Halloween in Marietta, Part 2

I stood slack-jawed at the adorability: A baby skunk, doling out candy for the revelers, and almost bringing me to tears for the echoes of toddler Phoebe she conjured up.
Her mother confessed, "I keep weeping, she's so sweet, and she takes it all so seriously, making sure everyone gets a piece of candy."


I had to use flash on her, just to try to capture those apple cheeks. But oh, I love shooting without flash, and seeing what happens.
The images got progressively spookier as it got darker.
something about the blur makes Liam look like a toddler...going back in time, as Phoebe morphs into the real Hobbes, or Krazy Kat...
They meet up with their wonderful Granny and GeePop, who always put on the dog for trick-or-treaters, with the scarily realistic and locally famous Witch of Warren Street taking over for Elsa as GeePop plays spooky arpeggios on the organ just inside the parlor.
A zomb0-lantern
My favorite jack-o-lantern of the night. His wife says he always carves the same one, every year, and she's tired of it. I'm not! I made sure he knew that I thought it was brilliant. It's so...hopeless.

Our jack-o-lanterns at home. Liam's design, Bill's pig, and Phoebe and my zombie hamster.
Counting out the loot with cousin Gus.

Now that's scary!

I'll leave you with some of my favorite captures from Halloween night.
You had to go up on this porch and get your candy corn. There was nobody there, just the house's eyes staring out at you. Eeeee!

I loved this cat on this porch, and I caught Liam in the porch light.

And then something really weird happened, and Liam became something Other, something slumping off Goon Island.

It was a magical night. And it smelled so delicious.

Halloween '09

Oh, it was a lovely evening, after all. It was as if the saints all smiled at once, parted the clouds, stopped the rain, and let the children play.


Calvin and Hobbes, ready to go!

Halloween's weather did not bode well for us. It poured all morning, never got out of the 50's, and the forecast was dire: rain, with a low of 38. Yow. Phoebe with a scratchy throat and full sinuses, Liam with a fervent desire not to ruin his costume with a coat...a mom's dilemma. We multilayered long underwear beneath the costumes, packed umbrellas, and went. And the rain stopped and it stayed about 60 degrees, and it was luverly.

First, to suit up and get to the elementary school Halloween party, which was small and thus much more sufferable than usual, thanks probably to porcine flu thinning the ranks of little revelers.

Electrician's tape came in handy this year in our costume-making efforts. There is always tape involved, since I am nobody's seamstress. I was worried that Liam would find his Calvin "costume" too prosaic, but some hair wax and a sign on his chest helped. He never complained. He just wanted it to be true. He IS Calvin, in his mind.
Jessi and MacKenzie were crayolas.

Daddy kept having to re-do Calvin's spikes. Ow ow ow!
Phoebe's sisterly tenderness toward her younger brother, which extends to teaming up with him for Halloween, and attending his elementary school party and competing in the costume contest, never fails to melt our hearts.
They didn't win anything but our hearts. I kind of doubt the judges knew who Calvin and Hobbes are, but c'est la vie. It didn't hurt their feelings, and that's what matters.


We drive the kids into town to trick-or-treat, since there are so few homes out our way. I always forget until the moment we get out of the car that Marietta smells absolutely amazing on Halloween. The sweet gums and sycamores that line the streets have an intoxicating, spicy scent that is more intense when the fallen leaves get wet. I go into an instant state of rapture and stay that way as the evening comes on. Between the scent of wet leaves and the feast of visual images of trick-or-treaters and front porches and jack-o-lanterns lit in the night, I am in heaven.
Two little bugs compare their wings.
Sophi and Oona, our treasured little girlfriends.

Eyob and Abel, surprised by the flash, and trying to figure out what in tarnation is going on all around them.
The warm light of porches, the friendly smiles, the ghoulish masks...
The folks who go all out...
A tiger's stripes, melting into buttermilk.

I will continue tomorrow. I'm overloading on visual and olfactory memories, not to mention Almond Joys.