Plush Halloween

We had a pretty great Halloween this year, here and in real life. Once again I thank all Blogcritics who contributed to our Halloween special, which was an artistic and “commercial” success. Thanks to all our linkers, trackbackers and commenters as well.

I urge you all to work your way through the Halloween master post – there’s an awful lot of good stuff there you may have missed as it flooded in.

In the real world, the weather here in Northeast Ohio was incredibly mild – in the high 60s without a hint of chill in the air even after dark – and the warm, dry breeze reminded me of my SoCal childhood Trick-or-Treating my way through peaceful and cushy South Shores and Miraleste, feeling the Santa Ana’s blow through the holes in my mask, reaping a windfall of goodies and being at one with the world.

Friends of ours who live in a gated, cheerfully ostentatious development in Aurora, invited us to join them and their 4-year-old and 1 1/2-year-old girls for an evening of golf carted Trick-or-Treating within the friendly confines, and between the weather and the aura of self-satisfaction, it felt like home. Although I am certainly not a snob (no excuse to be at this point of my life), I feel most comfortable in the company of snobs – some elements of childhood are hard to shake. I’m not sure how I feel about this realization.

Our 4-year-old was (a very blonde) Snow White and theirs was Cinderella, and the two Disney princesses and their miniature giraffe companion were cute as hell. (My 16-year-old son was a rather convincing cheerleader off working another plush neighborhood with friends, don’t know what the 19-year-old was doing off at college.)

The golf cart angle turned out to be key as poor Dawn is now 8 months pregnant and not terribly comfortable at any time or in any position, and there is no way she could have trudged for two hours straight on foot dealing with a sniffly 4-year-old and her burgeoning bounty of sugary booty. But in the cart we literally cruised from doorstep to doorstep, cutting out virtually all trudgery – it was almost like the houses came to us.

Oh yeah, and we all got a covert little thrill ambling up to Jim Thome’s house and chatting neighborly-like with the former Indians slugger, who still spends the offseason in our fair city. Besides the candy we also snagged an autographed photo – I know The Theory will be jealous.

I guess Halloween really ends with The Simpsons’ “Treehouse of Horror” special tonight. I’m sorry to see it go this year.