Winding down after taking the boy out trick-or-treating. He wore me out. The wife says we had a pretty good number of trick-or-treaters this year. And she had a lot of people ask where she got her scarf (she didn't have time to put together a costume this year, so she just wore her Gryffindor scarf and Quiditch team t-shirt.) They were disappointed to find out it was a hand-made gift from a friend.

Someone put a business card for mental health services in the boy's trick-or-treat bucket. I'm not sure how to react to that. On the one hand, maybe it will reach out to someone who needs help, but on the other it feels inappropriate.

My across-the-aisle coworker came as Luke-on-Degobah (which he was kind of bummed was not very recognizable by itself) with his 3-month-old as Yoda on his back, his wife as R2D2 and their daughter as Leia. Pretty cute!

I totally wanted to do that with my son when he was one and dressed as Yoda for Halloween, but I ultimately chickened out because I was too out-of-shape and didn't want to shave.

Steph, I was looking at Northside houses online last night in lieu of doing work. There are some gorgeous houses in the area, and fairly reasonable (compared to New Orleans at any rate.)

Keep an eye out for Northside Craftsman bungalows for me!

Our neighborhood isn't especially walkable for being in a city (no sidewalks, my street in particular is STEEP, as in if it snows you're pretty much stuck unless you have a 4-wheel drive, which we've vowed our NEXT car will be), so we've only gotten one family of trick-or-treaters so far--a tiny boy and girl whose costumes didn't stick in my mind, accompanied by an X-wing pilot dad and a nun mom. The little boy was most impressed by the spider web by our porch light. Which I probably should've knocked down before now, but, hey...natural Halloween decorations!

Steph, I was looking at Northside houses online last night in lieu of doing work. There are some gorgeous houses in the area, and fairly reasonable (compared to New Orleans at any rate.)

Houses go on the market and are sold SUPER fast right now (assuming the house isn't a sketchy shithole). It's kind of amazing. I'd love you have you as our neighbors!

And I did find out that I will not be expected to master payroll by 10am tomorrow. So yay for that. I do need to figure out if it is going to be physically possible to make it back in time from the training in Friday morning that is fifty miles away in order to make the training in the afternoon here in town Friday afternoon.

I skipped Halloween, didn't want to have the candy in the house. So I went to chorus rehearsal instead, but not before getting yet another call from Dad bitching about the food at his facility. He's got just enough capacity to be super demanding, and not enough to understand that his diet is limited because he's at high risk of aspirating. What he basically wants is a steak and vegetables and fresh homemade bread at every meal. Which, surprisingly, they don't do at most memory care facilities.

I've signed up for Munchery and they will deliver dinners to him this week, which the staff will have to heat up.

We're paying twice my salary to keep him at this place, and he still needs outside caregivers to keep him from falling or choking, and they can't feed him quality food that he enjoys. I'm pretty close to moving him, despite the stress. It's not as bad as Mom, but I'm starting to dread answering the phone when he calls.

We left the house dark when we went out to discourage trick-or-treaters. Because we had tickets to an eternal-life-and-vampires themed theater performance. Aerialists! Very bendy people in red and/or sparkly clothes!

We didn't have any trick or treaters. Some years we've had a couple, so I had a small bowl of candy. Oh well. Maybe I'll take it in to work. (No, I won't.)

Because we had tickets to an eternal-life-and-vampires themed theater performance. Aerialists! Very bendy people in red and/or sparkly clothes!

That sounds very cool.

Last year we only had two small groups of trick or treaters. This year, Kelly's bf C was very excited to hand out candy, so he had control of the door while I had Jack upstairs with me so he wouldn't frighten off the wee costumed neighbors. And this year we had a bunch of trick or treaters. I missed the adorableness, but C was very happy.

Tonight a group of friends are going to go to a Serenity party at Alamo Drafthouse. I remember seeing it with a bunch of Buffistas when it first came out.

Suzi, that sounds like a good night. C sounds like a good person.

Consuela... yeah... I got nothing. It sucks, that's all there is to it.