Halloween 2: Feburary 10 (approximately)

Because you just can't get enough of a good thing. And some other holidays are just too scary.

The missus and I threw a Halloween 2 party for our and mostly my friends. It was our and mostly my idea, because Valentine's Day is silly, a scam, offensive, fraudulent, and way too pink for a man as butch as I am. So we picked a Friday night because I have to work Saturday nights, invited all the people we thought would come and then some we hoped might. Although we forgot about her cousins- darn. And I made it a pot luck so we and mostly I would not have to cook everything. The day before we whipped up a half order (75 cookies) of gingerbread hippos, dinosaurs, and elephants with my cute cutter shapes, then decorated them with sprinkles and Teresa's fine from-scratch frosting. They were cute. Then we put together a spooky haunted house gingerbread kit I bought on clearance in November and tucked away for a rainy day because you never know when a Halloween might attack you suddenly- just look how many sequels there are by that very name.

For our dinner contribution, I made my famous Chinese slow pork which normally goes on tostadas or fresh-fried tortillas from scratch, but was just a stand alone. Chinese aromatic spices, brown sugar and green diced chiles. It was as usual a big hit and provided left-overs. Goes great in a salad, an omelette, or over pasta or rice. Teresa boiled a box of "Mother In Law's Tongue" pasta I bought at a World Market store- $6.98 a pound- but fun. It was so pricey that I had saved it for 3 years. The best by date was a 2010. Whoops. But it was still fresh. It is dried after all. And a popular hit. Pictured above.

We had 10 total come, and no one else dressed up, but I made them wish they had with my magnificent full-body spandex that only complete confidence can carry off. I told them before changing that I was going to shame them into wishing they were more fun and had worn costumes, despite being so heavily outnumbered. And I did it. Just like I had at work for the 2 day costume contest when I went as hairy, angry, loner with a heart of gold and a high sense of honor, and much baggage of all sorts who has bad dreams, X-Man Wolverine on Day 1 and then a hooded Ninja on day 2 with kitana and the line of my underwear very visible from the tightness of the body suit. And few others dressed up. But I did get a new fake work girlfriend out of it. This one is married with 4 children and has a perfect attitude. She asked me why my friends weren't around much anymore so I said, "well I wasn't going to tell you, and they haven't said anything to me, but they all think we're having an affair and want to be left alone." So she worried for about 5 seconds and then got annoyed for 5 more, then said, "we should egg this on! It'll be fun." With me going on a 2 week vacation we both knew people would really start to talk and wonder so we started inventing stories, and were even finishing one another's sentences: tell everyone I made a pass at you after talking you into carpooling one day...and then I slapped you...yeah!...and you slashed my tires...what a jerk I am!...I know! So you were fired...bummer!...No I'll be the desperate one. I begged you to run away with me...so I used all my vacation time to get away from you and hope it all was better when I came back...that's believable!

Ah good times. She's much better at coping with social attention than my under-aged fake work girlfriend was.

Teresa was a Bandito, though she failed to look menacing with her toy water pistol, tiny guitar that has only one string short enough to pluck and tune (it snapped by the way when she tried to play a one note song), and bright smile. But she pulled off the Guy Fawkes mustache pretty darn sexily, if I dare admit.

Everyone did bring food, good for them. Even if it was mostly all from Walmart. The Twilight Cupcakes were at least in the spirit of the slightly appalled but triumphantly exuberant nature of Halloween 2, which stands boldly in the face of its enemies and such and such. Traditional Halloween 2 decorations can also include a tiny holiday pine tree, preferably fake, and decorated with your favorite ornaments. We put out a big pile of chocolate wrapped in Halloween foil I still had, and still have, and one girl brought a good clam dip and some no bake cookies. Then we watched Looney Tunes mocking Cupids and romance, pitting ducks and bunnies against inferior witches and vampires, and talked pleasantly for 3 hours with a Charlie Chaplin film playing, there when anyone wanted it and in those few moments of awkward silence. The film seemed to confuse most, who did not get that it took place in 1929 so the millionaire was ruined and saved every couple of hours and would change moods accordingly, the flower girl crush was blind and apparently approximately deaf and without any sense of smell, until the final scene, when the whole party stopped and everyone was horrified. Now that is an "anti-Valentine's Halloween 2 movie ending!" I said triumphantly to a few boos and some applause. The other option was "A Brief Encounter" which ends with 2 scenes of the two leads crying after not having an affair because they are already married to good people and have children waiting for them at home. But a silent movie is just more perfectly suited to parties.

Sadly Married Marie from work could not come, as she had to work, along with a lot of my other friends. But a new tradition was started maybe, and it was still better than Valentine's Day.