Friday, October 31, 2008

The Requisite Mommy-blogger Halloween Post

Well, another Halloween has come and gone. My son will soon pass out from his sugar-induced eating orgy and I, well, am still unemployed. Oh, joy.

But, now, this is not about me and my paranoia dementia depression. This is about sending innocent little cherubs out to beg for candy for some innocent childhood fun. This is probably the first year he has truly understood what was happening. He has been asking about his costume for a week. Being the lazy slaggard that I am, I naturally put off finishing it until this morning. He has been a wizard for the past two years; a costume I made thinking ahead to when he would be sick of being a wizard and I could foist off the Grim Reaper on him (hey, scary, different, not a wizard! ). I could use the robe from the wizard costume, add a hood, paint his face white, hand him a scythe (okay, a hockey stick), and voila! Grim Reaper.

Here is my son as the Grim Reaper. Originally I was going to make some white face paint (simply made from shortening mixed with cornstarch) and then paint some black around his eyes and mouth with eyeshadow (boy, ain't I creative?). We had to eat dinner before heading out (boy I have never seen a 5-year old scarf down supper so fast). He was finished almost before I sat down. He didn't want to wait for me to paint his face. I guess he was worried all the candy would be gone before he got to it.

He needn't have worried:

Tuesday, October 07, 2008

Things you don't wanna hear...

I missed the fun over at Jennsylvania and she has closed the comments but I really want to put this story out there. The topic was, "Things You Don't Wanna Hear..."

It was 1992. I was going on a scuba diving trip to Belize with 8 of my friends (the woman who trained me; two people who were in my class; their two children; an exchange student staying with them; and another couple who are friends of us all). We needed to fly from Belize City to Dandriga to catch the boat which would take us to the resort we were all staying at, the Blue Marlin Lodge.

Just as a reminder...we were going scuba diving, meaning scuba gear. For nine people. For seven days. That is a lot of gear.

This was a small plane; a ten-seater, with the tenth seat being that of the pilot. We were just beginning to board the plane; most of my friends were already standing at the door getting ready to climb aboard. I was back just a bit, near the tail taking a picture of the plane. I heard the pilot speaking to the guy loading the gear,

"Did you weigh all this stuff?"