This was a quick jack o'lantern from last year. This year's been so busy we haven't had a chance to make one, A___ was out of town last weekend and now it's work work work...I'm guessing it'll be another last minute pumpkin this year. Man, I really want to carve me a pumpkin! Maybe they wouldn't mind if I did it on my lunch break at work, K-cop be damned. 
I found this uproariously funny.
I have one and it sucks.
I think when one picks up the office cold, one should be able to claim some kind of worker's comp or something. I'm feeling resentful because this shit goes around an office when some idiot with something to prove simply MUST show up sick so everyone else can all see how seriously s/he takes the job. As my sister pointed out, we've been rewarded for "zero absenteeism!" since grade school (and yes, I agree, the school yard may have actually been better for some strategic absences) so it's small wonder there is a set of adults who can't shake the belief that they will get a reward for coming in and showering the office with their virus and bacteria swarming snot.
Yes, there are folks who don't have sick time and this plays a role in whether or not you stay home, right? I'm one of those people with no sick time, and have been for a long, long while now. You know what that means for me? It means that if I'm sick enough (i.e. more than the sniffles), I know I need to take the time to get better rather than risk this turning into a pneumonia or even just a miserable lingering upper respiratory infection because it's better to lose something on the order of a day or two than something on the order of weeks. However, I have to add in the social/soft cost for calling in sick, a cost which is measured in a reality which includes the grade school perfect attendance addicts. It is this cost which is making me extra irritable at the moment. I'm going in tomorrow - I'm still feeling shitty but not as shitty as I was and moreover, I'm starting to get the bitchy emails that let me know my "choice" to be sick right now is really inconveniencing my coworkers.
So I'm propped up here at the computer waiting for another cup of tea to brew and I was looking for other jobs (ones with sick time) when a series of largely stumbled upon images suggested a nice halloween costume idea - group costume - Kool Aid guy, Orville Reddenbacher, and Mrs. Butterworth. Could be the cold medicine talking but I think this is a combo that spells F-U-N.
I was going to add Ronald McDonald and Tony the Tiger to this list but you know, those guys get too much press. I think the concept is better if it's the sort of lesser known food mascots. Like the Fruit Pie Magician and Count Chocula (Lucky Charms dude could get your ass kicked if you end up around any overly nationalist Irish or Irish-Americans so I'd recommend that one only with caution).
My little brother's doing better. He was down here this past weekend and I fed him so much he put on 5 pounds in 4 days. Excellent.
Life goes on. So do we.
I'm noticing searches for costume + Cold miser (or more properly known as "Snow Miser") have gotten this blog several hits in the past month or so.
I was the Snow Miser one year for halloween and apparently I mentioned that here. I feel bad for the people who come here looking...somewhere I have pictures. I've said this more than once, haven't I? And then I don't deliver. I have good intentions but bad follow through on that. This is (largely) because since I've lived in a series of apartments for the last 7 years and storage space is thus at a premium, my un-albumed prints tend to be packed away under or on top of things which would require strength and agility to negotiate. I admit to also finding myself thinking on at least one occasion while contemplating the pile of things which require strength and agility "Is this little bit of extra self absorption really worth possibly pulling a muscle, crushing a finger, dropping things on my head, or worse?"
It seems a big fat "NO" is a reasonable conclusion given the circumstances. And so the pictures stay un-posted. But I am ambitious and some would say an optimist (no really, a faculty member recently called me a regular god damned pollyanna...). So I'll at least consider trying to dig out some old halloween pictures to post. No promises though.
In the meantime or possibly instead, I've provided a YouTube Snow Miser/Heat Miser video clip from the movie, and below that is a (detailed) description of my snow miser costume in case you were considering a Heat Miser/Snow Miser costume (or set) this year yourself. It's pretty quick and not that expensive. Certainly no more than the bags o'costume you can pick up at those Halloween stores which spring up seasonally in the barely inhabited corners of strip malls everywhere. Or everywhere around here at least.
Truly, these "cartoons" are kind of creepy. Especially the little mini-snow miser chorus guys. Extra creepy. I went as the snow miser because the then-guy wanted to go as the heat miser and it just lent itself so easily to a couple costume. Oh the things we do for love...
Still, it was a fun costume and pretty quickly recognizable, especially if you go as a set. The costume below is clearly adaptable to a Heat Miser costume by substituting red, yellow/gold, and orange for the blue, white, and silver. This goes for makeup as well as for clothing. You should be able to pick up blue/white or red/orange/yellow cream makeup or face paint at most places which sell costume supplies (local drug stores out here have it seasonally on the halloween aisles). Obviously, if you're going to turn the costume below into a Heat Miser, don't go for the icicles and probably you should skip the boa and just plan to really go high and poky with your hair (with lots of cream makeup/hair-paint and that nasty, fumy colored hairspray they only sell at halloween).
What you'll need:
A long-ish long sleeved blue jersey (solid is best)
Blue gloves (borrowed or bought if you don't have any yet for winter)
Blue scarf (same)
White leggings, tights (if you want some kinda coochie grazing hoochie mamma Snow Miser get up), or sweats. I think I just wore black leggings. Not very accurate but boy was I comfy
Boots (whatever color, white if you want to match but any boot would work...so long as you can trick or treat or dance in them)
White cream face make up
Light concealer cream or base make up
Baby powder
Big powder puffy brush (at least, and possibly a slightly smaller one for eyes but if you're skilled, you can get away with sacrificing just one brush/puff)
Clear/white or silver glitter gel make up
Frosty blue eyeshadow or frosty blue powder makeup (cream will do in a pinch but I liked the powder over cream)
Enough white craft/marabou boa to fit around your head
At least 2 largish (>3" long) clear icicle ornaments
I didn't go for the straw hat...I suppose if you really want one you can probably get your hands on one at your local GOP elections headquarters.
Clothing: Cut a zig-zag pattern along the edge of the hem, sleeves, and neck of the jersey. If you cut too low on the neck, you can wear a t-shirt or tank top under it. Too high on the hem is why I wore leggings. Try not to go too high or you'll end up with a snow miser baby tee. You can avoid all that by trying it on and marking with some pins or chalk (inside out if you're going to do the chalk thing) but this takes all the fun guessing out of it.
The other clothing items are self explanatory I hope.
Makeup: Mix some white face makeup into the very light liquid concealer or very light cream base/foundation makeup. You can go with straight white face but I think it makes me look like a clown, which is not the effect we're going for here. We want pale and cold. Plan to whiten up a bit with the powder too, so your base doesn't need to be alabaster-like. Using powder rather than just cream white face make up helps avoid that nasty wrinkle enhancing property of white face (a concern if you're my age). Apply your very very light almost white base as you would regular base. For those of you who don't normally wear it, try dotting it along your face then lightly smearing down and over to blend it. Don't rub up or you'll be driving it into your pores and don't it in. Ick.
You can smear it right into your hair, adding in some pure white cream into the hair itself. Let it set a bit, then lightly puff on baby powder with a powder brush.
Use your make up brush (puff one, the thing you'd use for powder) to apply a bunch of blue frosty eyeshadow to your eyes and then around hair line, then more gently under your cheek bones (like rouge). You can put it all along the outline of your face really if you want to go for the very damned cold look. Using your finger, dot some glitter gel around - eyes, eyebrows, and hair line are good places, but wherever else is fine. Make sure to work some into your hair too. If you don't want your eyes to look totally dead, I recommend a dark blue eyeliner and mascara as well. You can mix blue eyeshadow or liner with lip gloss to do a blue mouth, set with a puff of blue eyeshadow and add a bit of glitter if you want.
Hair: By now it should be relatively well whited and glittered. If not, rub some on your hands with some hair gel or other sculpting product and work it at least through the ends of your hair with your fingers. You don't need color at the root, although it's pretty stiff when it dries and so it will help hold your hair up into the proper "cold miser" pokey looking 'do. Use a comb or brush to tease and rat up your hair a bit. If you have lots of hair, teasing it up is easier to do upright rather than with your head upside down. (a common misconception about pokey or otherwise "big hair" is that you need to flip your hair upside down to achieve it. I've found that while this may help in the blow drying phase, by the time it's dry and you're trying to get it up, keeping your head upright and just pulling up and ratting sections at a time (and fixing with spray if you're into the whole spray thing) is the best way to get it up and keep it up. Finish with glitter and tie the white boa around your head like a headband, covering your ears unless you want to rub a bunch of white makeup and powder onto them....
I think that's it. If I remember more, I'll add it later.
This is one holiday where I have long pushed the season. The months long ramp up to Halloween doesn't seem as troubling as the designation of November through January "the christmas season!".
I'm wondering why. Bear with me while I explore it. I think to me Halloween is one of the few organic holidays we have left, although it's certainly been er, whatchacallit, over processed in recent years. I guess some time between the mid 80s and late 90s the liquor companies realized it wasn't just a holiday for kids. Which is a real pity because with the level and type of over processing intensive booze ad campaigning entails comes the over-popularity of what I call the personal fantasy (usually involving sex) costume or possibly just the sexy costume. Sometimes those can be amusing and fun when such a costume is worn by someone whose inner hotty is not too at odds with the rest of the individual's persona and who has explored this facet of his or her personality enough to have a sense of humor about it. However, such a costume or more specifically, the non-introspective individual in such a costume can be creepy and just plain old skanky.
E.g., the brides. They were students from Spain in a department which shall remain nameless. I was having my (then) traditional halloween party in a month or so and had invited these two women along with most of the department - some faculty included. Because I'm that person, the one who if she's going to bring cupcakes for one person makes them for everyone. Yep. Ok, well mostly everyone. I do draw a line at people who plain old suck. Anyhow, these two women were not really what you'd call friends but weren't what you'd call people who suck so they were invited. Let's call them Marta and Lucia.
Lucia had been to a US Halloween party before but Marta had not. Both were very excited. And I should mention both were interested in this german student who I had invited, "Hans". I don't know which of them initiated the bride motif. Possibly both of them were struck with the same type of image when they saw the rack of used wedding dresses when we entered the Salvation Army store. Although I didn't see either Marta and Lucia buy the dresses that night, they had swooped on them. Apparently they returned later and bought a couple.
Marta and Lucia showed up at the party, both in white wedding gowns and both with long black elvira like wigs. Marta had done up her face vampircally, Lucia hadn't. I don't recall what Hans had worn - I may have blanked it out. I think his costume was where Marta got the riding crop she had been brandishing for much of the night until she was overcome by the fruits of her man-dilemma induced binge drinking (her boyfriend from Spain had flown in to visit that week, adding another point in the already unruly Marta, Lucia, Hans love polygon). Pre-puke, Marta had spent quite a bit of the evening running after people, gown hitched up, swinging the riding crop and announcing "I am going to BITE you!" (for the most authentic effect, you have to imagine this said in carefully articulated English with a hint of a Spanish accent). Pre-puke, Marta, Lucia, and Hans had been smarming all over people at my party, including me. Somewhere there are pictures of me and one of the brides taking turns feeding each other grapes. I heard later that they had gone further than such coy flirtations here and there, going so far as to group sex-proposition a friend of mine. Ewwww.
Like I said, creepy.
But I digress. I was talking about the lead up to holidays and whether it is justified by the holiday being truly seasonal.
Halloween is, christmas I'm not so sure about. With christmas, there is little to no apparent connection between the nature of the celebrations/festivities and the reason for them. Let's see - Jesus was born (in a desert) so this fat guy in a red suit comes along and sneaks into your house to give you presents. Yeah. And stockings full of stuff? Where does that come in? Stockings maybe go with the whole winter season thing, but then we go back to Jesus being born, and while we do celebrate "chirst"mas instead of the proper pagan holiday which late December should be (you know, seasonally speaking and all), we're all part of a big fat cultural denial about the real purpose for this holiday in the northern climes. Winter. Cold stuff. White for what's on the ground, green for what we hope will be one the ground, and red for what probably needs to be spilled for that to happen.
I remember I had a christmas song book when I took piano lessons as a kid. I never got to the point where I could readily read music, but I'd open it up to whatever song I was pecking out by ear on the keyboard , "First Noel" was easiest for me. The picture was of a child shepherd with a lamb set against a background of snowy desert with the town of Bethlehem looming in the distance. Snow and Bethlehem? Maybe I'm wrong but I didn't think the middle east saw a whole lot of snow.
Even on a more basic level, there's fuckall that red and green and white have to do with Jesus? Like I said, pagan. But you can't discern that from the festivities. Yes, Santa wears red and white. But aside from Santa also being somewhat removed from the "real" point of CHRISTmas, the color choice in a christian context at least is apparently arbitrary. Santa could just as well have worn orange and purple for all that red and white symbolize now (i.e. not much in a modern context because we are very busy with marketing symbolism - bet you can id a pepsi sign even if the word "PEPSI" is nowhere near it).
Then there's Halloween. The holiday colors are the same colors you see around you in the Fall and they are the colors of death. The celebration entails images of death, dead things, and things which are beyond death (i.e. magical). Hell, there's even candy corn. What do we have at christmas? Candy canes - red and white again, this time in the shape of something which I have a hard time automatically associating with anything santa or jesus-like. I can stretch it to see some relation of canes and winter but usually the broken and twisted limbs which would necessitate the use of a cane come a bit later in the season.
Why candy at halloween? It's not an uncommon notion culturally that special food is served when the dead are celebrated. Then we have lanterns for the dark, gourds because it's a harvest holiday, costumes because we are trying to confuse the dead who might otherwise take us back with them when their time to walk the earth is over. It all makes sense, more or less, symbolically speaking at least. And seasonally speaking. It's a seasonal holiday with symbolism, but that symbolism isn't too far removed from the actual season itself. Unlike christmas.
Have I justified why I get psyched for Halloween starting in mid August? Not really. For me there's something about the light change. There's usually a late afternoon in mid to late August where it's a little cooler and I realize soon it will be Fall, which is very close to Winter. It's not at all a long stretch from watching a riot of reds tumbling out of trees against a sparkling blue sky to watching those same bare trees scratching at a blanket of gray on gray sky which is darkening even now while there is far too much of what we call "day" left in the day...so I'd better enjoy the hell out of this golden safe feeling sun while I have it. And that makes the sunlight, which was already beautiful, seem even better. It makes food taste nicer, people look more attractive, and life feel fuller.
While I don't party much these days, I still very much look forward to Halloween. My yearly traditions still include watching bad old horror movies, handing out candy if not from home then on campus (I call it "reverse trick or treat" when I'm on campus giving candy out to my colleagues), and taking at least one day to dress up even a little - maybe wearing my purple glittery horns or spider boinger-headband and my dracula socks which have a button you can press that makes dracula's LED eyes flash red while a spooky sounding midi plays (although I've learned not to wear the latter when I need to attend a lecture or talk of any sort since one careless leg cross can set it off and once it goes off it's going until it stops, there's no kill switch).
What made me think of this was seeing a hit on my blog from someone looking up killer prom queen on google. Somewhere I have those pictures of me in that get up. I'll scan them if I can find them.
