Saints and Snickers.

Well, we survived Halloween with the full moon and all that. I hope you did as well. If not, I guess you're not reading this. We miss you.

Meanwhile, despite the threat that the state or local government would eighty-six the whole trick-or-treat thing, and despite the sudden freeze the night before that killed every bloom of my remaining dahlias and mums, we had enough kids stop by to almost wipe us out of candy by four p.m. "Screw your Boomer-remover Chinese Death Virus, old-timers; we want Snickers!"

My wife may have been a little generous with the virus-free candy bags she made up, but hey -- if the children are willing to walk around in the cold, they deserve extra candy. So I ran to CVS to buy more, barely finding Halloween stuff tucked in amid the Christmas stuff. But I had expected as much -- the blurry photo below was from the supermarket's "seasonal" aisle early on Halloween morning. Sorry I was rushing, but you can tell by the Festive! colors that it's Christmas now. 

The kids may have come early because it was unseasonably cold. But man, they had some great costumes. I think the COVID fatigue has been beating them down even worse than their parents. However, after the dinnertime lull, we did not get a lot more trick-or-treaters, so we wound up with extra candy anyway.

Well, that was yesterday. Today -- welcome, November! 

yay

We had to set the clocks back, which used to mean and extra hour of sleep, but then I got dogs. I wanted to set the clocks back to 1962. That seems like a nice year. New Frontier, Googie architecture, Mercury 7, all that. Of course, lots of people had a terrible time of it in 1962. Avalanches in Peru, Big Freeze in the UK, segregation riots at the University of Mississippi, Marilyn Monroe's overdose, and so on. So not all of us would like to see 1962 again. Also, to really enjoy the year we'd have to know what we know -- i.e., that World War III was not about to break out -- which would mean we'd be sad because we knew what bad things were coming down the pike -- assassinations, Vietnam, 9/11, hippies, Challenger disaster, disco, Pink Lady and Jeff. 

Setting the clocks forward is just as bad. Who wants to shoot ahead in the calendar without a guarantee that things will get better? Will we still be under mask orders in 2023? Will China skip the pussyfooting around and drop the big one? Will the next virus to jump a Wuhan lab be a new fast-acting form of leprosy? My God -- will The View still be running five years from now?

So this is why it's best to live in the day, as they say, and Saints Preserve Us! It's All Saints Day as well. Chernabog in Fantasia has been chased away by the "Ave Maria," and God bless us all, every one. Especially since we're going to have the remaining holidays out the bazooty every day for the next two months and change. Buckle up, cocoa cup!