Little Jack

Boo!

Our son and his girlfriend (I have got to come up with a better way to reference her..."her" is so impersonal..."girlfriend" doesn't quite cover the 2 years they've been together and all the family time she's spent with us...I'll have to give this some thought...it has been buggin' me for a while) spent the evening carving jack o' lanterns...

Anyhoo...

The fascination of Halloween and all the customs that go along with it has always eluded me...

When I was a child, I recall being apprehensive about dressing up in funny clothes, marching up the walk to a stranger's door (these were different days...children were allowed to trick-or-treat at the homes of people without said people having completed a background check in triplicate), knocking on the door, holding out my plastic pumpkin and getting candy(these days it doesn't bother me quite as much...I'm joking...)...

I don't know if it was the free-no-strings-attached candy thing that threw me or even if at that age I worried too much about the reactions of other people...people I didn't know and quite probably would never seen again until October 31st rolled back around again...

Wasn't that a little early to be worrying about perceptions and such, you ask? Well, while I can be pretty sure I didn't know what the word perception was all about until a little bit further on...

I was a real Pudge as a child...my granma decided I was too skinny as a little one and decided to fatten me up...and she evidently did a bang-up job because I turned into a roly-poly little girl...and I was blind as a bat (I realize bats aren't truly blind), but no one knew until I was in the 5th grade...

So, I was *stout* (speaking of the word *stout*...who on earth decided it would be good to name a clothing store The Stout Shop?...what a trial...if nothing else in society has progressed, I'm glad little chubby girls don't have to shop at stores called that any longer...I hope), pretty much limited to seeing clearly what was within about 10 inches of my face, and shy...

Hmmm...no wonder Halloween was a trial...Blind Pudge stumbling around in the dark with vision-obscuring mask begging for more fatty foods...

and the whole Pumpkin Carving Thing...ewwww...it is southeastern Georgia...it can be 90*F on Halloween Day...and bugs love to mess with decomposing produce...ewwww...and cleaning out pumpkins before you carve them...man...that is just nasty...Pumpkin Guts...

But, DS & DGF seem to have heartily embraced Pumpkin Carving so I sat, smiled and enjoyed their enjoyment...although a few times when big clotty clumps of membrane came out, I did feel a little queasy...

Say what you will, when just plopping a few uncarved pumpkins out on the front stoop became de rigueur for au courant Front Porches...well, I was one happy camper...Pumpkin Carving seems to be back with a vengeance (I know...it never really went away...kind of like Big Hair and Big Shoulder pads) and that's okay because there is room for all sorts of Pumpkin Displaying...

Here is my contribution to the neighborhood fall decorating thing...



Okay, I just realized I did participate a little in last night's festivities...I drew the face on a little pumpkin and Mr G did the honors...Mr G looked so disappointed that he didn't have a pumpkin to carve that I sacrificed my cute little pumpkin I sat on the bookshelf to the cause of Pumpkin Mutilation...

This thing actually startled me when I opened the fridge last night...if only Little Jack's presence would keep me out of there (and the stuff in the bottom container to Jack's right is Mr G's leftover wonton soup...not a science project)...