Our Halloween Recap

The weekend before Halloween Pamela and I decided to go out. It was very last minute and despite all my proactive planning I never quite resolved the great costume dilemma, and I didn't really have a costume.

Even though I was totally gungho about the idea of dressing up, I was lazy this year. That means that at 7 p.m. on Saturday, I found myself in Walgreen's busy trying to come up with something to wear. 

Pam and I fell back on an oldie but goodie... cats! It was all they had unless we wanted to be a witch, or wear a hot pink wig.

Cats or Playboy bunnies will never go out of style. Never.

I totally didn't get pics of our tails, but we had them and they were cute!

Harlot bathroom, 3 a.m.

Man, did we have fun! We went to three parties and danced and laughed and gawked. At the end of the night, we ended up at Harlot where it was especially spooky.

The ceiling was dripping and it felt like an urban rainforest of sorts. Or maybe carnival somewhere tropical. Everyone in costume. House music pounding faster than a heartbeat.

There are some nights that are fun and some nights that are extra special. When you have that moment of kairos when time just kind of stand stills and everything is right with the world, and you just feel good.

And maybe a little bit like a sultry naughty kitty. Naughty in a good way, of course.

The weekend left me with high expectations for Halloween itself. I mean, the Giants won the World Series and the parade was the same day as Halloween. How could the day be anything less than awesome?

The night before Halloween I found myself shopping for costumes... again! Despite my proactive planning, I somehow ended up in a ransacked Spirit Store at 9 p.m. Teenagers are so fickle and Obi no longer wanted to be a vampire.

Fortunately, despite an encounter with a zombie kid, Obi and I left the Spirit Store relatively unscathed.

Halloween morning was gloomy and the makings of the perfect scary story. Weather be damned, Macaroni was insistent on wearing her costume to school. "All the kids are wearing their costumes to school, mom," she insisted.

I volunteered to be one of the 2nd grade chaperons for the school dance. The dance took place during school hours and seemed like a good idea.

However, not everything in life that seems like a good idea really is. I don't think the planning committee considered whether kids would actually be dancing for four hours and no other activities were organized.

Lovebug and I put on our costumes and headed to the school. The sky was grey and temperamental. Moody even.

The dance was a storm of kids hyped up on sugar running in circles, jumping up and down, play fighting (only the boys, naturally), and random shrieks all to the beat of a live DJ.

There was little dancing; using the term "dancing" loosely.
The dance seemed to last forever... and ever.

We left the dance drained. Well, I was drained. The kids were ready for more sugar. Ready for trick-or-treating and a night of glee.

I love being a mom. I truly do, however let's keep it real, after spending a day with a bunch of screaming kids moving at the speed of light I was not in the mood to walk around the city in cold weather.

I secretly hoped that it would rain and even joked that maybe the sporadic movements the kids did at the party was a secret ancient rain dance.

I sent a joking message to friends that I was considering doing my own rain dance. None of us moms seemed to be in a trick-or-treating mood.

Mr. MM3 and I gave ourselves 15 minutes to leave when, lo and behold, it started to rain. A part of me giggled inside, but I did my best to look solemn as I gave the news that we wouldn't be able to do much trick-or-treating in the rain.

As much as I wanted to let the weather rain on our parade (literally!) instead I just cut trick-or-treating short.

We did go out, umbrellas and all, and got quite a decent amount of candy. In fact, the amount we got with our few stops was probably close to what we would have gotten from a full night of trick-or-treating.

The candy givers weren't expecting a ton of kids so they gave the girls candy in piles.

We only saw one other group of trick-or-treaters before returning home, so some parents were not as brave as us though I'm sure many were as happy about the weather.

The girls were thrilled. They had Halloween dances, parades, candy and trick-or-treating. Even though it wasn't hours of ringing strangers' doorbells, they were content. They had a good time.

In a way, it was kind of a gentle reminder that sometimes less is more and that the most important thing is enjoying the moment. They apprecited the good time they were having even if it wasn't exactly as they would have hoped. A lot of grown-usp could stand to have that attitude and appreciation for living in the moment.

At home, we put on warm jammies and ate more candy. Although nothing went as planned, it was a perfect Halloween.

Sweetness & Light,

Yroko M.