Wow, I just got majorly sidetracked. Moving on. Anyway, I brought up that picture-perfect idea of us because I wanted to brace you for the years and years and years of Halloweens where me’ ma’ would make our costumes like she wasn’t the mother of six kids. I’m not kidding, one year I was stuffed in a black spray painted box with a top hat and a large foil circle lens and paraded myself around as a Kodak camera, did a little tap dance for my neighbors and everything. Another year, ma dressed us all up as different kinds of fruits and we were a giant fruit salad in a wagon ‘bowl’. My brother was a bunch of grapes, courtesy of purple baloons and a paper sack stem…by the end of the night he was ‘devoured’ by the neighbor’s shrubs, leaving a measly four grapes. Poor kid.

Then there was the time my mom spent weeks painting large poster boards to look like a deck of cards. She connected them with string  and draped them over our shoulders like an ancient ‘Eat at Joe’s’ human advert. I swear, we looked like the red queen’s guards with all the tripping and sliding over each other as we marched up and down the sidewalk in our imperfect line.

But my favorite Halloween was the year I went to my best friend Hayley’s junior high party. Her mother was one of those amazing, intelligent, funny ladies that had a kick ace sense of style and was so much fun she was practically part of our group, save for the fact that she was obviously the ‘adult’ and wouldn’t let us do anything that could be described as ‘too much fun’. My mother had this awesome red plaid A-line from the freaking seventies with black velvet on the sleeves and sides. The sleeves ran all the way to my wrists. I loved it. I was, like, thirteen but it fit. Yeah, my dad got the biggest kick out of that. Let me explain, I’m five foot eight and my mom is five foot three. She couldn’t believe it. Anyway, my mom sewed a wire hanger hoop into the hem of the skirt, giving it a fantastic ‘Old South’ look, then topped my dark ringlets with a massive grey felt hat (from the same era). She tied a large ribbon over the hat, finishing off with a large bow under my chin. A make-shift bonnet.

I. WAS. SCARLET. O’HARA.

After a few, ‘I don’t know nothin’ ’bout birthin’ no babies’ and ‘Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn’s', I was chauffeured in our silver van/horse drawn carriage to Hayley’s house where I proceeded to have the best dang time ever. Hayley’s mom, Karen, transformed her amazing backyard garden into an elaborate carnival complete with fortune reader and a bobbing for apples station. By the way, according to Madame Karen, I would become a flight attendant, travel the world, seeing all the sights, then just as I grew weary of jet-setting, I’d meet my husband in first class. We’d marry and live in a mansion off Martha’s Vineyard and have lots of babies. Not quite what happened but close, kind of, not really. She was a fabulous mom but a terrible psychic…I remember lights everywhere and amazing costumes, including a giant paper mache’ Frankenstein donned by none other than the ornery Tim, fellow classmate and class clown. We ate chili dogs and drank soda and laughed until very late at night…a scandalous MIDNIGHT. Gasp! A few times I’d felt compelled to lean on whomever was near and complain of ‘the vapors’ but righted myself soon enough.

It was a lovely night. A lovely time was had by all and it was my very favorite Halloween.

Come see what’s new at the Carnival this week!

The rest of my Indie cast are all awaiting your beautiful eyes. So go…
The Amazing Dani Snell
The Incredible Patti Larsen
The Talented Courtney Cole
The Witty Wren Emerson
The Accomplished Nicole Williams
The Clever Laura Elliott
The Skillful Amy Jones
The Staggering P.J. Hoover
The Brilliant Alicia McCalla
The Resplendent Heather Cashman
The Lustrous Abbi Glines
The Polished Cheri Schmidt
The Inventive Cidney Swanson
The Radiant Rachel Coles
The Gifted T.R. Graves
The Phenomenal Cyndi Tefft
The Lovely Lexus Luke
The Sassy Suzy Turner
The Exceptional Gwenn Wright
The Stupendous Kimberly Kinrade
The Quick J.L. Bryan
The Saucy Darby Karchut
The Magnificent M. Leighton
The Impressive Madeline Smoot