halloween report

*****

The mermaid costume held up – but just barely. Prying the half-eaten Tootsie Roll out of the back fin just about killed it, I think. Cute while it lasted. And the tie-dye job matched a whole lot better than I thought it would.

I ate too much, before and after. There were somehow more kids than last year (which is saying a lot) and I wasn’t entirely sure how we kept track of them, or how they all fit in the back of the truck. Brian commented this morning that the kids do a really good job of keeping track of each other. Several of them were passing Duckie around, vying for her attention.

RB’s son was an almost eerie match for Harry Potter. Green eyes, black hair, the works. Good costume.

Didja know that Halloween is really for the parents? A lot of the parents I was with last night would casually check out the contents of their kids’ haul. Almond Joy? Oh yeah, that one disappeared. (I was looking for the Milky Ways, myself.)

This might explain, to some degree, the level of gluttony I witnessed among the kids even as they ran from house to house. I thought they’d be too busy to eat.

“Hey, hold my bag for a minute,” Wonder Woman said, appropriately imperious. “So I can eat this candy.”

They sense that most of the candy is going to somehow disappear within a day or two, even if they think it was their sibling who ate it, or their parents who hid it. Big secret: It’s the parents, and we’re not stashing it.

“Crap, no one gave out Reese’s Cups,” Brian complained.

“Probably because of the peanut allergy thing. No one wants to be sued over Halloween candy.”

“Hey, I found one!”

Somehow there’s never as much chocolate left over as I’d wish. And damn it, I didn’t see a single effing caramel anywhere in the bag.

The trip home was interesting, too. I had allowed Duckie to pick one treat from her bag on the way home, hence, the half-chewed Tootsie Roll glued to the back of her dress. Yeah, Brian wondered what it was at first glance, but I could smell the chocolate and knew it wasn’t a turd. It was the wrong kind of sticky.

She was awfully quiet on the way home. So a couple of miles from the house I glanced back, doing that dangerous-status-check-thing that I think most moms do even though we know better. Somehow her head was higher than her seat.

“Brian, look back there and tell me if she’s strapped in,” I said, a touch of hysteria in my voice despite my best efforts to remain calm.

“Shit,” he said.

I pulled off the road at the first opportunity. Brian tried valiantly to get her back into her seat and belt her in. She was, to say the least, disinclined to help. I don’t see Brian get mad very often, but I could hardly blame him. The sound of her sneaker hitting his jaw kinda echoed off the house below us. It must have hurt something fierce.

So anyway, it was totally my fault and I’m so grateful I was driving slowly on the way home, checking for ToTers. Who knew it was my own daughter who was most at risk?

Whew. An exciting night.

(I’m not blowing it off, really. I was about pissing myself last night.)

Party at RB’s this weekend; I’ll have to get those fishnets after all, and maybe make a pumpkin cheesecake. What a burden. *wink*

More construction today. I might get my desk, my space, and my effing solitude back, to some degree, tomorrow. I don’t do casual conversation very well. It tends to just piss me off. Ah, well, nothing but opportunity, right?

Right.

I meant to practice this morning. I slept in my yoga clothes, set the alarm for the hour-long practice… and still somehow went back to bed. Duckie’s bed, actually, because she and Brian had taken over the entire queen-sized one in the thirty seconds it took me to turn off the alarm clock. I didn’t know hogging a bed was hereditary, but apparently it’s in the blood. Her comforter is warmer, anyway.

I’ll run this afternoon. Nice day, supposed to get cold later in the week. Might as well get it while I can.

Any reports? Parties, favorite candy, hiding from ToTers, good costumes… do share!

*****