Halloween

                My favorite time of year is upon us!  Time for glow sticks, trick or treat, spooky movies (“terrifying as f***” per Bekah), costumes, & jack-o-lanterns.   The inner child in me becomes giddy as soon as October hits. 

                The month is horrorfest at our casa.  I have an excuse to watch scary movies.  We try and watch one every night.  It’s a tradition.  I say we.  I drag my poor wife along for the ride.  Already she has had nightmares.  Already hearing things go bump in the night.  I know horror isn’t for everyone.  I warped my mind at a very young age.  I remember watching “Prince of Darkness” with my older cousins.  They were babysitting.  I was probably 7 at the time.  I thought it was so cool that they let me watch it with them.  I tried to act like a big boy and not show my fears, but that movie forever scared me.  To this day I am terrified of beetles.  If you know the movie, you know what scene I speak of.  Black beetles f***ing give me the heebie-jeebies.  I’m 38 and I still feel a repulsive fear when I see one.  Do any of you recall that year in the early 2000’s when the town was infested with them.  Nightmare for this guy. 

                Before I was old enough to watch scary movies with my parents I would sneak out of bed.  My mission was to see what I wasn’t supposed to be seeing.  This was a serious mission, with multiple obstacles in my way.  First and foremost, my younger brother.  I would have to wait for him to fall asleep or my mission would be failure from the get go.  Once he found dreamland, I would get out of bed as quietly as I possibly could.  This was made difficult by the fact we shared bunkbeds and mine was on the top.  Once on the ground level, the door.  Must be as quiet as I could shutting it as to not wake him.  Once outside the room, the real trouble began. I had to crawl down a hallway on my belly all the while trying to keep my movement out of my parents’ peripheral vision.  It was a real chore and I took my time.  Once past the hall, I would attempt to make my way behind them.  This was the real risky part.  Our dog Leo.  If he noticed me the mission would have all been in vain.  It was like the little s*** knew I wasn’t supposed to be out and he certainly took pleasure in giving away my position.  Sometimes I was unable to move forward because he liked to sleep behind the couch.  Frustrated, I’d turn around or move forward to failure once he noticed me.  On a good night, he would be sleeping at my parent’s feet and I could move forward.  There was an end table between the two couches that I could crawl under with just enough space for me to view whatever was on the TV.  Let me tell you, I lost sleep on these nights.  I often gave my position away with muffled screams.  Was it worth it?  Maybe?  I had some cool things to tell my friends about at school the next day.

                My father always liked scary movies and during Halloween we always watched them.  Back in the 80’s & early 90’s it wasn’t hard to find one on TV during that special night.  We would get together in the living room after trick-or-treating, light the jack-o-lanterns, kill the lights, and watch the flix of the night.  “Nightmare on Elm Street”, “Friday the 13^th”, “An American Werewolf in London”, “The Thing”, “Fright Night”, “Night of the Living Dead” & “The Monster Squad” to name a few.  Make no mistake, some of these movies are terrible choices, but they hold a special place in my heart for the memories that remain with them.  I miss you, dad.

The weather seems to have finally aligned itself with me.  The long, hot summer is in the rearview mirror.  See ya!  Bye bye!! Cooler temperature have finally arrived!  I can handle being outside again.  Love the brisk mornings.  That’s another reason October & Halloween is my favorite time of year.  It just feel so fresh outside.  I can finally enjoy a good Oktoberfest beer.  No one wants to drink one of those while sweating.  Nope.  No way. 

I still have a good time carving pumpkins.  Either blindly setting upon it with the knife, or drawing out a design beforehand to make something truly cool.  The end result is always special.  The smell of pumpkin.  The scents not good but it bring on good feelings. I don’t do it as often as I would like because I hate to ruin a perfectly good pumpkin when it can later be repurposed as Christmas decorations.  So last min we decided let’s do it, we always have fun.  I went to HEB.  They were out of all but the fancy fairy pumpkins.  Well s***!  Bekah was going to Market Street for soup so I called her up.  GET PUMPKINS!!!!  They had plenty, no worries.  And we carved and had a great time doing it.

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                Funny how the joy I receive from trick-or-treat has changed over the year.  When you are a kid it’s all about the dressing up and the candy. One year I wanted to be Jaws.  I had a thing for sharks.  Still think they are beautiful creatures.  My mom made this really cool shark costume.  She did some impressive work.  Trick-or-treating was so exciting.  Going door to door for that precious loot.  The high light of the night was the Coca-Cola house.  Instead of candy he would hand out a can of cold Coke to the kids.  I don’t know what was so special about that, looking back.  It’s just coke.  But when I was little it was the crown jewel. 

                Now I am the one handing out the candy.  I love it!  Especially now that we have moved we get a lot more foot traffic.  We have our regular kids that friends & family bring by every year and the door to door stoppers.  It’s always exciting to see what next ghost, goblin, vampire or unicorn might show up on my porch.  There are some really cool costumes out there.  And it’s fun being in reversed positions.  I want to give out something as special as coke was too me, but I have not nailed what that is yet.  Time will tell.  Maybe glow sticks?   Or am I the only one that is obsessed with those?  I should be embarrassed to admit this, but I woke up with a glow stick in my hand the other morning.  I went to bed with a glow stick.  It’s the little things that entertain me. 

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                And we sure did decorate.  Have to make the place look presentable for the Halloween guest.  Spooky pumpkins, ghost, all the fun stuff that I remember from my childhood.  I’ve seen some crazy decorations around town this year.  Halloween yard décor seems to have really blown up in the last 10 years.  Some pretty neat stuff.  I don’t go all out like that, but to each their own.  It’s good to see people having fun. 

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I also still dress up some.  Nothing elaborate, you can do a lot with a little improvising.  Devil horns and a suit.  Bear mask and a suit.  This year I went a little scary.  Glowing mask and a black hoodie.  Hope the kids were not too afraid to come back again next year.  I would think the amount of goodies we gave them will encourage a trip back next year.  I LOADED down on candy.

Halloween week started off cold & cloudy with a couple days with 80% chance of rain.  We did not get that rain unfortunately.  I kind of feel we get more rain on the days we have less chance for rain.  Anyway, the day arrived w/ temps in the lower 20’s with real feel at 17.  The sun was out in all its horrible glory.  I guess I should feel blessed that I had 3 days of wonderful gloom but I really wanted it to last longer.  Oh well.  I should just go ahead and move to Seattle if I’m going to complain about the sun every dang day its out.  My closest campus friends all showed up w/ a little Halloween spirit in their attire.  I had my ghost & pumpkin buttons on.  Some people went full costume.  I was probably walking around with a stupid grin on my face most the day enjoying the students & faculty/staff that did dress up.  The Llama tried to ruin my day but I kept myself out of the office as much as possible.  Not letting that happen on Halloween.

So after work I ordered pizza and rushed to the store to buy more candles for the jack-o-lanterns.  Of course while at the store, in a hurry, I run into someone that will spend 20 min talking to you about absolutely nothing at all.  FML.  After finally leaving the HEB I run to get the pizza that was ready 10min ago.  I finally get home and Bekah notices that I am visibly shaking.  Blood sugar low.  Inconvenient timing, I need to get dressed. I eat pizza.  Get a call that “The Slavic” is bringing her kid over.  Shoot.  Rushed, we dressed up.  Bekah as a llama & I as some hooded freak.  The kid arrived shortly after 5:30.  Creepy clown.  I was outdone.  Slavic enjoyed a slice of pizza & a beer.  They departed.  I had some time to really wind down at last.  Not long after 6 the kids started really rolling in.  I think I scared a few of them.  One kid said: “That is freaking scary looking”.  Thanks, dude.  By 7:30 they were marching down the street.  I think the trunk or treat on campus must have helped.  This was a much bigger year than the prior.  By 8:30 we had 8 kids running around our house and more trick-or-treater’s ringing the door.  I must say, this was a good dose of birth control.  But it was fun.  The kids were loving the glow foam Jamie gave us.  They were running around having sword fights.  The two girls even took over our job of handing out candy.  I was exhausted when everyone left.  Once we had the house to ourselves we start up what has become our Halloween movie:  “Trick-‘r-Treat”.  I have myself a beer and get ready to enjoy a good old scary movie.  It was a good night. 

Horror Movie Marathon 2019!

Cigarette Burns

Tragedy Girls

Midsommer

In the Tall Grass

Pelts

Evil Dead

Silver Bullet

Christine

Creepshow

Event Horizon

The Autopsy of Jane Doe

The Banana Splits

The Thing

The Broken

The Cabin in the Woods

Videodrome

Society

Wounds

Feast

Abandoned

Ghost Ship

Halloween (2007)

The Void

Final Destination

30 Days of Night

In the Mouth of Madness

Planet Terror

Flatliners

Wrong Turn

Graveyard Shift

The Dead Zone

Hellraiser

Texas Chainsaw Massacre 3D

The Exorcist

Bram Stoker’s Dracula

Hocus Pocus

Beetlejuice

Trick R’ Treat

Jalapeño!!!!

Bekah made her famous enchilada chicken.   Another simple recipe you really can’t go wrong with.  Sunny side egg was my contribution.

Chili.  Traditional?  Not really!  I was supposed to make it traditional but that just didn’t happen.  Oops.

Orange chicken stir-fry.  Do I need to say more about this meal?  I think I’ve cooked it 3 times since I started this blog.  I made this version less spicy so Bekah could enjoy it.  Cooked my peppers separately and added afterwards.  She was able to enjoy it.

Pizza for Halloween.

Teriyaki steak.  Pretty basic.  Hard to screw this up.  Simple!