Halloween

Happy Halloween!

I just thought I'd document the exact moment Greta contracted the flu. (I am kidding. I hope! And I'm sure if/when we all get the flu this season it will be from one of her lovely day care friends.)

For those of you not familiar with this tradition, you tie a doughnut to a string, and then some lucky person has to eat the doughnut off the string without using his or her hands.

In other news, I had a great birthday earlier this week. Pat planned to have some friends surprise me at a hibachi dinner. Thanks to illness, most people were not able to attend. My good friend Rebecca was able to attend, though, and it was really great having her there. I haven't had a surprise birthday event since my best friend from the 7th grade, Kristen, threw me a surprise birthday party! Oh, man, that makes me want to scan and post this one funny picture from that party...but where is my scanner?

This is a good segue into the fact that I had been feeling very high and mighty about how organized we were during our move and how quickly I got the majority of our junk unpacked. But I think I hit a wall. Productivity has been at a standstill. I'm hoping to get some stuff taken care of at the old house today, which will either get me motivated again or will possibly put me in a coma - or somewhere inbetween those two things. Wish me luck!

Fran

We were able to bribe Greta into putting her flamingo costume back on tonight by offering her a few minutes with the pacifier. (She's such a sucker. Har!) We thought we'd stop by a few of the neighbors' houses and let Greta experience the wonder that is Halloween. Greta cried when we went to the first house, but maybe because those neighbors are slightly creepy and the only thing they had to choose from were Powerbars and Fruit To Go bars. Yuck!

Here I am being a poor example to my daughter. Who gives out dried fruit on Halloween? People who want to get their houses egged, that's who.

After Greta realized people were putting tasty stuff in her cute little spider trick-or-treat bag, she rose to the occasion. She would offer a "hi" and a wave, followed by a "thank you," and then would she'd say "bye-bye." We kept trying to get her to say "trick or treat," which she did finally say when we got home.

Here is Greta enjoying her bounty with her dad.

While it has been my dream that, one day, someone would ask Greta what her favorite candy is and she'd exclaim, "RAISINS!" I kind of doubt that would have ever actually happened, and we certainly ruined our chances of that tonight by letting her get a taste of some of her candy. Oh well. I'm sure a little candy isn't going to make her go out and steal a car or anything like that.

Here's Greta looking at me like, "Mom, how could you keep this ambrosia from me for so long?"

I hope everyone had a lovely Halloween!

Fran

Damn, the old lady and I had another stellar weekend. Friday night I took her out for a nice dinner at the Rio Bamba, because I’m a high roller and she’s a fine piece of ass. I had the Pan–Roasted Filet Mignon with Twice-Baked Truffled Fingerling Potatoes, and Frances had Roasted Turkey stuffed with Confit of Turkey Leg with Sweet Potato Risotto and Cranberry Puree. In other words, she had turkey-stuffed turkey. The best part of the meal was when they brought out a "gift from the chef" to whet our appetites. It was a small plate with three fancy looking finger foods that had fancy names that I can not remember. I can sum them up as a potato chip with crabmeat on it, a slice of cucumber with cream cheese on it, and a stale piece of bread with salsa on it.

Later on that night, Cima and Amy came over to hang out and watch a movie. We selected American Psycho. The movie itself was not the best, but I did enjoy the main character's deep insight into several no-talent musical assclowns from the 80s.

On Saturday, Fran and I had a pretty relaxed day. We recently started watching the series 24, so we checked out a couple of episodes. We’re pretty big on using our Netflix account to catch up on television series that we missed out on. Around 6:00 PM, John "V Murder" Veno and his lady, Mary Anne, stopped by for a short visit. They were in town for a party, so they graced us with their presence. It was good to see them. Later on that night, we went to Dave and Jen’s Halloween Party. They had sent us an invite a couple of weeks back and they do it up right. There was an entire agenda on the invite. They had a best costume contest, a pumpkin-carving contest, a donut-eating contest, and a spider hunt. I have never received an invite with an agenda on it, but I liked it. I think that I may start taking the same approach to parties as I do to meetings at work – No agenda, no attenda. Yours truly took first place in the donut-eating competition. It was a speed contest to see who could eat six donuts (two plain, two powdered, and two chocolate coated) the fastest. I felt like puking about five donuts in, but I held it together. I never thought I would have been able to do it, but my bride never gave up on me. It was reminiscent of Rocky II. My Joe Dirt costume also nabbed me 3rd place in the best costume contest. Fran was a roller-skating waitress. I was terribly worried about her, because she hasn’t skated in years, but she did just fine. Cima was the entire Aqua Teen Hunger Force and Amy was the Hamburgler.

Today, we went to the in-laws to celebrate Fran’s birthday with family. Now we’re going to finish out the rest of the weekend with a little televisle. I’ve got the week from hell coming up at work. I am trying to figure out my voting strategy for Tuesday. Does anyone have any experience with how crowded it is at 6 AM?

Don’t break your toof on no candy.

-Pat

Halloween is right around he corner and I don’t have an outfit yet. I figured that majority of our readers are in the same situation, so I set out to look for some ideas on the trusty internut. Here are some of the hottest Halloween costumes for 2004.

First, I found the Martha Stewart cut out mask thanks to our friends at Forbes. There’s no doubt that this will be a popular Halloween costume this year.

If you want to look like somewhat of a badass, this spandex Daredevil suit may be for you...

...but, if you want to look like a super badass, then the Heavy-Metal-Ninja-Battlecat look is where it’s at. It seems to be very popular on the Internet, so don’t be alarmed if you are not the only ass-kicking feline at Halloween party. Band with the others and form an unbeatable super team of half man / half cat warriors.

Warning: The type of people that dress up like this, do not need a special occasion to get their costume out. You may get roped into going on social outings with them and their nerd friends, but at least you will get your moneys worth out of your cat suit.

This one may be the winner this Halloween. Feast your eyes on this Tron costume. This guy really models it well too. It looks so freakin’ fast I can’t stand it. He looks like he could take on an army of battlecats without breaking a sweat.

I hope this gave people some ideas of how to look super cool this Halloween. If you have any other great costume ideas, please share them in the comment section.

-Pat