The Season of Change ... or the Changing of the Season?

I am a spastic blogger. The chaos in my life just throws me way off my game.

And, sadly, just about anything qualifies as chaos. (I am solely responsible for brushing 4 sets of teeth, ergo brushing teeth is chaos. Throw some runny noses in the mix and picture me aimlessly walking around my house, catatonic, cross-eyed and blowing raspberries with my lips, and you'll understand why I've taken a break. )

*sigh*

anyhoo. Catching up.

October came and went, and I woke up November 1st, sweating.

Fall--being true to form--has been all about change: changing leaves, changing weather (or so I'm told--in Florida our Palm trees are still green and our weather is still breaking through 90) ... but, the switching of gears from the laziness of summer to the hustle and bustle of sports and all the holidays is pretty much universal.

So that's where we're been. Changing.

Lately, though, I've been thinking about how Fall, itself ... has changed.

Somewhere on that squiggly line of time between the two points of past and present ... the pop culture train must have strapped on a jet engine pack and traveled mach speed to a world that seems profoundly different.

I mean, when did PURPLE officially become a Halloween color?

Or take this for instance:

That is our trip to the pumpkin patch.

Notice the children in their coordinating outfits? In the world of Facebook, do you even know how lame it would be for me NOT to have taken this trip ... to this farm, in these outfits to take these pictures?

Lame-o.

Or as Michael says, "wame."

I mean, when I was a kid, the pumpkin came home with the groceries. And the only "patch" I'd ever seen was animated ... and Charlie Brown was hiding out in it.

Consider Pumpkin Carving.

(Notice how I call it "Pumpkin Carving?" Like it's an acquired skill? Like "Basket Weaving" or "Snow Skiing" or "Brain Surgery-ing.")

When I was a kid, pumpkins were all the same. They all looked like this:

(Hey kids, that is a jack-o'lantern. It is supposed to look like that.)

And now ... well, it's all stencils, and special tools, and moms and dads gritting their teeth and losing fingers, under the crushing pressure to make a pumpkin look like a masterpiece worthy of its own exhibit.

So our pumpkin looks like this:

Which is still quite simplistic compared to some of the sculpted squash out there.

The costumes?

Today, all the costumes look like they came right off the movie set of the character these kids are "pretending" to be.

I give you Belle and Optimus Prime.

And this is after Michael ditched the "arm cannon" and Madeline ripped off the ornate tiara and incredible hair extensions.

When I was growing up, costumes looked like this:

That is a Strawberry Shortcake mask ... and a vinyl apron-thingy with a scene from the cartoon printed on it. You tied that on over your play clothes and VOILA! Strawberry Shortcake. Then you went bumbling around the neighborhood strutting that gangly walk that is so unique to kids, wearing your old dirty tennis shoes ... thinking you looked just like the real thing.

Or the costumes were homemade.

Case in point: I was a fairy one year. My dad made my wings out of cardboard and then covered them in tin foil. And in my mind ... they were beautiful! And then there was the year I was a princess! I wore my Easter dress, and distinctly remember my dad taking tin foil, yet again, and covering a toilet plunger with it. That was my scepter.

I'll just let that sink in.

A. Plunger.

Covered in tin foil.

(And suddenly I'm seeing my dad as that dad in My Big Fat Greek Wedding squirting everything with Windex ... only my dad's "Windex" is tin foil. "Ah ... you've got a zit? Just rub some tin foil on it. Ah, your arm fell off? Just mold a new one out of tin foil! Ah? You need a scepter? Just cover that plunger in tin foil!")

Can't you see that? A little girl, waving a plunger around, all "oh I'm a princess!"

The reason I am DYING laughing over that is because my daughter's scepter looks like THIS. All bedazzled and cute and it lights up.

And so it has dawned on me. This will be my "walking in the snow, barefoot, uphill both ways" story.

Only it will go ...

"You know, Madeline, back in my day, I used a toilet plunger and just pretended it was a scepter." And she'll give me the same cockeyed look I give my Grammy when she talks about catching the rain water to do the wash.

(insert commentary by the generation before us:)

"You mean you got a plunger?!?!?! Whoah. Fancy. I had a bed sheet with holes in it and went as a ghost. All the kids were ghosts, back then. Or hobos."

(... and the generation before that ... )

"You got a bed sheet? All I got was a paper sack ... I just put it over my head and went as the ugly kid ... and candy? What candy? We were trick-or-treating for gas stamps and sugar rations."

Whiiiiich brings me to the candy.

Yep, there was a time when kids actually worked for that candy because candy was SPECIAL. Even if it was just a tootsie roll. We clambered about, all lanky, and goofy and would bust out into a dead sprint if we found out any one house was giving away the "good stuff" ... like nerds or runts or Everlasting Gobstoppers. Conversely, we learned which houses to (ahem) skip. For instance, there was this one house that handed out Bible Tracks. Now don't get me wrong. I love Jesus. But, um ... SKIP. Attach a candy bar to that thing, and we'll be back next year.

And then there was the lady who gave out 10 pennies in a baggie. to. every. kid.

Talk about things that make you go "hmmmm ..." We'll pause for a moment so we can all meditate on that one.

How much money was that over the years?

How long did it take her to count out all those pennies?

Did she go to the bank and buy them in rolls or did she save them up all year?

Is she doing that to this day, and if so has she adjusted for inflation?

So there we were. Running and darting in and out of yards, with little plastic pumpkins, or sacks or, in some cases, pillow cases collecting the spoils of Halloween. And when the very last house had handed out the very last treat ... we scrambled home, and dumped our loot out onto the floor in a colorful heap. We would eagerly sort it into categories of "goodness" as our parents checked it for "poison" and collected their taxes. (Which for my dad was always the Butterfingers and for my mom, always the Good n Plenty) and I remember feeling sort of proud to give it to them. Like I had really gone out and earned something I could give to them.

I don't know. Is it better?

I remember being unabashedly, embarrassingly excited over halloween ("... Three days 'til Halloween! ... Two days 'til Halloween! ... One day 'til Halloween! ... HOLY COOOOOOWWWWWW IT'S HALLOWEEEEEEEENNNNNN!!!!)

... and I carried a plunger.

It's so glamorous and sparkly and manufactured now. It's almost like the magic of imagining is gone.

I guess maybe I am just sounding older every day.

It's only a matter of time before I begin every sentence with "back in my day ... the answer was tin foil."