Wednesday, November 01, 2006

boo! (the morning after edition)

jack-o-lantern

boo

crazy orange pants
i don't normally make a huge deal out of halloween, mainly because i don't have time. in principle, however, i love this holiday! yesterday i became determined to at least carve a pumpkin and spend some time sitting on the porch to greet what few trick-or-treaters we actually get. it's sad, given where we live, that we don't get more of them, but it seems like so few people know or trust their neighbors these days. anyway--let's just ignore that and keep typing lest i digress... so yeah--pumpkin. i went to 3 grocery stores yesterday before i found ANY pumpkins, and was lucky enough to get a good round one with the stem in tact. i then carved it up using a pattern--my first foray into jack-o-lanterns by design. it made me a little sad really. the last time i carved a pumpkin was a thousand years ago with my nephew jeremy who has since passed away. but then--i guess ghosts are what it's all about on halloween, right? anyway--digressing again... i actually think this pumpkin came out pretty well, in spite of my lack of experience. i only had to get consults form the hippie roughly every 10 seconds. so--sporting my crazy orange pants and my boo shirt, i made my way to the porch with a lit up pumpkin, a huge bowl of candy, and some knitting. and it was worth it just to see my little neighbor nora dressed up like a chicken (slightly freaked out by my scary eyes), and my other neighbor alison's little niece dressed like a princess (doing a touchdown dance after every piece of candy). it was fairly tame, but definitely enjoyable. hopefully next year, we will be living in a neighborhood with more small children, because i plan to go all out! happy late halloween, people, and apologies for the rambling nature of this post--i am all over the place today.

5 comments:

Flaurella said...

Great pumpkin! We gave out 1296 pieces of candy to 300+ Trick or Treaters, not counting the special goodies of plastic snakes, bugs and creatures for the younguns that actually LIVE in our little town, but we forgot to carve the last pumpkin so I guess it will sit on the porch through Thanksgiving if it lasts that long.

Shelley - At Home in Rome said...

Hey, just found your blog through this program that pops random blogs up who are participating in NaBloPoMo. I LOVE that pumpkin! I wish we did stuff like that in Italy..sob, sob. Next year I'm bringing the tradition over.

Flaurella: 1,296 pieces of candy? That's amazing. Did you have to take out a loan to buy it all?!

jackie said...

wow that's a lot of candy, flaurella! crazy! i think i went through mabe one bag!

and shelley, thanks for stopping by! while you may be jealous of halloween in the states, believe me, i am WAY MORE jealous of you being in italy! wish i was there with you for a glass of wine. :)

Anonymous said...

Did you really carve that pumpkin? If so, your talent is amazing. How many hours did you have in it?

jackie said...

hi old knitter! yes, i carved it myself--it took a little ove an hour. but i cheated--i didn't draw the design myself!