What halloween is for...

Though three out of five of us could scant spare the time, we gathered this weekend to have cake, see Nosferatu (with live orchestra), and wander giggling through the world's largest haunted house...


Belated birthdays that include marzipan-covered cakes shaped like pumpkins:


And halloween-themed mouthwear: my new grill.


The haunted, um, warehouse was awesome as usual. In line, I confided to Mark my fear of Reliquaries, while he happily huffed the roiling fog-gas. We laughed and screamed almost the whole way (which takes almost an hour), managed to avoid most of the girls-gone-wild, and at the very end, we were all herded into a tiny ply-wood closet and covered in balls. Literally, balls were dumped from the ceiling onto our heads and we couldn't move at all. We stood very still and told ourselves it was going to be okay, that we could still breath and it would end soon...then the haunted house ate my shoe.

When I got to the end, Sarah sent someone back in for it as I stood with one stockinged foot raised against the cold. This huge guy comes out, leans over me and yells (they all like to yell) that he warned me not to let anything go, that it's my own fault, and then pulls my shoe reluctantly out of his back pocket - my little red leather shoe with the little bow at the toe - that one.