The crazy lady with the costume bin

Wow, this has been the craziest Halloween season yet! This year, ever since mid-September, I've felt like I've been pulled in all directions. It all started with my Adam Lambert concerts and then it was Christian's birthday (he had a little party at school) and then I went on a cruise to Europe for the first two weeks in October (which I STILL have not documented, yes, I know, bad blogger) and then I quickly put together the Thrill The World Miami event for this year at the last moment (I've lost several years of my life stressing over THAT one) and then I went to Halloween Horror Nights and then I went to 3 parties the night before Halloween and then I went trick or treating the actual night of. I AM EXHAUSTED! Hello November! I welcome you with open arms! The only craziness you offer me is Thanksgiving (which I don't cook, so it's not really crazy for me) and Black Friday (which I go to purely for sport).

Anyway, that having been said, back to the Halloween blog. This year, someone commented that they had seen me in 3 different costumes in one season! Oh how true that is. I'm a Halloween nut and I have a costume bin at home. Every year I just pick from there and mix and match to make my costume. I hate the pre-packaged ones, they're just so void of creativity and ingenuity. Christian is starting his own costume drawer as well because this year, he too had on 3 different costumes (Wolverine, Spiderman, Darth Vader). Jordan on the other hand, hates costumes. He clearly got that from his father. I had to struggle with him to get him to wear a superman pajama (not even a real costume, but whatever) to go trick or treating!

On to my costumes, for Thrill The World, I dressed up as a zombie of course.. For Halloween Horror Nights, you can't dress up, otherwise, you know I would've had a 4th costume. No crazy costumes there, just good ole crazy me (in the asylum house no less).

On Saturday night, our Thrill The World group performed again at Hellrotika. This was a fundraiser for Save Dade (which truly deserves its very own blog post for the vast number of outrageous and creative costumes that were in attendance...I LOVED IT!). For that gig, I was dressed up as Alice Cooper in Wonderland. I picked this because later that same night I went down the rabbit hole (not a dirty euphimism I swear) to my friend Melanie's Alice in Wonderland party. She totally went all out with the decorations and her backyard looked awesome. She goes all out with decorations just like I do (even more so I would say).

And last, but certainly not least. On Halloween night I dressed up as Junice Merill. For those of you unfamiliar with Juney, she's a character from SNL. Here's the video of the skit. I was recently introduced to her via a friend's post on Facebook and once I saw it, there was no turning back. I had to be her!

Unfortunately, I didn't really go anywhere with the costume on, I just took the kids trick or treating (and went to Jenny's Halloween campout later on). I don't think that many people would have recognized who I was anyway, so the costume was purely for the self satisfaction of being able to put it together and be a freak for a night...oh wait, I'm a little strange all the time.

I am returning from the dead...

...just to show you the pictures of Christian and Jordan in their Halloween costumes!

Jordan was dressed as baby Michael Jackson (does that come as a surprise to anyone?). Christian was dressed up as Batman. He wore the mask intermittently throughout the night, but I managed to get JJ to wear his wig the whole time he was trick or treating. I guess he forgot he had it on at some point.

At around 6:45 we went trick or treating, but it felt strange because it was still light out. The first 10 or so doors that we knocked on, did not open the door. That kind of sucks. There also weren't that many kids out. Chris got tired pretty quickly, so we headed home after a short while.

It's kind of sad because Halloween these days isn't what it used to be. Nowadays, there's hardly any kids out because they all go to the mall. For some reason getting candy from Abercrombie and Fitch just kills the Halloween fun for me. Alot of people stop giving candy altogether because they get tired of buying it year after year only to have no kids show up, the kids don't show up because people don't give candy, so the cycle continues.

I loved trick or treating with my cousins when I was young. I remember a whole herd of us would go from house to house (with parental chaperones) and almost everyone would open the door...and no, there weren't any razor blades in my candy. Some houses had such cool decorations on the outside and some were even decorated inside. Ooooh spoooky! I remember we would pass many other herds of children too. After we got tired of walking around (or the parents were tired) we would head back home and check out our stash (which was always huge)! This is when the wheeling and dealing would commence. I cringed when I got pennies instead of candies and I was always trying to trade away the candy corn for gum. Ah, those were the good ole' days.

I know I can't turn back time and let my children experience Halloween in the 80's, but hopefully Chris and JJ can make their own wonderful Halloween memories so they can carry those with them for many years to come.

Happy Be-lated Halloween!!!

I haven't really filled you in on the happenings around here this past month, so let's play catch up shall we? First off, landscaping be damned! I was able to put my creepy stuff out among the plants, so THERE! I pulled my tombstones and skulls out of my garage and displayed them in my mini yard. I took some pictures, but I can't find them right now, so I'll post them later.

Christian and I also carved some pumpkins. Unfortunately, I did it too soon and they were long gone by the time Halloween came around. I think I did a mighty good job though considering that I've only done this about once or twice before.

Of course, my spooky village also made an appearance this year. Christian managed to only break one figurine this time.

On Wednesday we headed up to Orlando to go to Halloween Horror Nights once again. Since JJ is breastfeeding, I had to take him with me. I also took my mom with me so she could watch him in the hotel while I went to party with the monsters. I'm crazy, but not insane enough to take my child to that wacky madness. The rest of my party consisted of 8 other friends, some repeats from last year and some new volunteers too. Unfortunately we got a late start, so we didn't get to the park till about 8 or 9. We had an express pass, but unfortunately it wasn't enough and we weren't able to see all the haunted houses. We missed out on Creatures and Interstellar Terror. The scare zones were really fun though and since I had my Vault shirt on, I got quite a bit of attention from the creatures that were roaming the park that night. (Ha ha! I just went to the vault website so I could link to it in this post and I noticed that my picture was on the page!) We had a great time, but it felt a little rushed this year and the houses felt a little empty. Hopefully next year will be better. I was supposed to meet up with my Orlando friend WB, but my mom wanted to leave the next morning asap, so that didn't happen either.

On Halloween night I took CMan trick or treating for the first time ever (my mom took him last year, he didn't go the years before that). He was a little (alot) spooked out by the whole affair and wanted nothing to do with it. Oh sure, he loved wearing the costume (a pirate of course) at home, but going outside with it? in the dark? knocking on strangers doors?...not so much. He endured the torture and was very happy to be home. Hopefully this is not a trend that will be continued...Mama needs her candy! JJ also went trick or treating, I didn't want him to freak out too when he was older, so I figured I'd start him out at a young age...plus hello, more candy for me. After we were done with our neighborhood, I left JJ with Ren and headed to my mom's neighborhood to check out the decorations of the houses. While roaming the streets, I found a guy who built his own haunted house. I was totally floored with excitement...another loony! Like me! Except his house was outside and it was actually a structure that he constructed out of plywood. Awesome! I couldn't take enough pictures. Even though it had no actors, just props, CMan refused to go in...and I didn't force him. We don't want to traumatize him or anything you know.

Today is my birthday...

...and I'm an awesome pumpkin carver.


I turned 33 today and had some friends over for dinner and cake. It was majorly short notice and I feel very blessed to have such good friends that care enough about me to have made the effort on a Monday night (they were all able to make it).

...either that or they just wanted cake.

Just call me crafty

And now, for some Halloween stuff to cheer me up.

Hey! Check out the Halloween advent calendar I made! It's taken me about a year to make it, not because it was so difficult, but because I kept putting it off.

It's supposed to be a Pottery Barn knock-off because I didn't feel like paying $80 for theirs. This is what theirs looks like:



My cost? About 6 bucks.

While we're at it, look at these cute guys I got at Michael's. They keep me company at work.

Secret Pumpkin

Hey, look at what my Secret Pumpkin sent me this year!

Every year some of us Halloween freaks (on my Halloween list-serve) send each other a surprise gift some time in April (6 months till Halloween) and do a little gift exchange if you will. I'm a little late in sharing, but check out the stuff I got this year.

First we have this little guy that is now currently sitting on my desk in my office. He is some sort of skeleton gargoyle that my Secret Pumpkin made for me. It always gets me lots of strange looks from the folks who notice it. Ha ha.



Then there are these lovely items: six mini tombstones, creepy cloth, and a big ole' Styrofoam skull.


As much as I loved the stuff, I had to put it away until Halloween because it was driving R crazy....and CMan kept wanting to play with it all (aww, that's my boy).

Speaking of Halloween, this past Memorial Day weekend, I met WB (and her hubby), one of Amanda's blog friends. She was very nice and did her best not to yawn while I bored her with my endless Halloween stories and photos. She throws a Halloween party of her own every year, so it's nice to know there are other kookies out there like me. Hi WB!

8 secrets/things I haven't blogged about

I was tagged by Elizasmom a little while back, so it's meme time. I guess mine will be more of a eight things I haven't blogged about theme because obviously if I wrote about my secrets...well, then they wouldn't be secrets. This also means I can squish in a bunch of unrelated things that I've been meaning to blog about (but have been too busy to do so) all in one post. Ha ha I'm tricky like that!

OK, so here we go in a completely random order:

1. This year, when we go to El Salvador for the holidays, I will be flying over there with Christian, all by myself. My mom will be heading over on the 24th, and I will be leaving on the 27th (Ren has to stay and work). This terrorizes me to no end. I am fearful about how I am going to handle luggage, stroller, carryons, tickets, security checks, and toddler all at once. I decided to get one of those little child harnesses so that CMan could walk around if he got sick of the stroller. R was totally against it, but unless you've seen the video of the break dancer that kicks a toddler 5 feet in the air, you cannot fully appreciate the need to have your children next to you at all times (especially in crowded places). The speed at which these children can break away from your hand and run off is quite scary. Anyway, so I got one of those cute little monkey backpacks hoping that he would like it and be excited to wear a backpack. No such luck. I can't even get him to put one arm through it, much less buckle the thing up. I have about 31 days left to convince him, so we'll see how this goes. This past weekend, we saw 3 little boys with the monkey back packs on. I made sure to point out all three of them to Cman.

2. We went to Andrew and Rebeka's pirate party at the Children's museum a couple of weeks back. Cman had a great time playing with his friends on the playground, sitting on a bike, dancing with a hula hoop and exploring the museum. Happy Collective Birthday to the Mejia family (they are all in November)! Oh, and I actually got him to wear the pirate hat on more than one occasion!

3. We went to the harvest two weeks ago and I bought myself a cute quilt with a gingerbread man on it and some yummy dip mixes. We went to the historical village and hung out with some Pirates from the Florida Keys (Pop quiz: do you recognize any of those people from somewhere else?). Cman loved the cannon and I had quite a hard time pulling him away from it when it was time to leave.

4. Later that day we went to Gianna's (CMan's niece) first birthday party. Chris had a great time playing with the "boons". They had a cotton candy machine and face painting, but he didn't want anything to do with either of those activities.

5. I don't believe I've showed you the pictures from his last photo session (and his Halloween costume), so let me share now for a bit:

6. Mr. Cman surprised me in the car the other day. He and I usually count things together so that he can learn his numbers. He's never really counted by himself (he always wants me to do it and he repeats), so the other day we were driving around and he started talking in the backseat saying "one"...."one"...."one"...he kept saying it over because he wanted me to repeat, so I said "one" then he said "two" and I said "two" and we kept going like that until he got to number 10. I was quite impressed thinking wow...he can count to 10...news to me! Then I hear this from the back seat... "eleden"...and I go "eleven"....and he kept counting until 15. That daycare lady sure is teaching him alot because he and I usually don't count more than 10 things. I decided to say "sixteen" to see if he could go further and he did...all the way to 19. I had to say 20 for him; perhaps that's as high as they've taught him. He also knows all of his letters now. He can point to a letter and tell you what letter it is and/or you can ask him for a certain letter and he will give it to you. He also knows what sound most of the letters make.

7. I found this little tidbit online the other day. This was a pep-rally at my high school. Unfortunately it happened 2 or 3 years after I had already graduated. Needless to say I would've loved to have seen this in person:

8. The holiday shopping has begun! Amanda and I went shopping on black Friday and spent way too much money. I got some presents for Chris (aka the most spoiled boy in the universe...aka TMSBIU) and about 60 DVD's (yes, that is not a typo) for about $3.81 each. I've got quite a collection going...pretty soon, I'll have to start renting them out to people.

It appears that I have run out of numbers and I still have more to share, so I'm off to write my next post!

*UPDATED* OY! I forgot to tag someone! Here you go Amanda, I know you had some stuff you needed to blog about. Ha ha.

Beware the stare of Mary Shaw

This year's haunted house was in my opinion, less scary and more funny. This was mostly because our guide this year (my friend Claude) was truly hilarious in his ad libbing during the tour. Many times, the actors in the haunted house found themselves trying to stop from giggling as they heard his comments or accents while he led the group of trick or treaters through the house.

The theme of my haunted house this year was based on the movie Dead Silence. Unfortunately, not alot of people saw that movie, but they loved the haunted house anyway. The summary of the movie is here and the synopsis (with spoilers) is here. Do read them if you haven't seen the movie.

Ok, now on to the house:

Outside, I had a nice little Ravens Fair graveyard set up with tombstones for some of the dummies and of course there was one for Mary Shaw as well. We also had a bulletin board announcing the ventriloquist show that would be playing for "one night only". After waiting in line (yes, we had a line of people outside) you would be escorted inside by our usher Claude. He usually had a Russian accent, but this varied as the night wore on. Claude would escort you to your seats and then the curtain would open and the show would begin. Mary Shaw (Meg) came out with Billy and did a lovely ventriloquist show until a loud-mouthed boy (Jason) named Michael from the audience called her a fraud and told her that her lips were moving. At this point Mary lost it, grabbed Michael by the neck and dragged him inside the door. Since Michael was dressed in regular trick-or-treating attire, the audience often thought that he was one of them and would be visibly distraught (precisely the effect I was aiming for).

Once inside, Michael was dragged into a room and was never seen again. At this point, Claude took over and offered to take the guests on a "one time only free back stage tour...since it's the only way out". The first area was Mary Shaw's workstation where you could see her drawings and doll parts strewn about. Her dressing room was next. Here she kept her jewels and knick-knacks and a picture of her precious Billy. As the guests were looking at this scene, a clock ticking noise would die down and there was nothing but dead silence. After a few seconds the apparition of a dead Mary Shaw (me) would appear in the mirror and the tour would move on with many a "that was cool" comments.

As the guests walked through the maze they would encounter one of Mary Shaw's life size dolls (Melanie) and freak out completely. Many were scared to even walk past her. Once they managed that fearful task, they came upon the couple that had had their tongues ripped out (Lisa and Damian) by Mary Shaw. Once in a while Damian had a fake tongue in his mouth and he would spit it out. After the mute couple, they guests would pass by the gallery of dummies. These pictures were unsettling, not only because they looked creepy, but because their eyes followed you as you walked past them.

Claude would then turn the guests attention towards the wall of dolls. This is where Mary Shaw kept her collection of dolls. Once in a while you would swear that you saw one of them move...perhaps it was just your imagination (or perhaps it was my brother Ricardo standing behind the wall controlling the dolls). Just when the patrons thought the dolls were harmless a loud thump from behind the wall would startle them. "The dolls are angry!" Claude would say as he urged the group to move forward.

As the guests rounded the corner, they encountered a dead body on the stairs. He was wearing the same thing as that loud-mouthed boy named Michael...coincidence? I think not. Last but not least, the guests were escorted into the dining room where they found Ella Ashen having dinner with her husband Edward Ashen who was in his wheelchair. It appears the poor chap was hollowed out and turned into a ventriloquist dummy. Ella would ask the guests whether they wanted to stay for dinner and commented on what lovely parts they had. As the guests lingered in this room checking out the corpse in the wheelchair, Ren (dressed like a dummy) would stand up from the couch, surprise them and spray them with cold air....that usually got them moving.

Finally, after this the people would exit through the sliding glass door into the back patio and collect their treats. I loved following close behind them to hear all the comments about the house. I'm happy to report that the house was a hit. Everyone loved it and poured on the compliments. The best part of course was that even with this monster lurking near by it did not rain one bit during our hours of operation.

I apologize for the lack of pictures (thanks for taking pictures Amanda!). Some of these pictures were taken on Nov 1st since I was too busy to take them during the actual haunted house.

Carnival of Carnage Review

Oct 24th, I hopped in a car with Jenny, Amber (her niece) and Ricky (Amber's bf) and drove four hours North to Orlando. Our friends Claude, Meg, and Laurie met up with us over there. Once again it was time for Halloween Horror Nights (HHN). Unfortunately the little camera that could...couldn't anymore, so I had to take my old camera hence the sucky pictures.

Crappy camera + they don't really let you photograph inside the houses + there were no scare zones = I didn't take more than 5 pictures that night. Jenny and I were discussing what haunted houses we liked better than others (Dead Silence, Friday the 13th, Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Psychoscareapy) a couple of days later and we decided that we needed to make a little video on youtube of us sitting at a table drinking coffee and discussing the pros (lots of houses) and cons (no scare zones!!!) of the event and then we decided that we needed to be in a focus group for Universal so we could tell them what we thought about their event (because we really did sit and discuss details and such) and then we decided we needed to get a life.

The haunted houses were great (except there weren't enough people to scare you inside of them) and the Bill and Ted's show was fun (especially the SAW and Michael Myers bits), but the fact that there was only one quasi-scare zone really sucked. I look forward to getting the crap scared out of me on the streets of Universal because unfortunately, I've become somewhat immune to the haunted house scares, so not having that made the event feel somewhat incomplete. Oh well, at least I still had the backstage tour to look forward to.

The following day, we headed to Universal again for our behind the screams tour of HHN. We were in the far left lane of the parking entrance, and unfortunately the preferred parking entrance was on the far right (can we say BIGGER SIGN people? especially since the day before the prefered parking entrance was on the LEFT), so of course I missed it. We had to go up and down the parking garage and out all over again and wasted 10 minutes. Because of this we got to the tour late and some guy named Philip was quite mean to us. He treated us like children that had misbehaved "you're two minutes away from not going on the tour"...yeah OK dad. Last year we arrived to the tour on time and they had us waiting for a couple of minutes, so we assumed that the same relaxed attitude was in play here. Wrong. Philip the drill sergeant was going to make sure we were put in our place.

Thankfully we had David as our tour guide again (we requested him from last year since he was so nice...unlike Philip). When we finally broke free of Philip, Dave was just outside the door and was calmly telling the rest of the tour group about the history of HHN and was not on his way to the haunted house and was not angry because he was waiting for us to get there and we were not holding the group up (like Philip had led us to believe). David greeted us nicely "hey, it's nice to see you guys" and it almost seemed like he remembered us. I figured that was impossible since he must see thousands of people a year while leading tours. He must say that to all his guests. So the tour began on a crappy note, but nothing was going to kill my buzz because I love HHN.

Our first stop was the Dead Silence Haunted House (eeeeek! jumps up and down with excitement). The attention to detail was awesome and they had some pretty cool effects with mirrors and such. This is the only house that really startled me the previous night. I was taking furious mental notes to see what I could incorporate into my own haunted house. I was pleasantly surprised to see that many of the scenes that I had planned for my house were also in this one. Their wall of dolls left alot to be desired though.

After that we saw the wardrobe and makeup areas and then headed towards the next haunted house, Psychoscareapy: Home for the holidays. This is an old favorite of mine, so we really enjoyed getting a closer look at this one. The premise was that the asylum patients were on a field trip when their van crashed into a community of homes, letting loose all the wackos within it (including the one standing by the door in this picture). This was a pretty cool house because the whole time you really felt like you were in someone's house. The path would lead you in and out of different homes. It was very effective and I was able to get the perfect picture for my Christmas cards this year. The only bad thing about this house was the lack of asylum actors (I think it has to do with what night of the week we went though).

Side note: On our way to the haunted houses David our awesome tour guide asked me if I was having a haunted house again this year. Can you believe that people? He remembered my crazy ass a year later? That's pretty impressive.

Our next stop was a lovely home on Elm Street (oh look it's for sale!). Our favorite scene from that house was Johnny Depp's bedroom (not for the reasons you're thinking) because they had completely turned it on it's side and had you walk right through his bloody bed. Pretty neat effect. I never got a sense that I was in the boiler room though, and the Freddy masks were kind of cheesy. I mean, if you're going to use $5 Walgreens masks, then at least don't shine any lights onto your actors...keep them in the dark please so I can at least imagine that it's real for a split second. At the end of this haunted house Philip was bugging David on the phone that we had to hurry up, so we went over to a little museum they had set up for HHN freaks fans such as ourselves.

The museum had little stations set up for each house where you could see the wardrobe and floor plans of each house. My first love was architecture, so I wanted to pocket the floor plans, but unfortunately I wasn't wearing a trench coat, so...so much for that. Oh and Philip was there once again ranting to poor David about how he thought we would be done by now (you know, since it was 1:01 and the tour was slated to end at 1:00pm and all). Put a sock in it Philip...you really put a damper on our tour experience (can you tell I didn't like Philip too much at this point?).

After the tour we headed over to the Twister Ride, the Mummy ride (awesome) and to the Jaws ride. We all had a good laugh later when we were comparing pictures because Meg and I had more pictures of the tour guide than of the shark. After this we went on a couple more rides and then it was time to leave. I wanted to hide in the bushes and stay for another night of HHN, but I don't think everyone was on board with that plan (there's roaches in the bushes). We hung around for as long as possible, but the security guards had their little kick-everyone-out-parade and that was the end of that (Noooo, but it's only 6pm!).

After Universal Studios, we headed over to City Walk to grab some dinner. While we waited for our table at Bubba Gump Shrimp Co., we heard that Thriller was playing on the loud speakers outside so of course Jenny, Meg and I did what anybody in that position would do and broke into a choreographed Thriller dance in the middle of City Walk (oh, you mean you wouldn't do that?). The song played three times in a row until they finally noticed that there were lunatics dancing in the street decided to change the CD for some reason.

Once inside Bubba Gump, we got a lovely table with a view of the whole restaurant. I quickly picked out my favorite waiter to stalk admire and shared him with the rest of the ladies at my table (aka Mr. hot-shrimp-waiter-man from hereon in), but unfortunately he was not our waiter. Jenny and I never have the same taste in men, but she grew fonder of him as the evening passed and repeatedly got busted staring at him. This situation led me to share a humorous story with my tablemates (which I will also now share with you) about the time that I was 15 and my friends and I went to Bennigans to celebrate my friend Ayleen's birthday. We had a cute waiter named Dan and the whole evening I kept talking about Dan and how cute he was and how I wanted him for dessert (you know stupid 15 year old stuff). When Dan actually came to ask us what we wanted for dessert Cristy's mom pointed at me and blurted out "well she wants YOU for dessert". I have never wanted to be swallowed by the earth as much as I did that day. Fast forward 17 years and there we were sitting at Bubba Gump and I knew I shouldn't have shared that story because I had paid too much attention to our waiter that evening. I had a feeling that would bite me in the ass later.

At this particular restaurant, they have signs on each table that you're supposed to flip when you need the waiter to come. This is pretty cool because ANY waiter that passes by has to come and help you regardless of whether he is your waiter or not. You can see where this is going right? Well, someone had immense luck and good timing and flipped the sign at a moment when NO other waiter was in sight and Mr. hot-shrimp-waiter-man was walking by. He stopped at our table and everyone pointed to me saying that it was my birthday and that they should sing happy birthday to me. I denied the birthday accusations and refused the proposed serenade. But alas, my tablemates were not satisfied because they noticed that they had not embarrassed me, so of course they threw this little gem in at the end of the conversation "...oh and she wants YOU for dessert". It's amazing what 17 years will do to you. I wasn't embarrassed at all this time and found the whole thing to be hilarious as did Mr. hot-shrimp-waiter-man.

After our lovely dinner. Claude Meg and Laurie headed back to the hotel because they were driving home that night. Jenny, Amber, Ricky and myself went to the movies at CityWalk and we watched the Nightmare Before Christmas in 3D. I think that was the perfect end to a wonderful Halloweenyfied weekend! Sigh. Goodbye Universal...see you next year (maybe)!



ps. I didn't forget to get gas before leaving this time.

Halloween Ninja

A couple of weeks ago, I was in Target when I noticed these cute little "you've been booed" bags. They have candy in them and you're supposed to hang them on your neighbor's door (without them knowing who it's from) and then they're supposed give a treat to 2 or 3 more neighbors, etc. It's kind of like a Halloween chain letter (except with candy!). I, being the crafty thrifty type, decided I'd make my own, so I bought all the supplies and put them aside to make my boo bags. Unfortunately, I'm not only crafty, but a huge procrastinator, so the supplies just sat there until one night I came home and was interrogated by two of my neighbors.

Them: We're you the one with the bowl of candy?
Me: What?
Them: We found a bowl of candy on our porch. The neighbor over there got one too.
Me: Really? How cool, did it say that you're supposed to pass it on to another neighbor?
Them: Yes. So it wasn't you? We figured...of all people, it had to be you.
Me: No, no, it wasn't me, but whoever it was beat me to it because I was going to do that too. Ha ha! That's great!

How cool is that? I was so excited that the Halloween bug had bitten someone one in my neighborhood and that the spirit of the season was alive. I was a bit bummed that I didn't get a bowl of candy, but I figured I would get one soon enough and now I already had the treats to pass on! Woohoo!

That night I went out to run an errand. When I came back I found this on my porch!
How cool! I got a bowl! I got a bowl! As you can see, it had a glow necklace and some Halloween balls and some candy and a piece of paper with some writing on it. Oooooh Spoooooky! I pulled the paper out and read the instructions slowly and carefully. Wait! This wasn't a boo bag, this was a Phantom Ghost! (I'm such a sucker for these things). So that night I made my treat bags and strategized with Ren over which neighbors I would give them to.

This is the part where I started to freak out because you have to do it secretly so that they don't see you. I kept thinking what if they go outside at the exact moment when I'm putting the treat on their porch? After much hemming and hawing I finally decided to just give the treats to the two neighbors to the right of my house.

Under dark of night, I slowly crept past the next door neighbor's car and opened the screen porch door. It let out a squeak that almost made me turn back. I quietly snuck in and decided to put the treat bag on one of the chairs in their front porch. I couldn't bring myself to hang it from the door knob because I didn't want them to hear me. I ran out as fast as possible and headed over to the next house. Another neighbor was outside talking on her cell phone. I hadn't noticed I had a witness. This meant I had to be extra careful and extra quiet at the next house so that she wouldn't see me. I gingerly went to the next house and tiptoed past their cars. I figured this one would be even more difficult because although they didn't have a screened in porch, they did have a dog and you know those damn animals can smell you coming a mile away. So far so good, no dog barking. One step closer..another...another OH CRAP! These people have a motion sensitive flood light! BAM! The light went on and I looked like a deer caught in the headlights. The neighbor on the phone started laughing (I don't know if it was at me or at the conversation,but you know when something happens like that, you always think everything is about you). I kept walking towards the next house as if that was my plan all along. I wasn't going to this house...nooooo...I was going to the next house, yep. Alright folks, nothing to look at here. I have nothing in my hands, keep going about your business.

After the flood light freak out, I kept on walking towards the mail box to make it look like that's where I was originally headed to when I decided to cut through my neighbor's front yard. I didn't want the cell phone neighbor to know that I was the Phantom Ghost (sounds like a Scooby Doo episode). I checked my empty mailbox and then decided to just leave the other treat at the closest house (the one by the mailbox). I crept up to the front porch and opened the gate. Great, even squeakier than the first one. I held my breath and took light steps but unfortunately this porch didn't have any chairs on it. I didn't want to hang it on the door knob because I knew it would make noise so I propped it up against the window. It fell down. Fuck! I picked it up and put it there again and pressed it towards the screen. The screen made noise. Crap! This is taking too long. I left it on the window and backed out of there as quickly as possible. I decided to cut through the neighbor's yard again (you know for consistency). This time I walked past their tree and walked right into a spider web. Yech! I kept walking faster and faster towards home while peeling spider webs off my face and body. I really didn't want to get caught doing my Halloween ninja deeds. What kind of a Phantom Ghost gets caught? A sucky one, that's what kind.

I finally made it back to the safety and security of my front porch. The motion sensor light went on. I reached for my keys and noticed a giant spider on my arm. Aack! I must have been carrying it on me since I walked into it's web. I calmly flicked it off my arm, but it just came right back up. I flicked it again and it started floating right back up. It had a piece of web coming out of it's butt-web-factory and the other end of it was stuck on to me somewhere, so whenever I would flick it off, it would come right back up the web. This is the part where my calm demeanor vanishes. I frantically brushed my entire arm, my back, my butt, my legs, my stomach, my hair, my face. I was turning in circles and swatting all parts of my body while trying to hold the evil animal off at bay. I looked like a maniac doing the macarena. EHHHH MACARENA AHAI! I finally broke the spiderweb link of death and squashed him (I generally don't kill non-roach insects/bugs, but I was irate by this time).

I don't think I'm cut out for this under-dark-of-night-ninja crap.

Oh, and those neighbors never even passed the treats on to another neighbor. Fuckers.

You may want to read this in installments

I'm feeling alot better now...and that was the shortest lived weight-loss ever. I guess Lilli's birthday cake from Saturday night didn't help, neither did the chocolate chip cookies I had last night, neither did the cake I just ate here in the office for someone else's birthday. You can see where this is going, but I bet you didn't come here to read about cake. Ah yes, California. Have a seat, we'll be here a while.

Day 1
Well, I got there on Friday around 11am and Jen picked me up at the airport and we headed over to Downtown Disney. Our first stop was the Rainforest Cafe where we met up with a hairy friend. Afterwards we walked around and looked at the pretty stores and restaurants. We went over to Disneyland and California Adventure so we could get a preview (we were going to go on Monday) of the Halloweentime decorations they put up during this time of year. After that we headed back towards the car because I was kind of pooped, but not before walking into a store that had a couple of Halloween decorations in the window. "Should we browse in here? sure, why not". Well, I'm glad we decided to go in because that store contained the mother load of all Halloween villages. If you think the Michael's spooky village display is large, you ain't seen nothing yet. Jen and I almost collapsed at the sight of it. The people around us were staring at us because we were freaking out so much and going "wow, look at this...and look at this one...oh my god, look at the little arm....and this one has dangling legs...oh there's more back here....there's a train...and a carousel....a swing!...and look at this little bench and check out the lights...." You get the point.

Day 2
The next day we headed out for some shopping at the dollar store. They have so many Halloween things at the dollar stores over there that we don't have here. I bought so much stuff it almost didn't fit in my suitcase. After that we spotted an Ecuadorian restaurant and a Salvadorean restaurant next to each other, that was funny (R is from Ecuador)... of course we picked the Salvadorean one where I promptly ordered one of everything in sight....to go. We went back to Jen's apartment and I was amazed at the size of the pupusas from the restaurant. They were almost as big as my hand! After my eat-fest we stayed in and rested. We would need all the energy we could get for Knott's Scary farm that evening.

After our nap (you know you're getting old when you start scheduling naps into your vacations) we were on our way to Knott's Bery Farm Haunt, but first we made a quick stop for some aspirin for me because I had a major headache (another sign of old age) and a funny stomach (hmm...I wonder why). We went into the park and stopped at the buffet for a quick bite and something to drink and then we were on our way. Knott's had 13 haunted houses and 6 shows (plus the rides), so we had our work cut out for us because we only had about 6 hours to do everything. Fortunately Jenny had the hookup, so we got a VIP wristband that admitted us to the front of the line for (mostly) everything. We saw all but one of the haunted houses, but we only saw one show called the Hanging. It had alot of funny pop culture stuff in it (kind of like the bill & ted show at Halloween Horror Nights) and alot of men jumping around and fighting in their underwear. Who's complaining? Not me. We got on a couple of cool roller coasters and this thing that drops you from a height of 254 feet (excellent for those of us that don't like heights). After all the rides, houses, underwear, decorations and scares, we were pooped and called it a night around 2:30 am.

Day 3
On Sunday we took it easy and stayed home most of the day. We needed to recuperate from the last couple of days and we needed to save up our energies for Disneyland the next day. At night we went to the movies to see Good Luck Chuck. I live in a cave and hadn't ever seen Dane Cook before, so I kept saying "hello...who is that?"....of course all the gratuitous naked Chuck shots in the movie had nothing to do with it. The man has dimples on his ass...that's impressive.

Day 4
The following day we crawled out of bed, grabbed a muffin and headed to Disneyland to enjoy the day. I snickered silently at the throngs of parents struggling with small children, trying to navigate the park, and I thanked my stars I wasn't one of them that day. Ha ha. Sorry Christian, you're going to have to wait till you're older, theme parks and toddlers (that don't like strollers and don't like to walk) do not mix well. Thankfully the weather was gorgeous and the park wasn't very full, so the lines were manageable.

First we went to Adventureland and we rode the Indiana Jones ride, then we headed over to New Orleans Square to ride the Pirates of the Caribbean and the haunted mansion (which deserves a whole post to itself) which had been completely converted (inside and out) into a Nightmare before Christmas haunted house. After taking 999 pictures (there's always room for one more) of the haunted mansion, we headed over to the Winnie the Pooh ride in Critter Country. Afterwards we took a stroll through Frontierland to go ride on Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. Splash Mountain was next in line (with a fastpass), then we got on the Disneyland Railroad and headed to Fantasyland. We didn't ride It's a Small World because the line was outside in the hot sun (wimps) and there was no fastpass for it, but we did go on the Matterhorn (very short line). The Alice in Wonderland line was long and the teacups make me nauseous (getting old), so I just said hi to Alice and went on my way to Tomorrowland. The line for Space Mountain was only 15 minutes long, so our fastpass was useless since the lines were combined into one.

Although I had been to Disneyland twice before, Space Mountain had been closed for renovations both times. This was my first time riding it in this park. I was expecting it to be the same as the one here, but boy was I wrong. Florida needs to get with the program, the Disneyland ride is so much better! It's darker, longer, faster and plays spacey techno music (sounded like something else for a second there). After our ride through space, we went over to Sleeping Beauty's Castle to take a jillion pictures in every pose known to man (of which I will spare you). We walked through the castle and were once again in Fantasyland where we went on the Snow White and Pinocchio rides (and faked it on the teacups). We hopped back on to the Disneyland Railroad and this time we passed through these weird caves that have animals and dinosaurs in them. I don't remember seeing this in Florida, but I haven't gone on the little train here in a while, so perhaps we have it here too.

Our next stop was the Blue Bayou which is a nifty little restaurant in New Orleans Square. You have to make reservations (Jen made them a week in advance) and it's an indoor sit down dining experience where you really feel like you are outdoors (except for the bugs and heat). Jen and I ate there the last time we came and we liked the ambiance so much that we wanted to come again. The last time we got a table that was in the middle, so we were disappointed, but this time we were happy because we got "waterside" seating which meant that the people in the Pirate's ride would pass by your table in their little boats and wave to you.

It was super cute:

"Hello people eating" ...frantic waving from the boats

"hello Pirate peeps"...frantic waving back (oops I dropped my butter knife)

After you've done this throughout dinner though...it's not so cute anymore, you just start ignoring the people in the boats and wishing the pirates would let you eat in peace.

After a very heavy and delicious dinner I ordered dessert to go because I didn't want to miss the parade. If you're paying attention you will notice that this is really my first meal of the day because I had been feeling queasy all day long; that right there, is a sign that there is something very very wrong going on in stomachland (I didn't see this area on the Disneyland map Claudia).
We didn't make it on time for the parade, so we decided to go to the Finding Nemo submarine ride during the parade in hopes that the line would not be an hour long as it had been earlier in the day. Unfortunately our passage from New Orleans Square to Fantasyland was blocked by said parade, so we had to find our way around it. I stopped for a couple of quick pictures before I expertly navigated around it (by this point, I didn't need a map anymore...what a pro). We made it to the Nemo ride, but the line was still long. We had no choice...we had to wait because neither of us had been on it. Fortunately the line went pretty fast and before we knew it it was our turn to get in the sub. The ride was just as I remembered it (the old 20,000 leagues under the sea ride closed in 1994) with pretty fishes except it was souped up and it had screens with Nemo scenes playing on them, so it seemed like he was right outside your sub. It was lovely and all, but all these days of walking were beginning to take their toll (oldness strikes again) and we were tired. That is...until we discovered that the dude that drives the sub was standing on a platform right there behind us...ha ha...Hey Jen...I dare you to grab his crotch. Nothing like a little mischief to perk you right up.

The line and the ride took 45 minutes, so by the time we got out, the park was closing. I ventured over to Fantasyland to see if perhaps we could sneak in one or two more quick rides, but nope...everything was deserted (that sure made for nice uncrowded pictures though). Reluctantly (it was only 8pm!), we headed down Main Street towards the exit and hit the gift shops where it took me ages to decide what to buy for Cman. I ended up getting him two tshirts and a small mickey mouse. I didn't get anything for R there because he hates all things Disney and wouldn't wear whatever I got him anyway. I just realized that I didn't buy anything for myself (another sign that something must be wrong)

Day 5
My last day there I found out exactly what was wrong. I woke up with the worst nausea and I couldn't handle the smell of the bacon that Jenny was cooking. I know what ya'll are thinking and if I didn't know better I'd swear I was pregnant, but fortunately, I did know better, so no, that wasn't the case. I spent the whole morning making trips from the toilet to the couch and then I had to go and sit on an airplane for 5 hours. Good times, good times I tell you.

So that was my trip, very exhausting and very fun (I've put most of the pictures here) and we're not even done. Jenny is coming to Miami in 12 days (on my birthday!) for part II of our Halloween Extravaganza (Halloween Horror Nights). Hopefully no one will get sick this time.

Until next time my friends...

If you're still reading this, you deserve a cookie because this was a freaking long post.

Halloween Lunch Run

Oh my God people...have you SEEN the Halloween stuff at Target yet?

I went to Tarjay during my lunch hour today and was completely mesmerized by the Halloween aisles. I think the next time I go, I'm going to go to the camping department and get a tent so I can set it up in the Halloween department and sleep there. Yes, that's exactly what I'll do.

I bought a couple of goodies for Cman's birthday (in 2 weeks)....but we all know they're really for me right? (snicker snicker)...By the way, I paid only $5 for each of those toys.

Bwaahaha... I love finding bargains!

The training begins...

I went to Big Lots this weekend to check out the Halloween stuff and bought myself a Boris skull. This little skull comes with a "microbone" that you talk through. The skull projects your voice and moves it's jaw with your voice. Very cool!


I think Christian likes it too. He was fascinated because my voice was coming out of the skull. He would point to it and say "mama?". Ren told me to stop because I was freaking him out, so I turned it off. Chris got mad at me and demanded that I turn it back on...atta boy!

For the haunter that has everything...

Oh if only I could put this on my Amazon wish list!

It's a crawling zombie that grunts and moans and says clever things like "I can't feel my legs" and "hey slow down would ya, I can only crawl so fast"...LOL...I love it.

I can't make up my mind whether it's funny, creepy or cute.

Pass the Depends

Everyday it's a new surprise; I found this gem in my inbox today.

Ok this is really starting to freak me out now...It's as if they're in my head!(I also wrote about this in the survey by the way). You know, if they want me to give them ideas for Halloween Horror Nights, they should just come out and ask me. There's really no need to disguise it with a survey and all.

Note to self: prepare resume...

EEEEEKKKKKK!!!!!

It is quite possible I might pee myself from the excitement of it all:

I don't know who I said this to, but I definitely recall saying (or thinking) Wow, a Dead Silence haunted house would be awesome. They could have dummies (wooden americans?) all over the place and have the scary lady Mary Shaw come out at you in different areas and people could be walking around with their tongues ripped out. Yeaaaaah, that would be so cool.
In case you were wondering, yes, I have these sorts of thoughts and conversations on a regular basis.

Universal sent me an online survey about Halloween Horror Nights some months ago. There was a section that asked for ideas or things that you would like to see in coming years; perhaps I wrote about it there. If that's the case, I need to start charging for my ideas. Those peeps at Universal need to hire me pronto!

Traveling Head

In my last post I asked for ideas for places to take my little out of town friend (say hello to my little friend) and nobody responded (I'd like to think that it was because blogger was having issues...yes, that is what I'd LIKE to think happened), but that's OK cause the weather was crappy, so I couldn't go anywhere anyway. You're probably wondering who my mystery friend is by now. Well, it's not really a person, but an item. When I got home on Wednesday last week I found this lovely package on my front porch. I love finding packages on my front porch and I love it even more when I haven't even bought anything, unless the package is ticking, in which case, I don't love it too much. As soon as I saw the label that said "Toby's Traveling Skull" I stopped dialing the bomb squad number and hung up the phone. How fun! A skull!... and a traveling one at that! We Halloween folk are excited by things like these you see.

Two years ago (when I was child-free and obviously didn't have enough things to do with my time) I signed up to be a part of this traveling skull adventure. I had totally forgotten about it and figured it had fallen by the wayside, but alas, there was the skull, right on my front porch. I thought to myself: Wow, the skull is here, now I have to go out and do fun and adventurous things so that I can take pictures with the skull and write about all the wonderful things that we did while he was with me. Pressure!

Unfortunately for those of you paying attention to the weather here in Miami (which you should all be, yes, even those of you from MA should pay attention to the weather here), you might have noticed that last week's weather was completely crappy. It rained almost every day; so much for taking mr. skull to South Beach to pick up girls (he likes the bony types). Instead, mr. skull had to make due with sitting on my bar for a couple of days. I am getting ahead of myself though; when I first took him out the box, he was all the rage. The doggies were sniffing and Christian was patting him on the head. I told mr. skull that that was a universal toddler gesture of acceptance.

On Sunday, we got dressed up and went over to my mom's house to celebrate Father's Day (Do we look like the Adams family or what? da da da dum snap snap). On Monday, mr. skull got to go shopping and on Tuesday, it was "Take your skull to work day" (you're probably asking doesn't everybody take their skull to work everyday?...well, sometimes I wonder), so mr. skull came to work with me and sat in my office for the day.

It was quite a fun task even though I received numerous strange looks throughout the week. Some people thought it was weird that I was carrying around a skull, but others thought the project was pretty neat. I can't wait to see what happens at the end of his trip around the US (in about 3 years). I hope the folks who put this together will make a little webpage with all the pictures and stories from his journey. It will be fun to see all the people and places he's seen. I guess we'll have to wait and see. For now, I must pass on the torch. Yesterday, I packed mr. skull back in his box and sent him off to the next person. Have fun in Texas mr. skull and don't forget to write!