Pondering Halloween

I love this time of year. The weather starts to get cool, the trees start to turn, I get to roast vegetables and make soup, and of course Halloween is just around the corner. I love the process of thinking about and costumes, getting excited about creating crazy gross-out Halloween food, and carving pumpkins (even though I never end up actually carving a pumpkin). In D.C., we were lucky enough to have friends that loved to dress up and go out on the town, but our last Halloween there was a bit of a let-down. Most of our friends had moved away and we just couldn't get up the motivation to go out on our own. Since we moved to Portland just two months before Halloween last year, we didn't have a lot of time to make friends and sat that one out too. I have now had two years of build-up and can't wait to get out for Halloween Portland-style.

I feel pretty lucky to have found a group of friends who love to dress up (at Halloween and otherwise), so this year is going to be pretty awesome. The Halloween party date is set, and everyone is hush hush about their costume ideas. These ladies and gents take their Halloween pretty seriously. I have a couple of ideas up my sleeve, but they'll have to stay under wraps for now. Here are a few of our costumes from the past to hold you over for a couple of weeks:

2003: Ice Queen (which unbeknownst to me was my nickname during the first few months of grad school) and Wolverine.

2004: My best friend, Lauren, and I dressed up as Krystle and Alexis from Dynasty. J said that my faux silk jumpsuit was so ugly that he might never be able to love me again.

2005: Bill the Butcher from Gangs of New York and Mrs. Incredible. I think bourbon and some strong margaritas gave me the courage to put on skin-tight red suit. Jesse also really enjoyed the margaritas and nearly got kicked out of Heaven and Hell (a local bar) for his jubilant dancing. I had to cut off part of his costume when we got home. It was a good Halloween.