The Ghouls All Came From Their Humble Abodes

By the time you read this, it will probably be Halloween. So, happy creep fest one and all. Stinky is still going trick-or-treating, but Coadster and I are going to stay home and pass out candy and watch more scary movies. Coadster wanted me to see if I could rent the first Halloween, but I told her I'd tried previous years, and it was nowhere to be found. We'll check the guide to see if we can find it on TV, but I'm sure we'll be able to find something sufficiently scary, preferably from the seventies.


The scariest thing about this picture, is the Dirty Dancing album cover on Stinky's bedroom wall.

On Saturday night, Stinky went to a Halloween party with some of her girlfriends. I know I've commented on this before, but the preparation that goes into getting ready for these fetes astounds me. I'm sure some of my low-maintenance is due to not having been allowed to partake in all the dances and dates and stuff that most girls attended in high school. Until I had teenage daughters, I had no idea that it could take a group of girls almost two hours and three different houses to get ready for a party.

First Stinky and her friends went to one girl's house so her older sister could do their hair, then they came to our house so my ex-husband could come over and apply their make-up. I suppose that's one good thing about having an actor for a father, you will always have the best make-up of any of your friends. Finally, I drove all the girls to the last girl's house so they could put on their matching witch costumes. I couldn't think of more appropriate costumes for a group of thirteen year old girls - unless they wanted to all go as hormones.

Coadster has never been big on costumes, so she usually goes as something that needs explaining from her - "I'm walking around with a pretend cell phone stuck to my ear, because I'm going as a college student for Halloween." Stinky, on the other hand, is all about dressing up and puts a lot of thought into it. In general, she likes to look pretty. She's been a fairy godmother, Selena, a prom queen and a go-go dancer.

The year this picture was taken, Coady was obsessed with X-Men comic books and wanted to be Storm. It was before the movies came out, so finding a Storm costume was extremely challenging. We finally bought one the day before Halloween and it was the best $10 we ever spent. The foam hair really transformed her. We had to watch her closely, because she was so ready to kick someone's ass. Luckily, people were generous with the candy that year.

The year this was taken was the only time Stinky didn't try to look really cute. I think she was happy to settle for wearing a wedding gown covered in fake blood and sporting horrible teeth. She wanted to be a dead bride and I was really surprised that she didn't get sent home from school for scaring all the other second graders with this costume.

After my ex-husband picked the girls up around 10:30 on Saturday night, they went for their annual drive through downtown Iowa City to check out all the college kids' costumes. The stand-out this year was a girl who was (half) dressed as a fire fighter. All she wore was a fire hat, a pair of white tights and a coat so short it left her genitalia unprotected and vulnerable with just a little, opaque nylon between them and the outside world. When I asked Coadster what she thought was up with that costume she said, "Maybe she lost the rest of it in a fire."