Happy Halloween everyone! I am headed to the city in what I hope won't be a nightmare of 2-bridge traffic for a dinner with friends in the Sunset. I'm hoping we get some trick or treaters.

Vesper cocktails and risotto with scallops. Yum!

This was earlier today: [link] He has since peed in all three of those pairs of underpants, and is on pair four. Definitely not a good day for potty compliance.

But really, who am I to stop a little girl when she's wielding a pumpkin carver?

Smart mom!

Just a couple sets so far. I've got the front door open and Loki keeps gaslighting me in his desperate attempts to open the door. At one point he was hanging from the handle, bunny-kicking the door and frame, all while crying. Devi was looking at him like he was crazy.

flea, that's hilarious! Well, not the peeing.

The Maryland State Police are once again running ads telling people to prevent car theft by not leaving their keys in the ignition and the doors unlocked when they leave their car. Are there people who seriously do that?

The Maryland State Police are once again running ads telling people to prevent car theft by not leaving their keys in the ignition and the doors unlocked when they leave their car. Are there people who seriously do that?

At my parents' farm, we would leave the vehicles unlocked and the keys on the dash. But that's the only place we'd do that.

When I was younger, we'd never lock the house doors unless we were on vacation. When we built the new house in 1980 we started locking it at night, but not when we were gone during the day. Then years later they started locking the doors when they were out for the day as well.

Our trick-or-treaters keep coming in big waves; there are apparently hordes of teens and pre-teens roaming the neighborhood. Most of them have on sports shirts as their "costumes"; a few had sheets with holes for eyes. Only 2 tiny children with store-bought costumes, and one with a beautiful gown that her mom had sewn.

flea, your kids are total cuteheads!

I finally realized that, duh, laptop means I can still sit on the porch to hand out candy and still be online.

So far, 4 trick-or-treaters (2 sets of 2) -- one Batman (who I exclaimed over, telling him Batman was my favorite superhero), one princess, one gypsy, and one very young pimp. Because business is slow, we've talked with our across-the-street neighbor about whether or not the abandoned house next door to us would be torn down or rehabbed; walked 2 houses down to see the couple's 8-month-old in a rabbit costume (cute!); and talked to our next-door neighbor about what we thought, when *we* were kids, of adults who dressed up to hand out candy (verdict: lame and/or scary). Which is why I am not dressed up to hand out candy -- I'm afraid the kids will think I'm lame. Which, in and of itself, makes me lame.

We forgot to get a pumpkin to carve, so I lit up a bunch of candles and set them on the porch railing. It's been almost an hour (trick-or-treating goes from 6 to 8), and I think we're going to have a LOT of candy left. When it gets to be 7:30-7:45, I'm going to start giving the kids handfuls of candy.

Trick-or-treat update: 2 more -- one skeleton, one Jason (or, at least, a kid in a hockey mask).

The best costumes we had so far were two kids made up as Balloon baskets--the frames had big bouquets of helium-filled balloons on top and little sand bags for weights and everything. Very creative and adorable.

My pie pumpkins have been steamed and are now mush in the food processor. When it's cool, I'll be putting some up in the freezer for pies and such.