I wasn't able to write anything yesterday for day 2 of Halloweek because it was SO BUSY. The school group we just had here...all I'm going to say is PHEW. It was a whirlwind of teaching Energy Mix again (though in a different classroom this time and by myself) and then hurriedly cleaning up so we could head to Jeff's house to discuss the new curriculum for an evening program that Megan and I are teaching ON HALLOWEEN! Earlier this week, Jeff asked for volunteers to teach the new program on Halloween. I had an outer body experience where I saw myself raising my hand while my subconscious though, "Uhhh, you totally have the day off and need to create havoc on Halloween night, what are you doing?" I worked it out in my brain and heart though, I have the day before Halloween off, when we're having our Halloween party, and then I have the day AFTER Halloween off, so I can party hardy on Halloween night after the program (which we get to wear our costumes to!!!) and then sleep in and recover the next day, as well as mourn the passing of Halloween. Anyways, we indulged in chocolate milk that was decorated with jack-o-lanterns, haunted houses, and bats and also ate tons of strawberry crepes while we talked about rabbits, bull snakes, and red tailed hawks. We also ran around the house screaming with Jeff's four-year-old daughter, Kaitlyn, and at one point she came up to me and said in a deadly serious voice, "Get up and run", complete with a sassy head weave. HILARIOUS. Then I spent the rest of the night listening to my Halloween playlist and learning how to draw wolves. Efficient use of time, if I do say so myself.
Today was exhausting, but then SO GOOD. This morning was a difficult class of (guess what) ENERGY MIX! After Energy Mix though, I learned how to handle our Great Horned Owl!!! He is so beautiful, it was amazing to have him on glove! He hooted angrily at me once I got him on glove, which isn't good because it means he's mad, but it was amazing to see his white throat pouch bulge with each hoot, like a bullfrog. In fact, I called it "bullfrogging", which I feel should be used as a verb now. We had a debrief meeting, project time, dinner, and then Anna and I went to the barn to train our owls. This is when I witnessed one of the most amazing things I'd ever seen (besides watching Athena cough up a pellet, which was decidedly un-magical). I trained with Cica and gave her half her mouse, then left for about ten minutes to allow her time to eat before I came back in for more training. At this point, I saw that she still hadn't eaten her mouse and she was footing it in preparation for ripping it up. I stood back in the corner, which is something I sometimes do to build her trust in me. She eyed me for a second before deciding that she was cool with me being there. Instead of ripping her mouse into bite-sized portions and eating them that way, she decided to eat THE WHOLE HALF OF THE MOUSE. That is a lot of meat for a little bird like Cica to swallow in one bite, which was what she was determined to do. I watched in silent amazement for a couple of seconds while she tilted her head back vigorously, attempting to swallow with every fiber of her being. Then, she looked at me. She looked like this.
I could not stop laughing. The mouse had stretched her tiny little mouth to resemble a Joker smile smeared across her face, it was so huge. She couldn't get it down her throat, no matter how hard she tried, squeezing her eyes shut each time she attempted to swallow. She would then stop to take a breather, making somewhat alarming tiny smoker wheezes as she tried to breathe with half a mouse in her mouth. She would stare at me, and then try to swallow again. After a couple of tries of this, I wondered if I should actually be worried because I would feel terrible if my bird choked in front of me and I was laughing while it happened. Luckily, she got it down eventually. Oh man Cica, you cute 'lil bean. After training, we went on an expedition for ADULT WATER. Adult water is our terminology for booze (I'll post aout the story at some point). We got home, I heated myself up one of the carmel apples that Jmack brought home with her from her brother's wedding, got myself a beer, and settled down on the couch with my treats to watch HOCUS POCUS.
I. LOVE. HOCUS. POCUS. In fact, we've already watched it once, probably about a week ago. But we watched it again tonight for those who missed it (and Anna had never seen it before), and it was still phenomenal.
Come little children, I'll take thee away...
The other movie I try to watch during Halloweek is Halloweentown, a Disney Channel Original Movie that was made in the 90s that I LOVE. I'm not sure if I'll get to that this year, but I know FOR CERTAIN that Nightmare Before Christmas is most DEFINITELY going down on Halloween night, as per usual. There is no question about it.
After Hocus Pocus, Leeann and I had a TON of energy. We decided to expend such energy by frolicking in the woods. AT NIGHT.
I used to love going into the woods at night; it was how I got my "rush". Alice and I would drive up the canyons, choose a trail, and hike it in the pitch darkness. Sometimes we would use a light, sometimes not. Our favorite place to go was her cabin, up Millcreek Canyon, where we would hike up to the abandoned mine and take ridiculous pictures of us along the way. Don't get me wrong, I was TERRIFIED when we went on these nighttime adventures, but that was also part of the fun. I'm still scared of the dark (as mentioned before), but I want to try and change that. So Leeann and I went for a frolic that reminded me of my high school deviant days. Also there was something different about the night that made me feel at peace with the darkness. One reason was because it wasn't exactly dark, the moon was nearly full and as such was swollen and milky. It shone through cracks in the cloud cover and illuminated the entire, skeletal forest. We first decided to go down to the beach, since we both realized we hadn't been for a couple of weeks. We walked down to the shoreline, preparing to see a spectacular view of the moonlight beams on the glossy water, and instead got a flock of startled geese that awoke with a start and took off into the water, squawking vehemently. I almost had a heart attack. Imagine a still, silent night suddenly interrupted by cacophonous goose cries and then imagine me shrieking, which in turn caused Leeann to jump. It was like a chain reaction of TERROR. After we recovered from the incident, though, it was absolutely gorgeous. We walked the shoreline trail, exhibiting our best frolicking moves and talking about our lives. I need to remind myself of that when I'm out at night. As much as my imagination likes to convince me otherwise, the woods are a safe place. We hiked to the other dock and watched a bonfire across the lake from its flickering orange reflection in the water. An hour later, we decided to head home and call it a night. It was a good spin-off of Raphael's and mine Halloween constitutional we implemented two years ago, though this time in the woods and without costumes. SOON.
I drew some Halloween doodles on my tablet while watching Whose Line is it Anyway. I have more doodles in my notebook that I'll also post either tomorrow or Sunday.
As an ending to this post, I'm going to lay out some random personal Halloween trivia:
- I used to have a blog back in jr. high and the beginning of high school that was semi-Halloween themed, since I was so obsessed with it. The colors were black, lime green, purple, and orange (lime green and purple being my favorite colors), and it was mainly centered around bats as a theme. The description was particularly cheesy, but I actually really like the writing: "FLUTTER THROUGH THE MOONLIT AUTUMN SKIES WITH YOUR AMBER-EYED BRETHREN, TOPAZ SHADOWS FLITTING O'ER ENDLESS FIELDS OF PUMPKINS...". Also I claimed that it was Halloween all the time. Which it is in my life.
Also this was my profile picture
I WAS COOL
-Even as a child, I was obsessed with Halloween. My mom worked her ass off making me the ridiculous, over the top costumes I requested each year. I distinctly remember her asking me if a certain component of a costume would work, where I would, 90% of the time, reply with, "No". Which I'm sure was incredibly obnoxious. So SORRY MOM, I LOVE YOU SO MUCH! I'll be sure to tell her in real life too, don't worry. I had the best costumes each year because of her tireless efforts at making my dreams a reality.
-My mom always got my brother and I little gifts at Halloween as well, which was awesome. We still get gifts sometimes, which makes me so so happy!!! Halloween was a BIG DEAL at our house. We decorated the house like Halloween, got Halloween gifts, put out the Halloween books I'm still in love with to this day, and always always ALWAYS carved pumpkins and went trick-or-treating. In fact, I threw a huge fit a couple of years ago when my parents tentatively suggested that we not carve pumpkins that year. So we continued with the tradition, even if I was the one that initiated it aka forced everyone to do it. We weren't the house that created a spook alley or dressed up in terrifying costumes or tried to freak kids out, but we were more of the "cute/cool" kind of Halloween house that embodied all the traits of Halloween that I adore. I was too scared of the houses that were the scary kind to even get candy from them, anyways.
-ANOTHER component of my childhood besides the things mentioned above were the children's Halloween movies I watched. This included Lumpkin the Pumpkin.
These kids are clearly drunk
During college, I found a website where I could download the soundtrack from Lumpkin the Pumpkin for freesies, which I implemented into my Halloweenie Playlist. It's a musical, you see. About Halloween safety. With singing pumpkins.
AND OH MY GOD I JUST FOUND IT ON YOUTUBE.
God bless the internet.
-I have always been a "make my own costume" (or more appropriately, have my mom make my own costume until jr. high) type of person, preferring to find items to comprise my costume from thrift and Halloween stores. This means that I'm able to draw out my idea for the costume first (that's right, I'm legit) and then shop around to try and find all the correct "ingredients". It's an art.
-Pumpkin carving has been a steadfast tradition in my family since the dawn of 1990 (I'm assuming, I certainly HOPE I carved a pumpkin at just two months of age). Different artistic renditions of pumpkins in my past have included wolves (complete with glowing green eyes that came with the pumpkin carving kit), a cat in a tree, Oogie Boogie, Zero, bats in front of a full moon, my failtastic Om nom pumpkin in college, the famous unicorn breathing fire pumpkin of last year, and owls. Lots of owls (just kidding, actually just one!).
I need to go to bed now, I'm exhausted and tomorrow I get to SLEEP. IN. Tomorrow's plans also involve carving pumpkins, doing those Halloween art projects, going to Duluth to tour a haunted mansion possibly, go to Fitgers, and then go to OWL NIGHT at Hawk Ridge! Nighty night!
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