just recovered from halloween week:

on wednesday i volunteered at the twin’s school party. from 2 to 3.50. closest reference that you’ll get is that sweat lodge in arizona.  90 degrees outside, 95 inside, closed doors (before i took over), and dripping humid conditions from 200 dancing panting sweating kids in costumes that varied from  dorothy, ladybug and flower child to rapper, gangsta and  kung fu master. (some home and some not home) baked goods arrived all morning, in and endless stream of  nasty orange and black frostings, from orange colored brownies to cupcakes and cookies in the shape of spiders, rats and black cats. setting up the decorations was an esthetics test for me, unfolding giant 7ft spiders and sticking their woolly legs to the ceiling, plugging in electric corpses with self removing heads, unfolding large plastic scenes of bloody murders printed and the cheapest plastic and sticking them over the (equally obnoxious) rules, regulations and mission statement of the cafeteria(eat in silence and don’t bother each other or we’ll have you arrested and put away for life). at 2 the doors opened and hell broke loose, as the lights were dimmed. crying, kiki found me and for the next hour and a half, as if she’d come as velcro,  did not leave my side. I tried to peel her off me, push her to the dance floor but she bounced right back as soon as i turned away. i wasn’t surprised,  i always  wanted my mom at these large scary almost out of control  kid gatherings. no one was allowed to leave the room. after fifty minutes (had my watch stopped?) we opened all doors  and air came in as kids were slipping and falling on the linoleum floor which was damp with their sweat. but  kids weren’t allowed to actually wander outside, for fear of them making a dash for the chain link fence that surrounds the school perimeter.

and trick or treat was still three days away.

thursday –  the unveiling of the new mummy at the bass museum  was timed to coincide with that  holiday of all mummy holidays and  said 600 bc mummyman’s x-ray photo had to be THE recommended halloween pin up of 2009 (see above). his bones had been x-rayed as well and details of his arthiritis at age 25 (shortly before he died) were discussed with much gusto by the curator. how would you like having your arthiritic bones exploited like that 2600 years from now?  Michael Jackson’s ghost might love it, but i’d prefer to think that, by then, I’d finally be too old for halloween.

friday – on calle ocho where little havana had cultural friday. an excuse for a giant street party with macabre acts like a wiry old geezer who had attached his blow-up sex doll, after dressing her in a red pageant gown, to his shoes and tirelessly tangoed with her, a woman in black and white under a giant beach umbrella posing, endless varieties of drummers and bands, kids in halloween costumes, celia cruz (a man or a woman?) painting exhibits etc. the girls were spooked, headless corpses and blood they love but little havana’s shabby kitsch appeal was lost on them.

saturday- the day- we had one corpse bride, one bumble bee, one twister board.

off to bay point a local upper class community, following our friend victoria and her shirley temple, dark fairy and husband as a shriner  to another giant street party of a different variety.  the bay point center square, where ancient banyan trees were decorated with skeletons,  a series of rented bouncy rubber castles let off that pungent air of too many sickly birthday parties, disco music like thriller and billy jean (michael jackson is not dead) played loudly,  served as a central gathering point for parents whose kids were  running like candy junkies from one fancy door to another grand entrance, grabbing as much as could be grabbed. you can never have enough halloween candy  my girls yelled on their sugar high as they returned with pillowcases full of the kind of candy, mini snickers, milky ways, starbursts, gum, jaw breakers, toffee, that i never buy, and will find stuck between sheets, socks, books, on the back of shelves, under beds, behind dolls for the next twelve months.

we rushed  home, back by ten. why? because WE had a party! for the first time in, rough guess, fifteen years husband and i had an invitation to the much anticipated gender bender halloween event.  after feeling, all week, a hum of anxiety over what alastair, SHOULD WEAR. (he refused to wear a dress. well he’s a big macho guy, i understand. he refused to wear a wig, since he’s somewhat on the thinning hair side, i found it harder to understand but they get itchy and hot, he refused a bra. although by the time it was too late to go to the oversized section at target,  he suddenly insisted on wearing one of mine which was about a foot too short across his back.)  i’d bought him a pair of sweats, bright green with a gangsta rappa tattoo pattern down the legs, and a large somewhat feminine and  NICE T-shirt. the  dahling-you-look-fabulous- gold necklace  made him look rather dashing and not too silly, which was his goal. i  bent the gender a little further and did a version of phantom, in glitter leggings and tux top. our costumes passed but  hardly shone next to the wildly gay spot light stealing mob.  ten guys  dressed as quinceaneras in white froofy poofy dresses with trains and tiara and black wigs, one cuter than the next, on stage in a catfight tableau  vivant, while two others arrived on a small sailing boat pulled by two hunky chested men. said quinceaneras, of course,  owned the evening. alastair was jealous and plans a quinceanera dress for  next year (yeah right). walid cross dressed as his best friend iran, THE diva of the local scene, and they looked like long lost twin sisters. barbara becker disguised as a slimy bog creature slithered and danced through the room for thirty minutes and disappeared to brighter ponds, esther wore a to-die-for hat that she should auction at her next event, and the cutest edie sedgwick (who WAS that?) kissed me fully on the lips before she passed out. alastair and i  danced like we were twenty, got home at two and remained hung over until late monday morning. halloween in milford may be picture perfect, and we did miss it, but miami sure is fun…