Tag: Halloween

Random Observations (Some Halloween-Related)

Sugar is like a drug. Once I start having treats – cookies, Halloween candy – it is hard to cut it off. I wish my body didn’t respond to it that way. For folks who don’t have weight issues, is it that their body responds differently – they don’t continue to crave it? Or, is it a decision/willpower? I envy those who don’t have that trigger, though I am grateful that I don’t crave alcohol or other addictive substances.

I miss having a sense of smell. I lost it (not entirely, I perceive some scents) years ago after a couple of rounds of a virus. Yesterday when a trick or treater came to the door, she asked, “What smells so good?” I was mystified at first. Then realized, “I just made roast chicken, I think that must be what it is.” She asked if there was any left. That made me laugh. But it also made me wish I could smell it! I know sometimes you become habituated to a smell when you’ve been in it a while and if you step outside and come back in you perceive it again – but that is not what happens with me. Something has to be quite pungent for me to smell it.  If I had to choose to lose one of the five senses, I guess this one would be the least critical. But it does dull taste and it makes experiences less rich. Oh well.

One other Halloween observation. When I happened to be on the Upper East Side of Manhattan a week or so ago, I was struck by how elaborate the decorations were (see photos below). I also thought some were quite gruesome. Have they gotten more horrifying over the years? I like cute pumpkins and Caspar the Friendly Ghost type of decorations. I don’t actually want to be frightened. I particularly don’t enjoy scenes that feature blood. A standard witch is fine, depictions of graveyards are okay, too. If it were up to me, we’d just skip the really gross stuff.

Scenes from the Upper East Side

It is interesting to me that some people love that – seek out entertainment that scares them. I heard a snippet of an interview with Stephen King where he said that since he was a child, he liked the feeling of being scared. I don’t. I don’t want to watch scary movies and I don’t seek out risky activities (I’m faster on cross-country skis going uphill than down). I wonder if people who like horror movies also like thrill rides? I’d rather ride a roller coaster than watch a horror movie. Our son-in-law posted a list of horror movies he had watched in the lead up to Halloween. I have seen none of them. In one way, I feel left out of a whole segment of cultural references, but I don’t want to watch those movies, so I guess I’ll just have to remain in the dark, so to speak. It’s funny but both of my children, who grew up not watching horror movies, married people who love them. I will leave it to them to negotiate that – maybe they will become fans, too.

We have passed that threshold from the beautiful part of fall to the dreary. This year I did take the time to appreciate the vibrant colors. I think we had an unusual number of sunny, warm days that allowed the leaves to shine. We had some magnificent sunsets, too, made even more beautiful by the glow of the leaves. Now I look out the window and see mostly bare branches. There is beauty in that, too. I love the look of the silhouette of the trees against the sky. But not so much when it is grey and damp. Also, the less daylight we have, the less energy I seem to have.

This may be a little specific, but when you find a sub for an activity you are committed to (let’s say tennis), and then the sub finds they can’t make it, who is responsible for finding another replacement? If I told someone I would fill in for them and then found that I couldn’t, I would view it as my responsibility to get another person. I was a bit annoyed recently when the sub I found punted it back to me. But maybe I’m wrong on the etiquette. Thoughts? This is the kind of thing I should spend more time thinking about – instead of fretting about our democracy.

Halloween Past and Present

Halloween has come and gone. Since we were out of town, I didn’t have to buy candy, so I dodged a bullet. Leftover candy is irresistible. Even if I bought things I didn’t like… wait, who am I kidding? There isn’t much candy I don’t like. I did miss getting to see the little ones dressed up as mice or rabbits or bumble bees or whatever adorable costume they and their parents devised. But, it isn’t the same without little ones of my own.

So many memories of Halloweens past….

When our children were growing up, we decorated (to be more precise, Gary decorated). Gary usually picked a theme and he would create elaborate scenes. One year he got dry ice and set up a witch’s cauldron. He made a giant spider using black Hefty bags and wire hangers, painted tennis balls red for the eyes, and set it up on the lawn. The next year he made a giant spider web. That spider and web were re-used year after year until they fell apart. His decorations were clearly homemade, and there was a charm in that. Without our kids to amuse with his creations, Gary doesn’t bother anymore. I don’t blame him. I loved that he did it for all those years. The only decorating we still do is carving pumpkins – and this year we didn’t even do that.

In the past, we stocked up on candy for the many, many, many trick-or-treaters who rang our doorbell in our suburban subdivision that was perfect for scoring a huge haul. Every year I would buy at least 10 bags of candy and then Gary would pick up more on his way home from work – God forbid we should run out!

Gary, Leah, Dan and I each carved a pumpkin; we lit them with votive candles and put them on the front porch. Gary would roast the seeds and enjoy them during the week that followed. Leah and Dan had homemade costumes, too – again courtesy of Gary who could do wonders with a box. I think Dan’s favorite was his ATM machine with the bag for the candy attached inside from the slot where you could make a deposit. That box still sits in his bedroom closet. Leah’s favorite was dressing as a chewable grape Tylenol. Gary turned to his trusty cardboard boxes to make the pill and I supplied a Halloween-themed turtleneck. That one is likely in landfill somewhere.

 

Dan as a toothbrush
Leah as a grape Tylenol

Unfortunately, due to recurrent ear infections both kids were quite familiar with those little purple (but tasty) pills. Lucky for them, though, they were never sidelined for Halloween – I believe each was able to trick-or-treat every year until they decided they were too old for it. That was not the case for me.

 

Halloween was a totally different experience for me growing up in Canarsie in the late 1960s. My children waited until it was getting dark to go out. We had to be finished by the time it was dark. We rushed home from school, changed into costumes and out we went. It was not safe to be out after dark – not just on Halloween, but any day of the year.

I don’t recall ever carving a pumpkin. We may have had some decorations – perhaps paper cut-outs of witches or ghosts that hung on the front door.

My Canarsie neighborhood was good for trick-or-treating. The blocks were short, the houses were close together. Each time you climbed the front stairs, there were two doorbells to ring. None of that mattered, though, if I was sick. Somehow October was a cursed month for me, and it remained so well into adulthood. Invariably I had an ear infection and fever. Okay, not every year, I did get to go trick or treating sometimes, but it happened often enough that it became a thing.

On those occasions when I wasn’t able to go, I would dress up in my costume (most often as a princess), sit on the steps of our foyer and wait for the doorbell to ring. Since my grandfather worked in a bakery, he brought home giant cookies for us to give, but those were for friends and children we knew. Everyone else got a small candy bar.  One time an older boy who I didn’t know saw the array of cookies and he stepped into the hallway and grabbed a couple as I yelled, “Those aren’t for you!” He made off with them, there was nothing I could do. I was so upset I went in and told my mom I didn’t want to hand out the candy any more. I don’t know why that rattled me so much – some combination of feeling powerless and disappointment in humanity. That was just who I was, even as a seven-year old.

On the years when I had to sit out trick-or-treating, my brother Mark would carry a second bag for me. I’m sure that roused suspicions and may have earned him some unwelcome comments, but he did it anyway. I had a paradoxical relationship with Mark. On the one hand, I spent almost my entire childhood dreading his teasing, his caustic jabbing at me. “Your shoes look like canoes!” (a comment about my big feet) “You were adopted!” A barrage of remarks that would get under my skin immediately.

Mom or Dad would have to separate us multiple times a day.

“Don’t even look at him!”

“Go to your room and close the door!”

Mom still wonders how we all survived it.

On the other hand, though, he went trick or treating for me. Mark was often my protector. It was fine for him to harass me, but not for other kids in the neighborhood. If I tripped and fell over a cracked sidewalk, he would stamp on the offending slab as if to punish it for hurting me. And, for all the teasing, we would do stuff together. Our older brother Steven couldn’t stand our squabbling and preferred solitary activities or being outside with friends. That left Mark and I to watch wrestling or baseball or F Troop on TV, that is when we weren’t banished to our separate rooms.

Another Halloween has come and gone. On to the next holiday, stirring up more memories.