My Thoughts on Halloween

     Oh my God--who made these delicious brownies with orange-tinted frosting and Halloween sprinkles AND candy corn on top?  Me?  That was fantastic of me to make these.  I love them.  They looked so beautiful in the pan, and then turned into a horrid lump (OF GOODNESS) on the cake plate.  It's Halloween.  I shall dub them "monster brownies" and call it a day.  Every bite that I deny taking as I walk by the plate is more delicious than the last 10 bites that I denied taking.  Mmmmmm.  I hate you, Weight Watchers points.  Hate hate hate hate.  I will love you tomorrow morning when I come back to you like a long, lost love, begging for another chance at our relationship.  Offering apologies, needing another try.  But tonight, it is an affair with the brownie pile on my counter.  Halloween Heaven.

     My daughter is a goblin.  Truly.  And if my parents have ever claimed NOT to wish a version of my teenage self on me, well, either it didn't work, or I was never a demon, because a demon-spirit of some form has entered my daughter right at the scariest time of year.  Tonight, she stood outside of the car at the dance studio stomping her foot at me, lecturing me, yelling at me, and then accusing me of being worked up.  Sorry, Miss-I-Want-To-Go-To-The-Marine-Corps-Ball-With-A-Boy-Who-Invited-Me-Via-Email, but I'm not worked up.  I'm just driving you to dance and YOU'RE worked up and making a Super Tween Fool of yourself in the parking lot.  Have a brownie.  Get your period.

    Swine flu has left the building.  And a 15-year old boy (or as Lisa texted me recently, "boyman") is truly that.  A boyman.  Boys aren't any fun when they are sick.  Girls, when sick, are fun.  We like trays of treats in bed, magazines, television, games, and conversation.  Men (and boys) apparently, only want 100,000 different beverages and ESPN.  So boring for me while Jono had the swine.  But I am glad that he seems to have weathered the nastiness well.  For all of the news coverage, I must say, it wasn't too bad.  Knock wood.

     Abby and her friend were picked to paint a window in town for Halloween.  So nice-- a sparkly pumpkin, some clocktower bats (you have to know the town), some ghosts.  Jono is retroactively pissed, reminded suddenly that he and his friend Connor came up with a window idea in the 5th grade and I wouldn't let him sumbit it the drawing.

     "Jono, you drew a black man in a pumpkin costume.  Not that there's anything wrong with that, it was just a weird entry."
     "Mom, it was Snoop Dog.  You should have seen Connor's first picture.  It said, 'Happy Hallo-wizzie."

     And so, Halloween weekend approaches and Abby will turn 12 the day after.  (I'm sure she'll be lovely as the gifts and cards begin to arrive.)  This time of year, I am always reminded of the night I went into labor.  Jono, at three, had just finished trick-or-treating, dressed as a cow.   I was admitted to the hospital just after midnight, where the entire staff found it funny to be dressed in costume.  Or maybe I was just drugged.  Either way, I didn't really care for it.  I didn't then, nor do I now,  want anyone near my hoo-ha with green hands, get it, Dr. Frankenfinger?

     And these are my thoughts this Halloween week.  To you, and yours, Happy Hallo-wizzie.