A room full of dragons and superheroes...

This morning, as I walked out the door and down to my car, a grim reaper whizzed by in a golf cart. I immediately thought, hmm... I hope this is not some sort of foreshadowing of my day.

Turns out, it was just the crazy apartment maintenance guy in his Halloween attire. Nice.

I like to think of my encounter with the "reaper" as a warm up for the rest of the day. When I got to work I was barraged with people in costume. I ran into Barbie and a black cat (more possible foreshadowing?) in the parking lot. When I stepped out of the elevator and onto the second floor I immediately saw a devil, a fairy, and Spiderman. It was all very surreal. In having to take a few things up to the third floor I ran into a ghost, Snow White, the doppelgänger of the grim reaper from earlier, several witches, and Skipper from Gilligan's Island. Mind you this was all before 9 a.m. I could have done without the second grim reaper of the morning. But, I figured that with Snow White and the grim reaper in the same room...maybe the good would outweigh the evil...or they would at least cancel each other out, right?

I have never been a big fan of Halloween. I suppose I am my mother's daughter and she passed on her loathing of the holiday to me. I mean, sure...I enjoy seeing kids dressed up. They're so happy shoving various chocolate creations into their hollowed out plastic jack-o-lanterns. I remember getting dressed up several times as a child. I had a ladybug costume I was quite fond of. There was also a pumpkin costume that I was in love with. I remember putting it on at random times throughout the year just because I thought it was awesome. It had this little hat that looked like the top of the pumpkin and it had this tiny stem and white elastic chin strap. Looking back, it was in fact awesome. I would wear it right now if I still had it. I think I might have also been a witch at one time...maybe. And I was a hobo (I'm sure there is a more politically correct way to say that) once or twice. There were always church carnivals with bean bag games and plastic sacks we would fill up with delicious snacks. And I know I like these very specific Halloween cookies that are orange and shaped like pumpkins. They have no sort of decoration at all. They are not glamorous. In fact, they are made by grocery store bakeries. I don't even recall them being that flavorful, but I love them. And to me, that's Halloween.

Growing up in a Halloween-hating house...and in a genius move by my parents...my brothers and I actually got excited about playing a little game I like to remember as turn-off-all-of-the-lights-both-inside-and-outside-the-house-
and-ignore-the-doorbell-as-children-approach-reciting-trick-or-treat. What a fantastic pastime! I can remember my brother and I peaking out from behind the curtains in the living room thinking we were pulling something over on the poor kids outside. "No candy for you...suckers! Yeah, that's right. Just walk away. Hahaha!" Never...not once did we stop and think, wait. Wait just a minute. We're sitting at home in the dark...in our pajamas. It's 8 o'clock. Those kids are outside getting candy. We're stuck in our living room huddled around a pizza watching Uncle Buck and we think the joke is on them?! Oh, come on. But yeah, we never thought it. Maybe we were just slow on the uptake, but I remember being perfectly content and thinking the kids outside posing as Batman or Cinderella were dumb. Were we jaded or is it just a McFarland thing? A tradition of some sort? Who knows.

So today, I kept a running tally of all of the costumes I saw. I mean, why not have my own fun with this holiday?! So, when I made mental notes, I played a little game. Have any of you ever been asked: If you could invite 3 people, dead or alive, to dinner, who would you invite? Well, I thought about each of these costumes/characters (not necessarily the people in them, but rather what they were portraying) being invited to my fantasy dinner party, and the possibilities are both delightful and endless. I will list them below. Read them and let your imagination run wild. Thoughts of my dinner party and the chosen hors d’oeuvres and cocktails got me through the last hour of work today. I think it would be the best dinner party ever and, of course, I would request that the dinner party be held on Halloween, because maybe if I had something super awesome happen on this day my thoughts about the festivities would change radically.

1. Grim Reaper
2. Black Cat
3. Barbie
4. Devil
5. Fairy
6. Spiderman
7. Ghost
8. Snow White
9. Skipper
10. Witch
11. Batman
12. Superman
13. Harry Potter
14. Supergirl
15. Clark Kent
16. Dragon
17. T-Rex
18. Bob the Builder
19. Minnie Mouse
20. Wizard
21. Unicorn
22. Stitch (from Lilo and Stitch)
23. Woody (from Toy Story)
24. Dorothy (from The Wizard of Oz)
25. Princesss
26. Cowboy
27. Indian
28. Monkey
29. Tooth Fairy
30. Little Red Riding Hood
31. Pirate
32. Dog
33. Gypsy
34. Tony Romo
35. Giant Lego

Imagine them all around a large dining room table. Maybe they have silver goblets and bibs. Maybe they are passing side dishes from person to person while the unicorn refills their beverages. Maybe the T-Rex starts a food fight. As I said...possibilities. Endless.