Halloween Humiliation

Growing up, the only holiday better than Halloween was Christmas. What's not to love about dressing up and insisting strangers give you candy? Even better when the occasional stranger would toss in a trick as well. After all, what was better than filling your pillowcase with candy after filling your drawers with...well, you get the point.

However, as an adult and a parent, I find myself not loving this particular calendar day. Don't get me wrong, I'm not so much a miser that I can't enjoy the sight of a toddler stuffed into a ridiculous costume and waddling about holding a lollipop, nor does the sight of well-disguised pet annoy me. Quite the contrary. I even appreciate an artful costume, one so involved and realistic that it looks like it should win best costume design at the Academy Awards.

No, my beef is with my mother.

She set the bar high, that woman did. My first real memory of my baby sister was her as an infant Pocahontas. Complete with a little braided wig and a leather tunic. She wasn't even a year old.

Then there was the year that Raggedy Ann and Andy made their appearances. My brother and I won every costume contest there was. It was the adorable hooked yarn wig she made for us, that made it all worth it.

We also had the Tooth fairy, where I had gossamer wings so light and airy that I probably could have flown if only I tried.

None of that tinfoil crap for my mom.

No, when my brother wanted to go as Chewy from Star Wars, my mom went out, found herself a bigfoot, killed it, skinned it and made it into the damndest little Chewbacca costume you ever laid eyes on.

She set that bar so damn high, even an Olympic pole vaulter couldn't clear it.

Which makes my sorry attempts at costume design even sorrier.

So to the woman whose rib I elbowed at Costco last week, while trying to grab the last damn dragon costume they had, I sincerely apologize. I can't say I didn't mean it, or that I wouldn't do it again, but please, understand my desperation.

I have huge clown shoes to fill. With small, little elfin feet to go in them.

And my mother is watching. Shaking her head, and wondering where in the world she went wrong with me.

Pass the Puns, Please, Hallowe'en Style

In honor of the holiday that dentists everywhere cherish, I present to you this little piece of cheese on this snowy Sunday morning. So, with out further ado, enjoy!


A man was walking home alone late one foggy night, when behind him he hears:


BUMP...


BUMP...


BUMP...


Walking faster, he looks back and through the fog he makes out the image of an upright casket banging its way down the middle of the street toward him.


BUMP...


BUMP...


BUMP...


Terrified, the man begins to run toward his home, the casket bouncing quickly behind him...


FASTER...


FASTER...


BUMP...


BUMP...


BUMP...


He runs up to his door, fumbles with his keys, opens the door, rushes in, slams and locks the door behind him!


However, the casket crashes through his door, with the lid of the casket clapping...


clappity-BUMP...


clappity-BUMP...


clappity-BUMP...


on his heels, the terrified man runs!


Rushing upstairs to the bathroom, the man locks himself in. His heart is pounding; his head is reeling; his breath is coming in sobbing gasps!


With a loud CRASH the casket breaks down the door!



Bumping and clapping toward him!



The man screams and reaches for something, anything, but all he can find is a bottle of cough syrup!



Desperate, he throws the cough syrup at the casket...



and......



(I hope you're ready for this!!)



THE COFFIN STOPS!

Group Hug, People. My Therapist Says it Helps

When I started this blogging business, I simply expected to whittle away my hours and pass my days in a computer-humming haze. I was game for almost anything to make the hours tick by faster and I was grateful for any minute I did not have to spend dwelling on my shattered life and my throbbing heart.

Little did I know that this blogging business was addictive and time consuming. My husband calls it my computer crack. He may have a point.

But beyond the self-obsessed, egotistical and sometimes conceited aspect of blogging, surfing the blogosphere gave me something more than just the ability to self-actualize and poke fun at myself. It helped me reach out and communicate with other real, live people.

It helped me heal. It helped remind me I wasn't alone. There were people whose lives were just as screwed up as my own. Children who couldn't remember to flush the toilet and husbands who didn't know the sock fairy didn't exist and that those socks didn't actually walk themselves into the hamper.

Blogging gave me a means to be normal again.

And yes, I use that term loosely.

For that, my family and my therapist are enormously grateful. And so am I.

So when the incomparable (albeit, slightly hairy) Mrs. Chicky asks for a bloggy love in, I jumped all over it, like my two kids on a trampoline.

But sitting here, I am in a quandary. Do I blog about my sweet Australian doctor friend Jelly, who never fails to cheer me up with her kind words and incomparable mother?

Or do I post about the hysterically funny Kristen who not only made me clutch my sides from laughter, but was also one of the first to figure out that my now defunct blog and this blog belonged to one mommy?

But then I thought of composing an entire post about J and KimmyK and how, if the three of us ever got together, you just know that one of us would end up in the clink for drunk and disorderly, while the other two took pics to post on their blog.

Of course, there is always my love of a bald baby and her ability to rock the hat, so I began composing an ode to the inimitable Wonderbaby.

But I found I could not do justice to her bald head. And her mother knows too many big words for any of my ditties to be worthy of the Wonderbaby, so I scrapped that idea.

In the end, like a two-year old who hasn't had lunch and missed her morning nap, I was overwhelmed and daunted by my choices. My bloglines rocks. I just simply couldn't choose from all the bloggity goodness that I have collected there.

Just know that I read you, I love you and I need you.

Yes, I'm that annoying, clingy, little girl, who just wants to be part of the crowd and will sell her soul to do it.

I'll even do your homework for you, and give you my allowance.

I'm just so grateful you shone your beacon of hope for me, and then plucked me from my fog of grief.

Thank you.