Halloween, and Lynxcub mayhem

Had a nice visit from g33kboi. Our 40s film noir costumes for the Halloween party we went to came together pretty well, though the concept we were going for didn't seem to be that apparent to most people - a lot of people thought she was supposed to be a gangster rather than a detective. I think the Bogart-ishness was more apparent when she had a beige trenchcoat on over the suit, on the way to the party, but you can't really keep something like that on indoors without overheating.

With my costume, I did learn a few things:

1. outcastspice was right, you can indeed find nifty, relatively-period hair ornaments in mall stores.
   
   
2. Even with the aid of a blow-dryer and a ton of hair products, my hair does not want to be tamed into anything resembling those carefully sculptured curls that were popular in the 40s. What I ended up with more closely resembled a random clump of heavily shellacked frizz, but at least it was parted on the side as per the norm for that time.
   
   
3. If your dress is aggressively tailored enough, you don't need a push-up bra.
   
   
4. The particular style of dress I found, with two draped skirts over each other so that each was open up one side, is very forgiving of larger hips than the dress was designed for, at least with judicial application of a seam-ripper to the underskirt.
   
   
5. $20+ Spanx pantyhose with the super-control-top run just as easily as dollar store pantyhose. :-(

However, a good time was had by all nonetheless. Also, we saw Cthulhu on the St. Clair streetcar.

Oh, also - mycrazyhair, I have your earrings in a safe place and will return them to next time I see you. Thanks so much for lending them to me!

In other Halloween-related news, the Lynxcub seems to like his tiger costume, but refuses to actually wear it. He'll play with it, cuddle it, carry it around like a security blanket or lay it on the floor like a tiger-skin rug and sit on it, but I could not get him to actually put it on when I took him to the Samhain Family Circle. However, tigers still seemed to be the theme of the day, as he insisted on me making him a tiger ghost and a tiger jack-o-lantern during the crafty parts of the event. I really should have gotten a photo of the tiger jack-o-lantern... It ended up at kettunainen and optimystik's place - I don't suppose you guys got a chance to take a picture?

Speaking of the Cub, it's been a while since I posted a Cuteness Report, not because he has in any way ceased to be cute, but because I've been freakishly busy for most of this fall. But yesterday's visit featured a couple of things that just have to be recorded for posterity:

First, the short one:

Lynxcub (apropos of nothing in particular): I like stepping on bugs!

Me (slighly perturbed): Sweetie, stepping on bugs isn't nice, unless they're bad bugs that want to bite you or get into your food. Why do you want to step on them?

Lynxcub: I just do. That's just the way my life works.

Now, the longer one:

Scene: we are playing with Lego, which the Cub has now acquired a great passion for. He asks me to make him a horse and two cows, like in the farmyard scene on one side of the Lego box, but he wants their eyes to be facing forward, instead of to the side like they are in the pictures. I make the horse as requested, eyes forward, and then attempt to explain why it's not usually that way:

Me: The reason the horse and the cows in the picture have their eyes on the side is because that's the way horses' and cows' eyes are in real life. Do you know why?

Lynxcub (curious): No, why?

Me: Because predators - animals that hunt other animals for food - have their eyes on the front, so that they can see the animals they're hunting. Prey animals - animals that eat plants instead of hunting, and are hunted by other animals - have their eyes on the side so that they can see what's chasing them and hopefully get away from it. It helps them watch for danger.

Lynxcub (thoughtfully): Oh... (then, holding up the horse and carefully inspecting it, he suddenly breaks into a huge smile.) Thank you for making me a horse that hunts other animals!!!

(I don't know if I can quite do justice to how delighted he sounded when said that. Clearly, he had decided that a carnivorous horse was the best Lego animal ever.)

Me (nervously): The horse... hunts other animals?

Lynxcub (so excited he can barely contain himself): Yes! It hunts other animals and catches them and eats them! It eats bad tigers! And it can also fly! (zooming the horse around in the air and randomly swooping it down at various bits of Lego that he has apparently decided are bad tigers or other tasty animals)

Me: I think I'm starting to be afraid of that horse... Does it eat people as well?

Lynxcub (in a "that's silly!" tone): No, because people are huge!

Me (putting finishing touches on the two cows): Are the cows carnivorous as well?

Lynxcub: Yes! This one is going to eat pieces of a dead cat, and this one is going to eat a dead dog, but it's going to eat all of the dead dog!

Me: Oh, so the cows are scavengers rather than predators? They only eat things that are already dead?

Lynxcub: Yes! But they hunt them first, and then they're dead!

Seriously, I wonder about this child sometimes...