Halloween is Nigh!!!

[MountainDon]

Are you planning anything special for this year? Do you do dress-ups? Would you post a picture? I will! Care to guess?

Do you even have any Halloweeners call at your abode? I live in an aging neighborhood.  :'(  each year brings fewer little kids. ...Once they get to be teenage trick or treaters I get stingy and hand out single gum drops, or whatever most meager handouts I have, unless their costume is particularly inventive. I guess it's the "scrooge" in me. The Halloween Ogre.  Door to door trick or treating is for little kids, as far as I'm concerned.

[C.White]

I love to go into town, 14 miles from here, where the town square hosts a Halloween Extravaganza.  The kids and many adults and teens as well, come in costume.  There is a spook house, and the merchants, with donations of candy from many, give out treats until they all run out.  

It's a terrific time and the costumes are always well worth seeing.  I talked my husband into dressing up one year, and a photographer took our picture and put us in the newspaper, so we won't do that again.  

No one trick or treats out here in the boonies, so I have to go to it.  
Christina

[Homegrown Tomatoes]

My step-mom always buys my kids costumes.  I prefer homemade ones, but they have a ball playing in them all year... my only request is that she doesn't buy scary costumes (both of my girls are relatively sheltered and freak out over the scary costumes... I mean, we're talking about kids who were terrified by the jelly fish in Finding Nemo.)  Usually I'll let them dress up and help hand out candy, or maybe trick-or-treat just a few neighbors.  I don't care for Halloween, but love the costume part.  Hate getting stuck with left-over candy, so we saw some packs of pretzels at the store the other day, and I'm thinking of giving them out instead, or maybe just buying really good candy that we don't mind having leftover (like hershey's dark chocolate or stuff with nuts and toffee.)  The first year we were here, we were bombarded with trick-or-treaters and ran out of candy early, so last year we bought tons and then it was cold and we hardly had any trick-or-treaters.  I used to love the dressing up part when I was a kid, too, and in high school our band had a big carnival for Halloween to raise money and to keep kids off the streets.  One year I was Carmen Miranda, and another year I was a rodeo clown, and one year I was a Holstein.  I agree with Don about teens trick-or-treating... here we even have adults that come by for handouts, and I always want to ask them if they aren't a little old for that.  

I think my step-mom said she was sending the girls mermaid costumes this year.  Last year was geisha costumes, the year before, Cinderella.  I'm kind of sick of the princess-type costumes... we found a horse costume last year at a yard sale for $3 and the kids LOVE it.  I don't know... whatever she sends, I'm sure they'll love it... they just like the whole dressing up thing, anyway.  Of course, with them, it's never just on Halloween.  I've sent them to the hardware store with my husband dressed in cowboy boots and hats, weird sunglasses, and ballerina tutus.  He thinks people are just being friendly when they smile at him.

[glenn kangiser]

I can see your husband dressed in a Cowboy hat and boots, but how did you get him into a ballerina tutu, Homegrown :-?

[MountainDon]

That first went over my head, then I re-read....    

[glenn kangiser]

Actually I may have understood :-?-- I just wanted to give her a bad time.

[Homegrown Tomatoes]

   Good reason to proofread your posts before actually posting them... can you believe I was an English teacher?!  

[glenn kangiser]

It could have been understood the right way - but if there is another way to take it, I prefer that.

That's half the fun of the forum --

All in all you are generally pretty well written, Homegrown. 8-)

Can you believe I slept through most of my classes? :-?

[Homegrown Tomatoes]

Last night after I posted the previous post, I tried and tried to make another comment but couldn't get it to post for me.  I just wanted to say that my husband does look good in a cowboy hat... the tutu? not so much.  However, the girls love to catch him sleeping and put ribbons in his hair or put makeup on him... of course, I have blackmail photos.  Never understood how he could sleep through it, but then again, this is the man who, when I tried to wake him up to take me to the hospital when I was pregnant with our first, patted me on the shoulder and mumbled, "I'll pray for you..." right as he went immediately back to sleep.

And Glenn, all the smart ones sleep through class because they were up all night plotting how to take over the world...

[glenn kangiser]

May be. :-/  I may have been up most of the night(s) before.

I learned what I had to know mostly by second grade -- The teacher I had - 3 grades in one room - would let us go as far as we wanted or could without regard to grade.  I was doing some algebra 8th grade math - etc. in the second grade - learning about the bourgeois - Government corruption - peasants and the ruling class control of them (us) etc. Can't remember most of it now and do a lot of my math with a calculator.

The teacher wanted to skip me up a grade  (maybe more-can't remember) but my mom declined.

By the time I got to the later part of school I was bored out of my mind and I thought the night life was more interesting.  

I did my homework on the bus.  The government was not going to get one minute of my off school time if I could do anything about it.

The most valuable and enjoyable classes to me were wood shop -- electronics -2 years - drafting 2 years - typing 1 year - oh yeah -- English was OK - to express myself properly.  Still haven't learned that, eh :-?

I think the Canadian word, "eh?" should be an essential part of the English language, eh?

I got straight "A"s in the classes I liked -- figured a "D" was passing in all the rest so that is what I gave them.  Most passed me to get rid of me I think.  I was a bit of a PITA to some of them.

[MountainDon]

I think the Canadian word, "eh?" should be an essential part of the English language, eh?

Oh please, No. I don't use it and never have. Must be something wrong with me. My two sisters, one who has lived in AZ for numerous years (12?) completes every other sentence with "Eh?" It drives me a little nuts.

I did grades 1 - 3 in 2 years. I was quite bored as well through Junior and Senior High School. If I liked the subject I excelled, if not I didn't. Sometimes I do wish I had persisted and graduated from University.  :-/

[glenn kangiser]

I had a motto for not going to college.

"They don't have to beat me over the head with a book to make me read it."

Made that one up myself, eh? :-?

[Homegrown Tomatoes]

Well, I can say that I am a college graduate, but in a lot of ways, it doesn't mean too much.  Most of the learning took place at work or in times and places other than class.  It was still a fun experience (overall.)  

The girls received their packages in the mail from their grandma the other day, and the costumes were not mermaids after all... they're wood nymphs or fairies or some such thing, complete with fiber-optic made-in-china skirts.  They're cute and of course the girls had to wear them all day yesterday, even to the store.  I got stopped by 101 old ladies asking if they were getting their picture made or something.  Little one had to wear hers part of the day today too.  Yesterday she fell asleep in the car on the way home and I couldn't get her awake.  When I put her down on the couch it struck me how much she looked like one of those Anne Geddes pictures of the sleeping babies.  Should've taken a picture, but I didn't... I'm sure there'll be more opportunities over the next few days.  We're flying to OK in a week, and I wouldn't be a bit surprised if they want to wear them on the plane... however, if I can convince them that airport security would have a problem with their electrified skirts, maybe we can get away with just bringing the cow and lion masks instead.

[MountainDon]

Well, here we are, Halloween and it a nice evening for it. 63 degrees, no wind. Only one pair of trick-or-treaters so far and I knew them.

Sixty-nine years ago Orson Welles scared the crap out of the country with his Mercury Theater of the Air radio presentation of H.G.Wells "War of the Worlds". NO, I'm not that old, my parents hadn't even met yet.  

I loved the show the first time I did hear it. I was somewhere in my teens. I heard it on a Halloween night. A few years ago, I found several sites where the broadcast show could be downloaded. I checked this year and some are still valid.    This is a classic show, and IMHO better than the recent remake of the movie. Ya' don't need the visuals. Radio drama was an artform that's gone from todays world.

In case you're curious, here's some links... info, history and downloads.

http://www.war-of-the-worlds.org/Radio/
http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/war_worlds.html
http://www.war-ofthe-worlds.co.uk/radiohome.htm
http://www.mercurytheatre.info/
http://www.archive.org/details/WAROFTHEWORLDS2
http://www.archive.org/details/mercurytheaterOTRKIBM

[MountainDon]

Are you planning anything special for this year? Would you post a picture? I will!

It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown...

[Jimmy C.]

That picture reminds me of a sunburn I got in the late 70's. It peeled like that also!

[glenn kangiser]

That's really orange, Don.

So, scare any little kids? :-?

We are too far out for any to drop by.  Bears would probably eat them anyway.

[MountainDon]

I mixed it myself from red & orange.    Hard to get it just right as it dries many shades darker.

The only kid I scared was one when I had a black hood over my head, wearing a black robe. He laughed at me when I pulled the hood off. Most of them laughed and wanted to touch my head.

I had a total of 7 groups, 17 kids. Not like it used to be.  :-/  Handed out fist fulls.  

[Jimmy C.]

That's really orange, Don.

So, scare any little kids? :-?

We are too far out for any to drop by.  Bears would probably eat them anyway.

trying to find something witty about this statement,
I did a google image search for bears trick or treat .


[size=12]This is what popped up ........ .. Possibly the worst costume ever![/size]

[glenn kangiser]

Ahhh --- yes --- the Bush administration Legacy costume.  I hear it's really big in D.C. :-? :-/

[Sassy]

That color was very flattering, MtnDon  

[Homegrown Tomatoes]

I like orange.

[MountainDon]

I think I'll lay this thread to rest till next year with this bit of creativeness...