A cowboy, an Indian and an ill-mannered orangutan

Apparently along with the gum, lolly-pops, fake cigarettes and jaw breakers, Connor and I picked up a virus for Halloween. Fortunately, it doesn't seem to have hit Connor as hard as me. (Yes, I knocked on wood -- you know, just in case there is no God but rather an angry family of imps randomly punishing people for spilling salt, breaking mirrors and assuming they've dodged trouble.)

Halloween night was fun. We trekked over to my parents' house so the kids could show off their costumes to Grandbee and Granddad. A few days earlier, we spent a small fortune on Connor at Lone Star Western Wear. I was going to go the Wal-Mart route, but Roy and I decided to splurge, and the kid's outfit ended up costing about the same as a one-minute Super Bowl ad. It was worth it, though, when I saw him all dudded up. Connor looks like my dad in his Stetson. As for Madeline, well, she was a Disney Princess for the fourth year running. This year it was Pocahontas. A very blond, Nordic-looking Pocahontas.

Roy couldn't make it because, poor man, he was home in bed with a migraine. Nevertheless, the kids and I met up with Erin and her clan to trick-or-treat through Bel-Air neighborhood. Folks there have to buy candy in milo-sized bags.

It was, as always, a memorable experience. On the occasions I hung back while the kids walked up to a door, inevitably something interesting would happen. Connor really enjoys ringing doorbells and viewed the evening as a doorbell delicatessen. Once, Madeline reported he had squashed a plant. I asked him if this was so.

"No," he said very seriously. "I just laid on it."

About 30 minutes into the evening, Madeline began grabbing her throat and making fairly impressive hacking sounds. "I need water," she demanded. "I need water!"

"Did you eat hot candy?" I asked.

"No! I'm just thirsty." She looked at me as though I was capable of pulling a Capri Sun out of my nose.

We stared at one another a while, her exasperation refreshingly wordless. She waited for me to DO something.

"Well," I offered, "I could spit in your mouth." Because, you know, I'll go the extra mile for my kids. "Otherwise, I don't know what you expect me to do at this moment." I held my hands out to verify I had no liquids.

She looked at me the way she will be looking at me for at least the next 15 or so years and turned on her Disney Native American heel toward the next house. There were about a billion kids pressing toward the door and I was caught toward the back with Connor. So it wasn't until I heard the man at the door saying, "Yes, sweetheart, go right on in." And the yelling: "HONEY, can you get this little girl some water?!" that I realized Madeline had taken matters into her own hands.

By the time I made my way past the press of humanity and identified myself as the camel's mother, she was walking out of their kitchen wiping her mouth with the back of her hand and looking very satisfied. I guess the spitting idea wasn't her first choice.

Once home, the kids had a few pieces of candy, and I got them cleaned up and to bed, just in time to have my mom come over while I took Roy to the ER with his migraine. Two hours and shot of Demerol and Phenergan later, he was doing much better.

Wednesday morning, I woke up not feeling so great. Nevertheless, Roy's headache was gone, and we had plans to go to the Fort Worth Zoo with the kids, where Roy had arranged to meet a high school friend of his (with her oldest daughter) whom he hadn't seen in 21 years. When it's been over two decades since a visit -- not to mention having told the children 500 times they would be going to the "big, big zoo" that day -- feeling a little under the weather and having logged a trip 10 hours earlier to the emergency room isn't enough to call it off. So away to the zoo we went.

We did indeed meet up with Roy's friend, Shannon, who, not surprisingly, proved to be lovely and witty company. Those two caught up as we walked through the exhibits. My favorite was the primates. Connor was particularly fond of the orangutan, which looked just like the one in "Every Which Way But Loose." While I was thinking about Clint Eastwood and how much I hated that movie and wondering why it was broadcast on network TV at least 50 times when I was a kid, the hairy beast walked right up to Connor from the other side of the glass and proceeded to eat his snot.

I don't buy into humans having descended from monkeys, but Connor and that primate have eerily similar eating habits.

About an hour and a half into our visit, I was freezing -- more so than the weather should have caused -- and feeling generally awful. So I excused myself from our company, left the kids with Roy and returned to the car.

And I slept. For two hours. In the zoo parking lot.

So that's what I did yesterday: Went to Fort Worth to take a nap.

Good times.

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