Half a Bubble Off Level

Halloween Day and no frost yet. Late October in 1995 was unseasonably warm as well. The trick-or-treaters love it: no coats over their costumes.

22 years ago was the autumn following my glorious Cross-Country Trip: 15,900 miles in ten weeks with six kids.

For the Fiske Elementary School Halloween party, I dressed up as the nineteenth century poet, Emily Dickinson. I donned a full-length dress and wore my hair in a neat bun. I probably ate orange-frosted cupcakes at the party.

Afterwards, I drove to Sears in the Burlington Mall to shop for a dress. The saleswoman watched me warily. She didn’t confront or even engage me, but I knew she thought I was acting strangely, Emily wandering among the Sears dress racks. She was right.

In the evening, I took the kids to a new neighborhood, on North Ave. I dropped my keys somewhere in the gutter and did a search and rescue: kicking up crisp dry leaves, listening for the familiar jangle of keys. Doesn't sound crazy, but in retrospect, I was “just half a bubble off level.”

          I love that phrase. Makes me tip my head sideways about 30 degrees.

          I was mostly sane, and what I did seemed within normal limits, but soon the squirrels in the attic would take over. (We once had squirrels. Saturday mornings we would lie in bed and hear them scamper after each other behind our bedroom wall.)

          Halloween 1995: in just five days time, I'd be psychotic.