Call me Erzebet

If you read The Letters of Erzebet Bathory, you know that she spent a lot of time reviewing accounts, managing estate paper work for 27 estates, paying bills, ordering food and grain.  On a much smaller but equally stressful scale, I find myself developing migraines, keeping track of not just my bills and taxes, but everyone else's family accounts, too.  Like Barbara Pym's excellent women, E and I are cumbered with much serving.  Happy Halloween to us all, and my one respite was watching The Great Pumpkin and the Toy Story Halloween special.

I've been watching "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown" since I was 6, and we only had a BW TV, and Admiral, which I still have in a place of honor.  The Peanuts Gang reminds me of my childhood, and of home, of lying on the rug in front of the TV clutching a stuffed animal or my doll, Candy, and and anticipating the cool air of Halloween night, when my Dad walked around with me and m friends trick or treating, and when my mom would buy carmel apples and make my costumes. There was a hint of smoke from bonfires, and neighbors who could still make us popcorn balls and brownies, and a little box with penneys for Unicef.

Holidays felt special; there was the fragrance of spice in the air, and it was still safe to walk, before the urban legends of razor blades in apples.

If I could go back in time just one day, to be six again, to be with my mother and dad, to watch the Great Pumpkin with Halloween Cards from  my grandma and grandpa sitting on the table .. . . that would be the ultimate pleasure.