Hope you had a wonderful Halloween! I love Halloween – it’s really the only truly grown-up holiday in my opinion. For one night you get to be anyone or anything you want – the apogee of grown-up ‘play like’. I’m just sorry that grown-ups can’t go door to door demanding candy… my waistline, however, isn’t.
We haven’t had trick or treaters for years. One reason is that our front door is at the back of the house (yes, it’s a very unusual structure – doesn’t have any hallways, either!) and can be reached only by walking down a long and dark driveway. The fact that in the last window on the driveway I have on permanent display a 4 foot tall mummy doesn’t help. (Of course it’s a fake, darn it, but it’s a good one.) I used to put one of those battery operated tea lights in front of it because otherwise you can’t see it in the dark… it was a lovely spooky effect!
Just one year did I court the trick or treat crowd; The Husband was deployed to the Middle East and I was both bored and desperate for something to occupy my mind. I put tea lights down the driveway and red bulbs in the two porch lights. I found a wonderful bat with a six foot wingspan, glued reflective red glass gems where his eyes should be and suspended it over the front door. Of course the mummy got his tea light too. I turned off all the house lights, so when I opened the door the only light was from the red bulbs outside. I wore black from head to toe and covered my hair with a black cloth so that all you could see of me was my face floating in the dark. I wore a lovely shade of green makeup and my eyes were outlined with bright red. (I wish I had thought of using grey makeup with little bits of toilet paper hanging down like the vestiges of mummy wrappings, but don’t the best ideas always seem to come after it’s all over?)
Well, all my careful preparations went for naught. Every child in the neighborhood was terrified; some ran away screaming. Almost none even waited to get a piece of candy. What kind of wussy children are we raising, anyway? And I’m not talking about six year olds or less – most of these kids were on the border of middle school! What’s worse is some of their parents were just as bad.
The next year was much more traditional. Just plain white lights – no mummy light, no bat, no green makeup. I wore slacks and a Halloween sweater decorated with happy pumpkins. All for nothing. Not one child came to our door. None have ever come since. Ever. Of course, those first terrified children are now grownups, some with babies of their own, and yet I still hear talk about the neighborhood ‘witch’ who lives in the odd house. At least that’s the pronunciation I think I heard…
So it’s been years since I even bought Halloween candy. At least my waistline is happy.
On to more adult news – it has been brought to my attention that I need a newsletter, so my wonderful husband/assistant, my incredibly talented webmistress and I are putting our heads together and seeing if we can create something worthwhile for release at the beginning of the year. It won’t be a regular monthly mailing – it will just come out when I have something to say, like when there’s a new release or something of equal import. You don’t need to be afraid of having your mailbox inundated. Stay tuned for more news!
Hugs,
Susan
…committing crime with style!
www.JanisPattersonMysteries.com
A KILLING AT EL KAB now available
…always a good story!
THE HOUSE IN THE PINES now available