Spookifying continues! Halloween is on Saturday, and we have a few more things to do before the big day. We completed one of our yearly traditions yesterday; we created our 2020 gravestones for the front yard. And just in time too! One of our neighbors complained that we had not gotten them up yet, and the neighborhood was waiting...
Oh dear. Such pressure! Well, we're on it! It's a really fun family tradition, that we've been doing for over two decades. When our girls lived with us, they helped us determine what the gravestones would say. Now that they all have homes of their own, we ask them for input, and take suggestions from all the family members! The gravestones are actually old cabinet doors from a remodel a long time ago. Every year we paint over last year's epitaphs, and I use a large black Sharpie to write the ones for the new year.
The gravestone that makes me the saddest this year is the Jerry's Deli stone. We visited Jerry's every Sunday after Mass, with our three girls, like clock work. The waitresses and waiters knew us, and they knew what we would order too! Losing a well loved eatery, a place where we planned Halloween costumes, and birthday parties, a place where Robert quizzed the girls on the age of the universe and the era of the dinosaurs, is truly a blow. It really brings home the fact that things just aren't going to be the same after Covid. Some things will go away, and they will never come back. And we'll just have to get used to that. It's no good being melancholy, though. We'll just have to hope that another fun restaurant will take its place, and we can bring our granddaughter there when she comes to visit. Good. I just cheered myself up after depressing myself. Argh.
We have great plans for the trick or treaters. We'll relax on our driveway and decorate a shelf with scary things. We'll have a fog machine and strobe lights, and maybe Michael Jackson's Thriller playing in the background. Robert might even wear his horse head, and we'll lay out candy for the little ones to put in their baskets. We have a vague idea of what will happen, but mostly we will just throw it together at the last minute - and that's just fine too.
The trick or treaters will never know.