Zombies and Faeries and Not Enough Candy (for me)

Our neighborhood sucks at Halloween. We never stay at home handing out candy. Not many people come by, and I always worry that the ones who do could be planning a home invasion. The street by our house is spooky, but not playfully seasonally spooky. I would not be surprised to come home one day to find the entire street closed off by police cars. On the surface our area looks fine. I’ve just never felt like scratching the surface.

So we go to other neighborhoods to trick or treat. A mere few blocks away is a neighborhood where people actually know each other. They even have their own Facebook page. DramaQueen’s best friend ArtistChild lives there, so we weaseled our way into the community trick or treat caravan. ArtistChild’s family have lived in the neighborhood for 11 years and seem to know everyone. We’ve lived in our neighborhood for 3 years and know the neighbors to the right and left. The others seem to live in an alternate reality and have figured out how to teleport in and out of their houses, because we never see them. We got election fliers addressed to at least 5 different people who have lived at our address – we are a neighborhood of transients and hermits.

There's nothing like a home-cooked meal

DramaQueen was a zombie housewife this year. We put her hair in curlers and tied a “bloody” bandage around here hair. She wore an apron splattered with more fake blood and carried a skillet with a bloody brain. That brain was a piece of inspired work, I can tell you. At first I planned to use a cauliflower, but I discovered that cauliflower is friggin heavy. So I found some white playdoh and crafted a very nice brain. I cherish these few moments of ingenuity and accomplishment. We covered her face and arms in sickly grey and black makeup and added more blood. She was fabulous. 

FireCracker, on the other hand, will have nothing to do with scary costumes. She was even nervous around her zombie sister. FireCracker was a faery (not a fairy, which is the boring US version). We made use of DramaQueen’s old drama costumes and added some sparkly wings. The wings ended up being larger than Firecracker and were something of a hazard all night, particularly on stairs, where they tended to wonk other kids who were trying to leave.

Not many faeries wear such sporty shoes

ArtistChild went as a Goth, wearing a costume that looked like something I wore back in college. It’s sad when you can find part of your past for sale at Party City.

In the past we’ve usually gone to these planned neighborhoods with all the houses close together and little handkerchief front lawns. You could cover a lot of candy territory very quickly. This year I hadn’t counted on walking a half acre just to get to the door. It seemed annoyingly inefficient.

As the night wore on the teenagers came out. I know some people are really annoyed by trick or treating teenagers. I don’t see why, as long as they are actually in costume and aren’t being jerks. Some of them girls were a little, ah, robust for their costumes, but they seemed to be having fun.

This year the girls made us swear oaths not to touch their candy without them being present. They think we’re sneaky thieves, which we are. Now we’re grumpy reformed thieves. And this year DramaQueen traded her peanut candies, which I usually can count on getting, with ArtistChild. I had to make do with Almond Joys, which I guess no one wants.

Where Have I Been?

That retreat was great. First, it was in a beautiful setting. Second, there were all sorts of interesting women with amazing stories. The theme was finding our true identity in Christ, and part of our "curriculum" involved a temperament test. I love personality tests. Most people seem to. I'm not sure why we want a third party eval of ourselves, but we do. I turned out to be a Phlegmatic, which was hardly surprising. Observers rather than particpators, avoids conflict, indecisive, calm and balanced, mediators, introverts. I can pick them out. We are the ones who sit quietly at a party, smiling and laughing now and then, perferring not to be the center of attention.

The girls went to a friend's house for a Halloween sleepover. I walked around with them while they went trick-or-treating. Our friends live in an affluent neighborhood, which really makes a difference in the quality of candy you receive. They collected mostly chocolate, which is almost unheard of. And no raisins. I don't know why people bother handing out raisins. Blech.

Last night we went to a Girl Scout party, because I'm testing the waters to see if the girls want to get involved. There were a number of games, including one in which you eat a donut hanging off a string with your hands behind your back. Firecracker showed an amazing amount of persistence in this game. I think we were there for 20 minutes. It paid off, too, because she got most of it.

All for now, as I have to get ready for church.

The Gates of Hell

Have you heard of a judgment house? It came up in a conversation recently, and I had to ask to be enlightened. It's a "christian" alternative to the haunted house. Visitors are treated to tableaux of the end times, with mayhem and destruction and, I presume, the unsaved marched off to the fiery depths.

Really. I'm not making it up.

Wow! What a great evangelistic tool! Not.

I started thinking of some alternative presentations. Instead of car wrecks and airplane crashes, we could have reenactments of Bergen/Belson, Darfur, Guatemala, the Spanish Inquisition. Oh, the possibilities are endless. Why do people think hell is below us or floating off in the hinterlands, when we are so good at raising hell ourselves?

We've all met people who take such delight, such sick delight in the wrath of God. Lovey dovey God just doesn't do it for them. Yes, heaven help us if our God were too loving. But, they point out that God was quite clear on that point, and I agree. God says very clearly that his wrath is kindled by those who opress or ignore the orphan and the widow. Hmm. Now, could that have any connection to the thousands of children who have to go without health insurance and health care every year? Every child has a right to get born, but who said anything about life after birth? Or how about the many widows we create with an outrageous war?

Christ said the gates of hell could not stand against us, and yet we are timidly tapping at those gates. We cry out, "Come, now, Lord Jesus." And then we slam the door in His face.