It's close to midnight and something evil's lurking in the dark

I saw a tweet on Twitter today that said "Halloween this year feels a bit like a girl's birthday, we're dragging it out for more than a week".  So true.  That's why dressing up this weekend felt so weird considering it was only October 26th.  But November 2nd felt like it was way too late!  And God knows I'm too old to drag my ass out and about on a Thursday night and risk not getting my full 8 hours of sleep in.  *Sigh* so dressing up this past weekend it was. 

Originally I was planning on putting my creativity skills to work (have I mentioned I LOVE crafting??) and go as a giant, purple shower loofah.  When Friday night rolled around and I still didn't have a costume prepared I figured I better throw something together, so into the depths of my closet I went. 

Recently I had finished up every last episode of Breaking Bad and needed a series to take its place.  My friend, Jenna (the troll pictured left), recommended the show Dexter to me.  I'm currently one episode away from the series finale so DO NOT RUIN IT FOR ME.  Thank you.  You may ask, how does Dexter relate to my Halloween costume?  In one of the first seasons Rita (Dexter's girlfriend at the time) dresses up as Lara Croft: Tomb Raider and heads over to his house for a little wink, wink, nudge, nudge.  She looked pretty bad-ass and I thought I'd file that idea away for future reference.  Little did I know I would be frantically racing around my house looking for a Halloween costume a few weeks later.

Lucky for me I enjoy dressing in the color black.  I'm not some weird emo, goth chick - I just like black cloths.  And dogs apparently.  Anyways, I found a pair of black shorts, a black tank top, donned some knee high black boots and went downstairs to ask Curtis if he could guess who I was dressed up as.  His first reaction?  "Are you going as a Maguire's waitress?".  Dammit.  Without leg holsters and a 4 foot long braid it did resemble my old staff uniform at the Irish pub.  With that comment we set out for Halloween Alley on Saturday afternoon so Curtis could do his regular last-minute costume scrounge there and I could put the finishing touches on Lara.

 

Going to Halloween Alley the Saturday before Halloween is a bad idea.  Costumes are thrown all over the place, customers are panicking and grumpy and the staff has had its fill of people trying on every mask and hat in sight and fake stabbing people with the plastic swords.  I found my leg holsters and Curtis tried on every costume in the joint, finally settling on a "Caesar-esque" gown of sorts.  We got the heck out of there before we were fully engulfed in Halloween-Hell.

Once this weekend rolls around Halloween will officially be over.. all 8 days of it.  Perhaps next year I can get my creativity juices flowing prior to the night of the party?  Maybe if I invest in 30 feet of tulle now I'll have my loofah ready just in time for next year!

B-I-N-G-O and Bingo was its name-o!

As I said last week I would fill you in on our Splurge night at bingo.  On 22nd Street.  Yes, we went to the depths of the alphabet soup, the ghetto, for a night of bingo and lived to tell about it.  We should just take a moment to celebrate that fact.

Many, many things were learned Saturday night.  Lesson #1: if you want to play bingo at City Centre (the one near the Great Buffet of China) you have to be there and ready to play by 7:00pm.  If you are late you either have to wait for the 9:30pm game or you have to go to Lucky Bucks for their drop-in bingo.  So we went to Lucky Bucks.

Lesson #2: The minimum amount of cards you can play "regular play" with is 6.  Unless it's a speedo, bonanza or some other specialty game.  If you want to buy more cards you are welcome to but let me tell you those numbers are coming at you hard and fast.

Lesson #3: Make friends with the lady selling the cards.  Thank god for that sweet lady or we would have had even less of an idea of what was going on than we already did.

Lesson #4: Make sure you know what type of pattern they're looking for before you call bingo.  The serious bingo players get mad if you call a bingo for a line when it was really supposed to be a roaming bow tie.

Lesson #5: You have to call out bingo as soon as you get it, before the caller calls the next number. Regular bingo players will also get mad at you if you do this and stop the game on them.. again.

Lesson #6: No visiting.  Think of it like some sort of weird, smelly library.  If you think you're going to be a bingo newb and chat it up with your buds at the same time while you're playing, you're wrong. 100% focus is required to scan the cards for the number called all while checking to see if you have a bingo.  Things got so intense that someone could have come into the place with a gun and we may not have noticed unless the caller quit calling out numbers.

Lesson #7: Bingo is not cheap.  That place took my money, put me through the wringer and kicked my ass out the door with a headache and blurred vision.  I felt like I had been on a weekend bender and I hadn't even had a drink.  I needed a 12 hour sleep after that bingo-a-thon.

Lesson #8: There is some skill required.  Apparently I have none.  This is not just a game of chance people!  Don't let them fool you.

Lesson #9: Don't sit by anyone that looks like they've had too much to drink.  They may end up almost knocking you off your chair while you're in a dabbing frenzy.

Lesson #10: Never leave a man behind.  To get out of there alive make sure you always stick together in groups.  Just like on The Hangover we were like a wolf pack of 9 girls running around the 22nd Street bingo.

As I stumbled out of Lucky Bucks with bingo dabber running down my arms I came to the conclusion that bingo just isn't my sport.  A few of the girls are considering making careers out of it but I think I better just stick with what I've already got going on.

Who let the dogs out?

A Wednesday blog post?  I am really slipping.. I don't even know myself anymore with this late-ass post.  The Thanksgiving long weekend really messed up my deadline this week.  We had a pretty uneventful Day o' Turkey.  We gave thanks in the booming metropolis of Plunkett.  No, that's not a board game, that is an actual blip on the map.  Other than that nothing too exciting occurred which left me at a loss again for a blog this week.  I know I am going to have a ton of things to write about next week when we spend our Splurge night at Bingo.  Lord help me.  I asked the girls at work for some ideas and cutie-patootie Marie came up with the suggestion of life with our new puppy, Gracie.  Fantastic!  There are definitely lots of things I can say about that.

Recently Curtis and I adopted a 7 month old Black Lab/Great Dane cross from a rescue in Cando (just outside of North Battleford).  For months I had contemplated opening our house to another pooch.  A lot of people give me the gears about having kids but I am still not there yet in my life.  In chatting with my friend, Jinelle (who loves children and even has 3 of her own), I asked her if I was just going to be a crazy dog lady.  She made me feel better by telling me that "Dogs need moms too."  True friends never make you feel like you're losing your mind :-) I mean it's not like I was experimenting with meth or anything, it was just adopting a dog but the amount of negative comments I got from people was irritating.  Getting a second dog was an attempt to help our overly anxious 5 year old Bichon/Shih Tzu cross, Keefer, calm the eff down.  Curtis was skeptical and figured all that would end up happening was that we would have two psycho dogs instead of one.

When Gracie first arrived Keefer was definitely jealous.  She just bounced around trying to get pets
from everyone while he glared evilly at her from people's laps.  Currently at standing she is about 4' tall and is weighing in close to 60 pounds so she is no delicate flower.  She came through our house like a whirlwind jumping up at the counter and trying to get at the dishes in the sink.  For a brief moment I thought that maybe Curtis was right and started to regret the decision.

Gracie also got explosive diarrhea not once, but twice within the first 2 weeks of her stay.  And when I say explosive I mean literally showered our backyard with projectile shits.  One night I sleepily locked her in her kennel and went to bed.  When I woke up in the morning and opened the bedroom door the foulest smell knocked me back.  At the bottom of the stairs stood Gracie happily wagging her tail with what looked like chocolate pudding smeared on the carpet.  Apparently I hadn't latched her kennel all the way and she made her great escape while I was in full REM mode.  As I scrubbed our mini shag carpet that morning I really wondered what I had gotten myself into.

One of the things that kept me hopeful about the playful pup was her ability to listen.  Yes, she has a ton of energy but almost immediately we felt comfortable letting her off her leash knowing she wouldn't take off on her new family.  Within a few weeks Keefer started to warm up to her.  His behavior did a complete 180 actually.  We used to have to take him to doggie daycare due to his anxiety while we were away, even for the shortest amount of time.  Now he and Gracie spend their days lounging around at home.

I've taken Gracie to an obedience class so she's learning to walk on a leash much better now.  She was constantly pulling and with a dog her size it was hard to control her.  I can't blame her, she had come from a farm where she had full range to run outside and now she was thrown into a new house where walks outside were limited to the length of the leash.  She's actually become a great running partner now.  I can even take both of dogs and burn through the neighborhood without any worries of her jerking me around or stampeding over Keefer. 

Her listening skills have gotten even better and she has learned a few new tricks courtesy of Curtis.  She understands that the furniture, countertops and stove are off limits and that she is not supposed to eat the food in Keefer's dish.  She has really come a long ways in the month that she has been with us.  Not only did we give a home to a puppy that needed one but her and Keef are best buds now.  Anything she does, he does.  Anything he does, she wants to do.. including attempting to be a lap dog herself.  She's not perfect but she's a puppy and she has made our lives that much better with her in it!

Then you can mash. Then you can monster mash.

Tis the season to think of Halloween costumes... fa la la la la la la la la.  I was really struggling to think of blog post ideas today since nothing overly exciting happened this week.  I didn't think you guys wanted to read about my trip to the mall with my mom to help her pick out the perfect navy dress pant at Cleo.  I turned to my always creative friend, Vanessa, for help and her first suggestion was for me to do a post on "Getting Old and Turning Boring".  So helpful that girl is.  Her second suggestion was about Halloween costumes.  Perfect, something I know almost as much about as getting old and turning boring!   

Oddly enough I had already started pinning various costume ideas to my desktop in an effort to nail down the perfect costume (I LOOOOVE dressing up!).  Over the years I have noticed some changes in the way people (girls mainly) choose their duds for this special evening that only happens once a year.  Here is what I have come to understand of the female population when it comes to Halloween costumes:

Late Teens (Pre-Bar Age)
When I say late teens, in this sense, I mean individuals that aren't quite bar age yet.  If you're going to try hitting up the club scene with a fake i.d. you either need a costume that makes you look like you didn't just celebrate your Sweet Sixteen or one where you can't see your face all that well.  Or so I've heard..

Early 20's
Girls that are in their early bar-star years tend to choose costumes based on sex appeal.  Basically, the skankier the better.  If you can pair whatever costume you have with some stiletto heels or a pair of over the knee boots and the shortest mini skirt you can get your hands on in October, then that's the costume for you.  You also don't want to choose anything that requires a lot of face make up.  All that will happen is after too many beverages that sh*t is going to end up smeared all over the place, possibly even on the random who you decided to have a d-floor make out with at last call.  After all this is the only night all year that you can wear something sloot-alicious and no one can even call you out on it because it's your "costume".  Most of these are purchased and usually there is zero-to-hardly any thought put into the details of the outfit.  Price is of no object, as long as you look sexy you don't need to eat for a week or two anyways.

Mid 20's
Creativity starts to play a part in determining what you'll be wearing this night.  You want to wow your friends and Instagram followers with how much time and effort you put into this costume.  Looking like a sexpot is less of a priority and the cost of the materials does play somewhat of a role in your choice, especially when you remember how hungry you were for the month of November five years ago when you ordered that $200 sexy cat costume online.

Early 30's
If you have children, dreams of a full night's sleep after the kids go to bed in a candy induced coma is probably what's on your mind.  You may have forced your husband into a matching family Minions costume to take the kiddies trick or treating in.  If you got sucked into a gathering at a friends house you might cut some eye holes out of a bed sheet and don that as your attire just so people leave you alone for not coming dressed up at all. 

I hope at the very least this blog post made you laugh and either reminisce about the good ol' days or reminded you of someone you know.  I have 4 costume ideas on the go right now so in a few weeks you'll get to see which one I chose!