There’s something ridiculous, and most probably truly scary, about someone who just spent 20 minutes taking 97 pictures of herself in the hopes of getting a decent shot of my Halloween jewelry.

It’s scary because frankly, it’s not all that fantastic. Much more interesting is my son’s Halloween costume, which he donned in the gray dawn of morning in order to wear it to Preschool.

Darling, no? As are Mrs. Fleenor and Mrs. Gabbard, there on the right, who confided she was “too embarrassed” to pick up her morning Diet Coke at McDonald’s this morning. Can you believe that?

This year Trassie appears as Luigi, of Mario Brothers fame, which every kid I know insists upon calling Mario Bros. Like, he’s my bro, plural of. Like that. Maybe that’s how the games are marketed; I don’t know — but it’s one of those things that make me cranky if I haven’t gotten enough coffee or I don’t have more important things to bother me.

Honestly, Halloween is not one of my favorite holidays. I mean, really: death and dismemberment, who is really for that? Plus the decorations don’t even fit the definition. Don’t look to me as someone who wants rig out her house so that it looks like crap.

Oh, I can be talked into things. One year I purchased some of that spiderweb junk and draped it all over the bushes so that it appeared a massive arachnid had set up camp in my hollies. This theoretical spider also caught all manner of dried, curled leaves; windblown Kroger plastic grocery bags; and the occasional small rodent.

No, the rodent is a lie; he was discovered beneath the recycling container decomposing. Thankfully he’d mostly gone back to earth because there really wasn’t any stench, just bones — which has perplexed me ever since because I more or less faithfully take out the recycling every week. So how did he die and lay decomposing and stinking for weeks? Maybe it was because I rolled the cans to the curb after dark and never saw the horrid thing. Bleck-o. Now I’m viewing trash disposal in a whole new light. Thank heaven I’ve got two slaves, I mean adolescents, to take over most of the KP duty.

See what thinking about Halloween has done? Set me to ruminating on dead animals and stinking garbage. Oh what a fun season. And let’s don’t forget about the whole reason for the season: evil spirits loose in the world. It falls the night before a Holy Day in the Church calendar, All Saint’s Day. Halloween, or All Hallow’s Eve harkens back to a pagan holiday that the Christian observence was meant to counteract. Something about going all out for a holiday celebrating the antithesis of what I believe just chafes a wee bit.

But that’s not to say I am AGAINST HALLOWEEN or that IT’S THE WORK OF THE DEVIL. I mean, look at me, I’m wearing skulls.

Halloween is full of happy memories of my childhood — trying to cover then entire residential area of Carrollton in the time allotted for trick-or-treating was always the major goal of the night’s festivities. On a good night’s haul, we went home to change bags more than once. Then there’s the sweet memory of the Halloween party in the school basement at church, where the perfunctory bowl-of-spaghetti-as-guts were the main attraction of the “haunted house.” I’ll never forget the time I got water up my nose bobbing for apples and thought I was going to die, right there in the sight of the Blessed Virgin smiling down upon the satanic activities. Good times, good times.

Last year I purchased a small graveyard from a neighbor who was moving out, peopled it with a ghoul coming out of the ground and threw in some pumpkins to up the cheer factor a bit.

Trassie, who as you can see, last year dressed as Spiderman, thought it was pretty fun. But after a while the ghoul, who has taken up residence in the garage since he concluded his duties last year, started to bother him and he didn’t care to see his ghastly face every time we got out of the car. Ditto for the hideous death head, or something that Tras nabbed at the Wal-marts a couple weeks ago, expressly at the behest of Mssr. Trasimond, who wanted a “scary thing” to art the house up a little bit. Ever since it’s been home, he’s begged Tras to get rid of it. I can’t say I disagree; Mr. Death Head has spent the week facing the wall on top of the refrigerator, apparently his own personal version of hell.

So every once it a while, it’s fun to get in the spirit of Halloween. Death and decomposition, whee! I’m content to throw some skulls around my neck, rig up my children as Nintendo characters, Illegal Aliens (it’s true; Christopher is sporting the quasi-racist little green man-with-a-green card mask) and even a Powder Puff Girl.

Just as long as no real ghouls come knocking and turn me into a simpering idiot, prone to scampering through the house like the demons of hell are after me, like I did one time when Tras came back from a shopping expedition unexpectedly.

It prompted him to ask if I found this “tippie-toe run” an effective deterrent to burglers, home invaders or visitors from the spirit world.

Well you never know. It might.

Enjoy the season, celebrate death and remember when you go to Mass early Sunday morning to thank God he spared you a visit from some miscellaneous demon from hell the previous night.

From ghoulies and ghosties
And long-leggedy beasties
And things that go bump in the night,
Good Lord, deliver us!

Amen!