Halloween, Bar Golf Edition

We're nearing the end of the year, and that means a barrage of major holidays, including the triumvirate of Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas. Now, it's not that I don't love my family, but Thanksgiving and Christmas have never been huge deals for us. Moreover, we generally don't roast a turkey (the one year we did it, everyone hated eating turkey for weeks afterward), so over the years, we have variously cooked things like shabu pots, lobster and duck for meals. My extended family is also geographically dispersed, so although relatives will occasionally fly in, holidays are not usually the equivalent of a family reunion. My point is, we have never subscribed to the classic American Thanksgiving/Christmas, so it's a little weird for me to see people going gaga over eggnog and cranberry sauce shaped like a cylinder.

On the other hand, Halloween is a holiday that is, at least in my mind, defined by creativity. For one day out of the year, you must come up with a costume that is transformational (wearing only devil horns doesn't count), topical (current events references are a plus), low-cost (preferably created from thrift store supplies) and warm (to battle frigid fall temperatures). It goes without saying that storebought costumes are anathema to this philosophy. In recent years, I have dressed up as magnetic poetry, a Wiimote, a whiteboard, and an accident-victim cyclist.

For this year's costume, I shamelessly stole a tip from MF. I took a bunch of tampons and pads, colored them blue, taped them all over me, and arrived as Picasso's Blue Period. That's right, a perfect combination of ironic wit, high-brow intellectualism, and gross-out humor. I was attracting quite a few stares as I walked around Target in this outfit.

The rest of the Fed Crew included Juno (Haley) and Bleeker (Nate), Derek Neal (Erik), Harry Potter (Ricky), and House (Chris). The plan was to play a modified version of bar golf, with various ways to earn points by either spotting something (Joker, Michael Phelps, Ben Bernanke) or performing an action (scoring a free drink, making somone scream, getting a phone number). Unfortunately, we didn't make it to all 9 "holes" in our "course." In fact, we only managed to hit two places before bars began closing at 2 am. I blame the lengthy queues to get inside and to get drinks. I'm also disappointed that there weren't more political costumes (but "naughty" nurses abounded, of course). For the duration of the night, I only saw one Sarah Palin. Appropriately, she did cause a bit of a kerfuffle by stumbling and knocking over a RedEye newspaper dispenser. Take that, liberal media!

I suppose I shouldn't judge because we managed to start some commotion as well. While walking between bars, Colin (Nate's friend visiting from MD) was casually talking to some guy dressed as Misty May, when he suddenly knocked Colin's sunglasses off his nose. Naturally, Colin was quite peeved at this provocation from a guy wearing a sports bra, and the two of them started fighting. We quickly broke up the fight, as in, Ricky and Nate got between the other guy and his friends while Chris tried to talk Colin down psychologically.

Chris: You are completely justified in your anger.
Colin: Motherfucker *@#)!(*%!

It was a pretty awesome cap to the night.

As for Thanksgiving, like last year, I will be staying in Chicago, partially so I can study for an upcoming final exam, but mostly because it's not worth the plane ticket and time to travel home for Thanksgiving. At any rate, it looks like Chris, Erik and Ricky are going to be in town, so we'll be concocting an "Ungrateful Wretches" feast, which will be vegetarian, of course. I've volunteered to personally hunt and kill a tofurkey. No seriously, I have some excellent recipes up my sleeve for killer mashed potatoes and cornbread stuffing. Also, a great recipe for sweet potatoes and curried lentils. What, that's not at traditional dish at your Thanksgiving?