Since there are literally hundreds of my Boo Bash photos from last weekend flying around Facebook, I am going to take a proactive David Letterman-esque position here and bring you, my loyal Pajamas and Coffee readers, the following horrifying slideshow. Prepare to be afraid (insert haunted organ music and shrieking).

Above is the ‘before’ picture of my husband and I at our Halloween party. At around 7 pm. Looking all nice and Halloween Party Host-y. Now, I hate pictures of myself because I am fat. So you won’t normally see me posting all like ‘look how cute and funny I am’ crap and whatevs. I am sacrificing myself in an attempt to laugh at myself and invite my readers to laugh with me. I mean, AT me. So enjoy this rare glimpse into the Diary of the Halloween Madwoman.

Notes about the above photo: note the ‘together’ sandals- a rare glance at them… Luckily, I happened to OWN a brown leather skirt (purchased for my 20th high school reunion) because that ragged-edge skirt? Was supposed to BE IT, which in my case would have meant my costume could have been called “The Fat Ass of the Cavewoman.” Also? The ‘bra’ piece? Um, yeah. Size “M/L” was an effing joke on me, I should’ve upgraded to the Plus Size fo sho. I wore a one-piece sucky-inny iron maiden thing underneath and just had to not care that the black straps showed.

But enough about my underwear.

We’ve been having the party nine years. Only one year was I ridonkulously drunk, and it was the year I was Wonder Woman. Here is a photo of me eating a serving spoonful of my friend’s Kahlua Trifle:

I was too drunk (and ummm way too fat in that costume!) at that party. I think it was the first year we voted the kids off Halloween island (it was forever ago, because that’s our before-renovation kitchen… and the fact that I am holding the costume contest results means I calculated them? eek! ), and all I remember is that every time I walked past the bar someone made me do a shot of orange vodka. I was that girl, though, and I decided from that point forward I would never drink too much at my own party where I’m supposed to be the hostess. We still refer to it as “The Wonder Woman Year,” and it’s best represented by the above photo where I have my drunk-deer-in-the-camera-headlights stare.

Fast forward to this year:

Here is the photo of our PJ&C friend KATE dressed as Pajayjay the Pajamas and Coffee avatar that I promised you earlier this week. Didn’t she do an amazing job?! I wish you could see the sideways bun in her hair!  The attention to detail (actual douche bag and F bomb) around her neck clinched the Most Original Costume trophy for her. Go Kate!

This the Best Overall Costume award-winning group of Willy Wonk-ites. To the far right is my friend HELEN dressed as Violet the Blueberry Girl (and um to the far left an orb, if you’re following the whole ‘haunted house’ thing…). They deserved the trophy they were campaigning for by handing out Golden Tickets to Get Out the Vote.

Now I am not sure this is the exact moment when things started to go bad, but my friend HELEN’s helpful suggestion that we ‘bob for shots’ turned out to be a popular party idea even in-between all the Halloween-colored Jello shooters we were doing. Note in background the nautical-themed pashmina afghan ala “I’m On a  Boat.” Here I am scoring a grape vodka shot (I totally bought purple shots for my friend TERRY who loves the Ravens- forgot to tell her that night. Which reminds me, her and her peeps’ costumes were awesome) :

They won Most Original Group and said they were carrying ‘The Money.’ LOL!

I am not sure BOB could successfully BOB for shots due to his Geico hair getting in the way.

Now, I’m not sure how many grape vodka shots and Jello shooters later it was that doing a swan dive off our diving board (with the pool cover on) seemed like a good idea. But I called the post ‘evolution of a Halloween costume’ (get it? cave costumes?! ahur) so you could see the deconstruction of my cavey digs. So you will note in the above picture that one of my earrings is now attached to my- er, baby-feeder, and that I have only one remaining sandal and it’s not lookin good. Also? I’m about to dive into a pool with a cover on it. Broken neck potential much? Hole in the cover, drown underneath much? This is why the kids went to grandmas for the weekend. So they wouldn’t have to be there when the ambulance workers scraped their dead, half-naked mother off the bottom of the pool.

Well, the pool cover held- it’s sort of trampoline-y, so my friend HELEN and I went for a bounce and a little swim in the 65-degree pool water. Here we are ‘resting’ afterward, and the reason I am including this photo? Is obviously to show you that my gorgeous orange hibiscus plant to the right there was just about to bloom and had like 100 buds on it, none of which were open during the party, of course, and doesn’t that just figure? I feed and water that emmereffer all summer and does it bloom when I have 5 dozen people over? Nooooo…..

It was HELEN’s birthday on party day (Say “Happy Birthday, HELEN!”) and so I got her a cake from the super nice bakery. Clearly we were hungry after all that swimming, so here I apparently (I say ‘apparently’ because I do not quite remember doing this…) grabbed a handful of her cake (spice with cream cheese icing, mmmmm…) and fed it to her. I think I look more like a real cavewoman now, don’t you?!

You know you’re having a fun party when you start getting whipped by your own blog avatar. Pajayjay, you’re a bad, bad girl.

“Lookee! I found my otheree sandllll but wherrrrzzz my othrr earrringgggggggg??! SUCK IT, WONDRRR WOMN YEarrrr   heeeeeeeeheeeeee beeeeeeeeeeat uuuuuuuuuuu”

At this point in the blog post I would like to mention that I have been wanting a breast reduction since 8th grade. This near-Janet-Jackson moment has been brought to you by my future plastic surgeons. If you are interested in extra breast size material, please let me know – recycling is good!

My husband did nothing to deserve this full cake in his face. Also, what’s he wearing a sweatshirt (Go Irish!)  for when I’m the one who was swimming in freezing water? Hm, don’t remember being cold though. I would like to say that the cake was really good, so thank you to the people who made and decorated it so well-  you can sort of see the spider that was on it in reverse on my husband’s face here….

I am not sure what to say here other than, is my hair bone crooked?

Also, I think that brain Jello is about to hit the floor. (note to self: next year, the dessert table goes OUTSIDE)

Break dancing in Brain Jello is fun, kids!

Ok, so there you have it. The reason my poor, long-suffering husband was mopping up cake and brain Jello at 3 am while I was passed out. Now there were 350 pictures taken last Saturday night, and I have shown you like 15 of them here. You will have to let the rest haunt you in your nightmares, like they do mine.

If you would like to attend my Halloween party next year, let me know, and when I am done being hungover from this one (next August or so) I will add you to the invite list! In the meantime, I am still finding bits of Jello and cake flung into the farthest reaches of my kitchen, so I’ll still be cleaning.

But you know what the moral of the story is?

I don’t know, either, but how often do we groan-ups get to enjoy Halloween? Only once a year, and not on the same night we are taking our kids trick-or-treating, that’s for sure!

Good times, ghouls.

Happy Halloween, everyone!