Halloween & Football: Inextricably Linked

For me, anyway.

See, the Florida-Georgia college football game is always held on the last weekend of October. And my die-hard Gator-loving man has to go to that game, must go. So every other year* my Halloween weekend is focused on football, not Halloween.

Which sucks, because I love Halloween! And no, it's not just the chance to dress sort of slutty - many of my past costumes have been pretty chaste (making them downright dowdy in horn-dog, twenty-something Gainesville). No, I love the turning of the year, I love the pagan association, the old myths, jack-o-lanterns, I love all that stuff.

That stuff has no place in tailgating. In fact, out of the little group that traveled to Jacksonville for the game, Kyle and I were the only ones who dressed up. No creativity, I'm telling you.

So Kyle and I went off the Lynch's Irish Pub in our costumes:




Kyle is Gator Man. His costume was quite the hit. Although his bizarre style of dancing probably brought as much attention as his outfit. He's actually had the mask (which sadly, did not make it back to Gainesville) for a while. Our friend Chris brought several back from San Antonio, so that all the boys could be creepy and weird together.

I am ... well, there's no getting around it - I'm dressed as a naughty schoolgirl. I can't really say "slutty," because I'm pretty well covered-up, save my legs, and I was wearing bloomers under the skirt. What can I say? I had everything laying around the house (well, almost: shout-outs to Kim for lending me the bloomers and Gail for the knee-highs!).

There were several highlights: Lynch's patrons usually dress up, they're quick with a Guinness and the band, Blaggards, was highly entertaining. But one image sticks with me:

The Teletubbies.

I was so tickled, so pleased with their arrival, I insisted Gator Man have his photo taken with them for posterity.

Yeah, it was a good night.

Oh, wait... there was a football game, too.

Florida beat the unhloly mess out of Georgia, 49-10, which the 'Dawgs deserved for being such sorry winners last year. It was fun, nice weather, football, blah blah, Gators, blah blah...

(*My alma mater, FSU, holds their homecoming on the last weekend of October every other year, alternating with the third weekend of November. I always go to homecoming, so I skip FL-GA every other year. To be honest, not too many people dress up in Tally at that time, either.)

What happens at the tailgate...

First, I have to brag: my insanely talented friend Douglas Matthews has agreed to play at my wedding ceremony.

He and his wife Melissa have been two of the best friends a girl could have. Along with a few others, they were my rock at an especially low point in my life.

I was so nervous asking him, because, well, he plays piano for a living - what a pain, right? Invited to a wedding and now you gotta work? But he was terribly gracious about it.

I have a hard time asking people for things, even people who, rationally, I know love the heck out of me and want to help me. But there's this stupid part of me that's so afraid to ask. It's stupid. I think I said that already. Moving on...

Tile update: I cut the tile too small and we didn't get it fixed before our guests came. Turned out we had less than expected, so it went smoothly anyway.

The tailgate was a success. Kyle got up around 6 a.m. and headed out to campus. The tailgate was set up, and manned, from 7 a.m. until roughly 1 a.m. that evening/next morning. Crazy, I know. But it's Kyle's thing and it was before I showed up - I'm just an observer/assistant/beer bitch.

Yes, beer bitch. Half of my "job" is to be kinda nasty about who's sticking their hand in our coolers. It's not fun, but if you don't make it known that somebody's paying attention, there are plenty of jackasses who are ready to suck you dry. Food, too - but I left that up to our cook.

A ton of people showed up, including many I hadn't seen in months. It really was fun. And we had a most important element at the tailgate: hot women. And strangely enough, that's part of my "job" as well - taking photos of everybody, including the hot chicks.

A sample:

Okay, I'm kidding. That's just a cute chick and her pretty mommy.

More like this:

Luckily, as we age, so goes the tailgate. It's a lot more "chill" this year, and I had plenty of people come up to me to agree and that it was a good thing.

I had to run off some little girls, but not before they got their fill of our beer and BBQ. You'd be surprised how much a skinny little thang can eat when someone else cooked it and it's free. :)

An exhausting weekend, but great fun.

Oh yeah - the Gators won. Forgot about that...