It's not just the politics that's spooky here this year.💀
It's not just the politics that's spooky this year.
In this last week or so before the election, and with news yesterday that we might be wearing masks into 2022, I am looking for silver linings where I can find them. Like, the world might be going to hell-in-a-handbasket but did you see that sky this morning? The way the pale pink clouds stretch across the pearl gray background? Oh, and look at the geese going by in a perfect “V.”
One of the activities that have been keeping me and my younger daughter amused and preoccupied throughout has been decorating the house for Halloween, which is ironic because when they were young the kids used to complain that I never did any of that. But back then – what, like 15-20 years ago? – people did not go nuts decorating their homes for holidays. Maybe some dads would stretch strands of cobwebs across the front landscaping for a spooky effect for trick-or-treaters, which would be replaced by Griswold-style lights for Christmas.
Plus, I was way too busy crafting costumes back then. We’ve dug up some old pics of Halloweens of yesteryear and apparently, I really embraced the DIY approach to bringing my kids’ alter egos to life. Sadly, I am not especially talented in this arena, and we looked at some of the pictures recently and my daughter was like, “What even was I that year?”
While some of the costumes were truly inspired – I’m thinking the “Wayne’s World” hat I made for my then 10-year-old son one year, a Little Red Riding Hood cape I hot glued out of red felt, the cardboard boxes I spent hours transforming into a little train engine and caboose when my oldest was three and obsessed with all things train-related and Thomas – other attempts kind of missed the mark.
One year I looked to our overflowing dress-up-box for inspiration and I talked the two girls into being princesses. Easy. I matched the poufy tulle skirts they each owned with pastel dance leotards and sparkly tiaras. But, because I was practical, under the leotards each girl wore a big white turtleneck to keep them warm during trick-or-treating, which apparently traumatized both of them. My younger daughter told me they wore their getups to their cousin’s Halloween party that year and hid in a corner, surrounded by all the little sexy mermaids and witches. As proof, she dug up a picture of the year she was Jasmine from Aladdin standing next to another Jasmine at the school Halloween parade, each one in that spangly two-piece, tummy-bearing getup. But while her classmate’s belly was on display, my daughter’s was covered by the prerequisite white turtleneck (please see below for evidence of my abusive parenting).
I took a picture of that old princess photograph and texted to the girls and said, “Doesn’t get any sexier, ladies!” to which my younger daughter replied: “Ugh. Mom never let us show our goodies.”
By the time the fourth kid came along, I’d take him to the party store a few days before Halloween where he’d pick some ghoulish get up for himself (although I still had parameters: no blood, no weapons). However, that seemed to be loosely interpreted because one year he was a ninja with nunchucks and another he was the Wolverine with those knife-like claws. Whatever.
But now none of my kids trick or treats anymore, and we barely get ANY trick or treaters (don’t get me started), but we’ve found ourselves really going for the spook effect this year. It’s not the first time: a few years ago my younger daughter helped me execute a skeleton home invasion similar to one I’d seen earlier that fall walking around the Upper West Side of Manhattan where we passed a brownstone with all of these skeletons scaling the brick exterior and seemingly trying to get into the building.
Inspired, I bought a bunch of about 3-foot-high skeletons from Target, zip ties and hot glue and after a lot of googling, we created anchors that we glued to the house to hold the plastic figures and posed them in various stages of trying to break into the house. There’s one guy’s foot pushing off the narrow roof of the bay window and another one is helping its skeletal comrade shimmy up a downspout onto the roof. There’s even one skeleton that’s made it all the way up and is turning to look out at the street before climbing through a window.
Honestly, the whole diorama was inspired.
***
This year, that 23-year-old girl is now trying to pivot after her start in a career in hospitality got waylaid by the pandemic and is looking to channel all that creative energy. So a couple of weeks ago, she dragged the box of skeletons out of the shed and glued them back to the house. Then she went to the Dollar Tree and loaded up on spooky décor that she’s slowly been installing around different parts of the house. We’ve got some spooky lit-up eyes looking out the front of the house in a big bay window and the front door is covered with “Caution” tape and spooky black fabric is draped along the top of the door with big plastic spiders skittering across. My sister admired her handiwork when she came over for dinner last weekend and observed that our mottled front door – which I really need to repaint – helps add a creepy effect to the entrance.
But, much like her mother, my daughter doesn’t always see a project all the way through. There were still a couple of props she’d bought at the dollar store that hadn’t been implemented in the Halloween display, like some glow-in-the-dark skeleton arms on spikes to be anchored into the ground. She’d been looking for old Styrofoam tombstones we had in our old house, which apparently didn’t make it to this new place.
So yesterday at Harmon buying face wash, I grabbed her a new tombstone and she came into the kitchen excited after unwrapping it to show me how the eyes of the ghoul at the top of the gravestone actually lit up a creepy green color. I was wondering why that slab of Styrofoam cost $9.
We ran outside last night in the dark to install probably the final piece of our Halloween installation. She positioned the tombstone by a swing we have hanging from a tree by the driveway and drove the spikes into the rock hard lawn in a patch of grass that had been thoroughly seared by the unrelenting August sun this summer. She popped the arms onto the spikes to simulate more skeletons rising from the grave and we stood back in the street in the dark to admire our handiwork, the glowing green eyes staring back at us.
I hate to tell my girl right now, but I fear someday, she’ll be DIYing her own kids’ Halloween costumes, although the jury’s still out on whether she’ll let my grandchildren show the world their goodies. She’ll be looking to satisfy that creative itch we both have. And it also might bring her the same comfort it did me all those years ago when it was just me surrounded by little kids all day long. It was a good distraction from my life.
I’m sure decorating our house this year for Halloween has brought her the same kind of comfort it’s brought me in this election-pandemic season. It’s probably a good distraction from having to figure out what to do with her life. And I might also fall into that category, constantly trying to morph into my next career transformation. I’m like the skeletons trying to bust out of the earth to give my writing just one more shot.
While everyone else in town is littering their lawns with campaign signs, I’m happy we’ve stuck to something a little less scary – a skeletal home invasion. This week, I contemplated aloud a last-ditch effort to get giant campaign signs for the candidate I’m supporting for president to angle on my lawn.
“Absolutely not,” my 17 year old told me. “Do not be that neighbor.”
This from someone with a poster of Barak Obama next to his bed.
So I guess I’ll stick with skeletons. They’re a lot less controversial and probably something we can all get behind, despite our political convictions. And while our Halloween decorating might be drawing to a close, we’re already busy planning our Christmas display(s), because who knows what’s coming next.
***
I went up to that teenager’s bedroom the other day and stood beside him at his desk admiring all of the artwork he’d Command Strip-ped and nailed to his walls. The said poster of our former president and a framed monkey wearing a crown that he’s stuck a bunch of stickers to over the years. The wall is slanted right above his bed and covering it are the watercolors he furiously worked on at the beginning of lockdown like a modern-day Michelangelo. He sat at his desk and kitchen table for days one week replicating album covers he liked and other things that caught his eye on the internet. Prior to that spurt of artistry, I never knew he had a creative side. I thought he was just all-sports, all-the-time. But I think being absorbed by his painting helped him get over the hump of that initial isolation and chaos.
Something caught my eye fluttering by out the nearby window and it was a couple of finches hopping around the branches of the evergreen that sits right outside his window. The branches come right up under the window sill and we could watch them up close, their heads quickly turning back and forth while they bounced from the tree to the gutters on the house, oblivious to it all.
So let’s just get through this. Bake a cake. Meditate. Take your dog for a walk. Look at the clouds in the sky. Screw around with skeletons. Find the small things that bring you joy. We can do it. Because pandemics and politics will come and go but we’ll still be here, trying to get through whatever comes next.
Friday Faves
Here's something I watched on Amazon video last week that I can't wait to watch again. I'd read all the rave reviews when it was on Broadway for a brief stint and watched it as soon as it began streaming last Friday. A great look at our constitution, who wrote it and who's upholding it all these years later. "Until 1981, there are nine men deciding on the fate of birth control. And four of them are cheating on their wives." Plus at the end, the creator engages in a debate with a spunky opponent that made me excited for our future if it's filled with strong women like her. Don't miss it.
I finally finished the new Elena Ferrante and absolutely hated it but if that's your thing, you can come and pick it up from me.
Another beach mom dropped off this fun Reese's Book Club selection and while I'm not totally done -- maybe 40 pages to go -- it was just the thing I needed to cleanse my reading palate after "The Lying Lives of Liars" or whatever that book was. Also: have read most of it in about four days.
I wore these snazzy leggings to football last Friday night in anticipation of a 50th party I was heading to afterwards and man, I got hella compliments. And I bought them, like, two or three years ago. In fact, I'm squeezing into them again for our big Senior Night tonight.
My sister, Meghan, is an expert on many things in the retail world. I told her I needed nicer just plain black leggings for the colder weather since my new look is big sweaters and tights (hey, 54!), and she immediately pointed me in the direction of these babies that feel AMAZING on. I think my winter uniform is now in the bag.
Finally, feel free to share this with friends, subscribe to my newsletter and share on social media if you are so moved. Ciao until next week!
xoAmy