everyone hail to the pumpkin king

HAPPY HALLOWEEN



I am so in love with Halloween, even though I had the flu the entire time and was denied my parties and Rocky Horror Picture Show.

But you know what? Today was still a really, really GREAT Halloween. Here are some reasons why.

1) It was a beautiful, sunny day that made the fiery colors of the trees stand out gloriously against the sky. I didn't go outside all day, but you know. Still pretty.

2) We actually got trick or treaters at our house! Usually they don't venture up here because we don't have a sidewalk on our side of the street, it's up a really steep hill, and there are no streetlights in our front yard. Nope, this year we got some brave children (all boys). I got to answer the door in my toucan costume (well, half of it) and give them skittles and then wish them a Happy Halloween. That lifted my heart a lot.

3)

When this little girl's mom asked her what she wanted to be for Halloween, she said "Batman Princess". WHY DIDN'T I THINK OF THAT??? God she's so fucking cool.

4) Speaking of Batman, I found out that Anne Hathaway (who plays Catwoman in the next Batman film) is not forsaking the cat ears of her Catwoman ancestors. When her goggles are up on her head they make cat ears. OH THANK GOD (because for awhile there were only pictures of her with the goggles on and it was really freaking people out because it looked like she wasn't going to have cat ears, which is bullshit).

5) Lisa said we could have a Guy Fawkes party this weekend where we eat cucumber sandwiches and drink tea and she said I could wear my toucan costume since I didn't get to wear it out at all. Also Alice and Mia said they'd wear their costumes with me when they come home for Christmas Break. AW YEAH, CAN SOMEONE SAY NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS PARTY??? (see next item)

6) I got to watch one of my favorite movies of all time, The Nightmare Before Christmas. Watching that movie was seriously the thing that made it all better, the thing that made all bitterness, disappointment, and resentment for this flu melt away and all that was left was bubbly, little girl excitement and happiness. I curled up on the couch with my cookie dough, Jack and Zero, and blanket and started screaming with happiness the second the narrator started to talk. SUCH LOVE. SUCH LOVE I HAVE FOR THAT FUCKING MOVIE AND FRANCHISE.







It has always been, and always will be, my favorite "romantic" movie (and favorite in general) and the scene at the end makes me cry. Every. Time. If someone ever sang that to me, I would die.

p.s. I just saw that there was a soundtrack of covers released in 2008 (which I apparently missed, what the hell was I doing LIVING LIFE OR SOMETHING?) called Nightmare Revisited and I NEED IT YOU GUYS. I NEED IT. I have the other soundtrack with the actual songs and demos and a few covers, and I don't care that Korn redoes Kidnap the Sandy Claws, I just NEED IT.

7) I just saw this on tumblr



AMAZING.

So basically Nightmare Before Christmas rocked my world and made everything awesome again and I'm going to listen to the soundtrack before I go to bed and have love-filled dreams of Oogie Boogies and Zeros and Locks, Shocks, and Barrels.

Just one more image that I thought was super cute



AWWW HE JUST WANTED SOMEONE TO HOLD HIIIIM

HAPPY HALLOWEEN AND GOODNIGHT

day seven of HALLOWEEK

Well guys. It's the end of Halloweek and the real Halloween is tomorrow. This party weekend has, unfortunately, been a huge and bitter bust and disappointment due to my illness. I feel a little better, but am still feeling pretty gross. If I move at all, like go up and down the stairs, I need to recover for an hour due to fatigue by laying listlessly on the couch or floor.

Today basically the only things I did were:
a) draw Nightmare Before Christmas characters
b) watch my brother play and finish Arkham City (the ending of which both made me horrendously sad and sort of disappointed me, though he hasn't finished with the Catwoman bit)
c) watch more Simpsons and Treehouse of Horrors
d) stew in my own bitterness and felt irritated when I saw people's pictures from Halloween all over Facebook
e) sort of watched Casablanca with my family and then wandered away to debate whether or not I should start homework tonight. It ultimately ended with a "hell no".

The original plan for tonight was to go to Rocky Horror Picture Show, which is put on live at a theater called The Tower every year around Halloween.



I could still possibly go tomorrow night (if I'm feeling even better...er), but all sources point to no considering my huge paper due Tuesday plus the other homework I've failed to do over the weekend due to anticipation for Halloweeny activities and then depression. SOOO tomorrow is going to be a very homeworky day. Plus my annual Nightmare Before Christmas re-watch <3

My hair is turning into one giant dreadlock.

Also I think I'm going to fake celebrate Halloween FOR REALS this next weekend where I force people to pretend it's still Halloween and we'll party and I'll wear my costume and THEN it will be complete. And I can start looking forward to the other holidays.

day six of HALLOWEEK

Today was very disappointing because I came down with the flu. It all started last night when I started feeling terrible. I had body aches, chills, what I like to call "crawly skin", and light-headedness. So basically I spent the entire night in front of the TV, shivering in front of my portable heater in my jack 'o lantern jim jams and eating Halloween cookie-dough cutouts. My aunt and I both watched Scream and then Scooby Doo and the Ghoul School.





I liked Scream, it's the perfect serial killer movie. That sounds weird, but I loved that it was a parody of OTHER serial killer movies in that Ghostface calls the characters he's about to kill and tells them to not act like stupid bitches. And then they act like stupid bitches. Also when he quizzes Drew Barrymore about horror movies and she gets the Friday the 13th question wrong I was freaking out, SCREAMING at the TV screen, "IT'S HIS MOM, NOT JASON! IEGWEIOWVEPI!" Scooby Doo and the Ghoul School is a movie from my childhood, which is the only reason I watch it. That and it's hilarious. I have supreme nostalgia remembering our trips to the movie sections that used to inhabit Smiths and Albertsons with their plastic-cased VHS tapes and supplies of Fun Dip. One fateful Friday I chose Scooby Doo and the Ghoul School as my movie to watch that night. Last year I saw it on Netflix and decided to put it in my queue for Halloween, which is when I realized that it was terrible. But in an amazing way. There are SEVERAL puns in there, including many from the vampire character who says "fangtastic" or "you bat!" (you bet) at every possible opportunity. Basically, everyone should watch it.

I went to bed early and then woke up feeling slightly better, though still sort of iffy. Today would have been a busy/fun day, if it weren't for my flu :( Plans devolved from going to the Utah vs. Oregon State blackout football game to just going to the tailgate to visit Lisa, drink, and eat free Red Robin, to sitting in my jim jams watching my brother play Arkham City all day. As the sun set, I realized that I was beginning to feel worse again and couldn't even stand upright due to lightheadedness. So I could not attend the awesome parties I was invited to :( I was so upset. I took a shower and wore my costume around the house for two hours anyways, just because when else am I going to wear it? Plus my parents felt so bad that I was basically just drooped over the couch all done up in my toucan costume that they bought me Hire's (delicious local burger place) for dinner.

Some good things that happened...I guess:



I painted my nails in preparation for tonight. So at least they look nice, even though now I am just sitting on my couch watching Treehouse of Horror.







I drew my renditions of the girls from Scooby Doo and the Ghoul School and then was too lazy to scan them in, so here are backwards, weird photobooth pictures of me holding them up. Photobooth was used actively this day.



We won against Oregon State! Even though I didn't end up going, this was definitely good news.

Finally at about seven I decided, OKAY TIME TO GO! So I got up and took a shower and then actually put on my costume, which is when I started feeling dizzy. And decided I might not be in any shape to drive or drink or be around people at all. I even started trying to put makeup on and then ultimately gave up. This was when I wore my costume around for two hours and then changed back into pajamas and started watching Treehouse of Horror in front of my heater.

I'm trying to be positive, even if it doesn't seem like it since I've been bitching and moaning to anyone who will listen and have been silently weeping in my little corner of sadness.

Okay, maybe I haven't been positive at all. But at least I got to do a lot of Halloweeny activities before this flu truly struck and there are a lot of Halloweeny movies/shows to watch and books to read around this house, so not all is lost.

day five of HALLOWEEK

This is basically a day to catch up on the events that have taken place in the past few days and to rest before the next wave of Halloweeny activities. Especially since I'm getting sick.



Cake pops! It was my first time making them. I sort of failed at making them round in any capacity, but since it was my first time I now know how to make them better. First of all, make them rounder somehow.



Second, don't chill them on their little heads with the sticks already stuck in them.



Third, stick the sticks in them AFTER they are chilled with some CANDY MELT on the end to glue it on better, and be prepared immediately with MORE THAN ONE BAG of candy melts. I only had one and it definitely wasn't enough. My bad, my bad. We tried to make frosting instead...





...It didn't really work. I wanted to throw up a little looking at them drip. BLECH. This also brings me to the fourth thing I learned, HAVE STYROFOAM READY! We used a shoebox, which was sort of working but not really. Styrofoam would work way better.

Then came the decorating. We used these gross gel food dyes that (prepare yourself, it's really gross) looked like period blood. EW.











I stuck with cutesy foods for the most part, since (as I stated in a previous blog post) I cannot eat any sort of food even resembling gross Halloweeny things. The only thing I made sort of gross were the bloody eyeballs, and they were only accidentally super gross looking because of the dyes I used. Fortunately, they still tasted great. They stained everyone's teeth though. Bonus.



Reject pile of ones that didn't get glued well enough to their sticks and the ones with no candy melts, just frosting.





Pumpkin tarts. They turned out really delicious, I think I'll make these again for Thanksgiving. In fact, the next planned party will be a gathering to celebrate food and Guy Fawkes Night. So maybe I'll make them for that.



Mummy dogs



The cool fake labels we got for our wine





The pumpkins we carved a couple of nights ago



The layout of food and drink. Overall, I felt like I did good as a hostess. Not to pat myself on the back or anything, but damn I'm good.

Onto the pumpkin carving partay.



First of all, Patti is going as the Tardis, and SHE MADE THIS DRESS! From scratch! I was so impressed that I demanded she let me take a picture.















Raphael carved the light saber battle between Darth Vader and Luke and then put alternating green and red lights inside to emulate the battle. It turned out really cool, though it took me FOREVER to get a picture of the green. I have 9000 pictures of it on red, only two on green.



I carved a fire-breathing unicorn. No big deal.







Then we lit ALL the tea candles for some reason.







What a special toucan



VADER PUMPKIN! I helped Mark sketch this onto his pumpkin and then he carved it magnificently. I think it may have been my favorite.



At one point Raphael brought me this bag of pumpkin guts and just said, "Here, FEEL!" and dropped it onto my lap.





Flash not turned on, awww



Bloody teeth from the cake pops!



God awful pictures taken from the sidewalk of our pumpkins on the roof. But they looked nice in real life.



Today is a day for doing nothing. Well, that's a lie because I have to clean the house, dogs, and birds, but after that...nothing.