Trick or Treat
Smell my feet
Give me something good to eat

Halloween.  October 31.  A day we mark in this country with candy, costumes and celebration.  Of what?  Our playful natures.

I remember Halloween as a kid.  The thought of what you would wear, who you would be.  When I grew up, mom took us to the local department type store to pick out a costume in a box.  It was brown cardboard with a cellophane cover so you could see the colorful mask of the character you were to become.  The mask was flimsy plastic, with a small hole in the lips for breathing, and round Orphan Annie holes for eyes.  A stretchy band streamed across the back to keep the mask in place when donned.  The costume itself was a long synthetic piece of material, that tied around you, exposing your backside.  One errant cigarette spark would’ve turned any of us into a towering inferno…fire retardant costumes were not a consideration at the time…nice goin guys.

I’m sure I was a princess of some sort….some Disney wonder, Snow White or Sleeping Beauty…some female role model forced down our young throats.  Breathing was not easy – the mask caused an almost asthmatic reaction as I could hear my own breath wheeze in and out as I moved from candy casa to candy casa.  I would sweat….my face moist with condensation created from the release of my own carbon dioxide.  An occasional lifting of the mask to get adequate oxygen allowed the continuation of my nightime journey.  And peripheral vision, forget it.  But I guess it didn’t matter much since the only thing me and every kid for miles was focused on was straight ahead.

My confectionary acquisition vessel was a bucket…an orange, pumpkin faced, hard plastic bucket with a handle across the top…much like the one dad used for washing the car.  We didn’t get hip to the pillowcase carrier until we were teens….too late to change the candy casualties of my youth.

Let me explain.  Every year, dad would walk us around the neighborhood, standing on the sidewalk as we strove for the doorbell.  We were anxious, we were excited, and we wanted to move quickly to maximize the treats booty.  To hit as many houses as possible was our mission.

It was usually cold and always dark.  There I was – in that mask with its peepholes and costume tenaciously tied,  it was a veritable straight jacket – limiting my childish frame.  So like clockwork, we would run, adrenaline pumping through our veins.  Dad would warn not to run.  But since most of my senses were impaired by said costume, my hearing was compromised as well.  And run I did…moving my short legs as quickly as I could, hyperventalating behind my plastic princess prison. 

And what happened – year after year?  I would trip….and fall…my hard won sugar treasures spilling in a projectile fashion out of my bucket into the dark, moist grass.  I would try to reclaim, on hands and knees, what I could….but inevitably, I lost more than I could recover.  I even have foggy memories of other kids pouncing on my spillage, scurrying away like squirrels preparing for winter.

Why I never learned to keep my feet underneath me I just don’t know.  It was the lure of tricks and treats behind each lit doorway that propelled me.  Falling was not part of the equation.  But fall I did.

As I recalled those memories as an adult I laughed until I cried…not because it was particularly humorous, but because I felt sorry for that little girl inside me, who was far behind the pack, losing her candy to the night.

Over the years, I ditched the box costume and got creative.  I was a ballerina, a hippie, a movie star.  As the years wore on, I grew in to adolescence and out of the need to beg for chocolate.  I was more interested in hanging with my friends, soaping cars as the boys blew off M-80’s to the delight of the neighborhood adults.  We called it Mischief Night – the parents called it You Rotten Kids. 

I’ve been to Halloween parties over the years…dressed in various apparel – from Flower Child to May Capone (Al’s wife or how I envisioned her).  Although cocktails took the place of candy, fun was the primary motive.  It is the child in each of us that allows us to dress up, to become someone else, even for just one night.  And why not?  That’s the true treat.

Happy Halloween!   

Two more cents….

I don’t like Magicians.  I don’t like Politicians.  (For all that, I don’t like Morticians either….perhaps it’s the ‘cians’ ending to their titles that rubs me the wrong way.)

Magicians – I just don’t like them.  They are a weird social bunch.  They have this little secret code that they keep amongst themselves – to never divulge a trick – never give the inside scoop.  Oh please….get over yourselves.  Most of you are former nerdy children that got some pathetic magic kit as a kid and thought it could win you popularity through trickery.  Well – it doesn’t.  We are frustrated with you.  Sleight of hand…give me a break.  Card tricks – so passe.  Making people disappear in thin air, so last century.  Take your magic hat and capes and rabbits and get a new hobby.  (I hear Morticians make a good living….and if you can make a dead body levitate out of the casket, you might have one hell of a business.)

Politicans – I know hate is a strong word, but when it comes to Politicians, hate isn’t strong enough.  Why you ask?  Because they are Magicians without the tricks.  Politcians are liars.  For personal gain.  Oh, ok….maybe there is one or two of them out there that really want to do good for their community on the local level, blah, blah, blah….but for the higher up’s – they’ve got nothing but power on their minds.  I mean think about it – they make promises they can NEVER keep, they say what they think the voters want to hear, they tout their abilities to get things done (but we all know it takes a governing “body” of folks to get things done and that no Lone Ranger can create true change.)  They are well-dressed, well-rehearsed charlatans.  Talking heads.  Thieves.  And the worst thing is – is that it’s so obvious!  Do they really think we are that dumb that we can’t see through their charade?  Sure, we all want to believe that the next guy (or gal) in office will do better – will finally have the will of the people at the top of their agenda….but more often than not, we are let down…through their actions, through the web of bureaucracy that ties our political system into knots.  So I propose you don’t tell me anything – you shrug your shoulders as you run for office and you say, I’ll give it a shot.  And if you don’t make good on what we expected of you, you give the taxpayers a refund – of your salary the entire time you were in office.  Now, that’s a policy I can back.

OH – and lobbyists!  Don’t get me started.  There’s a special place down below for that lot. 

Magicians and Politicians.  I wish they would disappear.

We all have something to say.

Our two cents.

I think it is the fundamental need of people – to be HEARD.  Listened to, yes, but moreso heard.  How else can you explain the explosion of blogging and reality television and YouTube?

So today I have some “cents” to spend…

I saw a Charlie Brown Halloween Special commercial where they had the voice of Charlie Brown rapping a song – finishing with Chaz saying “Word.”  I thought – what?  Is this a new version of the ever popular “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown?”  I read that it was just a “promotion” angle and that they hadn’t changed the classic show…thank God.  In my world, Charlie Brown don’t rap yo…

First impressions are everything.  Nothing else needs to be said here.  Make a good one.

I crashed the other night at my friend Sheila’s apt in NJ after a night out with some girlfriends.  I slept on an air mattress which we attempted to blow up late at night – with a battery operated “blower” that lacked juice.  The result was I basically slept on the floor with the air mattress surrounding me, like a hotdog in a bun.  I had a blanket but no mustard.  I thought how funny to be 47-years-old and sleeping like a college student.  Many a high-maintenance woman would’ve cringed.  I smiled.

You either exude a positive or a negative energy about you…make that choice.  How do you want to be known?

I read this quote today – “Live as if you were to die tomorrow; learn as if you were to live forever.”  Most of us have heard the first part – to live each day to it’s fullest, as if it’s your last….BUT, learn as if you were to live forever?  How cool is that?  That message – to keep learning….and my belief, is that as long as you live, if you are open to it, you WILL keep on learning…evolving.  Life is a learning experience.  We don’t reach some invisible finish line where we should stop absorbing, questioning, wondering.  Being curious is being alive.  Learn everything – learn as if you were to live forever.  I love it.

That’s five cents today actually.  Inflation.  And I have alot to say.