Halloweenies!

We have had the Halloweeniest weekend ever!

I LOVE Halloween. And not just because of the chocolate, or the way it has of reconnecting me with my gothy-witchy roots. Although those are very important, of course. Fall is my absolutely-lutely favorite time of the year. The humidity finally drops away, so I can have a few good hair days. Also, sweaters and boots! Yay! My fall/winter wardrobe is SO much better than the spring/summer stuff.

Friday, after helping out with Ethan's Halloween party at the International School (I put gummy worms in cups of apple juice and chatted amiably with the rich, French moms), the whole family went with Andy's mom and BGH to the Headless Horseman festivities at Conner Prairie, the local living history museum. It's just the cutest thing! We go every year, and gorge ourselves on freshly-popped (by pioneers, people!) kettle corn, and hot apple cider, and do the barn dance (Andy and I can bring the barn DOWN, people. We rock it!) and listen to the storyteller tell the Legend of Sleepy Hollow around the fire, and go on the scary scary hayride out in the woods, and get chased by the Headless Horseman on his horse, and screamed at by pioneer witches, and stick our faces in the cut-out photo-op facade thingies, and try to pretend that BGH isn't looming around after us.

It's awesome!

And then, today was the Irvington Halloween Festival! Irvington is a neat little neighborhood on the near East side of Indianapolis that was named for Washington Irving. The settlers who came there thought that the rolling hills in the area reminded them of Washington Irving's Sleepy Hollow! It's a bit tattered around the edges now, but was once a thriving and prestigious area of town, with big old Victorians and pretty gardens and such. It's ripe for urban renewal, and we live right on the northern edge of it.

Every year they close off a section of the street in the shoppy part of the neighborhood, and the vendors set up the elephant ear and gyros booths, and the local church preschools and Catholic schools set up booths with free games for the kiddies, and the jewelry and candle and purse and sketch artist people set up booths, and the face-painters come out in droves, and all the kids wear costumes, and it's just so fun! The library on the main thoroughfare gets into the act with storytelling and crafts, and bands play on the street across from the coffee shop, and at 4:00 p.m. all the children line up in the church parking lot according to age, and then march in a big old parade, to the accompaniment of the bagpipe and drum corps. After the parade, they give out costume awards. I love to go just to see how clever people are with their costumes.

There's this one kid in a morotized wheelchair, and every year he blows me away. I swear he and his dad must work all YEAR on the stuff they build for him. This year, he had this helicopter contraption that was, no lie, as big as a CAR, constructed over his freaking wheelchair, and he was dressed up as, like, an army guy inside the cockpit, piloting the thing with his wheelchair joystick. Now, whether or not I agree with the military stuff, it was a DAMN impressive "costume." I always get tears in my eyes when I see him, because that kid's parents LOVE him, and that's beautiful.

This year, Simon was a Blue Power Ranger (we obviously only love him to a store-bought degree), with ludicrous muscles built into the costume, and during the parade he made friends with a Red Power Ranger, and they were SO hilarious, I was laughing the entire time. They walked together, doing Power-Ranger-hiya!-karate moves in unison, and WORKING the crowd, parade-waving non-stop and high-fiving the spectators on the sidelines. Red Power Ranger's mom and I were practically in tears by the time we got back to the church parking lot.

And I took a few pictures (the camera was malfunctioning, so not as many as I'd have liked), and finally opened a Flickr account, and you can see those pictures over there on the right! Cool, eh!?
(Let me know what you think, or if you have any trouble viewing them. I'm kind of excited about Flickr!)

Then we came home and whipped up some home-made pizza, the dough and everything, and carved all of our fafillion pumpkins. Andy is so multi-talented! He used to work at Noble Romans in high school, so he can twirl the dough circles up in the air. And then, he can carve Cyclops Were-Rabbit pumpkins like nobody's business. I am the luckiest girl alive!

**At this moment, Andy is getting ready to go to his friend Toby's costume party. Toby is the one whose wife LOVES Andy. Remember? At their wedding she totally delivered her vows while looking directly at Andy, who was a groomsman. You can see it in their wedding pictures! See, originally she had liked Andy, oh so many years ago at IU, but Andy didn't like her back, and was annoyed by her, and so he fixed her up with his friend Toby to get rid of her. And now they're married, but she still carries a really obvious torch for Andy.

So Andy comes out of the bedroom just now, where he's supposed to be getting ready, and he's wearing nothing but his Speedo (remember, he was a swimmer/diver), with a towel slung over his shoulder, and asks me how I like his costume.

HA! I told you he was the funny!! It's a good thing for him I'm not jealous! Otherwise I might worry about that Halloweenie!

Ta!
Apple-Cider Wishes and Candy-Corn Dreams, everyone!