2000-11-02 - 2:09pm

On the internal soundtrack: "I'll Be There For You", theme from "Friends".

I'm not getting around to writing my Halloween entry so I'll have to hurry up and do it while I can. My boss George kept me busy yesterday, and in general things are topsy turvy for a very sad reason.

Brent's mother died two nights ago. I can't believe it. I had thought she might hang on a while longer -- she's been so strong all through this thing. She said she was going to live to see her first grandchild. I can't imagine how devastating this must be for Brent.

The funeral is Friday morning at 10am. We were planning on going up for the weekend and staying through Monday; now we'll just push the schedule up day.

It's so sad. A month ago at the wedding I told everyone in Brents family I was looking forward to seeing them again. This isn't the situation I was imagining when I said that.

Last night I said to Poindexter, "I want a moratorium on funerals! I don't want anybody to die for at least the next year! I need a break!"

Ok. Halloween. In pieces:

I put the top down on the VW for the ride home and wore my Scream costume. No one seemed to notice.

I beat Poindexter home. I waited, in costume. When I heard the garage door open, I went to the third floor and waited for him to come up and wash his hair (gotta love those predictable habits). When he did, I jumped out at him. I scared him. :)

Around 5pm, I kept saying "Nobody's coming. I'm not going to get excited. There's no kids here."

Around 6:40, still no trick-or-treaters. I decided to go get the mail, in costume. I'm halfway down the stairs and a little girl in calico and a sunbonnet shows up. It's the one who rides her bike and scooter around the court.

She grins at me and stands there, waiting for her parents. I fly at her, arms in the air. She stands there grinning. Unflappable kid. I take off the mask, invite her upstairs for candy. I ask her, "What are you?" I'm expecting Laura Ingalls. She says, "A colonist". That cracks Poindexter up, who says, "A colonist! Give her more candy!" So we did.

Then we got five doorbells rings in a row, and kept busy for the next hour. I was ecstatic. As long as the kids looked old enough to handle it, I'd throw open the door and jump into the doorframe in my costume.

An eight-year-old informed me haughtily, "You didn't scare me."

A ten-year-old shows up in a skull mask. I throw open the door. Pause. Simultaneously we both let out fake girly screams. We laugh and I give him candy.

About 45 minutes later, said Skull Kid is coming up the stairs again, dragging a younger (maybe six) Zorro with him. You can see he wants the kid to have the Scream experience. I do my thing. Zorro nearly jumps out of his skin. It was very funny. He was only startled, and recovered quickly.

For kids younger than 6, I use my big ugly warty hand (about 3 times the size of my own). I open the door a crack, slip the hand in, and open the door while hiding behind it. Then I stick my (real) head out. I misjudged one little girl, and she shrieked and huddled closer to her mother. I took off the hand and held it out, telling her it was pretend. I don't think she bought it.

Eeyore shows up, with her dad, wearing rabbit ears and carrying a carrot. Eeyore is appropriately shy. As they go down the stairs:

Dad: Are you tired? Want to go home?

Eeyore: NO!

I love Halloween. I just realized that it has become my favorite holiday. Christmas and Thanksgiving are too stressful, being married to Poindexter means every day is Valentine's Day, and Easter is a badly scheduled (Sunday?!) holiday. Halloween is the best. A lot of payoff for very little effort.

I had a list of musings I was going to talk about, some of which were fairly "deep". Unfortunately, the only one I can remember is a shallow one, about Jennifer Love Hewitt.

She was on TV the other night, in "I Know What Your Breasts Did Last Summer". I only saw a few minutes of it. That was enough.

I can't figure out what it is about her that irks me so much. There are plenty of young people in the movies these days who can't act, so that's not it. There are several minor things, and I guess they add up:

1. The blinking. She blinks too much, and too hard. Sometimes when she's emoting, she kind of looks taken aback and blinks very rapidly. Is this acting?

2. The breasts. Puhleeze. They're very nice breasts, I guess, but I don't like the softballs-on-a-stick look she has. Everything else on her is thin and bony (don't get me started on her chin and shoulders) and the breasts are, like, "SPROING!". Has she had any help? Is she naturally thin or is she starving herself like the rest of them?

3. The cutesiness. Every move she makes looks calculated to say "Look at me! Aren't I adorable?!" She cocks her head, smiles too brilliantly, has a lot of cutesy little-girl mannerisms...

While I'm being overly critical of TV stars, let me mention Alyssa Milano. She used to have kind of a gummy smile (too much gum showing above her top teeth). If you look at her in those phone commercials, she doesn't show her teeth anymore when she smiles. Poindexter noticed it. She also manages to speak without using her upper lip. It looks weird. Did she get all self-conscious about it?

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