And eeeep! Dylan is SO fierce and adorable!

So I talked to my parents on the phone last night. My dad was like "yeah, your mom voted, but I'm going to cancel her out!"

My mom said "I early voted. Your DAD hasn't voted yet. And you know, he's not in the best of health. HE MIGHT NOT MAKE IT to vote. He could be sick!! We can keep hoping!" Heh. We are sick and twisted in my family. (Dad is voting McCain)

Apparently, having heard that lines were like, three hours long on the first day of early voting (in Indiana!), mom thought "What would [meara] do?" and brought a book to stand in line. Good thing--on Day 2 of early voting, she had to wait an hour and a half. She said she got in line, and cracked open her book, and the woman in front of her said "Oh, that's a good idea, I wish I'd brought one!" And mom said "Hah, well, I could read it to you"...jokingly...and the woman said "OK!" And mom ended up reading to her and the woman behind her for like, five chapters. I thought that was hysterical! (Apparently it was some book about a doctor who treated AIDS patients in Haiti, so it wasn't, like, a trashy romance or something, but still)

Thus ends your latest report from the front lines of voting!

How does Robinson Crusoe keep his leather pants so clean when he's stranded on a desert island?

meara, that's awesome of your mom. I'm totally taking a book (no early voting here, and despite being a state very certainly blue, I'm expecting HOPING the turnout will be crazy).... maybe I'll take a few spare Monitors and Nat'l Geographics in for fellow liner-uppers. I suck at reading aloud.

we survived neighborhood trick or treating. 3- 4pm was great. 4:30-5 was a bit hectic - then we ducked into BK for dinner. Then bagged on watching the parade (side note - this is supposed to be a Children's Parade. It is the largest Children's Parade in NYC, but needless to say by 5pm some adults were in costumes that were totally in appropriate. For example, the orange jumpsuited "erectional facility" costume) and came home to play PS2. One friend was here until about 7pm and then another stopped by until 7:45. That never happens - I wish it would more often - I love kids coming to our place.

One really fun thing was two older residents in our building had trick or treat stuff and one, a couple, made the boys do a trick to get their treat. hilarious.

Sounds like it was a good afternoon/night, belle.

The vid of Beaker performing the "Ode to Joy" is even funnier while tipsy.

And that's considering it was pretty damned funny sober.

OK, cat people, I have a question: with MK's getting sick, they got him hooked on wet food. He eats maybe 4 oz of that a day and still has access to dry, but he's not plowing through it like he used to (presumably because he's filling up on wet.) He doesn't seem to be losing any more weight, but he's not regaining what he lost. Cats'll eat what they need, right?

I've just never done wetfood as primary before.

Wet food is a lot richer and more filling because it's so moist. Our first cat worried me because he drank so little water, but the vet said that was because of the wet food.

If he's not losing weight, I wouldn't worry yet.

Thanks. I've has cats all but the 4 years in college (that's 29 years!) but we've always used wetfood as supplements.

Of course, now I'm reading that many vets are saying that wetfood is now better! Oy.

I'm so damned paranoid now. Again.

Since he has dry food available I wouldn't worry. He'll eat if he's hungry.

When I was feeding wet and dry at the same time, Rosie would eat all the dry and Gilda would eat all the wet. Both cats were active and healthy but Rosie started getting a little chunky while Gilda stayed skinny. I adjusted to giving them the dry only after the wet was gone and their weights have evened out. Dry food just causes more weight gain than wet food.