They will either love me or hate me for these costumes one day

First of all, people, you had better believe I pored over your perfume comments like a…like a…

[attempting to find appropriate scent-related analogy...]

AHA!

Like a PIG digging for TRUFFLES!

(No?)

(No good?)

(Quiet, you.)

ANYway, I need more information about Electric Youth. I had no idea Debbie Gibson had her own perfume, and this saddens me greatly. Also, a number of commenters reminded me of a few scents I inadvertently left off my list—Ex!Cla!Ma!Tion!, and the Gap scents (specifically, Heaven and Dream), which I distinctly remember wearing mid-high school, and which I also remember eliciting the following comment from my mom’s friend: “That stuff makes you smell like the type of lady who was ridden hard and put away wet.”

I WAS FIFTEEN.

I will keep you posted on my search for the next great scent; thank you all so much once again for sharing your perfume favorites and memories (good and malodorous).

And because there really is no great segue from perfume to Jewish rituals/holidays, I’ll just have to dive right in:

The holiday of Purim began last night; as I mentioned when I wrote about it last year, it’s kind of like a Jewish Halloween, in terms of costumes and candy. And sorry, God, for that gross oversimplification, but there are COSTUMES TO DISCUSS. COME ON, MY...YOU.

Now, T is still at that amazingly malleable and suggestible age where we can decide what we want him to be for Purim, and he’ll just go along for the ride. I figure I have two more years, TOPS, before he decides he will NOT be, say, Early John Lennon, but rather, that he needs to be Diego, Superman, or Harvey the Mystical Woodland Gnome. The latter of which is not, to my knowledge, an actual licensed character (YET), but who knows what’s going to be big in 2011?

NOT to disparage any of those costumes, but I do like going off the beaten path a bit with these types of things. Anyway, we looked high and low for a costume that could top Purim '08's Later Elvis.

For this year, I had a master plan involving dressing him up as Johnny Lawrence, but the gi was too large. Also, it did not have “Cobra Kai” emblazoned across the chest. Nor was it black and yellow. Or sleeveless. Or--okay, basically, it kind of just looked like oversized pajamas. Like in those Frosted Mini Wheats commercials from the mid-‘80s where the stodgy adult would espouse the virtues of the wheat side of the...Mini-Wheat, and then they’d shrink in their (now-super-big) clothes and talk about how “the kid in [them]” loved the frosting and DON’T LOOK AT ME LIKE THAT I KNOW YOU KNOW WHAT I’M TALKING ABOUT.

So, a big fat "no" to that plan, then. But!

Just when I’d given up hope and was going to grudgingly buy a cartoon costume, I spotted it: Pleather pants! Mesh tattoo sleeve shirt! Fake chain! Red bandana! Guitar and microphone!

BABY BRET MICHAELS.

Okay, FINE. It wasn’t Bret Michaels, but rather, a more innocuously-named “Toddler Rocker” costume. I KNOW THE TRUTH, Costume Company! T’s a HUGE fan of anything music-related, particularly when it comes to guitars, so we knew this would go over in a big, big way.

I must say, he rocked the shit out of it.

“Evvvvv’ry roooose has its thorn...

Just like evvvvv’ry night has its dawunnnn…”

(EVERYBODY NOW!)

As for Lo, she was going to be a giraffe, but honestly, that just seemed kind of...not in the same realm of her brother’s costume. Well, unless she was going to be one of these giraffes:



And then I remembered--she had the world’s most hideous jeans! And so, we decided to make her a hippie, incorporating said jeans into the costume. All it took was one $10 shirt, an old, weird necklace of mine, and a 49 cent headband to pull the outfit together:

This kids had a blast at the Purim carnival that took place at our synagogue last night, during which Lo completely passed out cold. This, according to my brother, was due to her “tripping HARD on Baby Motrin and exhausted from a full day of fighting The Man.” SO TRUE, man.

At this point, the only real question is what they’re going to be next year. If I may say so, these costumes are going to be hard to top.

I'm thinking something disco-ish, possibly involving platform boots with live goldfish in the heels. I'll let you know.