Halloween encore and a few other things

So wait, there's more! I feel like Harvey Korman in Blazing Saddles, "my mind is a whirl of...", I have so many things up there, swirling around. My friend Eleanor would say I'm "dating myself", as in making pop-culture references from the 70s but she's 24 for heaven's sake, I'm old enough to be her mother. No really, I'm the same age as her mother. She happens to be the coolest 24 year old I know, my rock-solid Waldorf-style home-schooling mama buddy, with Allie who recently turned 6 and Kimberly, an August 3 year old. I have just have a whole lot more information stored up in the old noggin, not all of it essential, but much of it very fun.

Pictured here is Tito Chuchi and the afta trick-or-treating Candy Party. Like Nora, I so remember that moment, coming home with a pillow case 1/4 full of candy, dumping the booty out on the bed and let the sorting begin. This for now, this for later, the "good" candy, the cheap candy, the candy I could care less about, the tart or sour or licorice stuff. Basically, if it wasn't chocolate or some kind of Tootsie candy, I pretty much didn't want it. Except the Kool-aid in a straw, there was something so weird about that candy, the powdery, granular sugary experience, yeah, it was good. Above is the very beginning of the party, the candy had yet to be dumped. I went in shortly after this and Augustus was in a haze, just opening candy after candy, not finishing them, just licking or taking one bite or one piece and throwing it down, on to the next candy, oh which ones do I like best? with a crazed glint in his eye. That's when I knew it might be time to put the candy away for the night and I don't know, maybe eat some actual food? Call me crazy, but calories exist from other sources than the ones in sugar.

I am inspired by Things We Never Want to Forget, http://noradawn.blogspot.com/, Halloween blog. Nora mentioned that "we were a homemade costume family". That's what got me thinking, revisiting all those Halloween pasts, remembering specific costumes. Most tragic: the Hamburgler from the old McDonald's marketing campaign (kinda creepy, isn't it? a Halloween costume based on a character from a marketing campaign for McDonald's? It makes me cringe just to think about it). Most fabulous: Adam Ant. Oh my but did I love me some Adam Ant. I scoured the city for the perfect band/short tux/military jacket, put together the most perfect outfit/costume, I remember almost shaving one of my eyebrows so that when I did the makeup, it would be perfect. Ok so I didn't do that but I did look like this:

What fun was to be had! But really, it didn't matter if I was going to be a corporate shill or imitate my favorite androgynous singer, Halloween was all about getting creative and super crafty. There are many years I don't remember, but what I do remember was always creating a costume. Halloween was always one of our family's favorite events of the year. There was so much to get crafty about! We had the same witch hanging on our door for probably 15 years. My mom, in a moment of sweetness and poor judgement, sent me that witch. I hung it on my door and promptly lost it. But I remember every crinkle of it's face and the wart on her green nose and wish oh how I wish we had that witch now...maybe a crafty idea for Halloweens to come, yes?

And on a different note, today I Voted. I exercised my blessing as an American citizen and I voted. On Sunday, when everybody is off work, the weekend before what is predicted to be the highest turn-out election in recent history, and I chose today to early vote. I had really really really wanted to vote on Tuesday, to cast my ballot on that day, with most other Americans, but I tell you what, on Tuesday we have Frida and the idea of potentially waiting in line with three little ones is daunting, so off we went today. It took about an hour and fifteen minutes, and Augustus and Magdalena had to vote also, as in fill in their own bubbles which had me sweating with anxiety because I was so scared they were going to mess up a bubble and then would my vote count? Remember, I am voting in Florida, voting debacle central. Anyhoo, I obviously did not let them fill in the biggies, just the local judges who I was not informed enough about anyway. Which will not happen again, for the record.
Oh. My. God. What a feeling it was to go vote. I was so excited, probably as excited to vote as Magdalena was for Halloween to finally be here. I kept wanting to talk to all the other people in line and say things like Do you know how amazing this is? Why aren't you smiling, this is the greatest possible thing in the world! and then I came down to earth and realized the unsmiling couple behind me of whom one member was texting furiously the entire time they were in line might be Republicans or maybe just were having a bad day, but really, I thought it was like a party and we should all be celebrating. Because shouldn't we be? Do I dare hope, truly? Is it too good to be true, or is hope here? In Spanish the word esperar means hope and wait.
Espero. Espero.