Halloween

Connor has been getting his costume ready for several days – the beard part at least. When I tell him that he should keep growing that facial hair for at least two months, he says I am only one of two people who think he should keep it.

One of the other parts of his costuming involve a very nicely done black-eye – racoon eye says Mati to him after observing it.

"Yes. Looks like you have had a brain injury to the back of your head and the bleeding is coming out of your eyes."

Good make-up.

The easy part to the costume was turning an old pair of jeans into just a little more ragged than they were before, and donning a jacket that looks like an “I’m a lumber jack and I’m OK” coat, one that has lain winkled on the floor for several days.

The crowning glory is stance. Connor has a second career ahead of him in the theatre if his academic stint goes astray. He can stoop to make a gentle slope on his back, lift one shoulder higher than the other and limp at the same time.
He is a bum, he said and will carry one bottle in a brown paper bag and a garbage bag in the other hand to collect bottles. I hope he can bring home enough empties from the party he is going to, that he will be able to replace the old pair of jeans he cut up, with a new pair. “Do you know that some people spend a lot of money on their costumes? Someone asked me if I had purchased mine yet,” he said. “I am not spending a lot of money on Halloween – yet another day for unnecessary commerce to go on.”

Now that sounded like David Pilling, not Connor.

A couple of days ago there was a pumpkin carving party at Jeremy’s. One pumpkin is going outside at Jeremy’s and the rest will be lit inside. I can hardly wait to hear how the party went last night. Can a person turn the jack-o-lanterns into pumpkin soup after a candle has been lit in it all evening? Will that heat just act as the beginning of the roast, or ruin the flesh?

Stay tuned.

I love Halloween. Any excuse to buy a new dish for example! The Halloween ornaments and partyware at Winners were 70% off on Saturday. I picked up a cute black and orange bowl that had a witch riding along the side of it. The container had been $15 so now it was $5 dollars. I couldn’t help myself. I took it to the till, and all of the tills were 5 to 6 people long. Everyone’s carts were full of important stuff. I was in a rush and more jealous of my time than of having that bowl. I took it back to its sale table and left to go get some computer paper at the Source – for which there was no line up.

I figure I saved myself 20 minutes and $5.

Connor lit his pumpkin tonight and put it out by the birch tree in our front yard. The cuts he made on it are decorative and look like the Egyptian all-seeing eye. The candle burns right through the centre hole, right where the iris should be. When I queried him, he didn’t seem to know what the Egyptian all-seeing eye was. I am guessing he must have been a Pharaoh in a former life, because a person just can’t come up with that design out of nowhere.

I had two little bunches of kids come to the door tonight.

One little boy said in amazement to his dad, “Look how much stuff we are getting.”

Halloween, the second best day of the year.

I brought Connor’s pumpkin in, roasted it, pureed the flesh and we are in for some good post-Halloween pumpkin soup this week.

Yum!

Love,

Arta