Halloween NoCal Style

We were invited to a home for pumpkin carving Friday night. The guy works with Mark and has 2 children. When we arrived, the driveway was full of small people busily carving and lots of parents assisting. Apparently, this is an annual event and there are prizes for the carved pumpkins. The home is in a cut neighborhood where many of the houses on the street are Craftsman-style with front porches, single story, multi-paned front windows.... you get the picture. Charming. And as we shook LOTS of hands and heard (or not) LOTS of names, I noticed that the driveway went from the house - literally cement RIGHT UP to the building - to the neighbor's fence. And it was only about 11' wide. So I wandered into the front yard and looked at the other side of the house..... maybe 5' to the neighbor's fence and then about another 5' to the house next door. PHEW! That's close, I thought as I fondly remembered the gullies on either side of the New England house full of trees and light and space. So as I watched the party evolve (more watching than chatting on my part as it was very noisy and hard for me to hear), I noticed that the driveway is used as living space, not parking space. In the back by the 1-car garage (full of kid stuff and no car), there were planters and chairs. Kids could play in the strip by the house and out in front. Cars are on the street. The backyard (about the size of a large patio) was full of a hammock, rope swing, BIG tree with steps for climbing, small garden and compost area.... in other words, every space is used. It made me realize how easily I took for granted all the room I had outdoors in New England. But best of all were the outdoors fires...... Because there is little space outside and all the space has to be multipurpose, there is no place for a fire pit or other place to have a permanent outside fire. So..... the portable fire pit! It comes in many styles - the large rectangle that simply holds a fire of small logs about 3' off the ground and is open on all sides so lots of people can pull up chairs and sit around DRINKING WINE OF COURSE and enjoy a fire outside at night. Or there is the Mexican-style fire planter. It's not really a planter, but it is often made of red adobe clay and it IS sold in the garden center part of Target and other stores. It is a round belly-like container with an opening on one side and a chimney attached to direct smoke up and away from the smaller number of people pulled up in chairs sitting around AND DRINKING WINE. When I asked people at the party about the two different styles, many preferred the chimney-style as you didn't get smoke in you face, hair and clothes (Yew! Smelling like you had been OUTDOORS and CAMPING). Again, it sits up off the ground and is portable. So you have your fire in the evening.... and then pack the thing away in the morning! VOILA! Reusable space! Needless to say, Mark and I have started shopping for one..... We are thinking about the chimney-style...... smoke smell, you know.
Now, in NoCal, you can't be too organized and carve your pumpkin the weekend before...... it will rot in 4 days. So we had to carve a new pumpkin..... no, I had to carve (Mark didn't do his ahead....) my pumpkin Saturday. Of course I couldn't simply make a face.... as you can see..... We decided to use Mark's bicycle lights in them. Mark used the red tail light (VERY BRIGHT!!) and had it flashing while I used the tamer white one. Then we opened up the 2 LARGE bags of candy (some of my favorite kinds) and put on our costumes (Thing 1 and Thing 2 to follow up my pumpkin motif)and waited...... At 6:30, the first trick-or-treater came. And he wouldn't come up on the porch because he was scared of Mark's pumpkin! His dad was pushing him up and his mom kept saying, "Oh Look Dear! The Cat In The Hat!!". I was eagerly hanging out the door shouting, "Happy Halloween!!" and waving the BIG bowl of GREAT candy at him. He finally saw the candy, reluctantly came up, grabbed a piece and ran away. So much for our first time. We ended up with 32 trick-or-treaters (we counted to get a better idea of candy quantity for next year) with the last about 9pm. Most were little.... so, Mark.....NO SCARY PUMPKINS next year. It was great to hear PARENTS not kids say, "Oh look - Thing 1 and Thing 2. You know Johnny - from Dr Seuss!" and Johnny is dressed as a Transformer or the murderer from Scary Movie or Spiderman......Hmmm...... Lots of cute babies dressed up with Mom and Dad collecting the loot. Some parents had brought cameras - Moms usually photographed my pumpkin, Dads took pictures of Mark's. And then it was finished and Mark and I as Thing 1 and Thing 2 could sit in front of our Big Screen TV watching murder and mayhem and stuff ourselves on all the leftover candy..... Halloween is such a great holiday!