Happy Halloween!

October 31, 2013 • 2:06 pm

During my whole adult life, I’ve wished I could go out in costume every Halloween and get candy, but that’s no longer possible: I’m too old. (When I was a kid we’d always go to the rich people’s neighborhoods, as they’d give out whole candy bars instead of stupid Mary Janes or candy corn).  I suppose I could just buy candy now, but it’s not the same, and I don’t have kids to tote around as bait.

Regardless, here’s wishing you have a sucrose- and felid-filled holiday, and that you stay away from that flavored petroleum byproduct called “candy corn”! (Also avoid the cylindrical red byproducts called “Twizzlers”.)

And here are some photos:

Reader Stephen Q. Muth took a holiday-themed picture, adding some information (note the Satanic pumpkin):

Here is my neighbor’s kitteh, appropriately named ‘October’, posing in the garden with an example of the recent harvest.  A self-described atheist and avid singer/vocalist, October’s favorite activities are control of garden pests, endless requests for walksies, and the occasional consumption of neighborhood children. October adopted my neighbor on 9/11/2001, and despite his fearsome appearance here, is really a big sweet softie.

Satanic October

Reader P. sent a video of big cats playing with pumpkins:

Here’s a Halloween kitteh envisioned as the Bride of Frankenstein:

Cat halloween costumeAnd some Halloween animals. Everything here is true:

Halloween animals

Finally three beautiful pumpkins, carved by hoomans:

Picture 2 Picture 4 Picture 5

63 thoughts on “Happy Halloween!”

  1. OMG the confession of the chipmunk! I’ve witnessed them eating slugs! Yuck!

    These Halloween Candy Kisses are even worse than candy corn because they are truly evil. How do I know? I once melted a bunch in a bowl as a kid and they hardened again on the spoon right away like some disturbing plastic intelligence! Those & pennies were the worst Halloween thing to give out!

    2. Slugs is nothing. Yesterday my brother’s dog ate (or tried to eat) a partially desiccated squirrel, a fish head, and two tissues (used). Awful. Somehow he missed the partially desiccated waterbird (seagull?).

  3. Happy Halloween Jerry! I agree this holiday just hasn’t been the same since I was forced by advancing age to retire my candy collecting pillow case. Still I’ll find some consolation in over-indulging in leftover treats.

  4. When my 5 sons were kids in Calgary, they frequently got very small New Testaments as Hallowe’en “gifts”, for Christ’s sake. Fortunately it had absolutely no effect on them because they’re all happy in their atheism now and between 62 and 48 years young

    1. Gideons! I bet those were the Gideon bibles! They used to hand them out at my (public!) school.

    2. My kids got some crap like that handed out to them last night. It was fairly unsubtle and pretty fucking sick.

      “I bet you got lots of candy, but guess what, it’ll be gone soon, and then what! But take JC as your friend and you’ll never be lonely, he died for your sins you know. Just love him like he tells you to and you won’t go to hell for all the sinful things you have done / will do, because he died for your sins, so you won’t have to go to hell. But you have to follow his instructions on how to love him, so hurry up, save yourself, start worshiping him right now!”

      It is so weird how they can’t see how creepy this stuff is, especially when it is aimed at little kids. It is also hilarious how the tone, happy and friendly, is so out of sync with the actual meaning of the words.

  5. I went to Costco and bought a bag with 150 chocolate bars (the mini ones). I ate them all and had to buy another bag. I ate those too. I bought my 3rd bag today and I can only hope the kids get here soon. My wife is mad because after all that candy, I lost 2 lbs.

        1. I can so relate to that story. I lost count of the number of bags of mini tootsie rolls I bought to hand out for Halloween. That being said, I can’t claim any weight loss.

  7. I don’t know why, but Halloween never did all that much for me. I’ve never been into dressing up and I’ve never had that much of a sweet tooth. (Not that I don’t like sweets, but I’ve never been one of those who can’t stop eating them. Unlike kettle potato chips, which I religiously ration myself to no more than a few bags a year of for that very reason.)

    So…I’m holed up inside with the blinds drawn and the bare minimum number of lights on inside to avoid having to answer the door empty-handed. And this on a day when the high was a delightfully chilly 74°! Bah! Humbug!

    Maybe next year I’ll be able to get myself in the spirit. By way of compensation, I’ve got whole cloves from a couple heads of garlic very, very, very slowly simmering, and I’ll soon toss them with the noodles that, as of this moment, are still flour and an egg in the ‘fridge….

    Enjoy the festivities for me, y’all!

    Cheers,

    b&

    P.S. Those sculptures carved from pumpkins are awesome, of course. No clue the type of skill and practice that sort of thing must take, but it’s damned impressive — to say nothing of the vision of being able to capture that facet of humanity! b&

    1. It’s raining & 11 Celsius here – ~52F. I live in the country so I don’t have anyone who comes by so therefore don’t buy the candy.

      1. That’s actually in line with our overnight lows. And, the great thing is, the house retains enough heat that I can leave all the doors and windows open 24/7 this time of year, and it only gets down to the upper 60s inside, if that. In a few weeks I’ll probably have to start closing up at night, and then eventually during the day as well.

        But I’m thinking of getting an electric mattress pad and seeing if I can therefore forego the heater this “winter.” Not that I can’t afford to run it; it’s more the principle of the thing.

        b&

    2. I bought four bags of Heath bars this year – the medium sized ones, too. Not those little miniature jobs. OK, rain was forecast, but it was nearly not forthcoming. I had the porch light on, too. Nobody came. Pity for them.

      Hell, when I was a kid I remember one year when it snowed – a wet snow – and this was when bags were only made of paper. Being half-pints, our bags dragged the ground and started to fall apart. But we soldiered on! Not these wimps!

      I despair for the future.

      1. ….and you had to walk up hill both ways and it was so cold, you had to fashion a costume that fit over a snow suit. 🙂

    3. That’s what I said too, “Bah! Humbug!” 😀

      And, say what, Ben? You make your own noodles?! There needs to be an atheist convention at your place!

      1. Oh, noodles are trivial.

        Dump 100 g of flour per person into a bowl. At least half of the flour should be semolina (buy in bulk cheaply from Whole Paycheck); the other half can be almost anything. I mostly use whole wheat, which is a bit heretical, I’ll admit; all porpoise would be more traditional. Make a well in the flour and crack one egg per person into the well. Whisk the egg with a fork. The whisking will gradually pull the flour in, but concentrate on whisking just egg and not on mixing the egg into the flour. Eventually, enough of the flour will have been incorporated that you’re just pushing a lumpy mess around the bowl. Dump this mess onto the countertop and knead it with your hands. When you’ve got a soft ball of dough that’s about as tacky as a post-it note, you’re done. You might (but probably won’t) need to add either a bit of flour or water to get the right consistency. The whole process should take about five minutes. Tightly wrap the dough in plastic wrap and let it sit for at least fifteen minutes (but you could let it rest for hours so long as it’s tightly wrapped).

        When you’re ready to finish, just feed the dough through your pasta machine. (They aren’t expensive, last a lifetime or more, and pay for themselves very rapidly. Don’t bother with electric motors; the hand crank is itself overkill.) Start with the widest setting. After the dough goes through, fold it in thirds and feed it through at the same setting again. Repeat a few times, and then start closing down the rollers one setting at a time, feeding the dough twice through each setting (and without folding it), until you get to your desired thickness (probably in the range of 3 – 4, with 1 being the wide starting point). Then, feed it through the cutters. This whole process shouldn’t take more than a couple minutes.

        You could dry the cut pasta at this point, but, if you’re making fresh noodles, they might as well go straight from the machine into the pot. Have the water already boiling when you start putting the dough through the machine. Add a glug or two of olive oil to the boiling water, and maybe a generous pinch of salt. Dump the pasta into the pot and stir at least until you’re sure the noodles aren’t going to stick to each other or the pot. Once the pot returns to a boil (about a minute or so), cook the noodles for about another three minutes. Drain the noodles and toss with butter. (No need to melt the butter; the latent heat from the noodles will do that.) You can serve the noodles like that, with just some fresh-shaved Parmesano Reggiano.

        For Fettucine Alfredo, after the butter has melted into the noodles, add a generous splash of heavy cream and a sprinkling of nutmeg to the pot and toss with the noodles over medium heat until the noodles have absorbed most of the cream and what’s left is thickened. Remove from the heat and stir in a generous handful of grated Reggiano. As soon as the cheese is melted, stop stirring or else it’ll get stringy.

        There should be about ten minutes of your attention devoted to making noodles, and you can go from raw ingredients to the dinner table in a half an hour — about as fast as a pizza delivery. While you’re not making the noodles, you’ve got plenty of time to chop up a salad, cook up some sausage, and / or whatever.

        Oh — and the pasta machine is ideal for lasagne, too. Just don’t feed the pasta through the cutter. Layer sauce, ricotta (or cottage) and mozzarella (ideally fresh, but whatever) cheeses, and sheets of noodles in your baking dish, with sauce on the bottom and top, with a generous sprinkling of Reggiano on top of the sauce. Bake at 375° for about 45 minutes.

        …and sauce is easy to make, though it has to simmer for a while so it’s not something to make if you’re in a rush. Cook some mirepoix (2:1:1 chopped onions:carrots:celery, and the chopping takes no more than a minute) with some ground meat (half ground beef and half Italian sausage is a good mix) in some olive oil over medium heat with some salt and pepper until the vegetables are tender and the meat is starting to brown. Lower the heat and splash some wine in the pot. Peel some Roma tomatoes (cut an “X” in the stem end and dump in boiling water for exactly one minute to make peeling them easy) and roughly dice them and dump them into the pot. Add whatever herbs and / or spices you’d like (oregano and garlic are almost mandatory, fennel is a good idea, anything in the mint family such as thyme will work, and hot peppers and cinnamon are worth considering). I usually also add a splash of balsamic vinegar and, if I’ve got any, stock. Simmer as gently as possible for as long as is practical, or at least until it’s as thick as you want. Stir occasionally, but not obsessively.

        Enjoy!

        b&

          1. Actually, if the kids can be trusted with a fork, all the more reason to make pasta — let them do all the work. It really is as simple as whisking an egg per person into 100 g of flour and then mashing the dough with your hands for a minute. And I guarantee you they’ll get a kick out of running it through the machine. No reason to use boxed pasta; the extra time it takes to boil the dry stuff is about the same amount of time as it takes to make fresh.

            Plan the first couple times for weekends when you can spend the time to supervise them and get the giggles and flour fights and the like out of the way. After that, it should be the sort of thing you can do in a time-crunch emergency.

            Cheers,

            b&

        2. Thanks, Ben! I think I’ll try your recipe when I retire. My life is too crazy right now, so sadly I have to stick with the cellophane-wrapped stuffz. :/

          2. Oh, I hope not — or, contrawise, that you’re not far from retirement!

            It really is about five minutes from ingredients on the countertop to a ball of dough, and it takes less time to turn a ball of dough into a plate of cooked noodles than it does to cook boxed noodles.

            And boxed noodles just can’t compare with fresh….

            Cheers,

            b&

  8. When I was a kid we planned our routes. No rich neighborhoods where I lived, but almost everybody gave “whole” bars because there were no “fun size” bars back then.

    My annual haul was about 15 lbs. My favorites were the banned things like popcorn balls and candy apples, reportedly filled with razor blades, but we never found any.

    Some of my Halloween candy would last until March when Easter kicked in and I got a refill.

    Now, I only give out the good stuff that I like. Butterfinger, Snickers, Heath and some hard candy for the nut allergy kids.

    I type this dressed as Emperor Palpatine and if I had his power you all would pay. Yes, you would.

  9. Jerry,
    Halloween has always been one of my favorites. I always went trick or treating as a child and always made costumes for my kids and took them trick or treating. It had fallen out of favor and some years it was difficult to find many participants either tricking or treating because of all the news reports of tampering,etc. I was the second of my numerous siblings to have children (Once we started, though, the whole family were like bunnies; we had a new kid every nine months) Like me, my family refused to give up on Halloween. Then one sister bought a lovely big house in an upscale but well established neighborhood where every house celebrated, so she had a get together every year where all the kids could go TRT and all the adults celebrated Oktoberfest. It was all the more ironic because my sister bought the house either next door or across the street from where the infamous (Houston) Halloween killer poisoned his two sons with cyanide-lased pixie sticks. The whole neighborhood seemed determined not to let his atrocious actions kill Halloween for all of us. I even give out pixie sticks every year.

    But the whole point of this post was to tell you that the whole generation, or half generation have apparently determined to make up for their lost holidays. About 30% of our TRTs are adults. So grab your mask and bag and go for it!

  10. ok, that middle “hooman” pumpkin looks just like Ted Nugent . . . which is scary in itself.

  13. Those marvelous pumpkin faces are from Villafane Studios.

    A simple Google search for ‘pumpkin faces’ was all it took to find the artists’ web site. Not sure what constitutes fair use under US Copyright law, but surely a link to their site is appropriate.

  15. These are amazing! Well, it’s wayyy late, but since I mentioned it in another post, would anyone mind if I posted a picture of Candy-Bot 3000 I made for my child? I don’t sew, but really wanted to make something different – it’s far from perfect, but everyone seemed tickled with it.
    [IMG]http://i41.tinypic.com/20sveky.jpg[/IMG]

      1. She’s just precious and the costume is cute. I used to always my kids costumes. (usually at the last minute) It was fun. I miss that.

        1. Aww thanks 🙂 I think people were pleased that there was effort involved, even if it wasn’t perfect. There were so many kids all in the same costume this year (ninjas) and of course the older kids who just throw on a wig or something. So when people opened the door and saw the blinking shiny candy-bot they were quite surprised it seems. They were taking pictures, several made their significant others get off the couch to come look lol. Logan was really happy with it too, even though it wasn’t the most comfortable thing to wear. I wish I could sew – would open a lot more options. How old are your kids?

          1. My kids all have kids. But all my grandkids are the perfect age. In fact Halloween is the oldest’s birthday; he’s 13 (which I can’t understand since I’m only 17!) Sadly, times have changed; everybody wants a ‘store bought’ costume. Which is even sadder since I have a chest of them in storage. But they’d be embarrassed to be seen in anything ‘home made’. The last one I made was for my younger daughter and I finished just as my older daughter decided to go into labor 3 weeks early (both of them lived with me.) Yeah, that ratty old home-made historically correct 16th century rag (she was Countess Elizabeth Bathory) only took 15 yards of black velvet and 10 yards of purple satin. And a whole lot of time.

          3. Oh my goodness- I insist on a photo of that “16th century rag”. That sounds incredible. I’m sure I only have a year or two left where I have any influence whatsoever on his costume choice. Dad thinks he gets to pick next year (right). The store bought ones are just so generic and cheapy – I really must learn to sew. We ended up trick-or-treating on the same route as an 8 yr old and his mom and Logan just loves to be around older boys so of course he latches on to the kid – well the older boy was a ninja (surprise!) and was not in the least bit pleased that as he was trying to slink into the shadows there was a flashing, shiny, noisy, stumbling pre-schooler robot utterly blowing his ninja-cover. The kid wouldn’t even speak to us lol.

          4. I would love to show you the dress, but I have no idea what my daughter did with it. She wasn’t over fond of it; the style of the day had a ‘high waist line’ which stopped close to the neckline, right about in the middle of the breasts, not underneath them as an empire waist line does (and what she had expected.) I wore it to a party once, but in the intervening thirteen years, it has wandered off somewhere.

            And keep making Logan’s costumes as long as he will let you (they don’t need to be sewn, just be imaginative.) It’s sorta sadly funny, my kids don’t want me to make their kids’ costumes, but this mother’s day they made a ‘memory book’ thing and and all of them listed the Halloween costumes as part of their best memories.

        2. And I guess he very much looks like a girl lol…it’s a spectacularly girly robot now that I’m looking at it through different eyes. He is so going to hate me over this when he’s a teen lmao.

          1. It’s always good to have something like that ready to threaten them with when they’re teens. Keeps ’em in line. And if it makes any difference, one of my granddaughter’s school friends is named Logan, and she’s a girl.

          2. Absolutely! I have plenty of nekkid baby butt pictures for that purpose. Logan is a cool name for a girl! I haven’t heard that one out here in CA. We are inundated with Aidans and Sophias – both beautiful names but so over used around here.

          3. It’s funny how baby-naming trends go around and around. I named my first daughter Rachel; her father wanted to name her Jennifer, but I said it was too common. She never had less than three kids in her school classes named Rachel. My name (Lisa, obviously) was so unusual that I never met anyone with my name. Until I was a little over 30, when it became the most common girl’s name in the US. For years every time I went to the grocery store I heard a very impatient voice yell “Lisa, put that down and get over here.” It took me a while to stop putting whatever down and looking around to see who was talking to me. My husband and our son are named Jake, which was unusual enough that most of his mail came addressed to ‘Jack’. You know how popular it is now. So we named named our youngest daughter Eleanor. She has never known anyone one with her name. Until now; Eleanore is in the top 5 names this year. Go figure.

      2. Good job Jeanine! When I was a kid, my mother found that Halloween was a foreign concept to her but sometimes she made costumes for me.

  16. The big cats and pumpkins video is from one my favorite organizations, Big Cat Rescue of Tampa, FL. They are a voice for big cats kept in captivity.

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