The problem is that the cats won't let me dress them up. I know this because I have sort of tried. I mean, I haven't tried putting full costumes on them. That would just be silly. But when Jingle was younger, before the days of Shiner, I got him a little hood thing that was red, it had ear holes and it had devil horns on it and a devil tail dangling off of the back. It had a Velcro fasten that went under his chin. I could never even get the darn thing on him. I just went and looked to see if I could find it in the cat toy box. That opened a big old can of worms. They always forget that the toy box exists until I open it up, then I can't get it closed for days because there is constantly a cat in it trying to pull something else out. Little heathens. I suppose, I threw the devil hood away after several unsuccessful attempts to get it fastened on either cats head. You see pictures of these docile cats dressed in doll clothes and stuff with a little girl holding the cat like a baby. I think those cats have been drugged for the picture. If I ever tried to put clothes on one of my cats, it would look like Lizzie Bordon had gone through the place with an ax.
My cats are sort of alpha cats. They don't stand for any of that. They also don't wear collars. I know that it is responsible to put collars on them, but they are house cats. The vet lectures me about what could happen if they ever got out. But let me tell you, Jingle has gotten out a few times and each time it happens he panics and can't get back in the house fast enough. He really used to think there was something out through the front door that he desperately needed to see in person with no screen or glass between it and him. Now he knows better. On the few occasions that he made the escape, he immediately began this horrible sounding distressed meow that sounded as if he was being beaten and began to dart from one bush to another in search of a bush he could hide in that was close enough to get back into the door. The entire time I was thinking, why in the hell did he want out so bad if this is how he reacts? I'm sure he was thinking the same thing. Shiner, bless his heart, has never had any desire to escape outside. I think he spent too many weeks on the mean streets of Shiner as a kitten to ever want back out of the protection of this house.
Now I'm in a quandry, I didn't intend to write about cats today. I planned to write about Halloween but the darn cats got in the way. So, now I am trying to decide if I go back to the top of the page and delete a few paragraphs or just continue writing and work my way into my planned topic. I really think that I should leave all of that cat topic up there so that you will all have to see how scattered my thoughts are and what I have to deal with on a daily basis. You see, I do this several times a week when I am writing my blog. My brain gets hi-jacked by another topic and I wind up writing half a blog about the wrong topic and then I have to make a decision. Do I just continue on and write the planned topic tomorrow???? Or do I delete and write the planned topic today??? This is why sometimes you don't get a blog until lunchtime. It isn't that I am lazy and putting it off. I just might have written two or three blogs before you actually see anything published. If I really wrote down everything that goes through my head, it would be like a Robin Williams stand up routine from the 80's when he was always messed up on cocaine with all of the constant topic changes. It's not pretty people.
Okay, so getting back to my planned topic - Halloween! I'm not the kind of person who gets all excited about Halloween. I don't decorate the house or anything like that. I know people who do. There is nothing wrong with that. I just choose not to do it. I only decorate for one holiday a year and that is Christmas. But I loved Halloween as a kid. Is there anything more fun than the month leading up to Halloween when you are 5 to 8 years old? I don't think so. All of the planning that took place thinking about a costume was greatness!
I think some of our greatest costumes growing up were the "fly by the seat of our pants" costumes that we made up. Back then, your parents didn't spend a couple of hundred dollars on your costume and props and a costume for themselves so that they were an additional walking and talking prop for you. Nope! Back then, you dug through some old clothes that Mom was saving for a garage sale to see if you could make anything out of any of it. When you found something that would work, you were given scissors, and make-up to complete the outfit. For some reason the Meyers kids usually went on Halloween dressed as "hobos" wearing clothes that were too big but worn out and cinched up with rope for belts, you know, they looked like they had been dug out of a trash bin, which that sort of were. Mom's garage sale pile was just one good purging from a trash bin. For some reason, we wore clown type make-up with that outfit and you always carried a stick with a handkerchief tied to the end of it over your shoulder.
When I asked once what a hobo was, it was explained to me as a man who gets on the train without paying and goes from city to city. You have to remember that I probably asked that in 1971. In 1971, I am sure that was the only explanation my mom could come up with. Now I know that a hobo was a depression era homeless person and we for some reason portrayed them as clowns and people told us we were cute when we did it. But you know what? When a kid dresses up in a crazy get up that they come up with themselves, it usually is pretty cute. So, maybe they had something. I just can't believe that the ACLU didn't swoop down on Nottingham Dr. and sue the entire Meyers family for our uncaring exploitation of depression era homeless people.
What really became funny now that I look back at it was when we decided we needed masks so we made them out of grocery bags that we cut holes in and colored with our trusty crayons. Then our hobos would have a cigarette drawn onto the grocery bag dangling out of his mouth. Really? Why did we do that? I still have no idea what made us decide to draw a cigarette dangling from the hobos mouth. We would also draw hair on the grocery bag which begs the question; why didn't we just leave the grocery bag off and put make-up on? Who can ever explain the mind of an 8 year old?
I just went to Wikipedia and looked up hobo. My mom may have done one or two of the updates on this entry because parts of it are very similar to her definition. It's always weird when you realize that your mom actually knew what she was talking about. The most interesting thing I find on the Wikipedia entry is that there is apparently a distinct difference between a hobo, bum and tramp. Apparently, tramps work only when they are forced to, bums don't work at all and hobos are "workers who wander". (I guess by that definition I am a tramp....) The greatest thing is that there is a photo of two hobos walking down the railroad track that is almost my exact Halloween costume for a number of years between 1971 and 1975. Seriously! Take a look! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hobo
Okay, well that's really all I wanted to tell you about Halloween.... maybe I should have stuck with the pathetic cat entry. Have a Happy Halloween!
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