Halloween was my last good chance to wear the scare-crow outfit. Also 
bunny_hugger's last good chance to wear the dragon outfit. But Halloween was a Tuesday so she was at work through the first half of trick-or-treating at our house. Also didn't trick-or-treating used to have no particular hours? Anyway, we had a pretty big year, considering, well above the anemic turnouts of the last couple years. Enough kids came that we gave away all our mini-candy bars, granting that I was being pretty generous with the kids we got the first hour. We were left with the bulk mix candy that I get from the farmer's market on the west side of town. We like it, but we'd only use that as supplemental candy, so trick-or-treating ended at just the right time.
After that we went to the hipster bar where pinball league meets. Part of that was to play, along with MWS, who'd come over because he often spends Tuesday nights there. They were having a Halloween party, naturally, giving us the chance to see just how many in our neighborhood have kigurumis of various kinds. A good number, it turns out, including at least one guy with a CheerBear kigurumi who wears it outside Halloween events too. Mostly stuff that has a pretext for wearing outfits, like 80s Karaoke Night, but still.
They were having a costume contest and of course bunny_hugger and I entered. She entered first. They ran the contest by bringing five or six people up on stage, measuring applause, and picking the most popular of that for finals. When they got around to me, they hadn't realized I was in line or something like that, so they considered me a ``group'' of my own and so I ended up in the final judging by default. Somehow bunny_hugger didn't win her little group; I forget who in her group did. I think it was some pop-culture thing.
Well, I did my best, posing on stage with the sorts of sharp, rapid motions that seemed birdlike. Didn't win. Don't think I came close, except that I was defaulted into the final group anyway. I think it was someone dressed as Scully and Muldur who got the prize, which seems ... I mean, I guess I know there's a new X-Files and all that. But it seems dull a choice anyway. I'm happy with the scarecrow costume anyway.
Something I learned: if you have a scarecrow costume, with long dangly streamers representing straw hanging out over your ankles, it becomes a pretty tedious chore to go to the bathroom and wash your hands without making undesired messes. I'm not saying I'll never use scarecrow costuming again, particularly as it's nice to have an outfit that's classic but not done much. But I'll have to think more carefully about how I get soda when doing that.
Trivia: In the two months after his shooting President James Garfield dropped from 210 pounds to 130. Source: Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine, and the Murder of a President, Candice Millard.
Currently Reading: A Short History of the Office of Price Administration, Harvey C Mansfield and Associates.
PS: Back to Motor City Fur[ry] Convention, last year!
bunny_hugger and her posse in the con suite playing the drinking game that would, in time, lead to her setting some grand rules about saluting her or having to take a drink every time you cursed, which produced a possibly dangerous exponential growth of drunk gamery.
Hanging out at the door to the Motor City Fur[ry] Convention con suite. We didn't spend all Friday there, but we spent a fair time there and it was the most photogenic area.
bunny_hugger looking dubiously at her ostrich.