Happy Halloween!

Consider this your warning. Bwah ha ha!

When Fido Wants to Go Trick or Treating...

OK, first of all, do you actually know anyone whose dog is named Fido? I don't. So where did that cliched name come from? Anyway, I digress...

I'm fairly certain Bailey would never go for this. But we're dying to dress him up like a hot dog next year, and take him for a walk during the Trick or Treat hours, along with our baby. Next year will be Baby's First Halloween, and he/she will probably be the ubiquitous pumpkin, just because it's cute.

And we think it would be cute for Bailey and Baby to go trick or treating together. We just need to convince Bailey to go along with it.

So what say you...Halloween costumes for pets, yay or nay?

Halloween equals CANDY

One of the best parts of Halloween for me is the candy. Okay, the chocolate. Anyway, the manpanion and I usually come up with a game plan of where we're going to hit with the kids. In fact, they're typically ready to go home before we are. haha

When we're done trick-or-treating, we compile all the candy into one big pile and sort it out so everyone can share. Chocolate, of course, goes in its own special bin, where I partake of it as much as I can. I consider it to be my parental subsidy. :D

My fav Halloween treats are Reece's Peanut Butter Cups, followed closely by Three Musketeers and Milky Way. Oh man, I'm drooling just thinking about it. But the one thing I hate now is the whole "fun" size. What's so fun about 1/10 of a candy bar?

What about you--do you have a Halloween trick-or-treating plan? What candy do you most look forward to?

Halloweenie

Before I get to today's blog, I would like to first say THANK YOU to my awesome Fictionistas. They surprised me over the weekend and sent me a beautiful vase of flowers for my book signing on Saturday. These guys rock my world and there aren't enough words in the universe to describe the depth of my affection for them.Now on to today's topic:
Halloweenie

Okay, Halloween may be my favorite holiday, but it's not because I like being scared. Nope. Not me, said the flea. I don't do haunted houses, mazes, scary movies...none of that stuff. I'm intrigued by real life ghost hunting, but you put me in a fake haunted house with someone coming after me with a chainsaw and you'll see me shaking in my shoes like a wet kitten.

I like the fun stuff of Halloween. The dressing up, the goofing off, the pranks and of course, the candy.

What do you like? Are you a Halloweenie like me or do you embrace all that's scary and bloody with a thousand loves?

Halloween: Postmortem

Just in case you didn't get the picture last week--I love dressing up for Halloween. It's one of my favorite things to do. Last year, I was on deadline with BITE ME! so I didn't get a chance to participate in Halloween because I was sequestered in Oxford, MS...writing.

I made sure I didn't miss out this year. (Even though I totally am on deadline with LOVE SUCKS! LOL)

So without further ado, let me introduce you to the Mel-O-Ween version of my family:

Mel as a Zombie. This gives a new definition to 'Yuck-Mouth.'
Fishdog and Rader as Thing 1 and Thing 2. Pretty cute, huh?

The 'happy' couple. Thing 1 was afraid his zombie wife was going to eat him for dinner.
Nemo went as an 80s' Rockstar. It worked for him.
At the very end of the night, Frankenstein's Monster showed up on stilts. He was awesome. So naturally, I had to have my picture taken with him.

All in all we had a great time. Halloween is my favorite holiday. We used to host a party every year...I think we need to pick that habit back up starting with Halloween 2009...

The Legend of Shotgun Sally and One Dirty Rat

I hope everyone had a marvelous Halloween/Samhain. It was a gorgeous night in New England for tricks, treats, and wandering along the lines of the veil as it thinned beneath a bright autumn moon.

This week everyone here at Fictionistas shared stories of past All Hallows Eves. Mostly costumes, which leaves me in a bit of a spot, since I go as myself. I am known affectionately (I hope) as Green Harbor's very own Swamp Witch. So most Hallowed Eves I was wandering bogs and such, doing appropriately mysterious but really quite regular stuff. I have, however, a few good memories of childhood romps.

There was this house... yes, THAT house... there, all in black and white and lovely spookiness. I grew up loving that house. I wanted it. It was known to every kid in Green Harbor-- in fact, most of Marshfield-- as Shotgun Sally's. Legend went that Shotgun Sally's was owned by a horrible old woman who shot at anything that moved on her property. This included postmen, census takers, animals of all kinds, and kids. Virtually everyone in our town could tell you the tale, and one or two horror stories of a personal nature. And though Sally had been dead for many years, discovered in bed with her shotgun, the place was still haunted by her angry ghost.

My own impression was marinated in scepticism. I walked past Sally's regularly, right through the yard, and had never seen the spectral image of Sally in the broken out windows. It was a gorgeous piece of property, dotted with huge old nut and fruit trees. The house was a falling-down American Foursquare from the late 1800's. It had beautiful bones even as they broke down there among the towering maples, with a gigantic chestnut out front that shed white petals when it flowered, so heavy it was like snow. I used to gather them up to make stain. I used to gather walnuts and chestnuts and roast them. I used to sit and dream in the shadows of that old house. I never saw, felt, or worried about a ghost, though I am an absolute believer in them. My own house has always been haunted.

If Sally existed at one time she was gone. And being a bit of a wandery-wistful kid who cared little for much more than her notebooks, horse, dog, and whatever critter was following her at the time, the old house was one of my favorite places to sit, sulk, and write poetry about how nobody understood me. Yeah, I was that kind of kid. Weirdly, though, I did have friends. Most are still around or at least bump into me at the pharmacy every now and again. And I've been thinking about a few of them, and Halloween, and one night at Shotgun Sally's when a dare went pretty hysterically wrong.

It was known that I was witchy. I was reading decks of playing cards, and even an old tarot deck, before I was out of grade school. And lots of kids knew I dared the borders of Shotgun Sally's cursed property without fear. So one Hallow's Eve, when I was somewhere between 12 and 14, a few friends came up with the idea to take a side trip from trick-or-treating to Sally's for a card reading. It was my first "professional" reading; I was paid in candy. Four pieces from each bag, my choice. We're talking good stuff-- Reesee's and Milky Ways, not the cheap crap.

While I was aware that the house had become structurally unsound, I figured it was worth the risk. Plus I knew the other kids would be scared half to death, and that had "fun" written all over it. So after making the rounds about Atwell Circle and a few other prime candy circuits, we headed for Sally's. I had an old deck of cards, some candles, matches, and a cloth. Payments made, we crawled in through a broken window and sat in the middle of the floor. I began an evening of mystical endeavors.

Except that Katie, one of my friends, started asking questions in her reading involving Sally, her past, and why she hated kids. I indulged her. But the house was old and creaky and fate has a sense of humor. No sooner had Katie begun her questioning as I flipped the cards than a rat-- not a mouse-- fell from one of the ceiling beams and, so-help-me, landed on Katie's shoulder.

I swear I had nothing to do with that. The place was kind of crawling with every manner of nasty.

I recall screams, four early teen-aged bodies flying over my head, and peering through that broken window to see several pairs of Converse All-Star souls making haste toward the woods.

I snuffed the candles. You don't leave candles burning in a house that is pretty much a stack of kindling anyway. The rat vanished into one of the candy sacks and was welcome to it. Mine survived, and the others apparently fled with their owners.

The following morning broke with four stories (I never did give anyone an accounting) that included full-body specters with long white hair and claws, clear voices growling "get out or I'll shoot you," and a rabid rat attack that nearly claimed a life. Much like Sally, the legend was far greater than the truth. Though I must admit... a rat falling from the rafters mid-reading is pretty good. I don't even think my friends lied. I think they remembered it that way, in their fear. So I never lied, either. When asked I changed the subject if necessary. "It was really scary" seemed to imply my affirmation.

But I still loved the house, and my one glimpse of its interior broke my heart. Dark as it was the mantle was solid hardwood, carved with oak leaves and acorns. The staircase was elegant and beckoning, though I'm sure it would have swallowed me had I dared set foot on it. And about 20 years ago they tore the place down, cut some of the trees, and put a few family homes up where one stately foursquare once stood. I still dislike driving by that spot. Those houses, perfectly attractive and surely home to very nice families, feel wrong to me.

Petie, one of my oldest and closest friends, was there that night and just yesterday became outraged at the notion that nothing paranormal happened that evening. He may be right. Sally or whomever owned that old house may have tossed that rat with perfect precision. But I never saw anything but a rat who lost his footing and was rewarded with a diabetic feast. For me the chill-to-the-bone has a different tone.

I suppose one's definition of "haunted" can vary.

Funny Halloween Stories

I remember one Halloween probably 10 years ago, I'd decided it would be fun to scare the teens who came to my door asking for candy. So, when I heard the doorbell ring, I flung the door open and screamed as loud as I could...only to see they were, in fact, NOT teenagers.

It was a group of 3-4 year-olds.

And they all started bawling, freaked out by my screaming. I felt so bad, I gave them each a big handful of candy. Yeah, never tried that brilliant idea again.


Another Halloween, when I was in high school, a group of friends and I decided we were going on a ghost run. I lived in Louisville, KY during this time, and they have a ghost run every year (at least, I think they still do...?). Basically, everyone goes to a parking lot and are given clues on how to navigate your way, via car, to a haunted house. You go through the haunted house and are given your next set of clues to the next house, and so on.

I have no idea what awaited everyone at the end, because we never made it there. We made it to the first haunted house, got our set of clues to house #2, but got utterly, utterly lost, out in the middle of rural Kentucky in the pitch-black dark.

Oh, and the car I was driving had the driver's side window broken (it wouldn't roll down), so we were lost in the middle of rural Kentucky, in the freezing cold, WITH the window down. And two of my friends were dating, so they were making out in the backseat while my high-school bff and I were up front trying navigate our way out of there. FUN. haha

When I tried to turn around in someone's driveway, I ended up hitting their mailbox, and one of the hubcaps flew off the car. At that point, we decided to just go home. haha. I didn't tell my folks about the mailbox/hubcap incident until many years later.


So, what about you--got any funny Halloween stories?

I'm a man, baby!

Halloween [hal-uh-ween, -oh-een, hol-]– noun the evening of October 31; the eve of All Saints' Day; Allhallows Eve: observed esp. by children in costumes who solicit treats, often by threatening minor pranks

As a kid, I wasn't allowed to trick or treat, which wasn't that big a deal. I don't regret it. I think Halloween is much more an adult adventure anyway. Should kids really be given unlimited amounts of sugar? Or do adults send their kids out to collect the stash for their own personal enjoyment? Perhaps that's it. Anyway, I digress.

One of my favorite adult Halloween moments is from when I lived in NYC. The yearly parade in the Village is something to behold, I promise. Anyone in costume is welcome to march and the crowd easily swells to the 100,000 mark and beyond. There is nothing you won't see. Even amidst this amazing spectacular, my friend (dressed as a black leopard) and I (dressed as a spotted leopard in a vintage '50's leopard dress, thigh-high black suede boots, tail, ears and full makeup with my hair teased into a huge mane) managed to get noticed.

A group of Japanese businessmen (In suits - that part kills me. Why didn't they dress up?) stopped us, took our picture, took their pictures with us, then asked me if I had any pictures of what I looked like as a man. As a man? Yep. They thought I was a drag queen.

Now, really, how much more successful can a costume be? (And no, that pic isn't me, but it's pretty close. *sigh* I wish I still had those pics...)

Home is Where the Haunt Is...

I love Halloween. When I worked in the real world I would dress up and go to work. This is me from 2005:



I called myself Melvira...I think it worked.

Then in 2006, I was a Skeleton Monk:

Last year, I missed out on all the fun because I was sequestered away writing. But this year, I plan to dress up and thoroughly enjoy myself. I'm thinking Zombie...what do you think?

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