Happy Halloween!

I'm crossing my fingers that I finally live in enough of a neighborhood to get real trick or treaters. I actually bought candy and carved pumpkins for the porch...we'll see how it goes. I think it has been over 6 years since I lived somewhere either less rural or with kids in the hood. I just love to see kids in their costumes, its one of the things I miss most about being a teacher. Plus, I really like to see the traditions of Halloween trick or treating carrying on. Last year, I didn't really get to celebrate the holiday which is my favorite, so I tried to make up for it some this year.

First, I attended a small costume soiree with a good friend that led to us going to our local favorite watering hole immediately after. Our costumes were low key but fun and easy. I was a "medicine woman", costume consisting of: long black dress over black pants, knee high moccasins, lots of turquoise jewelery, a leather beaded and belled ankle cuff, and a medicine belt that had "medicine cards" inside, plus curly curly hair and lots of sparkles on my face. It was amazing how just showing up a little different than normal made it a bit more special, changed peoples interactions, brought out the cheer and made it more festive. In other words, loads of fun and an accidental social experiment!

But my favorite by far was going to an annual charity event (that I hadn't even heard of before somehow) at Eberle Winery. They convert their wine storage caves into "haunted caves" for the holiday. Initially it sounded fun - which is why I wanted to go, but I was totally impressed with how well it was done! The caves are fairly large, very dark, long and winding, with with wine barrels lining the walls of either side. In fact, it reminded me of one of the scary rides at Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk from when I was little, minus the moving cart. They were completely decorated with webs, images, black lights, staged areas, scary folks in masks and costumes, scary stuff hanging from the ceiling, people jumping out of dark crevices, creepy sounds - it was freaking great, I screamed like a five year old and laughed for hours during and after!

Oh ya, and the wine tasting before we went through the caves was pretty great too, evidenced by the case of wine that went home with me. I'm definitely making it one of my Halloween annual events from here on out!

Boo! :)