Nostalgia

I am feeling a bit nostalgic for childhood. Well, maybe just for autumn. No, childhood autumn. When we went on field trips to nearby farms to get pumpkins. When we raked up gold and red leaves and jumped into wet piles. When the skies were cloudy and the air was cold. Jeans and sweatshirt days, curled up with a book and watching misty rain gather in drops on the windows, smelling the cinnamon rolls baking in the oven. Drawing faces on pumpkins with permanent marker and watching my dad cut them out to our exact specifications. Squishing into the pumpkin goop and sorting goop from seeds. Laying the seeds out all nicely on a tray and covering them in salt. Crunching on them while watching Hocus Pocus. Trying to figure out how the heck one costume or another was going to fit over a snowsuit. Setting up home base on Halloween evening at my uncle's house and going out with my older cousins, feeling cool because we didn't need our parents around. Getting dimes from the lady down the road, and giant candy bars from the funeral home.

So I guess, on reflection, THAT might be why I'm so blah lately. With the seasons swapped, it doesn't feel at all like October should, and more to the point, Halloween simply isn't a thing that's routinely done. Apparently they had "Halloween pumpkins" (they call squash "pumpkin" it's weird) available at the supermarket for the first time last year. They have them there again, but it's going to be 90 the next two days, and I think that would leave the pumpkin a rotting mess on my doorstep. It's too warm for jeans or sweatshirts, there won't be many, if any, children knocking at my door for candy, no real excuse to get dressed up... Granted, the trees ARE a bit confused and have been dropping brown leaves like crazy, but they aren't as pretty.

In which case, my solution for the coming Octobers is this: take this country by storm. Halloween like no one has Halloweened before. I'm thinking Halloween party bash, with apple cider and cinnamon and pumpkin seeds and pumpkin-flavored things and candy and costumes and... I mean, it'll be more fun when I have kids to entertain. BUT STILL.

Oh, and, uh... I don't mean for there to be any spoilers, but a LITTLE BIRDIE told me that Tinker Day is on Sunday. In Australia, anyway. ;)