Sra. Vampira

I made my way to the Salvation Army that morning (see below), to find what costume I could find. But it was just shy of 10:00, so the SA was not yet open. So instead, I made my way to the grocery store to spend off the last fifty dollars of our grocery money on stuff for next month (we are getting good at this whole budgeting thing). I bought flour and sugar and canned goods. Then I went down the Halloween Stuffs Aisle, and found the last package of face paint that came with vampire teeth. There was one other option- the last package of face paint that didn't come with vampire teeth.

And that's the story of how I decided to be a vampire for Halloween.

Then, it was back to the Salvation Army to complete the costume. I found some really slick pants, and if I could have found a slick coat or blouse to go with it, I could have been one of them newfangled modern vampires in those movies that are so popular with the kiddies nowadays. But instead, I found an off-the-shoulder black velvet dress that was only two sizes too big for me. It was 7 dollars, but it looked really cool when I tried it on over my clothes (they don't have dressing rooms at this one), so I got it despite the obvious over-pricing.

I got home and tried it on again. I pulled the off-the-shoulder sleeves up onto my shoulders, and it still looked good, even though it was a bit on the uncomfortable side where my underarms were concerned. I slicked my hair back, painted my face, put in the teeth, and voila! Vampire costume for under 11 dollars.

The haunted tunnel was way-cool. The kids really decorated it up well. Of course, by the end of the night, some of the boys decided it would be way scarier if they turned off all the lights on their end of the tunnel, and they jumped out from complete darkness, rather than spooky surroundings. And they could not be convinced by anyone that this was not the case. They even talked later about how people "were more scared in the light!" Ah well.

We made some kids cry. I realized quickly that I could not wear the teeth when I was leading young kids through. They would be too scared to enter with "Sra. Vampira", as Sr. Angie dubbed me. The first kid I took through got too scared, even holding his father's hand, and we had to turn back early. The fright made several kids cry. Some of them were clinging to their guides for protection. They were only allowed to go through once, because after that, they would get too bold, and start messing with the characters. But Sr. Angie let a group of them go through twice, because they went to the trouble of running home and putting on face paint so she wouldn't recognize them. It was a lot of fun.

After I got home, I walked over with Daena and Fabian, Michael and Valerie to the Loyola house to visit their party. Daena was dressed as a crook, and you really do just have to see the mask she had. It was all rubber, the top like a green cap, with a black eye mask and big rubber ears sticking out the sides. She crept instead of walked, with a napsack of beer slung over her shoulder. Fabian was a demon. He stopped in an alley to knock on a stranger's lighted window, and just sat their, waiting for them to pull the curtain back. Nothing happened, so we continued to walk. But then the front door opened, and this guy steps out, and asks with a mafioso accent, "Can I help you?" I had never heard those words sound so threatening before. But Fabian had a demon mask and a battle axe, so he approached the man. Eventually, the guys started laughing, but we watched on for several minutes, waiting for a resolution to the bizarre situation. I had pulled the sleeves off shoulder, and was, I would like to think, a rather regal looking vampire. Michael wore his regular clothes. Val was in her pajamas. We were just going to stop in. Only Daena and Fabian were going to party.

The only really interesting thing that happened the rest of that tired night for me, was hearing the story of the mystery box at the Loyola house. Loyola has a kind of volunteer, work/study type thing going on for teachers in Chicago. One of the houses is two blocks from us, and Fabian teaches with two of the people who live there. They've been at the house about as long as us, just over two months.

They have a box in their basement living room, attatched to the wall. While decorating, one of them decided to find out what was in the box, so she climbed up on a chair, and tried to pry it open. It wouldn't budge. Then, they noticed what is apparently hair coming out of the top of the box. Like, a clump of human hair. They still can't get the box open, but they've decided there is a dead body in it. When I saw it, the hair-substance was still there, and the box had bright orange lettering across is that said, "Happy Halloween".

We had inservice Saturday that included hummus, tortlini, and donuts. Oh, and we're going to get part-time Americorps credit for this year. Two thousand something dollars tuition credit each. And no, that wasn't part of the original deal that we signed on for. Bonus!

This morning we all went to mass at Holy Cross and saw the altars for Dia de los Muertos. They were beautiful. Uncharacteristically, Fr. Bruce did not speak any English at all at mass, so over one-half of the volunteers could not understand him. But the other thousand people in the church could, so I guess that's what matters.

Then we went to eat at this place we saw last night that serves breakfast all day. This was our community outing for the month (two days in, and already that's over with ;)

The food was really good. It was like any Southern breakfast eatery except that the food wasn't dripping with lard, and did not make me even a little sick later. It was quite tasty. The atmosphere.... left something to be.... was less than.... was down right weird. No, really. It was weird. i don't even know that I can describe it, so that kind of makes this a pointless story. Let me try. There was one woman, who was the daughter of the cook, and she starting talking loudly to us as soon as we walked in from across the restaurant. So that we couldn't talk to each other at all. She told us her life's story. The waitress was a much older woman, who kept bringing us more and more toast. The cook, the mom of that first lady, kept coming by and asking if everything was okay. The first woman kept trying to give us honey. Then, her husband and son come in, and she yells at her son for "not talking English", because he was using street slang. So he yelled at her to get out of his restaurant (thirteen-year-old sarcastic-like). Then her husband gets some food, and she tries to bring him some honey, and the boys yells about how she always trying to give everyone honey. And the other woman is still bringing us toast. And the mother is still asking us if everything is okay. And the woman tries to bring us honey AGAIN.

Michael and I were quietly discussing how I could come here and write, if I could be left alone to do it, when we overhear Daena advising Phil to come get coffee every morning before work for awhile in order to get an idea of when the woman is not there, so then he and Val would know when it was safe to come for breakfast together.

Oh, and it was called Jocko's.

Then, tonight, Daena strapped her brother's roller-blades onto my feet and I roller-bladed around the house. And I didn't fall all the way once!

So we're going to try and go roller-blading together on Tuesday. See how that goes.