2022, Gatherings, holidays, Travel, Uncategorized

Happy Halloween!

34 Comments

As you read this today, I am, I hope, winging my way back to North Dakota from a conference. I am slated to arrive back home in time to start handing out treats.

The organization putting on the workshop I attended always has a big party the Friday we meet. It is surprising how wild middle-aged lawyers, government appointees, and State regulators can get. This time it was described as a Halloween party, and everyone was encouraged to bring costumes. We come from all over the US and Canada for this meeting, and it was amazing how many brought costumes. I considered bringing a Venetian carnival mask, but I was worried it would be damaged during the trip, and I couldn’t really wear a mask over my glasses, so I demurred. There were lots of witches, a monk, doctors in scrubs, the Phantom of the Opera, and Brittany Spears, to name a few. I wore a skirt outfit, and told people it was my expert witness costume, as I often wear the same outfit to court.

During the days before the party, some of my female colleagues and I were amused by the antics of a younger male attendee whose demeanor and presentation left no doubt that he thought very well of himself, and who knew he was a very handsome fellow. To our delight, he came to the costume party dressed as Jesus. It was perfect!

What was your best Halloween costume? Dressing up tonight?

34 thoughts on “Happy Halloween!”

  1. In the early 70s, I drove from my apartment near the Golden Gate Bridge in SF to Oakland dressed rather convincingly as a Catholic nun. I was teaching at St. Anne’s of the Sunset and was frequently around nuns, so had the details of the outfit down pat. Long black skirt and turtleneck sweater, pillowcase strategically folded and pinned, black fabric for the outer veil, rosary.

    I got a lot of stares when I stopped to get gas, and the person who answered the door was not sure what to do. 🙂
    Sure wish I had a photo of that.

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  3. A friend of mine dressed as a nun, and drove to a Halloween party smoking a cigarette. She sure got a lot of stares as she drove, not to mention the looks of horror as she gave another driver the finger when he cut her off in traffic.

    I was dressed as a huge strawberry one Halloween in Winnipeg, and was mortified when I had to rush in my costume to an Emergency Room to get one of my clients admitted to a psychiatric unit.

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  4. Rise and Shine Baboons,

    I don’t have much to boast about. I made some great costumes for my son—painted monarch butterfly wings, a robot, a fabulous clown costume I sewed. Those were so much fun.

    Headed out of town tomorrow so I will not be here much for a couple days.

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        1. It’s both, but it can depend on the day. It’s been 15 years in September, so the sharpness of the pain isn’t so bad. At this point, I want to remember as much of him as I can, and telling stories helps me remember. He was a real character.

          And I do have lots of photos of him in costumes, so maybe I’ll do a costume day here on the blog sometime.

          Liked by 2 people

  5. A group of friends decided to go as The Wizard of Oz once in the 1980s. We had all the characters including a munchkin and a flying monkey. We won prizes for our efforts in a local contest. I went as Glenda the Good Witch. I found an old wedding dress in a thrift store. I made a wand with a salt shaker filled with glitter glued to the back of it. (The glitter thing didn’t endear me to the hostess of the party.) It was great fun and we still reminisce about it.

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  7. This is interesting to think about. When I was a little girl, my custom of choice for many years was to be a gypsy. Which, of course is completely not PC these days, but when I was little, it was doable. I loved wearing all the jewelry and putting on all the make up and having a long flowing skirt. The reason this is interesting is because except for earrings, hardly wear jewelry anymore and I never wear make up and I can’t even remember the last time I put on a skirt.!

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    1. I remember going as a gypsy when I was about 12 or so. Lots of bangle bracelets and a colorful scarf and skirt. I may have tried to wear earrings, but they would have had to be clip-on, or the kind with the teeny screw that you tightened. I couldn’t wear those for very long.

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  9. your coating renee reminds me of a friend who wore a pinstriped suit and said it was office attire then when he turned around the back was cut out to expose underwear
    a riot

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  10. Halloween as an adult has been difficult for me costume wise because I’m so darn cheap. It’s hard for me to spend a lot of money on a costume that’s going to get worn once. And when I was still working, my team liked to do team costumes in a theme. This was particularly difficult. The year we did Mad Men I actually ended up borrowing a frilly apron from a neighbor and went as the maid. The year we did airlines as our theme, I bought some fluorescent yellow tape and put it on to a vest that I had in the back of a closet and painted two paper towel tubes orange. While all of my coworkers were flight attendants and pilots, I was the ground crew.

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  11. I was fairly proud of one years costume. I went as Steve Irwin, the Crocodile Hunter. (This was before he passed away.) I already had a khaki shirt and shorts and hiking boots so really all I needed was the crocodile. I bought a piece of green upholstery foam from the craft store and cut a huge crocodile out of it in a U-shaped so that it sat on my shoulders. It was a hoot. I wore it to do some errands that day and I got so many people stopping me in the first store that I left the crocodile in the car for the second and third errands.

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  12. My favorite costume as a kid was a skeleton suit on which the bones glowed in the dark. I had a plastic skeleton head lantern on a stick. I was so excited that I remember walking around the block in the early afternoon, unable to wait until dark

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    1. 6:47 PM, and I’m fresh out of candy, and I didn’t eat any of it; not one piece. Fifty kids. Don’t think we’ve ever had that many before. I suppose the mild weather is a contributing factor.

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      1. We’re at 32 here right now, which is a record for the last several years. We have enough candy for about 6 or 7 more kids. YA has Halloween music playing on a speaker on the front porch.

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  17. During the inaugural week for Jesse Ventura my company had a Jesse Ventura Look-Alike contest ( part of a few “morale building activities). Back then jeans weren’t allowed but they were ok of part of a costume do I signed up. Jeans, white t-shirt with a “cigarette packet” in rolled sleeves, bandanna and a name tag with a border that said “me, me, me…” Nobody else in my building dressed up so I went to the finals against the other building winners. All of them were guys who normally had shaved heads. As the only person who had actually worn a costume, I won hands down. Nice notch in my life belt!

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