Once in a blue moon

First thing’s first: I got a cat. I got two of them as a matter of fact but first my family got Calypso, a gray tortie, from the Humane Society, at my request. I named her Calypso after the nymph from the Odyssey, otherwise known as the heathen goddess of the sea. This is quite appropriate because she looks like a goddess, but like most cats, can be a bit of a heathen. A few days later we also got Calypso’s brother from the shelter, who my mother promptly named Apollo, for the sun god. So, I now have my first ever familiars, just in time for Halloween.

With it being my favorite holiday, I celebrated Halloween by participating in “trunk or treat,” an event put on by the Children’s Advocacy Center, for children to get a chance to trick-or-treat in peace. I gave out candy with my mother’s co-workers, who were dressed like salt and pepper (the seasoning, not the rap group) at a car which was decorated to look like Frankenstein’s monster. The only other thing I did on Halloween, was hang out with my friends when we ate Anna’s homemade tikka-masala and watched “Addams Family Values,” for the one millionth time.

This downplayed (but very spooky) holiday season has gotten me thinking about my ghosts of Halloween past. Back in 2016, my friends had a Halloween kick-back, in which my friend Mary Catherine dressed as John Lennon and I dressed as Yoko Ono, getting so committed, that she played “Imagine” on the piano and I chimed in with the tambourine. The very next year, I decided that I was going to throw a massive Halloween party with my friend Padgett and that we were going to invite everyone.

And that’s exactly what we did.

We had strobe lights, black lights, glow lights, glow in the dark paint, and a Halloween playlist. There was no drinking, no drugs, much to the approval of the adults hanging around. Instead, there was bobbing for apples and smashing piñatas, both of which are harder than they look. I went as Puck from “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” which means that I spent the entire night explaining to people who I was. I was mistaken for Eve, a deer, Poison Ivy, and Peter Pan.

I laid low the next year and did some face painting at my church’s Halloween carnival, an event that used to be the highpoint of my calendar when I was a kid. For my freshman year at college, as many of you saw, I went as a black cat, my first step towards becoming a cat person.

This year, all I wanted to do was dress up as Morticia Addams from the Addams family and to check out the blue moon. I was really eager to see it since I knew that I wouldn’t see another one anytime soon (there’s a reason why we say “once in a blue moon,”) yet when I went outside it was too cloudy for us to see it.

I decided that I didn’t actually care, but I was worried that this blue moon was foreshadowing a much-anticipated bad moon rising that could take place within the next couple of days. We were all impatient for election results, while others, (although not to jinx it) were impatient for a new president. Now looking back at my Halloween greatest hits, I can’t wait to do it all over again, preferably not just once in a blue moon.