Weird

We had a weird Halloween….but, I guess that’s sort of the point of this holiday, isn’t it?  The thing is that we really don’t get all into the scary weirdness.

Every year we do exactly the same thing:  Big D makes chicken wings on the grill.  I attempt to make caramel apples with the kids, and it always turns into some sticky, messy disaster.  I make apple cider in the crock pot.  We have our neighbors over.  Indiana Mimi spends the night.  Big D hands out treats.  The other neighbor mom, Indiana Mimi and I take the kids trick-or-treating down a couple of streets.  We come home.  I pillage the kids’ candy for all the peanut M&Ms.  We go to bed.

Not this year….

Big D was out  of town on business Thursday night, but he called that afternoon and mentioned that he wasn’t feeling well.  Then he called later that afternoon to tell me that he was running a fever, coughing and having chills.  He checked into his hotel and laid low for the evening.  The next morning wasn’t much better for him, so he went to a walk-in clinic.  He tested negative for the regular flu, but the test is only between 10-70% accurate (???), so he was told.  The swine flu test cost $300 and takes a week to process, and our insurance is no longer covering it anyway.  Since he had all the flu symptoms though, she told him to  treat it as such, and gave him a prescription for Tamaflu, told him to stay in bed, and drink lots of fluids.  He got in his car and started making the trip home.

So, on Saturday morning, the outlook of tasty, crispy chicken wings is not good.  I don’t think he’s going to (or should) hand out the treats either. (“Happy Halloween, Kids!  Here’s a Snickers and some flu germs….”)

Harrison had his annual Halloween Tae Kwon Do class, where he can wear his costume and compete in a contest.  So I get ready to take him there.   We decide that the TN Titan costume that he put together a couple of weeks ago is no longer cool since they hadn’t won a game yet this season, so we altar it a bit….

After this, we came home, checked on Big D, I put the Cap’n down for a nap and went to Kroger, which was crazy with people who were buying last minute candy.  Earlier that day, the neighbors that we usually trick-or-treat with and I decided to go up to Publix for a Halloween event they were having in the store since it might rain that night, and I was going to have to stay at home anyway to pass out non-germy candy.  I realized that when I was in the parking lot, putting my Kroger groceries away, that I was supposed to be in the Publix parking lot, which was on the other side of town, in fifteen minutes.  I made a frantic call to my neighbor and sped home.

I was in the middle of throwing costumes on the kids when Bonny Annie announced that she had decided not to be Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz after all.  She wanted to wear her Renaissance princess costume that she had for an upcoming Shakespeare production.  Oh, and she needs her hair in a bun.  With curly wisps. 

Harrison also decides to switch back to a Titan helmet instead of the paper bag.  Jack Henry, thankfully, has no opinion on what he is wearing.  At this point, I don’t really care as long as they are wearing something.

We arrive late….of course….to Publix.

We then proceeded to parade around the grocery store, from department to department, playing games for candy and other miscellaneous items.  We left with a bag of twelve pieces of candy, a mini pumpkin wearing a witch hat, a plastic glove filled with popcorn and a 2 liter of cherry cola.

My apologies to the Publix employee whom I photographed in such a manner.  I hope you don’t read this blog.

We came home, got Dirty Harry ready to sleep over at the neighbors, got Bonny Annie ready to sleep over at her friend’s, reheated some pork BBQ for some sandwiches, handed out treats to a grand total of five trick-or-treaters, and went to bed.

Weird.  Now bring on the REAL holidays…..!