I survived halloween. Just. I'm so over the stores screaming about it, my sugared-up 2-year-old whining about it and my neighbor's creepy lawn-zombies moaning about it until all hours. I thought the neighbors were getting "down and dirty" the first time I heard the noise from over their fence. They're originally from the midwest (the neighbors, not the zombies) and they go to church and they can tell the difference between skunky smells and horse manure. And Kelly drives a pick up truck with a picture of tinkerbell holding a hunting rifle on the back. So the next morning I winked at her with that knowing, "you lucky minx... you go girl" look. Then after a few days I realized that the sounds were from the gore-drenched zombies in their yard. And that Kelly probably thought I was hitting on her. And that I'm 99% sure she owns a hunting rifle. Happy Halloween. Not.
I'm from South Africa, and we moved to California 4 years ago. So I'm a bit of a Halloween novice since we don't celebrate the holiday there (that's my story and I'm sticking to it). But Micah is 2 now so I thought I should make some kind of effort to include him in the pure Americanness of the whole thing. So we went to the pumpkin patch and he chose a pumpkin that weighed more than he did and I almost did my back in carrying it to the car (cue previous back injury posts). Then he threw a fit because I wouldn't let him drive home with it on his lap. Apparently "his legs are big and strong. No get squashed". Cute. "Just like mummy's". Hmm.
Then we rolled the damn thing into the house and I explained to Micah how we were going to carve it. I even showed him my 12 inch forged chefs knife (take that Kelly) and his useless kiddy pumpkin carver that he'd been nagging me to play with for 4 days. Then he lost it. I thought he was going to have apoplexy. "NO NO NO NO NO NO CARVE MUMMY. WE COOK IT!" Seriously? Cook it? No, I explained. We carve the pumpkin. "NO NO NO NO NO. WE COOK". Guess who won that argument? Suffice to say I now have pumpkin soup, pumpkin bread and pumpkin pie coming out the ying yang. And I'm a terrible cook, so the soup is bitter, the bread is like a rock and the pie is in pieces because it stuck to the freakin' pie tin. Thanks a lot Martha Stewart. I hate you.
But the weird thing is, I've never understood the concept of carving pumpkins either. I come from a country where there are people starving. The idea of carving food into pretty shapes and leaving it on your porch to rot seems wrong to me. So I gotta say, part of me loves my son's adamance to make the pumpkin into something useful. Pity he has me as a mother though. I don't think even starving people would eat that soup. I guess I could always throw it over the fence? Nothing sends the message that "I'm just not that into you" better than a gallon of bitter soup and a couple of burnt rock-breads!
