Happy Halloween!

I hope you all had a safe and enjoyable Halloween, whatever you did. 

We sat out on the porch and handed out candy. This year, Nevada Day coincided with Halloween so the kids had the day off to run around in their costumes. I would have completely forgotten about Nevada Day but that quite a few kids returned my "Happy Halloween!" with chipper rush of "Happy Nevada Day, too! Did you know it is Nevada Day?" as they ran off to the next house. I had to laugh out loud, they were so cute, the 10 year olds. ;-)

I always wear a cute Halloween shirt and top my outfit with a headband of bouncy bats or a tiny witch hat with orange fur and fake orange braids hanging down my face. So cute. I even have some great earrings, care of my mother. She loved dressing up in her pediatric nursing office. Unfortunately, this year I had a terrible head cold and totally forgot about the earring pumpkins and bats. It would have been a great touch. Oh well, next year!

My plan was to dress the dog in a kiddie Jedi cloak but I couldn't find it this year (I think I gave it away). I do have a tunic Three Musketeer costume I considered, but I didn't want it ruined. Mom made it by hand, well with a sewing machine, but you get my drift.  I saved it for DH to wear, but he had to go to work on the graveyard shift, so no costume for him. I ended up using one of my decorating hand towels to tie around the dog’s neck.

DH was woken up with the first trick-or-treater, ugh! And by an adult, no less! I had the bowl of candy out and walked over with the dog to say Hi to a neighbor. A family popped over so quickly that both Donna and I missed them walking up (I bet they cut through my side yard). I ran back as soon as I could, but one woman had already pushed the bell. To be fair, they just wanted to make sure we knew the candy was out in case we had forgotten the candy bowl; some kids would take it all in one go. And they were right and being far more courteous than they needed to be; ringing the bell to let us know it was unattended. I just kicked myself. It was a good 2 hours early for DH to wake and I had the dog outside so he wouldn't bark at the doorbell. Ah well, best laid plans…

As it turned out, DH brought his coffee outside and handed out candy with me. We had the dog on a leash and he was great. No barking, just sitting there like a statue or laying around while kids jumped around him.

We almost made it through all of our candy, all leftovers from last year! I tried to only give out two pieces and then by the end I was handing out handfuls. Two years ago there were so many I was giving away my lunch snacks. Last year I bought way too much candy to make sure we were covered. I really wanted to give out cool erasers but DH voted me down. This year someone was handing out hotdogs and cupcakes. How cool is that!

To finish, I have to share some history on how we got to where we are today with this “holiday.”  Check out www.halloweenhistory.org/ and all the tabs they have.

MREs: Meal Ready To Eat

www.mreinfo.com

Military Style.


DH found two modern MREs in the pantry. They apparently PCSed with us. I say modern because in my field, they are usually historic and well past their prime. (ha.ha.ha, read on...)

These were not from his field, they didn't get packed up and shipped out. Well, we don't think so. Both of us vaguely remember when we bought them, on the homefront as part of our Hurricane Ride Out supplies.

So, how long ago was that? Well over two years, maybe going on.... five? 

I decided to do some research to to see if theses ones were still edible. Google took me to an awesome website, www.mreinfo.com. This resource has great pictures, explanations, and a year by year break down of your food, which helped me date mine: Chili and Macaroni, only produced in some years which threw off our date stamp estimate (ex: 1001).

"However, some cases will use a different form such as "1068". In this case, the first number "1" stands for the year (2001) and the next three numbers indicate which day of the year (365 days in a year) it was packed. So "068" would be day 68 of the year 2001...or March 9, 2001." www.mreinfo.com

We tried to figure out the actual date. The first bag was not exactly helpful but bag two had a better series of numbers... we think it might have been 14 years old by now.... wow time has flown.

DH was worried someone would get sick and so he tossed the food. One website said MREs are good for 10 years, another 5, and our MRE Info had an interesting Applesauce Test which will keep me from eating undated (until you open it) MREs. As soon as possible, please!

Ours were made by AmeriQual, and had printed: "Government Property Commercial Resale is Unlawful..." A bit more info digging made sure that these were real gov't MREs and not the natural disaster ones. They were all over after Katrina hit.

In our bags were Tootsie Rolls and a block of Charms candy- I was shocked (I had no idea they contained candy with built-in nostalgia generators), still soft and squishy (where they originally soft and squishy? Ew...). The Charms did not survive the years at who knows what temperature test. Fail. The color was off and they were stuck to each other and the wrapper. No, we didn't try it! Nasty of you to even think it...The Roll went right in the trash.

The matches still worked, at least. So if we were stuck in a zombie apocalypse, we would be starving or sick with intestinal distress, but we could still light something on fire. And there is always the Tabasco sauce.