sticky floors

I've always really loved Halloween as a holiday. It can be whatever you want it to be - a family occasion with pumpkins and trick-or-treating, a classy excuse for dressing up in silly costumes and going to the grocery store in them (Angus saw a woman dressed as Inspector Gadget, complete with police light hat that worked!), or, in the case of my age group, having a party that involves as much candy as possible.

We invited over a bunch of people we know - really, all the people we know, which is kind of sad considering they all showed up and it was about ten people, but they are quality people, so that's what counts, I think. My plans to pumpkin the entire house were thwarted by putting it off too long; we have no safe outdoor space to store pumpkins, and indoors they don't really last that long, but by Wednesday night there were zero pumpkins left to buy. Still, we have a surprising number of spooky props, and with some candles and of course large bowls of candy, we were able to pull it together. Our neighbours were having a somewhat rowdier party, more on the order of about twenty people, and got told by the landlord to cut it out, but thankfully we are still in her good graces, and some of the neighbours came up to visit us when their party went pear-shaped, so we got to know them a little better.

All in all a good night, and it was good to see people. The cats were sequestered for the night, so they are a little sulky, and the floors definitely need a mopping, but it was worth it for the morale boost. There will be pictures - Rose brought her camera - so you can see my bee costume (which didn't, sadly, have as many bits to it as I hoped, but definitely got the point across).

By the way, if you are in need of a Saturday afternoon (or whenever) chuckle and have some time, I highly recommend reading Natalie Dee's story of her terribly complicated pregnancy. She and her husband are both popular webcomic artists, and she's a hilarious (if somewhat pottymouthed) writer.

EDIT: Pictures!

Will (a sixth-level wizard) and Marie (a luchadore):


Sean:


Angus (a stockbroker suicide, pictured here doing his best Sad Guys on Trading Floors face):


Rose (a padawan Jedi. Not pictured: her amazing homemade lightsaber, and her completely authentic foot-and-a-half long rattail):


Me, as a somewhat greasy looking bee:


Halloween is all about the scary, and as anyone who has spent time with me in an outdoors context knows, for me, the face of fear is BEE. I sewed up the skirt Friday morning from a tutorial on Craftster for bustle skirts. It's pretty great.