Another Halloween has come and gone. The boys enjoyed their trick-or-treat throughout our neighborhood. Chicago's often characterized as a city of neighborhoods, and that's always most in evidence during Halloween, which is always wonderful in our area, since there are so many homes there, and lots of Halloween enthusiasts (and who are of the socioeconomic group likely least-affected by the Great Recession). Anyway, it was, as ever, a good showing, and tons of great costumes and nicely tricked-out houses. The boys got a good amount of candy. As ever, Exene and I (her sister was in town, too -- she made a marvelous old-school Bumblebee Autobot costume for B2), anyway, we bring a diehard 1970s trick-or-treat drive to the mix -- I always joke that trick-or-treating is like a commando operation: you don't dawdle; you do good recon and you get to your objectives quickly, with a minimum of fuss. The boys are not particularly adroit trick-or-treaters -- we have to kind of prompt them until they get the hang of it. And, of course, part of that is living in the city -- you don't just walk up to somebody's house begging treats. Not in the city. So, they usually have to kind of be walked through that at first. But, it's a nice spectacle, the neighborhood looks delightful, and the kids all have fun. I didn't dress up this year, as B2 gets a little spooked by some of the costumes (he wouldn't go to some of the spookier houses unless I held his hand), so I was just Daddy this year. B1 enjoyed himself, and his rather unique costume (he was a ghost ship -- I'd made him a ghost ship hat he could wear) got him accolades and instant recognition from classmates. That's his fourth year running with an offbeat and memorable costume. Lord knows what he'll want to be next year. It's always a manifestation of him saying "I want to be X" and me trying to figure out how to make that happen.
