While we purchased our (very expensive) (medium-sized) pumpkin a few weeks ago, we only got around to doing the carving this evening.
This Halloween, in fact, has been characterized by a slew of delays. We have the dotter’s costume–but I still need to iron it. OmegaDad is out buying milk and tights–tights for the costume. We have no idea whether people do trick-or-treating here in our cul-de-sac, or anywhere near our neighborhood. Since everyone lives on one-acre lots, and the houses are set back a bit, it means a bunch of schlepping to-and-fro, enough to cause the dotter to wear out quite early on. In addition, from what I can tell of our neighbors, we don’t have anyone with kiddos nearby.
I suggested to the dotter this evening that we might want to do a Halloween party or two instead.
You might have thought I was dissing the Pope or some such thing. She gasped. She wailed. The words, “I don’t want to go to a party!” emerged from her shell-like lips for the very first time ever in her life.
I dither. We shall see tomorrow. The dotter’s general 5-year-old pillishness at the dinner table had her father threatening her with no trick-or-treating this evening.
All that aside, like I said, this evening was pumpkin carving time.
First, we had design work. Note the intense look on my face, the laughter on the dotter’s. The bit of white showing beneath the child’s knee is her notepad, on which she was drawing various jack-o-lanterns as design ideas.
Me at work some more:
The dotter wanted a “princess”. Now, normally I’m quite good at doing evul looking pumpkins, but I originally bowed out on the princess design. The dotter tried. She didn’t like it. OmegaDad was called upon. After about fifteen minutes of him hemming and hawing, I offered. I had a plan of almond-eyed Betty Boop-dom, with curvaceous lips and arching eyebrows. This is what we ended up with:
First, the annual OmegaDad-as-psycho-killer picture:
Alas, the pink bottle brush standing upright on the counter sort of (a) blocks the knife work and (b) just doesn’t fit the mood of pyscho-killer.
Two heads are better than one, especially if one has a knife protruding from it:
Scoopage was next. The dotter actually scooped some stuff herself this year, instead of being staged with pre-scooped stuff from OmegaDad.
Here, OmegaDotter channels sixteen-year-old Muffy–”Ooh! This is like, so totally gross! I can’t believe how gross it is!”:
OmegaDad then took pity and took over the scoopage. Of course, there was the obligatory “threaten the dotter with ooey gooey pumpkin innards” which resulted in much squirming and hilarity:
Just call her Priscilla Pumpkin, please:
After the carving was done, and the candle inserted and lit, this is the end result:
Not quite the sexy lady/Betty Boop look I was aiming for, but more like an evil djinn. This is OK. To get the sexy lady, OmegaDad would have had to do a lot more fiddly curly stuff, with eyebrows that arch more and trail off more, and a more bow-like upper lip…all of which would require a much more delicate pumpkin-massacring (sp?) instrument than our ancient and rusty drywall saw. Every year, I flinch as he does the carving, praying to the Kozmik All that his hands don’t slip and we don’t end up at the emergency room with geysers of blood and tetanus shots galore.
OmegaDad has returned with tights and Halloween candy. Luckily, there are no KitKats and no Reese’s Stix. I will have to be content with the Hershey’s Special Darks…
