Things you don't usually say to your kids before sending them to school (except on the day before Halloween).

"You can Wingardium Leviosa all you want, but no Avada Kadavra-ing anyone. Not even Evan."

"Are your ears on? Don't lose your ears. And don't rub against anybody, the bloodstains will leave a mark."

HAPPY HALLOWEEN, EVERYONE!!!

Things I am not looking forward to

1. Driving in the snow.


2. Standing in line to renew the car registration.


3. My next mammogram.


4. Death.

(And hey! it's the Sexy Grim Reaper...)

But worst of all:

5. Telling Rachel that the H1N1 vaccination for kids consists of two shots instead of one.

Let the chips fall where they may....preferably in my mouth

I had an epiphany at the gas station yesterday. I was running on fumes when I picked the girls up from daycare, and so we detoured to the gas station on our way home. While waiting in line to pay, my eyes wandered over (not literally though, thank God) and landed on this:


Lay's Fries 'n Gravy potato chips.

Let's stop a minute and consider the massive world-changing import of this. All the goodness of these:

in a bag!

Somewhere a choir sang, and a single ray of sunshine burst through the massive overcast sky, pierced the grimy gas-station window, and illuminated the chips in all their glory. Like someone in a dream, I reverently grasped the precious bag (single serving -- I haven't found the big ones yet) and purchased it in a state of enlightened grace and interior peace. Or maybe I was just hungry.

When I got home, I shooed the girls outside to play and then took a half-hour vacation from life with my book and the bag of chips. It was better than a weekend in Montreal. (No hangover.) They are good. Scary good. It will be a very bad thing if I find the big bags.

The flavour choice is pure genius. What goes better with potatoes than gravy? Nothing. (Well, ketchup, maybe. But here's the best part -- Lay's has ketchup chips too.)

They are thin and crispy, and if I closed my eyes and imagined the smell of car exhaust, it was just like standing outside one of these:


scarfing down a mouth-burning pile of gravy-drenched fries. Only without the burning part. Or the gravy stains on my jeans. Pure. Deliciousness.

Dear Lay's,

Thanks for creating such a wonderful new snack. My tastebuds thank you. My waistline, however, is less than impressed. Please supply me with an address to which I can send the bills for my new larger clothing.

Your devoted friend,

Alison

I got to thinking that Lay's has pretty well created a whole balanced meal of chips.

There's the main course, roast chicken:




The side-dish, fries and gravy:



A vegetable:

And a condiment:



To round it out, all we need is for Lay's to come up with dessert:


_______________________________

I would just like to go on record as saying that I do not work for Lay's, nor have they paid me to say nice things about their potato chips. But, if they want to send me a case of Fries 'n Gravy chips to say thanks, I'd be very totally OK with that. Seriously.

Halloween is for exhibitionists -- a reprise

"When did Halloween become an excuse to take your clothes off and call it a costume?"-- Lainey

I was reminded of that quote the other day when the girls and I went into a costume store to track down a Gryffindor robe for Rae, who wants to be Hermione Granger for Halloween.

I remember when Halloween costume choices were witch, vampire, hobo, gypsy and maybe princess. Sigh. The slutty costumes are back. And in retaliation, so is last year's Halloween blog.

Halloween costumes, or, What's another word for slutty?

Around our house, Halloween costumes have become a big deal. The girls start thinking about what they want to be somewhere around July September, and we start looking around for ways to make them the costumes they want. This year, Rae wanted to be a pirate, and Leah wanted to be Princess Leia, due to her obsession with Star Wars, which shortly predated her obsession with Labyrinth.

Rae's costume was easy enough. We bought the hat/scarf and a set containing eye patch, earring, hook and sword at Walmart, added black pants from home, and a wonderful puffy shirt/waistcoat combo that was loaned to us by my friend Janice, et voila, a scurvy buccaneer. Leah's was not so easy. After a few painful attempts to coil her hair into Leia's hair bagels, I gave up and did something I've never done before. I ordered her costume online. (I feel like such a sell-out.)

Oh, before I get much further in the story, here is a picture of my incredibly cute offspring, taken this morning before school -- because God knows what kind of shape the costumes will be in when they get off the school bus this afternoon.

Now where was I? Oh yeah, ordering online. I ordered from an outfit that is associated with a local party supplies store, so instead of paying shipping to my house, I picked the costume up at the party store.

When I got there on Wednesday to pick it up, I was floored by all the Halloween stuff they had -- costumes, decorations, make-up, props -- it was truly amazing. But what caught my eye the most was a poster advertising costumes for a company called Secret Dreams. They were women's costumes, and were all kind of....um....slutty. All the costume names were prefaced with the word 'sexy', you know, like 'Sexy Angel', and 'Sexy I Dream of Jeannie', and (God help us all) 'Sexy Tinkerbell'.

Umm, yeah. My eyes started rolling. But you can see -- sort of -- how those female archetypes could be seen as sexy. What blew my mind was what other not-very-sexy costumes they managed to sex up. I present to you, now, the real thing, and the Secret Dreams versions. And I'm not making this up, you know.

The real Wednesday Addams from the Addams Family (note that she is a seven-year-old girl):

And the slutty 'Sexy Wednesday Addams':

A real NASCAR driver:


And the sleazy 'Sexy NASCAR Driver':



But the one that really boggled my mind as being something that was not the least bit sexy was this, the real Ghostbusters:


And (I shit you not), the skanky 'Sexy Ghostbuster':

I am left almost speechless. And needing a thesaurus to come up with more synonyms for 'slutty'.

I did notice, however, that this sluttiness sleaziness skankiness 'sexiness' doesn't seem to be present in the mens' costumes. Oh no siree, Bob. Not at all.

Holy Halloween Inequity, Batman:

Here's Neo, from The Matrix. Not a lotta skin showing here, is there?

What we need is the 'Sexy Casino Royale James Bond' costume -- you know, to even things up for us women:




Wait. On second thought, thinking of what most men actually look like, maybe Neo isn't such a bad costume idea after all.

Happy Halloween, everyone!

(Photos courtesy of Google, except for the picture of my adorable spawn, courtesy of me.)

Earworm mashup

Have you ever wondered what kind of earworm you get from listening to the radio on the way to daycare while the kids are singing loudly in the back seat? No? Well, on the off-chance that you have, here's what's circling around in my head and won't leave:

You say that you're leaving, well that comes as no surprise.....Ring, Ring, Ring, Ring, Ring, Ring, Ring, BANANAPHONE!!

Here's what they sound like separately. I can only ask that you imagine what they sound like together. (Or not, if you want to retain your sanity.)






Somehow, I doubt that Blue Rodeo and Raffi will be touring together anytime soon.

Please shoot me now.