A few weeks ago, it was Spirit Homecoming Week at Victoria's school. Every day had a different theme and the kids were encouraged to dress in that theme. As the Senator, Victoria was required to dress up. Strangely, her grade in Student Government was dependent upon it. 
Now, let me stop this story right here to say, some folks have the great fortune of having a home surrounded by majestic mountains. Some people are LUUUCKY enough to reside in the heart of glorious cities. (Can you tell I'm a city girl?) Some people are blessed to have the ocean as their backyard. 
We are fortunate to live right around the corner from one of these: 
That's right, friends! The biggest Goodwill in the Southeast. Don't be no haters, now!

So, naturally, before Spirt week, we took a trip up to our mega-Goodwill. It's what we did every Spirit Week of the ODawg's school days.

Here's a True Story about the O'Dawg: Spirit Week comes at the near beginning of the school year. Odawg's freshman year, she had just started to make friends and find her way to classes. (She needs a nav system the minute she leaves the house.) And as teenage girls are wont to be, it has always been super important to her, what people think of her. Having me for a mom doesn't help that situation too much.

Anyway, the first dress-up day was Movie Monday. So we hopped on over to our SuperGoodwill and started looking around. I decided the best way to figure out a movie character was to find an outfit and then derive Odawg's movie role from our clothing selection. As I perused the endless aisles, I realized there were a LOT of clothes that were definitely not fashion forward. In fact, I would describe them as fashion ass-backward.

And that's when it hit me, the perfect outfit. 
She could be Deb from Napoleon Dynamite! 
Oh, how I loved that movie! That movie was exactly my kind of quirky! Man, I wish I had those sort of fierce writing skills, the sort of writing skills that has Uncle Rico:
discussing with Kip their new business venture, selling knockoff Tupperware, door-to-door.

Uncle Rico says, "We need some way to make us look official, like we got all the answers."

And Kip says, "How bout some gold bracelets?"

And every line of that movie is that kind of quirky, fantabulous funny. Big sigh.


Anyway, so for Deb, I figured all we needed was a knit shirt with football-sized shoulder pads, some stirrup pants, a fanny pack and the Odawg could wear her hair in a high ponytail on the side of her head. 
And let me tell you, Internet, it was one giant festivus of stirrup pants and padded shoulders in our Goodwill.

We dressed the Odawg up and she looked all perfectly nerd Deb. I, unfortunately do not have any pictures to commemorate this debworthiness, because I am not the picture taker. The picture taker was still sawing logs that morning, while I was making school lunches, fixing ponytails and yelling at kids and whatnot.

We drove to school, so excited about her outfit.

She's a major dresser upper. She loves Halloween. In fact, she was home a few weeks ago and just happened to go Halloween shopping with the girls and me and an Olive Oyl outfit just happened to find its way into her heart and my shopping cart. And, after a bit of grousing over the million dollar price tag, I buckled to my college girl and bought her a Halloween outfit, along with her sisters' costumes. Millions of dollars later, go figure.


So, we got to school and the Odawg was a little nervous because she didn't see anyone else dressed up. She asked me to wait for a few minutes. We sat in the car and waited and watched. 
And as kids started to trek in, we realized not a single one of those kids getting out of their cars was dressed up. Not one. 
She was beginning to panic, declaring she just wanted to go home, when a car pulled up in front of us. I noticed two girls in the back seat with cat ears on their heads. I proclaimed, "Look, here's some girls dressed up! See, you're not alone!"
And out they stepped, in their sexy Josie and the Pussycats outfits, all glamorous kitty mini-dresses, with their hair all mussy, kitty style and their super adorable kitty headbands and kitten heels. 
Odawg tugged at her fanny pack and wailed, "I am SO not going to school today!"
Now, I believe in building children's character. I believe in walking tall and being proud of your choices. 
And I really believe in getting a good laugh at my child's expense. 
I made her get out of the car. She wasn't going to skip school over Napoleon Dynamite! She needed to square her padded shoulders back and walk with her head high and fanny pack straight. 
I shooed her out of the car and as she scurried away in her stirrup pants and her big side ponytail bobbing - Oh, how the girls and I laughed and laughed.
She ended up having a great time that day. Once she got over the mortification, she said people were hailing her throughout the hallways all day, "Yo, Deb! What's up!" She made new friends and had a fabulous day with her stirrups and ponytail. What more could a girl ask for?
So, this was exactly the sort of vibe we were looking for, for Tori. 
I brought her to the wedding dresses. 
(Just in case, you're looking to get married, their wedding dresses are super cheap and there are some pretty cute ones there. I just don't know about the bad Karma, though. What events must have transpired in a marriage to cause a girl to give her dress to Goodwill? Very, very bad ones, I tell you!)
I said to her we could put her in a wedding dress, muss it up a bit, make her some zombie hair. (I'm freakin great at zombie hair. Ask anyone who saw Julia's hair last Halloween)  And she could be a zombie bride or some sort of horror queen. 
She shook her head vehemently. 
She wanted to be Alice in Wonderland. 
As we searched for a sky blue dress and apron, Julia came across a red blinged-out-in-sequins military style jacket and sequined pants to match. Admiring that blinding seuquined jacket that must have weighed 30 pounds, I could not imagine why someone would give that sort of shiny fun to Goodwill. It was downright sinful.
I suggested Michael Jackson. We could get her one glove and some sunglasses and she could act all dazed out all day. 
She took one look at that Mac Daddy sequined jacket and said, "I am NOT wearing that!"
We found some leather pants and a weird leather top and I suggested Dawg the Bounty Hunter's wife or perhaps even Dawg himself. I told you, I am really, really good at whacking out hair. 
By this time, she'd found an elegant evening gown with a halter top and said, "I could be Marilyn Monroe!"
I took one look at that plunging neckline and said, "Nothin doin' Marilyn."
After several more attempts, I got annoyed and said, "We're not going to find an pretty little blue Alice dress and apron in this fashion funhouse. You need to go with Michael Jackson or Dawg, right now!"
And she looked at me with shimmering tears in her eyes and said, "But, I want to be pretty."
And then it hit me. There are two kinds of people who dress up. People who dress up to be THE costume of the party, no matter how much insanity is involved, and the people who are all about the pretty and/or sexy.
For example, back in the days when I used to find it fun to party on the streets with strangers, I was at a Halloween street festival. I came across this guy who was entwined in this giant, homemade, cardboard letter A. I was all, "Dude, what are you?"
And he yelled in inebriation, "I'm f***n' A!"
I thought that was pure genius.
As I looked into her teary blue eyes, I knew there would be no finding her costume at the Goodwill store.
I couldn't deny her the need to dress up pretty because, you see, I'm one of those folks who is always about the pretty or sexy.
Here's an example. 
That's The Hubby as my pimp, notice he's got me on a dog leash. I was so embarrassed to have to ask the salesgirl to use her pole thing to take that outfit off its really high rack. Everyone was judging me in that store. I could feel it.

On this trampy Halloween night, we went to pick up my sister-in-law who wasn't yet a bad-ass terrorist, Columbia Cartel, crime fighter. When she opened her door in her voluminous dinosaur costume with her green painted face, she took one look at me and then down at her jumbo-sized stuffed-with-a-thousand-pillows stomach and said, "You have got to be kidding me!"

She was obviously the other kind of dresser.

Another example of my dress-up habits would be the time my friend sent us an invitation to her Murder Mystery party where we all had to dress up in assigned roles.


She had assigned me the whore.
I called her up to RSVP and asked her why she picked that character for me.
She said, "Because you're good at that."
And I was all, "What, being a whore!"
And she said, "No, dressing up like one."
Everybody's good at something, right?
As I looked at my Victoria who was thinking Cinderella or Elle Woods or Marilyn, I had an idea.
I said, "Come on, we're going next door to Walmart."
Now I know, I know what you're thinking, Internet. What, do these people live in freakin' Monte-Carlo? Don't be jealous when I tell you we also have a Cracker Barrel right down the street where you can get Momma's Pancake Breakfast on special every day of the week. We're fancy folks, we are. 
Since I didn't want to pay a bazillion dollars at the Halloween store, again, we went to Walmart, where they had very nice costumes for fabulous Walmart prices. 
Twenty bucks bought us a flapper dress to turn Tori into Roxie from Chicago and peace and happiness on the car ride home.
I'd show you a picture, but the Hubby's fancy camera is majorly jacked up right now. Hopefully, he'll be able to figure it out since, not only is Tori's flapper picture on there, all her homecoming pictures are, too. I have faith. The Hubby's the Macgyver of everything. 
But, trust me, I'm pretty sure she got an A in Student Government. She was that kind of beautiful dress-up.
Today's Terrific Download: There is only ONE song to be played today, the fantabulous, the kick-ass, the dearly, dearly departed, Warren Zevon and his "Werewolves of London." Man, I wish he was still around making brilliance out of music. 
Have a rock and roll Halloween, whether you choose to dress like gossamer princess, a prostitute or the homemade Iphone dude. Whatever it is, I wish you no tricks, only treats. Happy Haunting!