The Crazy McCain Lady!

I had a really, really fun Halloween this year!
It started, for the most part, on Thursday evening when my friend Ben and I volunteered at the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce's Foundation Fundraiser party at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery. This is a party that I have volunteered at several times before because it is so fun, it's for a great cause, and I'm too cheap to actually pay to get in (ha ha)! I arrived at the cemetery around 2:30 to help set up for the party, which started at 5:30pm. My task for the evening was to hide in the cemetery, in costume, and scare groups of people on walking tours of the "haunted lake". I was so happy to find out that my friend Scott, of Dearly Departed Tours, was one of the two tour guides for the night! I had a lot of fun roaming around the cemetery, hiding behind trees and jumping out to scare people. The party was fun and I saw a lot of people there that I knew through work.
Friday of course was the main event, though!
I got home from work and only had about an hour to get ready. Luckily, as you can see by the photos, my costume was not that complicated. I had gotten almost everything I needed just a few days before at Giant Dollar. The only thing I didn't find there was the wig, which I got at Wal-Mart for $5.50. I decided to be the Crazy McCain lady after seeing Kristen Wiig satirize her on Saturday Night Live. I got such a kick out of her character. Actually, I have to confess that it was my sister Adrienne's idea to dress as her for Halloween, but I stole the idea and Adrienne ended up doing something else.
After Dylan and I got into our costumes (he was a Roman gladiator guy), we walked down the street to our friends Rebecca and Loren's house. Rebecca had really decorated for Halloween, the only person I know who did more than I! Her entire apartment was covered in cobwebs and all sorts of amazingly cool lights and decorations. We had a couple drinks there and then walked to Jason and Ismael's apartment for their party where we had more fun and drinks and met up with a lot of our friends.
Around 8:30 we made our way over to the Palms for my band's show. We got everything set up very quickly. There was a drag queen in the bar who had just seen us at Bakersfield Pride and was excited to see us again. We went on at 9:30 or so and did our four song set to tracks - the first show we've ever done that way. Our vocals were live and my keyboard was live too but everything else was on CD. It was funny because in our whole existence, we've only started a song over once, maybe twice. But we messed up the beginning of Vampire and Amy wanted to start over and was asking me to do it, but since we were using the CD, I had no control over it. Finally she realized that and asked Myles, the DJ to start the track over. The song went much better the second time!
After that I was so excited to go out to the Boulevard that, like an idiot, I didn't even break down my equipment. I just left my keyboard and everything on stage.
I went out with my friend Tiger and we were just hanging around outside in front of the Palms with our friends but I wanted to get a picture with a Palin. Not seeing in the immediate vicinity, we wandered off and eventually we were so far away from the Palms. We got almost all the way to the other end when we decided to go back and find our friends. It took forever but we finally got back to the Palms, only to find that none of our crew was there anymore. I got a text saying they were at Java Detour so we slowly made our way down there. By the time we got there, they were gone, so at that point we decided we had had enough of the boulevard. It was pretty late by this point and I had gotten almost all the pics I wanted. The last photos I got was the one of me with Barack and Michelle and I was so excited!
I think this was the most fun I ever had out on the Blvd. for Halloween. The pics were so much fun to take, and I did the SNL weekend update skit, or at least portions of it, many times throughout the night. Some people knew the skit and played along while others had no idea what I was talking about but thought it was hilarious!
I ended up meeting Dylan back at Rebecca and Loren's before we finally walked home and called it a night.
The next day, I got up and started cleaning the house and getting everything ready for a party that we weren't sure was happening. Our building had a lot of old Russian people living in it, so we aren't really "supposed" to have parties and in the past when we have, got in trouble from the manager because we were allegedly too "loud" or whatever. It's a huge pain in the ass. So when we have parties, Dylan and I get very edgy and worried about whether the manager will come ring our doorbell to complain. So, we hadn't really told many people other than close friends that we were having a party, and not very many people had confirmed so we weren't sure if anyone would even be there.
We went shopping for food and drinks anyway just in case people did show up. I already knew what I wanted to make so when I got home I started. I made my mom's hot hamburger dip (which my sister laughed at me for calling it "mom's"... she says everyone in Kansas knows how to make it, and do so whenever there is a potluck) and I made these Drunken Weenies that I got the recipe for out of a white trash cookbook! I started those and then put them in the fridge.
At 5:45 I had to leave to go to the Palms and pick up the band equipment and take it to Silverlake where we had another show. This show was a benefit for a free clinic, and it was at a new hair salon which was really cute.
We played around 8pm and it was a fun show, we had our drummer Alejandra with us and even though it was hard for us to hear and the set up was not ideal, we did a good show and a lot of people were into it, and bought CD's afterwards.
Then we rushed back home to start our party. At first it was just the few of us who had been at the show and then Ben came. Then Tiger came, and throughout the course of the night, we had quite a few more people coming and going. The food was a big hit! I had also made cinnamon rolls and Dylan had put out some fruit and desert items, but the big hit of the night by far was my grilled cheese and tomato soup. I totally stole the idea from Grub restaurant, who was giving them away at the cemetery party on Thursday night. I made the grilled cheese sandwiches on the griddle, using 2 differen kinds of cheese and chopping up fresh dill which I sprinked inside the sandwiches. Then I cut them into strips and served them with little plastic cups of Tomato Bisque. Everyone loved them and I kept having to make more, I ended up using a whole loaf of break and two cans of soup!
The party finally ended and the last guest left around 3am. I ended the night watching Nightmare on Elm Street Part Two.
Sunday Dylan and I got up, had brunch at Eatwell and then went to the No On 8 rally at the West Hollywood park. We had our signs with us and marched with many others down Santa Monica Blvd. to the intersection at LaCienega where we all spread out to cover the four corners. It was so much fun to wave our signs and get people to honk in support of us. I did have one mean cab driver flip me off, and one minivan full of republicans give me a thumbs down, but people were overwhelmingly supportive. Marc came and joined us for awhile too.
After that, we went to Bradley and Alf's for our Sunday night TrueBlood ritual, followed by the season finale of Little Britain USA.
It was a fun-filled weekend and just what I needed before the election.