not so MANIC MONDAY

 "trick or treat...trick or treat...the bitter and the sweet..."

FLASHBACK 1974
halloween. so much fun in oxnard. daddy spends the day getting the house ready for a party. an album with ghostly moans and groans plays in the background. dry ice, in an iron bucket, gives the house a fog~filled look. lil bro, queenie, and i. all dressed up for trick~or~treat. all the houses are decorated...some scarier than others. we get all the best treats. snickers. baby ruth. double bubble bubble gum. homemade cookies. and, my absolute favorite, popcorn balls!!!! mom and rikki get their wine glasses re~filled every other stop. perfect night.
FLASH FORWARD 1993
i take the kids to a carnival at school. cody had just seen "nightmare before christmas" and wants to be jack skellington. i work my tail off on his costume. it even includes jack's dog, zero, floating behind. he wins a costume contest and gets a gigantic snicker bar. i don't get pictures because i'll get them tomorrow night, with all the kids, when we go trick~or~treating. cody wakes up, the next morning. "i don't wanna be jack...i wanna be hong kong phooey." are you flippin kidding me right now?! fine. and i go about trying to make dog ears. "i don't wanna be hong kong phooey...i wanna be a ghostbuster". really?! i begin to make a proton pack. it's time to go now. cody comes out in his "barney" pajamas. ugh. he still gets the best treats. snickers. baby ruth. hubba bubba bubble gum. and homemade popcorn balls from a woman, EVERYBODY in town knows, who also offers pre~packaged candy just in case the parents are afraid she might have poisoned the popcorn. boo.
FLASH FORWARD 2009

oops! last year, i agreed to go trick~or~treating with emma. i'm a witch...she's my cat. back in july, she starts talking about what we'll be this year. i leave it completely up to her...as long as i get to be cute. the bk and i have a party after, and we're going as pirates. emma doesn't want to be a pirate. okay. i can still do this. emma calls me. "we are going as the scooby~doo gang. i'm daphne". that means...ummmmm...that means i have to be VELMA! velma is NOT cute. emma gets the best treats. snickers. baby ruth. hubba bubba bubble gum (why doesn't anyone give out double bubble anymore?). but gone are the homemade cookies. and gone, forever, are the homemade popcorn balls. 
for obvious reasons, october is halloween safety month. so, i have a few tips for you and your kids:

#1~costumes: wear well~fitting shoes, costumes, and masks. this will help avoid blocked vision, trips, and falls. swords, knives, should be short, soft, and flexible. also, there should be some reflective tape on bags and costumes...this will help drivers see you. and avoid walking near candles or luminaries so that your costume doesn't, accidentally, catch fire. and test any make~up you will use on a small area of skin. it would totally suck to remove the make~up , at the end of the night, only to find you were allergic to it the whole time. ugh. 
#2~trick~or~treating: go with a group or trusted adult. never ever ever go alone. carry a flashlight, to help others see you and to help you see. and walk, don't run. try to use sidewalks and crosswalks whenever possible. only go to well~lit houses, and never enter a home without a trusted adult. and don't forget about stranger danger! DO NOT ACCEPT RIDES FROM STRANGERS!!
#3~the treats: examine all treats before eating. look for choking hazards and tampering. if it's open, toss it. the cdc recommends only eating factory wrapped treats and avoiding homemade goodies made by strangers.

a bit of information about #3. there are millions of stories, told by your friends, that go kind of like this: my friend's sister's boyfriend's cousin's girlfriend's mom's friend's daughter's teacher's son *insert halloween urban legend here*. maybe it was poison popcorn balls, razor blade filled apples, drug laced pixie stix. i did a bit of research...the drug laced pixie stix actually happened, but, as it turns out, the father of the boy that died was the culprit. he murdered the boy, in 1974, for insurance money and made it appear to be a madman passing out the candy. the razor blades in the apples? kind of false. oh, there were reports. but no one was ever taken to the hospital with an injury. and, there is some question as to how the razor blades got there...even some reports say the parents, or child, may have done it as a hoax. so my advice here: although it's always better to err on the side of safety, don't flip out if your kid comes in eating a homemade popcorn ball you didn't realize they had. the chances that it's poisoned are really non~existent. 
HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!

a gallery of awesome halloween costumes: