*2blog*

Happy Halloween!

I thought I would play with typoGenerator again, and this is what I got after my second try. I'm exceeedingly pleased with the results. I had pre-dated this to stay at the top of the page, but changed my mind -- you know -- woman's prerogative. ;)

Halloween is not a holiday I really like anymore, but I loved it when I was a kid. The first Halloween I remember -- I must have been 3 years old -- probably 1970. I don't remember what I was wearing, but it had to have been great. Almost every year until I got too old, my mother would come up with a really great costume for me, and later for my brother. Since she was a procrastinator, I'm sure she must have always spent a very sleepless night before Halloween. I don't think I ever got a costume off the rack at TG&Y (back in the pre- Wal-Mart days). Anyone else remember TG&Y? My husband's dad used to say that TG&Y stood for Toys, Games & Yo-yos. ;) But anyway, I remember that when I first heard about trick-or-treating, the concept of people just handing out candy to me seemed almost too good to be true. If you haven't ever heard Jerry Seinfeld talk about Halloween -- you should. It is so true. As a kid I lived for candy, and the idea that people would just be giving it out was mind-boggling. :) I think my candy obsession was extremely intense because we didn't usually have any sweets in the house. My kids don't really have the same desperation for goodies -- they take them for granted.

Unfortunately, my mother -- being the really good humanitarian that she is -- decided to have me do something unselfish and made me trick-or-treat for UNICEF that year. Gag. That part was exceedingly embarrassing. I remember wishing I could just trick-or-treat for candy like the other kids. UNICEF is a hard word to remember when you're shy and can't even read yet (and when you're an adult and know about the UN -- you really want to forget it). I remember that even the "trick-or-treat" part of the conversation seemed like too much information. They knew why I was there. I just wanted them to hand over the candy so we could get a move on to the next house. I didn't want people wasting my candy-gathering time rummaging around for spare change for UNICEF.

In later Halloweens I would already be fueled up on concentrated sugar, and ready to visit as many houses as I could possibly get my mother to take us to. I remember there was always one more potential house to hit up before my mother decided it was "too late." And do you remember how your mother always told you that you weren't supposed to eat a lot of candy at once because it would make you sick? Well she was wrong. ;) I had all the good candy eaten within a 24-hour period and never got sick from it. Those were the days my friend. I'm sure some kids get did sick from too much candy (wimps), but I never even had a twinge of stomachache from chowing down on a bucketload of candy as a kid. I must have had a titanium stomach back then. But unfortunately my luck ran out. As an adult, I now have to consider the digestive consequences with everything I eat. :P And now you understand why the thrill of Halloween is gone for me.