Post-Halloween Post

So Jordan's first participatory Halloween was kind of a bust. Last year she just sat complacently in my arms while people poked fun at her large green ears and cozy old man robe. This year...she tore up the streets. Fortunately my parents have lived in their cul-de-sac for over twenty years and are good friends with all their neighbors, because Jordan's idea of trick-or-treating was selecting as many pieces of candy she could fit in her fist, shoving them in her mouth (wrapper on), digging her razor-sharp fangs into the plastic, then placing them gently back in the candy bowl as if to say "no thanks, this wasn't my caliber of Kit-Kat wrapper." She would not keep her hood on but being as I safety-pinned it to the back of her dress the worst she could do was take it off from over her head and have it flow behind her like some sort of deranged midget superhero.

We made it to the end of my parents street before Sean was assigned to take her back and put her to bed. I forged ahead with my siblings, mom, and aunts to "the Haunted Meadow" or more appropriately, "I peed my pants." I entered this haunted house attraction behind my ten-old-sister and her similar-aged posse, and surrounded by another sister and her boyfriend, another younger sister (I've got five of them, it gets crazy), and my aunt. Somehow I still managed to injure my larynx and lose sensation in my knees. After braving different sections of the haunted house - which included a room with a huge TV screen displaying static snow behind which a young girl with long black hair hanging in front of her face crouched and emerged (while i sobbed "Not her! Not her!" into my sister's shirt) - I sprang out of that hellhole to find this

As my lingering scream from that last zombie with a gory bullet wound in her forehead drew out into a high-pitched "eeeeiiiiiiii" I was un-holstering my iPhone to snap this shot off to remind myself of this proud moment when my 10-year-old sister was not only willingly but happily perching in the lap of my 26-year-old nightmares.

Meanwhile

the men held down the candy-distributing fort.

Yes, one of my brothers is using the clean laundry as an ottoman, while my other brother occupies the king's leather throne and my Dad is banned to the child's papasan chair. Sean, amidst all this is thrilled to be finally accomplishing his lofty goal of the season: watching a horror movie (they chose Alien) which his tyrannical wife never ever permits in their apartment (see previous paragraphs).

Thrills and chills all around.