I send my Halloween wishes on the 18 percent Waning Crescent moon now in the zodiac sign of Virgo, which will dwindle to 11 percent on Halloween night, still in Virgo, and provide just a squeaky sliver of light, just enough to make the night seem spookier, the Jack-o’-Lanterns burn more maniacally, the rustling of the leaves a little more menacing, allowing the forming and dissolving of ghosts in the shadow bands wavering like heat above desert roads in tree limbs outlined against the dark indigo sky. Ahh, Halloween, a long-time favorite holiday of mine. I think back to all the active colonial graveyards of Connecticut, the menace behind the smiling gap-toothed pumpkins, the imagination behind all the costumes created, the yellow school bus we rented every year in Alaska to transport us to all the best parties, how we became the rolling party, and how it is acceptable on this night to let your inner freak out to roam and play. At the school where I teach, everybody loves Halloween, but they just don’t get the menace, the spooky quality of it, the overdoing of the treats, the challenging creative aspect of the costume making, and while I did my best to explain it all, I had to seek it out myself among the stores and shops where it isn’t even recognized as a holiday, in order to make our Saturday Halloween party extra special. At a huge grocery store where I routinely shop, I found it. Within a two-foot by six-foot display of mainly innocent plastic pumpkins, black witch hats and lame masks, there lurked a ghoulish, melting scream mask and cardboard placards containing large brown plastic cockroaches. It wasn’t much, but it would have to do. I took my treasures to the checkout counter, and the young woman who worked it freaked. The cockroaches creeped her out and she wouldn’t even touch the mask. She closed her checkout lane and made me go to an adjacent lane where a male assumed nonchalance as he tried to scan the price. No dice. Scan again, repeat, nada. He called for the manager while it became lookie-loo city as everyone gawked at my freakish pending purchases, prompting me to pick up the cockroaches and thrust them at the people in line behind me, causing shrieks and nervous laughter as they all backpedaled away. After much consultation—as apparently this merchandise is so ignored it wasn’t even in the computerized checkout database, they figured out what to charge me and I beat feet out of there. Back at the school, I stretched balloons, dropped the cockroaches inside and blew them up. Then, holding the balloons up to the light and shaking them, the cockroaches looked totally real as they skittered about, scaring the children and their parents alike. I also put the cockroaches in my hand, covered them with candy, then offered them to everyone, provoking screams when they picked up the candy. But the mask was the real hit, dripping-faced, scream scary, so much so that some of the younger children began to cry and I had to reassure them by pulling up the mask to show them it was just me, then soothing them with extra helpings of candy. It was creep-a-licious. We took rolls of toilet paper and made mummies, painted student’s faces while I made sure the candy was way over-distributed, popping the balloons and watching the student's riot as they sought to claim the released cockroaches, posing for pictures and enjoying the festive merriment, having done my duty the resident creepmeister. The cockroaches were such a hit I went back and bought out their stock, passing them out to students who excelled, popping even more balloons with them inside, laying them about in unexpected places, enjoying the surprised shrieks when found, planning pranks to play in the future, reveling in cockroach creepiness. And so I wish you all a merry Halloween, full of tricks and treats, great costumes and plastic bugs, and the eerie glow of a warm pumpkins. Next week I will be traveling on the night of the New Moon—which really should be called the No Moon, out into a nighttime desert full of stars, sleeping camels, and singing sands . . .
3 Comments
Mary
11/4/2013 06:26:03 am
Hey EE, I really really love this post. You look great!!! Real scary too. The cockroaches were a fun thing to do inside balloons. The kids in your school are adorable. The photo with the painted faces and scary you in the back is a treasure. The students sure look like they are having a ball. What a fun Halloween. I wasn't sure you celebrated Halloween in China but I'm glad you are teaching them to enjoy it fully....scary and all and especially the treats..Thank you again for the great pictures and it is so rewarding to see the smiles on your students faces it made my day!!! love ya sis
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Erika MarĂa
11/16/2013 02:20:29 am
...Expressive fantasy of sweet & painted faces! Kids + you = LOCURA! Trato o truco, I prefer * trick!! *
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12/10/2013 03:06:55 pm
Read with delight your Chinese Halloween report. Via date listed, I must comment how it was also auspicious actual birth date of #1 Grandson Roan Zephyr who may one day cross Asia as well...
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