Getting something together for our first Halloween at the Fair Oaks apartment proved to be a saga in its own right. Originally we had planned to ressurrect Castle Forrester, holding it in the "common room" of the complex, showing bad movies on the TV in there and hosting it as Pearl and Dr F. When our building became Under New Management a few months prior to October we brought the idea to them and they loved it. We would stay in touch.

A month or so later I approached them and they "weren't sure" about the details and would I check back.

The end of September I tried again and still I got a noncommittal answer. A week or so later I found out why. A flyer on our door announced that we were, yet again, Under New Management.

Uh-oh, mild concern. We approached the New Management about it. It was a no-go as they were planning on rennovating the common room and it wouldn't be done in time.

Halloween was ruined. :^( It was too late to really come up with something new, as I would never be able to make new costumes or props in time to do something else. We figured Jimlaaad would just wear his old pirate costume (as that's all he's got besides the Dr F and his Ren Faire peasant outfit), and I was going to wear my old poodle-skirt-ensemble and maybe add some flesh wounds; and we would just watch movies at home and hand out candy.

But of course you must know neither of us would be satisfied with that.

Somehow Jimlaaad's pirate costume spawned a slew of piratey ideas and after some last-minute rushing around and spending of money I had thrown together something mildly piratey both for myself and for Jacques. On Halloween we situated Jacques outside our door, tied to a chair (he's very heavy, didn't want him lurching forward and snarking some poor kid), dressed as the fearsome Cap'n Scabb!! We even took the top of his skull off and filled it with chocolate coins, covered by his hat (the plan was to dare the littler kids to take off his hat for a surprise). I stuck a pair of plastic eyeballs in his eyesockets (one hidden by a patch) and slapped on a beard-and-moustache. We put a boombox looping a cd of piratey music under his chair; and in one hand the Cap'n clutched a rubber eyeball, which supposedly belonged to Jimlaad - oh, I'm sorry, "Mr. Swab." And I? I was Second Mate...Matey. Yeah. Matey.

I drew a "treasure map" leading to our door with glow-in-the-dark sidewalk chalk, and carved a couple of pumpkins. We bought about 13,428 pounds of candy and waited.

I think maybe seven kids came all night. But no one can say we didn't have the coolest setup in the complex.

Yarrr! Bring on the sprogs, ye lubbers!

Follow the dotted line t' the greatest treasure yer eyes ever beheld, yarr!

But sink me, there be sharks in that there lagoon!

Th' cheap scallywag owes us a fortnight in back wages!

Matey "asks" for a day off, and Mr. Swab "asks" for his eye back!

Matey carves a mean pumpkin, yarr.

Blimey, I've seen this movie!

An overview

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