I am now back in PA after going to DC for the rally. DebetEsse and I stayed with Raq. We were standing a bit in front of 7th Street, so just at the back of the official rally area. There were a TON of people behind us, well beyond the borders of the area reserved for the rally. I was actually able to see OK, because I was lucky enough to be able to stand on a bench and see over the heads of the people in front of me. (Some people behind us were complaining that the bench-standing people were selfish, when people first stood on the bench, but I figured that I wasn't adding anything to the view-blocking, since I was the shortest person on the bench, and also, standing on the bench only made me about two inches taller than the guy standing on the ground next to the bench, anyway.)

We could sometimes hear what was going on -- it seemed like, each time they switched the sound settings because of a change in scene or microphone or anything, it went down to too-soft, and then it took a few minutes for them to get it back up to levels where we could hear. There weren't any speakers set up to get beyond 7th Street.

A bunch of people were in Halloween costumes. There were several Waldos, which is really a great costume choice for a rally. About an hour into the rally, one of the Waldos started crowd-surfing from the back of the crowd toward the front. I don't know how far he got, but from where I could see, it looked like at least a block and a half. As he went by, people started chanting, "Waldo! Waldo!" A little while in front of where I was, he started losing balance and half-falling into the crowd. Everyone groaned and seemed disappointed. A little boy sitting on his father's shoulders shouted out, "Come on, Waldo! You can do it!" And then the crowd got Waldo back up and he continued his journey.

I love the last costume in this post: [link]

Which reminds me, saw a few costumes at my market. The one that had everyone double taking was the dude in a nun's habit. Because he was wearing a coat, your eyes would drift past the brain goes wait, what? Dude in a wimple!

Just had a little girl in an awesome samurai costume(!?)

I wish I had candy. Almost enough to make me wish I could go trick-or-treating.

I don't recall if it was someone here or elsewhere, but I passed along one of the easiest costumes to CJ. He came to the market with me in jammies, a robe, and a towel over his shoulder. We saw a few other costumes, but I had kinda expected more.

He also carved a very nice pumpkin all on his own. I need to figure a place to display it now. We don't expect any Trick or Treaters and we don't have any candy anyway.

Trick or Treating is officially over. We have way too much candy left over. We'll leave the pumpkins lighted tonight.

I'm drinking a beer and watching football.

It may not be officially over here, but I'm out of candy. And I had a shitload of candy. I bought enough to fill a tub this size 3/4 full: [link]

The first year here, when I discovered that we don't get Trick or Treaters, I was disappointed. Now, I actually appreciate it - we can't turn off our porch light. That is part of the complex lighting and it stays on all night.

We've had about 120 so far, and are mostly done I think. Started very slow, not much at all until 7pm (it didn't get dark until then) and then big bunches. The kids are more interested in the silly bands they got than candy! Hope we can get them to bed soon - wakeup time is 6:45 for school at 7:35.

I've never lived anywhere (as an adult on my own) that we had trick-or-treaters.