End-of-the-month update
A few thoughts before closing out this month:
1. I’ve always loved Halloween. So much so that my wife and I got married on Halloween (as I wrote about here last year). Yes, today is our 21st wedding anniversary. I think that Halloween is growing (and, it’s spreading around the globe, a phenomenon I noticed last week in Amsterdam with the opening of the sort of Halloween-specific stores you see across the U.S.). Tonight my wife predicted we wouldn’t have any trick-or-treaters because we hadn’t had any by 6:30; for reasons I couldn’t understand, she seemed to think the annual attendance at our door has been dropping, while I’ve seen precisely the opposite phenomenon. Usually I take the kids trick-or-treating and she stays home and hands out candy. This year our roles were reversed because I couldn’t be sure I could make it around the back with my locked and angry lower back. I counted the number of trick-or-treaters. We had 129. Is that more? Fewer? I don’t know, but it seemed like a healthy number. Over the course of the night, all but three had costumes; those three were teenagers (they didn’t come as a group), and when I asked where their costume was, to a person they said, “I’m wearing it” or “This is it.” At least they were bold about it. Later, after I’d had some of the natural medicine my mother continues to prescribe (we call that “liquor”), I asked where the best yard shows were and my wife and daughter took me to three just a couple blocks’ walk away. They were fantastic. One was a pirate ship with assorted undead mateys and a tentacled captain working it; one was a chop shop manned by ghouls; and one was an accident site where someone had been accidentally decapitated. At that one I said, “Another FEMA emergency shelter!” Everyone laughed knowingly.
2. For our anniversary, I got my wife “Torchwood,” Season 2. (I got her diamond earrings for Valentine’s Day, okay?) She was thrilled. She got me a massage for my back, scheduled for tomorrow. I am thrilled.
3. The past few days Senator Obama has been in the news lowering expectations — not just about the odds of his success, but also about the daunting challenges facing the next president “whoever that might be.” I think that’s wise. He has run on hope, but no one should hope that he has a magic wand. If he wins, that first year will be disappointing. Of course, if he loses, I think the next four years will be vastly more disappointing.
See you next month. Starting with those long-promised photos from Amsterdam and the marathon.
November 1st, 2008 at 4:31 pm
We had about the same number of candy-grabbers as last year. One boy had no costume and, when I looked at him questioningly, he cocked his head far to the side, stuck out his tongue, and said, “Dead guy.”
Best costume of the night was a little girl dressed as Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz. Lots of sparkly stuff on her clothes and she was carrying a small stuffed ‘Toto’ (the dog, not the band).
I correctly ID’d a kid dressed as a member of that musical aggregation, Insane Clown Posse, which made me feel even more ‘hep’ (as the kids say) than usual. Near to cut-off time we got our only Joker and I couldn’t resist using the line from the movie, “Why so sad?” He was not impressed. But there WAS that Insane Clown Posse thing.
November 5th, 2008 at 11:05 am
I just powdered my bald head & went as a roll-on deodorant