple cider

the orange of pumpkins

the search for the perfect pumpkin

and the perfect pumpkin patch

Pixie Stix and Bit'o'Honeys

Concrete Blonde

Rocktober

Dracula, Bram Stoker and Anne Rice

Family and friends and time shared together

Warren Zevon and the Werewolves of London

Van Morrison's Moondance

George Romero and his zombies

The Mummy

Elvira

the unmistakeable voice of Vincent Price

wool socks

superstition and Superstition

black cats

spiders

plastic spider rings

the school carnival

trick-or-treating

my grandmother in a pirate costume and my mother as a witch

the Frankenstein coat rack

strangely enough, donuts

corn mazes

that East wind out of the Gorge

Sarah Winchester

Haunted houses - real, imagined or created

the spooky graveyard and the wandering spirits once housed there

Disney's Haunted Mansion

Chex Mix

Martha Stewart

Caramel apples

bats

witches and our misunderstanding of Wicca

Galena, Ill., and Ashland, Ore.

pumpkin-flavored anything

and so much more...

Happy Halloween, all.

And Happy October.

October 30, 2009

The race has begun.

Do you have your costume yet?

I got all ambitious after Halloween last year and I ordered one online. It's a super-cute costume and an incredibly good idea. However, it made me look like an ass so I sent it back.

So no, I don't have a costume.

I have a couple ideas, but it might be too late to assemble the pieces needed. Ahh, well. The best laid plans...

When I was little, my grandmother made costumes for me. They were wonderful costumes. I was a genie and a ballerina and a black cat and a white elephant. 

And then for a few years, I didn't dress up. But then I started working at my current job and ran headlong into a group of incredible costumers. 

I arrived one morning at 6 a.m. to find one of my coworkers dressed as a giant carrot. The year after that, the sales office dressed as the seven dwarves. We're still removing fake blood stains from when the restaurant servers were an ER crew. And the Elvises, oh, the Elvises. And really, can anyone ever forget the year that Rocky, who is lily-white, transformed himself into Mr. T?

It's estimated that we Americans will spend $4.75 billion on Halloween this year. I'm guessing the majority of that is on candy and costumes. 

As for me, I think I still have my devil horn barrettes from last year.

Cheers!

Oh, click here for the first ever recorded use of the word "hauntrepreneuers". Happy Rocktober.

October 29, 2009

I don't know if I've mentioned this, but I share a birthday with Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley.

That's right, Mary "Frankenstein" Shelley.

Mary's little story, written on holiday near Geneva, Switzerland, has become one of the greatest monster stories of all time. For nearly two centuries, Mary's "Modern Prometheus" has captured our imaginations both on the page and on the screen. 

Frank has never been as popular as, say, Dracula, but he's had his fair share of the spotlight. Boris Karloff's 1931 screen portrayal is credited as being the key to Frank's longevity and popularity. 

But I think it was Peter Boyle who pushed him over the top.

Please see:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pu1DMSqTLyk&feature=related

And, my personal favorite:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2lojDOBX8BY

I swear, I don't know how they ever made it through the filming of "Young Frankenstein", but I am so very glad they did.

How is this not the funniest stuff ever put on film?

October 28, 2009

What are the traditional symbols of Halloween? The pumpkin, the ghost, the full moon, the witch's hat, the black cat.

The black cat. What is it about the black cat that links it so inextricably to Halloween?

Here's a great article from the San Fran Chronicle about the phenomena of the black cat. Are black cats good luck or bad omens? Read and discuss. 

Edgar Allen Poe wrote about a black cat he befriended (or who befriended him, I'm not sure). You can find his story here. 

And, if you can't click the links, I hate this treat for you:

Janet Jackson's "Black Cat"

All the lonely nights I spend alone
Never around to love me
You're always gone
Cause you're hangin out
Breakin' the rules
Oh the man has come
Looking for you
You're a rebel now
Don't give a damn
Always carrying on
With the gang
I'm trying to tell you boy
It's a mistake
You won't realize
Til it's too late

Don't understand
Why you insist
On ways of living such a dangerous life
Time after time you stay away
And I just know that you're telling me lies

Black cat
Nine lives
Short days
Long nights
Livin on the edge
Not afraid to die
Heart beat
Real strong
But not
For long
Better watch your step
Or you're gonna die

You're so together boy
But just at a glance
You'll do anything
If given a chance
Scheming, plannin lies
To get what you need
So full of promises
That you never keep

Don't you tell yourself
That it's okay
Sick and tired of
All of your games
And you want me to stay
Better change
Makes no sense to me
Your crazy ways

Black cat
Nine lives
Short days
Long nights
Livin on the edge
Not afraid to die
Heart beat
Real strong
But not
For long
Better watch your step
Or you're gonna die 

October 27, 2009

Today's topic: It was a Dark and Storm Night. Discuss.

After work tonight, I had to go out to PCC Sylvania to take a math test. With the overcast sky and the half moon, it was incredibly dark out there. What a creepy campus. I'm glad I chose the web course instead of the two nights a week wandering around in the dark out there.

But it would be a near perfect location for an aspiring horror film producer to set up shop. Just a thought.

I've been in some creepy places over the years. I even worked in one for quite a while. But this time of year lends a sharpness to the creep factor. Our imaginations run a little wilder and a little darker. Perhaps, with the thinning of that veil between worlds, we regain a little of our instinctive fear of the dark and the things we cannot see. Deep down inside, we remember a time before cell phones and electric lights. We catch a glimpse of what lurked just outside the ring of firelight. 

And we walk a little faster through the parking lot and lock the doors as soon as we're in the car.

October 24/25, 2009

I went to get my hair adjusted last night. My friend Gary is truly a miracle worker.

At his station, he had easily six different kinds of candy. I took a little trick-or-treat pack of Starburst. But when I opened them, argh, two cherry ones. Under normal circumstances I do not eat cherry candy. It tastes like cough syrup. But I ate these. It's October, after all, when all candy is good candy.

I'm far, far, far past the age of trick-or-treating. I have a job. I make enough money to buy my own candy. I have a car. I can go to the store anytime I want and get gobs and gobs of whatever candy I think I might want.

But it's not the same.

I think the magic of trick-or-treating lies in the fact that it's completely a crap shoot. You don't know what you're going to get. You could get a whole bag of full-size Snickers (not likely) or you could get some crazy health-nut bag of granola bars and apples. Or you could get a handful of Sweetarts in the little 3-fer packages, a few Tootsie Rolls, some mini-versions of actual chocolate bars and some of those taffy's that you can't quite identify the flavor of but you know they're for Halloween because they're in orange and black waxed paper. 

When I was very little, trick-or-treating like you see in the movies was this mythical thing that just did not happen in my world. We would go to the elementary school Halloween night and go from classroom to classroom and that was it. Of course, this was in the middle of the desert. No sense in letting kids lose in the desert in the middle of the night where they might encounter truly horrific creatures.

So, I missed out on the real experience of trick-or-treating until we moved to Portland when I was 10. And at that point, I was on the verge of being too old. I went with my cousins a few times, with my youth group a couple times and then that was the end of it.

Until last year. Last year I went with Joe and Stacy and Angie and the kids to Stacy's parents' neighborhood. Stacy's dad and their neighbors compete to see who can make the best spiced wine for the parents of the neighborhood while they're accompanying the trick-or-treaters. How is this NOT THE BEST IDEA EVER? 

So, aside from it being a picture-perfect trick-or-treating neighborhood where every walkway is lined with carved pumpkins and dancing skeletons and any number of other decorations, there's spiced wine! Hot spiced wine!

Now, normally I would not suggest that you all run out and get yourselves mugs of hot spiced wine right before you stumble through the streets in the dark with teeming masses of small children asking strangers for candy, but I have to say, I think this is the way to go. After a little wine, you won't care what those stupid taffy's actually taste like.

October 23, 2009

October is when I turn into the West Coast version of Martha Stewart. I do things like try to make butternut squash soup or use spray glue to "glitter" things. 

I have grand plans for October, as I do each year. I'm going to the orchard to pick my own apples. Then I'm going to bring them home, cook them up and can some apple butter for Christmas gifts. 

I'm going to bake a huge chocolate-pumpkin cake and stencil a white sparkle-sugar spiderweb onto its top. 

I'm going to have the best Halloween costume ever. Martha showed me how to make it using twine and some coffee filters. And glitter, of course. 

I'm going to find more time to spend with my loved ones. I'm going to walk through the falling leaves wearing the hat I just knitted. And I'm going to finish the scarf to go with it. I'm going to live in an October picture book.

But what happens is that all my grand plans kind of turn to mush as I start to realize that there are, in fact, only 31 days in October. 

So, what does the plan become? 

Enjoy every last minute until midnight next Saturday. Then look forward to making plans for next October.