Happy Halloween!! I always do this–celebrate so much for a coming holiday that on the actual holiday, I”m too exhausted! We managed to make Halloween cookies, but never got around to frosting and decorating them–they’re in the freezer. We made marshmallow-gumdrop ghosts and forgot to pass them out. And we never made it to George’s offices to pass out treats in costume. C’est la vie.
This morning I was making waffles and Henry was being unusually quiet–never a good sign. “Annabelle,” I said, “can you go check on Henry and tell me what he’s doing.” “Sure,” she chirped and ran out of the kitchen and down the hallway. “He’s squirting milk all over!” she shouted from the stairs. Sure enough, he was sitting on the steps with chocolate milk and a straw, fascinated by the way it squirted when he squeezed it. He was pouring it over the top of his head, the front of his pajamas, and all over his galoshes (yes he wears galoshes with his pj’s in the mornings.) Henry loves to play dress-up, unless I want him to wear a costume and then he refuses. He was a handsome baby boy for Halloween because he refused to wear any of the costumes I offered him. I had an alligator costume, an owl, a chicken, a cowboy, and an elephant and he refused all of them. now, you may be wondering why I have so many costumes but don’t forget we live in New Orleans so we use costumes all the time for he festivals and parades. Not to mention, I love costumes. maybe it’s my mexican blood–I can’t resist anything sparkly.
The costumes: I saw a darling ladybug costume on someone else and decided to get one for me, but it didn’t quite look the same on me. In fact, I looked like a chubby ladybug in an ill-fitting way-too-short dress with major panty lines. Yuck. But then, I figured out a way to make all the parts work by wearing the dress as a skirt I could make longer and adding a different top. Much better–and FINALLY I had a real costume and not a makeshift witch or cat. Annabelle ended up being Cinderella just as she’d planned.
We had a great entourage trick-or-treating with us tonight. Kendra, George’s marvelous co-professor who adores children; Roxana, our incredible babysitter and one of George’s students who is a superstar in her field of international business and has just landed the most coveted job among Business students in NY at a famous bank, but she really wants to illustrate children’s books and is a fabulous artist–she was dressed as Princess Jasmine in a costume her mother made for her and sent up from El Salvador; and of course, Miss Cathy, our royal photographer, a brilliant artist (look at her website! www.cathyweeksphotography.com), parade partner, and cat lover extraordinaire (she strolls her gorgeous cat Colonel Bourgeois around the neighborhood in a cat buggy). It was the perfect group–everyone fun, lovely, and positive.
I was talking to my mother earlier and she said she had decided to be a flower child wearing flowers in her hair. She asked me what else she could do to look like a real flower child. I told her to pretend she was taking psychedelic mushrooms (which wouldn’t be a leap for her–not taking them but acting like she was on something) and she laughed gaily (my mother is always laughing gaily, even when things aren’t funny.) She said, “I had four children in the 60’s. Then two more in the 70’s. I missed the whole free love movement (we were living in San Francisco at the time). What is this “free love?” Then I heard my Dad pipe in the background, “You wouldn’t know, you’ve always charged me.” She laughed again. It’s so hard to be so far away from them, we talk on the phone nearly every day.
And so, here it is, Halloween night, and I nearly crawled up the stairs in weariness. Longing longing for a long hot candlelit bath. We’re going to have a quiet All Souls Day tomorrow.
