Happy Halloween

It dawned on me yesterday. Halloween was tomorrow. Normally I'd have been aware of this for weeks as the kids selected, deselected, and then re-selected their costumes, but because it is not celebrated here in Australia it nearly got by me. And If I hadn't thought about it, probably Jorge had forgotten too.

In the middle of the night I got up to let the dog out for a few minutes. Back in bed, as I drifted off to sleep again, memorable Halloweens flashed through my head…

Spending a debauched few nights in Key West on our third date, recognizing Bugsy McGraw, a Dusty Rhodes-era wrestler familiar to Jorge and I from childhood Saturday afternoons spent in front of the television, sitting on a park bench alone after finishing his evening shift as a Sloppy Joe's bouncer, and being given the Fantasy Fest '85 tee-shirt right off his back...

Getting a surprise lunchtime invitation from Jorge to get married at the courthouse after our formal plans had gone awry, having the service officiated by a civil servant in costume as a priest, and wearing my spiderweb stockings, then going back to work without telling anyone...

Another crazy weekend in Key West for a classic Hollywood-themed Fantasy Fest dressed in a smoking jacket, Ace bandages, and sunglasses as Claude Rains's Invisible Man and Jorge with a giant papier-mache head as The Fly, accompanied by another couple, Johnny and Larry, and bumping into several acquaintances of Jorge's from back home who always wondered about Jorge's cigar-chomping mute companion...

Cheering my sister-in-law on as her baby crowned...

Making the annual costumed six block pilgrimage up the wide palm-lined boulevard from our house to Uncle Ben's, collecting candy and an assortment of friends, cousins, second cousins, siblings, and neighbors along the way, all following the Radio Flyer with a cooler full of treats for the adults and room for pooped out kids, enjoying a neighborhood that always outdid itself with recreations of the Bates Hotel, hired magicians for tricks, and age-appropriate beer and cotton candy for treats...

Slipping out after getting the kids into bed for a late night anniversary dinner, being served goulash by Superman at The Transylvanian restaurant…

Trick-or-Treating in Punta Gorda where people in lawn chairs gave out candy in front of the piles of rubble or vacant lots that used to be their homes before Hurricane Charley struck...

...and then I remembered the disappointing losses of Jorge's custom-made, braided iron slave bracelet on one of his transcontinental travels courtesy of the TSA's security rigmarole, and the sapphire that popped out of my ring somewhere between taking a shower and shifting into fifth gear last month, symbols of our twenty-two years together...

Somewhere in the background I heard a faint beep as a digital watch marked midnight and then Jorge softly, "Happy Anniversary, Hon."