Spooktacular!

Okay, now I know this is belated, but HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!

Contrary to rumors floating around out there, this is not my first Halloween, though the celebration did kind of fade into oblivion for a while, due to my very Evangelical upbringing. But this Halloween was special somehow, I was just so excited to celebrate. Then again, I am always excited to celebrate everything. But this Halloween had pretty much everything a girl could ask for. I decorated home and office with creepy fake spider webs and little ghosties and a cardboard chandelier decorated with skulls and pumpkins and tombstones and the newest edition to our house, a very cute gargoyle who I have named Victor (10 points if you can guess why!). I also got to carve my very own pumpkin, during our first ever Art Night (more details about that in a future post, I hope). But basically I spent three hours working on this masterpiece of a pumpkin and I am so proud. I made this design which is supposed to look like gothic, twisted sort of stained glass windows, and then on the other side I carved this deranged raven-bird creature. The windows aren't really carved through, I just took off the top layer of the pumpkin and the light kind of glows though the pumpkins walls in this eerie way. It's great and I hope to be able to post pictures soon.

Also, for Halloween I got to dress up in a homemade costume. I was a gypsy, which was fun, but easily confusing as I also kind of looked like a pirate chick. This effect was enhanced by the fact that I was wearing enough eye-liner to be mistaken for Johnny Depp's sister. If only. But I love costumes and I loved that everybody else had costumes too. So creative! We had Princess Leia, Mary Poppins, a Marine, a suicide bomber (very un-PC, but what can I say?) a reindeer, Clark Kent, a hippie...man, it just goes on. And this motley cast of characters was all assembled at Becca's house for a Halloween party!!! I guess at this age, being past the era of trick-or-treating (sadly) a party is pretty much the best way to spend Halloween. And this was my favorite kind of party: not too many people, lots of friendly faces and one very hysterical conversation about the origins of tapioca. The only thing that was missing was trick-or-treaters, but my impression was that that isn't really something that's done here on the good ol' west side. Oh well. All in all, a practically perfect Halloween!

S.

P.S.--Oh, and I almost forgot, happy Feast of All Souls!