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.

egad flea, Dillo is gorgeous.

Big old wave the last half hour. My neighbor and I sat out on our porches and chatted while handing it out. I'm down to 1/4 what I started with.

Lotsa princesses and ninjas! And quite a few bloody little girl vampires.

mac did all his TorTing by 3pm, not really very much as I hate everything. We will have no TorTers in our building.

He is now watching The Great Pumpkin for the second night in a row. I think I need to put all the Charlie Brown specials on the Christmas list. I'd rather have them all without commercials.

I TOTALLY kicked laundry's ass and got almost all of the three bags folded and put away. Also got a load of stuff down to the basement storage AND a load of stuff in the heat machine. As it gets colder I am now having to pull out stuff that never was treated and I dare not risk re-bugging the place. I also remembered I had a bag full of winter stuff slotted to get rid of that I never treated, so I am doing some of that and taking it to charity tomorrow.

dumb me moment of the day...finding the sheet that lists what is in all the plastic bins I stored away and realizing that mac's comforter was put away in one.

Yaya kicking laundry butt!

Ok, the little girl who looked in the front door and said "I like your house. It's pretty!" scored extra loot.

Well, I got myself out onto the cul-de-sac for the potluck and was social for a couple of hours, despite the heat and humidity. Came in, fed the dogs, gave Moosh his insulin and sequestered myself in the back with the dogs and took a shower while Lewis mans the candy bowl.

My kids have been out in the 'hood and back. Nice thing about having 12 & 13 yr.-olds is that they can go out on their own.