Hollerween

Well, first of all I hate Halloween. I think it really sunk in a couple years ago with a 5th grader that I was tutoring. She told me how excited she was for all of the Halloween decorations they were going to put up and their nasty scary outfits and I was pretty much disgusted that a young person could get so excited about dead people and gory nasty masks, etc. Dressing up isn't bad in and of itself, carving pumpkins is not bad (although I've never done it), and candy is definitely not bad... but the evil that our society puts into all of these things is awful. And the extra spiders everywhere don't do it for me either.

I had a good Halloween last year, though. Turtle and Mr. Man came down to LA and surprised me at Dr. Plew's "Reformation Party." It was funny because I'm not a big party person, and I was working that night at Banana Republic, and I told Mr. Man earlier that week that I didn't really want to go. He told me that if he found someone to hang out with that night then I should go to the party instead of sitting at home alone after work, and I agreed. So he told me the day of the party that he was going to go hang with some friends, so after work I reluctantly went to the party. I walked in, meandered through the people and was talking to some people in the back yard when I heard someone (who sounded remarkably like my then boyfriend) said "Hello there" (quote from Hot Fuzz, I don't recommend the movie). I thought to myself, "what the heck, who at this party sounds so much like my boyfriend, I must be really really tired." I turned around to see two guys dressed in hazmat suits with hoods, glasses, and even booties, and I had no idea who they were. I saw the shorter, stockier man and thought, "man, AND this guy looks like Turtle, I am seriously going nuts." And as everyone stood there for what seemed like forever in awkward silence, the realization very slowly (and I mean very slowly) dawned on me. By the time I came to grips with the fact that the love of my life was standing in front of me, I was too embarrassed and with-it to scream or jump up and down or anything, and my urge to rush and hug him was checked by the fact that he was in a hazmat suit that covered basically his whole face and head, and it was a little strange. So the first thing out of my mouth (after at least a minute) was, "Um, do you think you could take that off?" HAHA.

THIS Halloween, however, was also very momentous. I packed up all of my earthly belongings and moved into our little place in Penn Valley, where I will be living alone for the two months until we get married. Our little place has a lot of... character. and flies. There's cows across the street, and down the road is a large park with disc golf and all other park-like things, and further down the road is little quaint Penn Valley, with a laundromat and a market, and a couple other things I haven't explored yet. I s'pose you could call the town "hokey" if you wanted... but I already love it. Our little 600 sq. ft. place is surprisingly roomy with all the stuff in it, and I have a kitchen of my own. Some of the quirky things I have found so far during my two days of residence: the shower leaks onto the carpeted floor, and the shower head has to be pointed sideways or it goes over the top of the shower door; the only place in the house that you can go without being seen by a window is in the toilet "closet" that is covered only by a window shutter; you can hear the fridge noise while laying in bed; and the 20+ flies that moved in with me like to congregate on the ceiling fan and when you turn it on you feel like barfing. But I still love it. It is mine and it is Mr. Man's and we will be SO happy. I will try to post pictures soon-ish.

As far as the dressing up part of Halloween goes this year, we went to a costume game night at Jason and Christin's (future brother-in-law and wife) on Friday night. Corey dressed as a convict complete with tattoos and I dressed as his lawyer, using some of those clothes I don't wear anymore because I can wear jeans to work! It was fun, we ended up watching an older movie called Oscar (I do recommend this movie). Kaden (future nephew) is "one and a smidge" as Christin likes to say and he had a little monkey suit, and he was the highlight and star of the party. Turns out he likes his Auntie Crystal pretty well and that makes me dern happy.