I learned some things today.

First, I learned that it's not a great idea to go out for dinner the night before a major holiday.

There are a group of us who go out to a fabulous sea food restaraunt here in town to celebrate the start of the basketball season, which for all of us constitutes New Years. That's a major holiday and it's worth celebrating.  So is our Basketball New Year and I'm glad we've started this tradition.  The company is fun, smart and raucous and the food is out of this world.

We started with appetizers and wine, moved on to entrees and more wine and finished with dessert and both port and sherry.  Because we didn't know the difference.  One more thing I learned is that creamed corn goes great with wine, but not so great in wine.  Also, pumpkin ice cream is awesome!

But we did all this the night before Halloween, and to those of us with young kids, Halloween is not just a major holiday, it's a MAJOR HOLIDAY.

So I wake up this morning and I'm not feeling so good.   I am usually very careful to balance my alcoholic intake with large amounts of ice water.  Last night I was so busy stuffing my face with the most delicious crab cakes on earth that I neglected the ice water.  I wasn't exactly hung over this morning, but I didn't want to get out of bed.  Or open my eyes.  Or hear.

A little tylenol and a lotta coffee later and I was ready to contemplate Trick or Treating.  Josie had a plan.

Dinner would be homemade Macaroni and cheese, then we'd be out the door the minute it was full dark.  We had a long road in front of us.  We would trick or treat all the way to Meg's house, a mile and a half away.  There, we would join assorted friends and cousins, Aunts,  Uncles and Grandparents for cocoa, tea and spaghetti if we needed more fuel and then trick or treat some more.

Josie and I left the house at five thirty.  She was dressed in a tie dyed shirt, a bell sleeved blouse, bell bottomed pants with flower appliques, a full, black afro wig and a pink feather boa.  She told anyone who asked that she was dressed as a hippie.

Clearly she has no idea what  a hippies looked like.  I considered suggesting that she tell those who asked something else, but I know she wouldn't have understood me.  Man, it was tempting, though.  If you saw some woman standing in the street in front of a house with a Wellstone! sign, shaking with laughter, it was just me, imagining Josie telling the residents that she was dressed as a Jive Turkey.

As we walked down the street early in our trek, I asked Josie if she minded trick or treating with no one but me.  I know we were on our way to a party where she would be joined by lots of other kids but still, for quite a while she would be on her own, with me out in the street.

"No, I don't mind!" she assured me.  "To tell you the truth, Mom, other kids just slow me down."

This is true.  My daughter is a Power Trick or Treater.  She always has been.  I remember the Halloween she was four; she was just old enough to really get what was going on.  When the reality of candy at every house hit her, she started to run between houses.  I tried to get her to wait for the other kids.

"Don't you want to trick or treat with Meg?" I yelled after her.

"NO!  Sorry Meg!" she threw back over her shoulder, sprinting down the sidewalk towards the next jack o lantern.

Meg, Chocoholic extraordinaire, understood completely.

So I had the priviledge of watching a Master at work tonight.

When we started, she tried to hit every house.  If there was a light on, or a door open, she regarded it as an invitation.  After a block or two, she started skipping the houses with no pumpkins.  Too much wasted time.  She didn't run between houses; we had too far to go.  But she marched briskly.  She cut across lawns wherever possible and crossed streets when one side looked more inviting.  Each house was the same routine; ring or knock, Sing "Trick or Treat!", Big Smile; tell them she's a hippie, say "Thank you, No, I'm not too cold.  Have a happy Halloween" and be off the steps heading for the next house.

You might think it wastes time to do the whole routine with Thank you's etc, but Josie discovered that the friendlier she was, the more candy they gave her.

At one point, after we'd covered about a mile, she came down the walk and said "Boy, this being nice routine is wearing me out."

By the time we were halfway to our destination she was skipping houses that only had one pumpkin or whose decorations weren't impressive enough.  If she was going to do her song and dance for you, you had to work for it. 

By the time we reached the party, we'd been out in the twenty degree cold for an hour and a half.  I was frozen.  Josie had broken a hard sweat and needed a plate of spaghetti to replenish her energy.  After a half hour or so, she was ready to go back out with the rest of the kids, using the back up candy bag she'd stuffed in a pocket.

We finally returned home at about 9:30.  She had enough candy to fill two large tupperware bowls.  I'm talking the BIG bowls; the ones Gramma Pat used to make taco salad in.  The ones Gramma Punkin makes quadruple chocolate chip cookie batches in.  Two of them.

If Trick or Treating were an Olympic sport, she'd be a Gold Medalist.

 

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