Well, you may remember this happy little fellow from yesterday. He wasn't the biggest or most detailed jack-o-lantern around, but he had style and class. His toothless grin spread happiness in the hearts of children.


Well, he had a slight mishap. When I left for work in the morning he was fine. But when I came home, that sweet jack-o-lantern just wasn't the same. He was like a disgusting mold pudding straight out of mold heaven. He was slumped over and oozing onto the white carpet. His eye holes were perfectly covered over with green fuzz. His friend wasn't slumped over yet, but he had a slightly less diseased looking white mold all over him.

When we first brought the pumpkins home I joked (but not really a joke) that it would be the boyfriend's job to carry out the nasty massacred pumpkin parts to the trash. But, he wasn't home yet. And the longer I waited, the more sludge I would get on the carpet.

It was pretty awful. I couldn't just pick them up and toss them into my heavy duty trash bag because my hands just went right through them. There was nothing really hard to grab. Mold is gross... sludge is gross... wearing pumpkin mold on your pajamas kind of takes the fun out of pumpkins so that I can't even look at my pumpkin ice cream, and the boyfriend owes me big time.

The first pumpkin is the one that I carved. I was trying to copy my friend's Día de los Muertos design. Skulls are made of sugar and chocolate, and people celebrate the memory of deceased loved ones.

The second pumpkin is my boyfriend's. Notice that it has no teeth and it's smiling... what can I say?

I was sent a link this morning for this shirt. Obviously I have to buy it or I will lose my mind.

But with all my prep and anticipation for Halloween, I must say, I'm ready for it to be over. I'm a little tired. I think maybe I came on too strong with my pumpkin mania. I don't think I'll do the same thing with Thanksgiving... unless I start buying things with turkeys all over them. Actually, a cupcake pan that makes little cakes in turkey shapes would be kind of awesome. I'm ahead of my time.

Happy Halloween to everyone and to your family! I hope it's full of treats (not tricks), spooky stuff, and old, cheesy horror movies.

Where's the Party?

I don't know that I appreciate the sass of this article in the Metro Express today:

AH, AUTUMN. WHEN the air develops a still, calming chill, the leaves ignite in quiet fireworks and people combine pumpkin with every edible substance on the planet. This morning, as we enjoyed a plate of pumpkin pancakes, Pumpkin-Os cereal, a cup of pumpkin yoghurt and a grande pumpkin-spice latte from Starbucks, we were thinking: Wouldn't it be nice to make something seasonal for dinner? Perhaps with pumpkin? With some nice pumpkin pie with pumpkin ice cream for dessert? Apparently, as Yahoo notes, we aren't the only ones.
» "30 ways to eat a pumpkin." [Yahoo! Buzz Log]

What's wrong with a little seasonal cheer? I will, of course, be browsing the recipes later.

So, what do you do for Halloween when you don't have kids, you're not in school, and you live in an apartment? I don't believe we'll be getting any trick-or-treaters. The boyfriend knows someone who is having a Halloween party, but I don't know them. And I'm not sure that it would be my kind of Halloween party. I'd like decorations, good friends, and good food; I believe this party will be sketchy area, strangers, and slutty costumes.

I'm not even sure if I should try to figure out a Halloween costume because I don't have any plans yet. But just from looking around for ideas it's pretty clear that all a female costume requires is something low cut in the chest and barely covers your ass. As "Mean Girls" so aptly put it:

In Girl World, Halloween is the one night a year when a girl can dress like a total slut, and no other girls can say anything about it. The hardcore girls just wear lingerie and some form of animal ears."

I don't know if I've ever been something "sexy" for Halloween. Most recently I've been Luigi (my roommate was Mario) and Artie - the strongest man in the world (from The Adventures of Pete and Pete, my roommate was little Pete, but I just got mistaken for Where's Waldo a lot). Maybe now is my chance to get sexy and go buy a corset and a set of fangs...

What do you do for Halloween?

Skeleton Dance!!

Holy crap, does anyone remember Disney's Halloween Treat? It was a little Disney Halloween special that aired many years ago. It featured snippets of popular Disney cartoons at the time (like Fantasia).

While reading over someone's shoulder on the metro today I noticed a mention of a "skeleton dance" on a featured blog. It's a clip from Disney's Halloween Treat! It's weird, and it's awesome to see how much cartoons have changed. Plus it takes me way back!

(click this blog title to watch it!)

Halloween is for Everyone

If you haven't noticed yet, I love Halloween. When I was a kid my brother and I would make ghouls out of old clothes, masks, soccer balls, newspaper and safety pins... it worked, seriously. We'd hide them in trees or sit them out in lawn chairs with creepy music playing.

That sort of thing doesn't fly down south (we moved from the north), but maybe it works where you are. Either way, Halloween is for everyone. You don't need tons of money, religious convictions, or any of that pesky getting together with family business. All you need a good 'ol fashioned sense of fun.

If you're up for the adventure, be sure to visit Martha's Halloween page. Don't scoff, it's glorious and full of exciting ideas for the benefit of kids, spouses, and single young adults alike. Happy haunting (oOoOOOhhh, I made a ghosty joke)!