Papa Shoes

Not far from Calyssa's school, along the route we take on the return trip, lies Gesinee's Bridal Shop. (CoCoCounty residents: ANYONE know how that is supposed to be pronounced?) As we left the Westwood Parent-Faculty Club meeting the other night, we passed it. As per usual, Calyssa craned her neck to admire the bridal and bridesmaids' gowns in the showcase windows as we waited at the traffic light. This sparked an interesting conversation.
"Mommy, I want to have a dress like that someday," she said. (While I'm not quite sure which dress she meant, this was not exactly a huge surprise, coming from the girliest tomboy ever born.) "What was yours like, Mommy?"
"You've seen it, it's in my closet. Remember? I told you I never got to wear it," I replied. Sad, but true: Calyssa's daddy and I ended up running off to Vegas to wed at a drive-up window, in tank tops and shorts. No joke. But I digress...
"I saw a picture at Papa's house. Auntie Jodi looked beautiful," she told me. I knew she must've been referring to the portrait of my sister, the bride, and her husband, with our parents, taken right after their gorgeous Placerville winery ceremony about 12 years ago. My dad keeps it on the bookcase.
Calyssa went on to describe the photo at length, finishing with, "Papa had on a funny suit [tuxedo]. He looked 'zactly like Papa, 'cept he had more hair and didn't have his Papa shoes on."
That got my attention. "What are Papa shoes?" I inquired, confused.
"The ones by the door. He puts them on when we water the plants. You know, his Papa shoes," she insisted.
I rang my dad up later to relate this little story to him; as expected, he cracked up. We agreed that, henceforth, cheap slip-on deck shoes are to be known as Papa shoes.

Lame-O-Ween

Yesterday was Halloween...to most of the kids in this corner of the world, anyway. To my daughter, 10/31 is the eve of the eve of her birthday. Besides, Halloween is becoming much like Christmas: by the time the actual holiDAY rolls around, it's been celebrated to death. Calyssa attended a Halloween sleepover on Saturday the 23rd, at gymnastics, where she was also able to wear a costume all week if she wished. Friday was the costume parade at school, where the kids were trading "ghost pops" throughout the week. She even was given some candy at church on Sunday morning!

This was our Halloween: following a little after-lunch nap, I woke her and told her that it was time to get her costume on so that we could go trick-or-treating at Broadway Plaza. "I don't want to go, Mommy," she whined. It took some cajoling on my part (!?!?!) to get her to dressed to go. She only relented after I permitted her to replace the bridal veil of her princess bride costume with the pink Geoffrey's Birthday Club crown she received at Toys 'R" Us earlier in the day. After one pass up one side on Broadway and down the other, which took maybe 15 minutes, she proclaimed, "I'm done." Bizarre! Walking in the door less than an hour after we'd left, she ate one piece of candy and immediately proceeded to shed her costume in favor of her pj's. "You don't want to go trick-or-treating in the neighborhood?" I asked. "No, I want to watch Aladdin," she replied.

I spent Halloween night on the floor in front of the television, sorting and packaging Box Tops for Education for submission. Final score: Giants=4, Texas Rangers=0, Box Tops=2770, Trick-or-Treaters=1.