  Halloweeny Birthday Bash Mom and I headed up to my sister's place around 2:35pm. I had been totally engrossed in Nova's special about "The String Theory", a unifying theory of .. well, everything.
I hope I can catch it again. We got up there around 4pm (we hit a lot of traffic on the way up). Austin, my youngest nephew, had gotten a mini-air hockey table for his birthday (today, he's six now) so I played that with him awhile before we (me, Austin, and Jesse) went outside and played catch with the football. We were having a good time until Austin thought it'd be funny to flip off his grandmother and point at his weiner with the birds.
She was heading out to 7-11 and I told him he wasn't allowed to play football with us until he apologized to her. He pouted for a while and when she got back, he decided not to apologize, but rather pout some more about it. I had to tell his Mom and she eventually made him apologize, but, needless to say, it wasn't very heartfelt. He was still grumpy as hell when we started talking about Halloween costumes. He wasn't happy with being a football player anymore, not since his brother said he was going to be a vampire.
I was teasing Jesse about going as a gay football player (a la last weekend) and his sister went nuts with the idea. Both boys wound up going trick-or-treating as girls.... the worst looking girls you've ever seen. Jesse had on his sister's thong underwear and had it pulled up high, sticking out the top of his pants and I drew a little heart on the skin that was showing.
He had on a pink top (tied up to expose his belly), we drew a little butterfly below his navel, a stuffed bra, pink sweatpants, a pink bandana, and white and pink sneakers. Austin had on a dress at first (he later went with a purple top) and a pink visor, his sister's shoes and her underwear. Their sister applied a ton of make-up to both of them (eye-shadow, white face powder, rouge, lipstick, mascara), and I suggested beauty marks, which she added as well.
They didn't really think things out very well though; they did all of this before dinner. Since it was my Mom's birthday yesterday, my sister made stuffed cornish hens, mashed potatoes, and broccoli in cheese sauce for dinner. It was very good. Austin didn't eat though. Too much candy beforehand. Dana, my niece, surprised everyone by dressing up at the last minute. She went as a dude, wearing sweatpants and a hooded sweatshirt with freckles and a mustache drawn on her face.
Not to be outdone, I surprised everyone by going as a zombie. I threw white powder on my face and painted dark circle below my eyes and colored my eyelids black as well. I took a red marker and drew on a long scar on my forehead and drew blood coming out the corners of my mouth. I took a blue marker and colored my lips blue. Jesse found some ugly plastic teeth that completed my attire.
When Austin saw me he started complaining that my "costume" was better, until I started chasing him in proper zombie fashion. That shut him up :) Dana's boyfriend, Ricky, went trick-or-treating with us as well. He wore no costume other than a black bra. Not very imaginative. I told Austin, jokingly, to tell them it's his birthday, maybe he'll get more candy. He did, and apparently it worked out well for him. He got out of hand with it after a while though.
He started going up and saying "give me extra candy". No "trick-or-treat", no "hello", no nothing. Almost everyone who saw Jesse and his thong busted up. I had the most fun watching people's reactions to him. Austin got a few laughs out of people as well. After we got back, the boys threw their candy off to the side, Jesse took a bath, and Austin argued about taking a bath. I rested. My feet were sore from all of the walking. This is the part where I know I am going to sound like an old man talking about "kids these days".
You know, back in my day, when we'd come home from trick-or-treating, we'd immediately get down to the business at hand: candy. My sister and I and several of our friends, we'd dump our candy on the floor, we'd each have our own pile, and we'd go through our piles to see what we got and then we'd begin making deals with the other kids, trading the stuff we didn't want for stuff we did.
For me, the candy corn and the peanut-shaped orange-colored crap had to go, but the root beer barrels and chocolate bars were golden! But these kids today... I don't think they even opened their bags after they got home. They threw them to the side and went on to other stuff. Where's the joy in that? What will their fond memories consist of? "I remember when we'd come home on Halloween and throw our bags of candy off to the side... had to get back to Playstation, you know? " It's sad. After awhile, the boys went outside with their Dad and played with one of Austin's new birthday gifts, some remote-controlled thingy that flip flops and rolls around. After we finished playing with that, we went back inside and had some ice cream cake (Carvel... yum).
Before Mom and I headed home, I had Dana and Jess locate Dana's guitar (the one my Mom bought her a year ago). Neither had any idea where it was. It took some hunting to finally track it down. One of the things we told her when Mom bought it for her was that, if she wasn't going to take care of it, we'd take it back.
So I did. I got the tuner back as well, and I got most of my guitar stand back (this wasn't hers, it was lent to her). One piece is missing. The stand was stuffed in Jesse's closet, the guitar was under some clutter in Dana's room. I also took back a stack of books I'd lent her. She wasn't reading them, and she certainly wasn't taking care of them either, all strewn about on her floor.
(kicking back into "old man" mode) Kids these days just don't have any respect or consideration. I always took care of my stuff, and I always took proper care with other people's belongings. If not out of respect, then because I didn't want to have to replace it if I broke it. These kids... they just don't give a shit. Their parents will pay for it... or maybe not. They could care less either way. Besides the guitar, I left with a TV set too. Some lady gave my brother-in-law a small color TV and he had no use for it, so he gave it to Mom and I. A while back, I gave her my small TV, so I'll probably hook this one up to my Nintendo (not that I really ever play video games).
My sister gave us a bag of Reese Cups as well. She bought a ton of candy ($40 worth) and almost no one came to her door. I told her it'd have helped if they'd put a lightbulb in the light that lights up the walkway that leads to their door. It was just too dark. I'll bet people thought no one was home. Mom and I left around 10:30pm, got home about 11:30pm. Mom went to bed, I'm writing this. So that's my Halloween. I hope everybody had a good one (and you know who you are). 
