Costume Nonchalance

Halloween 2001…LFG was 16 months old. Would she keep the Ladybug antennae head band on? Probably not. But as long as she had a Saltine cracker in both hands, perhaps she would keep it on long enough for us to snap a few photos of this, her first ambulatory Halloween.

Her cracker-in-each-hand mediated nonchalance was impressive. She walked around the house and the patio not once tugging on her little costume or reaching to strip away and cast down her headband. Compliant. Impressive. After all, sixteen month old toddling little lumps of love could give two hoots and a damn about their costume. The the first, grainy little photo shows LFG, I think, headed back to the cracker tray. It seems that her right hand needs a cracker reload. “Cracker Reload”…might be the title of my ADG resurrection book.

And while I have you; please, let’s take up the issue of nonchalance. My way of thinking says that if one manifests nonchalance, then someone, at some point had to have manifested chalance. Otherwise, how would we know that someone was being nonchalant? Chalant. I can’t wait on the lexico-powers that be to declare it a word. I must do so now. “Hoyt was one chalant cat during the deposition. He might as well go ahead and plead guilty. The boy was shaking like a two-dollar washing machine on spin-cycle when they asked him about Lurlene Finklea.”

Same goes for nonplussed.

Onward. Plussed.

ADG II