Absinthe & Cookies (a bit bitter, a bit sweet)

I answered over at my site, too. :-)

What's the first Halloween costume you remember wearing? I believe I was Cinderella a couple of times, once as the pre-ball incarnation, and once as the pretty version. My favorite costume was the year I decided to be a "Martian" for Halloween, but I wasn't the typical Marvin/green idea of Martian. I just found the weirdest socks and clothes and wig and face paint I could find. People I saw at church every week didn't recognize me in my get-up! But my earliest costume that I remember? Probably a witch!

What was your favourite treat in your goodie bag? I still like Dots. Yum!

What's your best Halloween memory? As a kid, I loved trick-or-treating with my mom. She dressed up, too, and I thought that was neat to see my mom be someone else for a night.

What's your worst? I don't think I have one...

Have you ever bobbed for apples? Yes, and THAT is a nasty activity...all that saliva floating around in the water? Ew.

Have you ever been to a grownup Halloween party? (costumes, dancing, drinks/dinner -- that sort of thing.) - Yes, but I didn't enjoy myself. It wasn't boring, necessarily, but just another reason for other people to drink alcohol. That's not my thing.

If you were going to such a party, and money was no object, what would your ideal costume be?

Ever been to sea, Billy? Oops, wrong quiz! I do not get this joke.

Ever had a paranormal experience? If yes, tell us all about it. With ghosts, and that sort of thing? No, I can't say I've ever had that happen.

What's your favourite scary movie? I don't like scary movies, so it's hard to tell if I have a favorite! If I like it, it's probably not super-scary!

Have you ever played a Halloween "trick" on anyone? Nope. I really am a stick-in-the-mud!!

Did you you carve a pumpkin this year? No, but I'm not against it. I like jack-o'-lanterns! Even though pumpkin guts are really slimy.

Do you think we had more fun at Halloween than kids do today? I think it's hard to say. Kids today have very sterile environments for celebrating Halloween...indoors, parents all over, nothing scary, company/church-sponsored candy...it's very safe, which is admirable, and I completely understand. I'll probably do the same things with my kids...take them to church parties, and trick-or-treating to people I know. I don't have any real problem with that. But, I don't think that means it's necessarily more fun for anyone, particularly kids.

What candy are you giving out tonight? I'm going over to my friend's house, tonight, but I don't think we'll be giving out any candy. I dunno, yet.

Will you be in costume? Nope.

Decorated at all? No, I haven't! Hey! Halloween snuck up on me this year, which is silly, because I went with friends to their kids' Halloween activities this weekend...

I'll probably post this on my site eventually.

What's the first Halloween costume you remember wearing? Probably Donald Duck. I know my folks still have the rubber mask. I was a sailor whites) the last couple years of elementary school once I fit into my Dad's uniform.

What was your favourite treat in your goodie bag? Brand name candy bars, preferably Milky Way, Three Musketeers or Mounds.

What's your best Halloween memory? Freezing my *ss off dragging the kids around. Staying up all night sewing a dragon costume for my eldest back in the 80's.

What's your worst? Can't remember. Right Scooter.

Have you ever bobbed for apples? Probably.

Have you ever been to a grownup Halloween party? (costumes, dancing, drinks/dinner -- that sort of thing.) Does SCA count?

If you were going to such a party, and money was no object, what would your ideal costume be? Sherlock Holmes or Barnabas. I like those cloaks.

Ever been to sea, Billy? Oops, wrong quiz! (Obligatory Airplane! reference)

Ever had a paranormal experience? If yes, tell us all about it. Shook hands with a ghost (or something). Must have been 9 or 10. Nobody else as in the room after I got the lights on.

What's your favourite scary movie? Lets do the time warp again. (No that was the play in London.) Nosferatu 1922

Have you ever played a Halloween "trick" on anyone? Nope. I'm boring. I was accused of waxing the school windows once, but I was no where near the place.

Did you you carve a pumpkin this year? Sorry no. We are too busy and the teenager doesn't feel like doing it.

Do you think we had more fun at Halloween then kids do today? No. The kids get to go house-to-house in our neighborhood and we get the usual number of "old enough to smoke and shave" children too.

What candy are you giving out tonight? Brand name candy. See above.

Will you be in costume? Yes, I will be dressed as a serial killer. They look just like everyone else.

Decorated at all? Not as much as usual outside. The full Dept 56 display is on top the TV (its worse than Christmas).

1. A ghost costume that my mother made for me out of a pillow case.

2. Milky Way bars.

3. When I was around 13 a friend of mine and I escaped from our houses after we were supposed to be in bed and went walking around the small town where we lived. We stayed out till around 3:00 AM. The high point of the evening was hiding in the bushes and watching two older teenagers having sex on the lawn in back the Asheville Federal Savings Bank on Main St. We got close enough to steal one of the cold six packs of beer (a crappy American brand, as I remember) while they were occupied.

4. My first Halloween after my family moved to Chicago in the late 60's. Some of the kids in my neighborhood were attacked and slashed with razors while trick-or-treating.

5. No

6. Yes. I worked for several years in bars and nightclubs. There would be a party and costume contest every year.

7. An 18th century Highlander.

8. No, but I have eaten fish sticks.

9. Yes. A friend and I were driving near an area in which people had reported seeing strange things. We were suddenly overcome with an overpowering feeling of raw terror. I turned the car around and got out of the area as quickly as possible. After going less than 100 yards the feeling of fear stopped. I have since found out that sudden irrational feelings of fear can be caused by exposure to certain frequencies of sound. This is often associated with haunting and UFO activity. My friend, who is now an internationally known investigator of the paranormal, says that if we had kept going that night we might well have seen some kind of "ghost" or had a UFO encounter.

10. Rosemary's Baby or The Excorcist. Its a toss-up.

11. Yes. When I was 11 or 12 I used shoe polish to write a rude word on the sidewalk in my neighborhood. A man who lived nearby took some oil based paint and painted over it. The oil paint penetrated into the cement of the sidwalk everywhere except where the water based shoe polish was. The first rain washed the show polish away and left the rude word in white letters against the black paint background. It took more than a year for the paint to wear away.

12. No, for the first time in my life I don't have a pumpkin.

13. More fun as kids. Back then our parents could send us out alone without the reasonable expectation that we would be raped or killed.

14. Name brand candy.

15. No.

16. No.

"Ever been to sea, Billy?"

Makes me think of "Joey, do you like movies about gladiators?"

Random tangent: John Van De Kamp, formerly LA County DA and then California Attorney General, is from the same Van De Kamp family as the fishsticks.

I went out on halloween made myself a mask i called myself BIRDZILLA