Halloweener!

Halloween is definitely a holiday full of traditions for me. The most important one includes partying with my sister in Hotlanta, GA, which will commence this Friday at 12:30 EST. This year's party is off the effing hook - there's an actual website promoting it, advance tickets are being sold on Paypal, and more than 200 people have been invited. I will not be surprised if most of them show up.

The theme this year is Carnival of the Dead. I think some of this shit is secret, but I can tell you that I've been asked to play the roll of the fortune teller, which I think could be very well enhanced with vodka. Although...I practiced last night on Marc, trying to read his palm at the Paradise, and it didn't go very well. That was about 6 drinks in, and I don't think I finished a single sentence. Although I did talk about my BFF to him and how "back in college something something." Whoops a daisy. We'll see how this goes.

Anyhow, Halloween traditions...Another tradition I have is talking way more than teaching at work. I guess this is kind of an every day tradition, but it's way enhanced around Halloween. I love hearing from the kids what they plan on dressing up as...here are some of the things from last year:

a boy scout (a girl is dressing as this)
a television
a jedi (except he said "jodi" on accident and then laughed a lot)
an ice cream cone
a guy on the swat team...no, for real. this is the ice cream cone's brother
a ninja
a goddess...so she can get one of those tiaras from claires
two hippies
an elf
"probably just some kind of animal...i'm not sure yet"

And from the year before:

a bug
a hippie
a soccer ball
the dead crocodile hunter
"whatever power ranger i havn't been yet. maybe blue."

This year, I was feeling a bit worried. So far, I haven't really heard many ideas, but today helped me get caught up a bit. It was one of those days I was so happy to have gone to work. It could have easily gone the other way - last night was Peter's birthday and some of us went out, and some of us (me) drank eleven million drinks. My hangover this morning was so bad that my teeth were aching. My teeth. It would have been the perfect day to miss work. Thankfully, I experienced these gems with the kids today:

"I'm going to be a soccer ball, but I also have this scary skeleton mask, so I don't know...maybe I'll be a dead soccer ball." Then she showed me how she could play her songs with the mask on. We also discussed how the mask smelled like white chocolate.

The four and a half year old brother of some of my students was running around acting like a choo choo train (duh - what else is there even to do?). I asked him what he was going to be for Halloween and he replied "A princess!" His mother yelled in from the kitchen "No, A. You're going to be a monster from Monsters Inc. We already bought your costume!" to which he replied "No, I'm going to be a princess. It's prettier."

Other costumes for this year:
Austin Powers
The Spirit of Sesame Street (made completely from those muppet-looking scarves...pants and all)
Three black cats. Seriously.
A bluebird
A girl gangster (this one made me mad for some reason)
Mother Theresa
"A mermaid. No, maybe a monster. Whatever, it doesn't matter."

I'm not too impressed with this year. As usual, I've had several suggestions from the kids that I be a witch. But this year, I got a few others. Grace (Lacy's awesome daughter) told me I should be a skeleton that can sing and dance. Grant (Lacy's awesome son) told me I should be a Goobley Goobley. The four year old sister of some of my students told me (while we were at a baseball game) that I should be a baseball. Then a swingset. Then a scarf. Yeah...she was saying all the things she was looking at. That was pretty awesome.

Also here is what one of my students said today, even though it has nothing to do with Halloween:

"This song reminds me of an avocado. It's like...you start eating it, and it's not really that good, but the taste makes you still want to eat it. That's how the song is...it's not good, but I want to keep playing it."

Also, she asked me why the letter A looks the way it does. Like why they didn't shape the lines differently. Brilliant.

So, as my sister says, Tis The Season to be a Halloweener!