Happy Halloween, gang!

Don't know about where you are, but here, it's looking as if a very glum, overcast day is shaping up out there. I don't know for sure if tonight is trick-or-treat night, or if it's tomorrow night. I never get trick-or-treaters anyway. And no, it's not because there's a huge neon sign on my roof, blinking on & off: Pornographer Lives Here! Parents Strongly Cautioned! ("No, Sally, come this way! We're not going to that house! A known pornographer lives there!" "Mommy, what's a pornographer?" "Never mind, Sally, just don't go there.")

It's actually because my street has a lot of traffic on it. The trick-or-treaters stick to the streets behind my house because there is almost no traffic there -- and the candy haul is probably way better! Perhaps I should rent a kid to go out trick-or-treating for me just to see what kind of candy everybody's giving away. Wasn't trick-or-treat night great when we were little? It's not like it is now, where come September, everyone starts gearing up for Halloween and it all gets so over the top. It used to be that it just happened on that one night each year and then it disappeared in a heartbeat for another 365 days, but all that candy in one night! It was incredible! And then those little orange milk carton thingies we took around with us, collecting change for UNICEF.

Can you imagine trying to collect money for UNICEF in America these days? "No, Sally, you can't have my spare change for UNICEF! I need my freakin' spare change because it's all I've got left. The freakin' bank is foreclosing on my freakin' house! Just take the fucking free candy and get outta here already with that freakin' little orange box!"

Well, on the home front... I am somehow managing -- without any effort whatsoever -- to continue to forget to buy batteries for my camera, so I still cannot regale you with the leaves in my wonderful backyard. But now they have pretty much all fallen off the maple tree. I'm guessing that come Monday, when my lawn guys come, all the leaves will get sucked up into the big machine and then carted off to oblivion. Sorry about that, gang. Well, there's always next year. Have a Happy Halloween, though, wherever you are!