Candy crush and Hurlaween.

Halloween's a comin', Paw, and we may be in danger. 

Last year we got very few trick-or-treaters. The neighborhood was changing; kids who'd grown up there were gone, folks had moved away, houses now held Orthodox families that ignore Halloween and familes of uncertain origin who didn't have kids -- just 23 adults in one house -- or anyway didn't send out any children to get free candy. 

Plus, it was very cold and rainy last year. I know, because I sat on the porch by my stupid self waiting to hand out the goodies. 

New year, new neighborhood, and this one is packed with kids. I asked around: What size U-Haul box truck should I fill up with Skittles to feed the candy-crazed masses? Ha ha, they said, a 15-footer should do the trick. 

Apparently it's quite an operation here in the south. Kids zoom around on scooters and ATVs and in golf carts and expect the adults to be set up at the end of their driveways, handing out goodies. A regular McCandy Drive-Thru. 

I think we'll be all right. But I'm not sure. I have 13 sacks of candy in various sizes (from bag o' 20 servings to monster sack o' 160), plus a few packs small toys that can can be split among the bags as filler, plus boxes of lunch-pack cookies that can be hauled out as need be. No kid, no matter how candy crazed, is going to ignore Oreos. 

I expect to see kids from all over. Wonder if I'll acually see the two next door. They're pretty young, but their mom will not spreak to us. Really, a month and a half and not a peep, despite seeing each other around mowing and stuff. Sure, I might be a weirdo, but come on. All I ask is that people give me one chance before they hate me. Then they can hate me all they want. (But the older kid waved and said hi.)

One more observation as we barrel toward the big 👻💀day: WHAT THE HELL IS THIS? 

"Spooky Ranch"? It took a few years, but kids ultimately rejected Heinz's weird purple, green, etc. ketchup. I can't see them going for diarrhea-colored ranch dressing. If you don't mind how it looks, watch for it in the remainder bin on November 1. 

But he got no skin in the game!

 

Boo who?

Around Halloween we were chatting about the UNICEF boxes, the cardboard boxes that some poor kids had to schlep around to go schnorring on behalf of the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund. I think I did it once. Sometimes in school they'd put the guilt screws on you, and you felt obliged to participate. Well, I figured that UNICEF boxes had gone the way of leisure suits and Pet Rocks. 

Nope.

It's back.

When I was a kid, living in the Five Boroughs, there were plenty of true believers among the parents. They had grown up under the threat of World War and nuclear holocaust, and they believed that the United Nations was an important means to bring countries together and do good throughout the world. Sure, the Communists were always on the march, and the UN reps were always fighting, but as long as the Soviets or the Chinese didn't actually declare war on the United States or Western Europe, then surely the UN was working. It was acting as a "cooling dish" to prevent hotheads from bumbling into war, and a meeting place to try to work out treaties in the presence of other nations, preventing a treaty-based honor system that would require half the world to go to war against the other half as in 1914. 

UNICEF was another helpful idea. It would show that the nations of the world could work together to help children, all children, everywhere, when disaster or famine or illness struck. The pennies, nickels, and dimes we collected along with our fun-size Krackels (yay!) and Hershey Special Darks (boo!) would help the UN perform this mission. 

I'm not sure where it really started to go wrong. Publicly wrong, anyway. It was as the Cold War was coming to a close. In 1988, the Nobel Committee gave its Peace Prize to the UN Peacekeeping Forces for "reducing tensions where an armistice has been negotiated but a peace treaty has yet to be established." By 1996 it had been noted that in half the nations the UN Peacekeeping Forces went, there was a "rapid rise in child prostitution".

Does anyone expect anything good out of the UN anymore? It seemed like its World Health Organization might be useful, but its reputation went in the garbage with just about every other major health organization during COVID. A genuine investigation into how the pandemic started and who started it would turn things around, but these groups would rather ride the train to hell than admit fault, rattle the Communist Chinese, or (worst of all) give the plebes any chance of vindication. All the UN is good for is condemning Israel and sometimes the United States, working with terrorists, and demanding that we beasts in the West take more rapists and murderers into our bosom (as if we don't have enough of our own). 

So no, I will never recommend anyone give to UNICEF or any other concern in which the UN is involved. I don't know how well UNICEF does what it purports to do, but the United Nations as a whole has never lived up to its promise, so why should UNICEF? There are better charities. 

Eat the children!

Sometimes I wonder if people celebrating Halloween even want trick-or-treaters to show up at their door. The little kids, anyway. The yard decorations are absolutely horrifying, and a long ways from the stuff that was around even twenty years ago. 

The Angel of Death prepares to bite the head off a little girl

 

How can a ghost have stitches?
I always heard "Witches get stitches."
Or something like that.

Stack o' skulls and the Murder Clown
Acrobatic Team

I realize that compared to a lot of over-the-top yard displays, these folks are barely more than a papier-mâché pumpkin and a green witch Glitter Plaque. But I think when I was a little kid I would have had to at least screw up my courage, maybe shut my eyes and run to the front door -- less for the candy than from the greater fear of being labeled a chicken or a baby. 

Skeletons scared me when I was a boy, I can admit now, and no rational discussion of the utility and importance of human bone structure could cure me of it. I went through a phase where every time I had to turn a light on in a dark room, I anticipated a skeleton waiting for me. I never told anyone, and God help the kid with that same phobia today, because there are plenty of lifelike skeletons to be had for prank purposes. Fortunately, after a couple hundred skeletonless light engagements, I stopped worrying about it. But let's just say that having a vivid imagination is not an unmixed blessing. 

The other confession I have to make is, scary as this stuff is, it was nothing compared to the shooting gallery illustration. This "fun" bit of artwork was in an arcade, either in Seaside Heights or Coney Island -- I have not been able to find it online -- and featured an idiot man with a rifle barrel turned backward, as happened in Looney Tunes many times. But instead of just being blackened with gunpowder, the rifle had blown a hole in his head and a hole in the abdomen of the woman behind him. Both reacted with some surprise. I could not look at it; it would ruin my day if I did. The concept of "body horror" was not so well known then, but that was how it affected me. What made it really sickening (like, made me want to throw up the contents of my mind) was that it was supposed to be funny. 

Maybe I was the weird kid, I don't know. But to my credit, no matter how scared I was, I would get up to every door on Halloween to demand my candy. I could not back down in front of my peers. Plus, candy comes first on Halloween. The pumpkins and ghosts and the rest are really an add-on. You gotta get the good stuff.  

Scary time.

For little American kids, the journey from the start of school in the fall to the next big event, Halloween, takes approximately eight years. Not so for adults. 

Hallowhine

As wise person once noted that life is like a roll of toilet paper; the further into it you are, the faster it goes. There's no better example than seeing how quickly life moves for adults than children. As I've noted here before, how could it be otherwise? For a man of fifty, one year is 1/50th of his entire life; for a kid of four, it's an entire quarter, and he doesn't even remember the first half. The kid would have no way to understand the internal reference of time's passage that an older man has. 

That's the scary thing about time -- you don't have to be Einstein to see that it's a relative phenomenon. No wonder even the ancients tried to invent timepieces. No one could agree on how long anything took. 

"You said this would be over in a short time!"  

"It was! Wasn't it great?"

"It sucked! And it lasted for ... a very LONG time!"

"If only we had some means of knowing how long things took, we could see who's right."

"There's the passage of the sun."

"It's cloudy."

"Well -- I'm right and you're wrong and it lasted a WHOLE LOT of time!"

I was thinking about relativity recently, Einstein's little killjoy for universal exploration. Before he got all smarty-pants about the speed of light and everything, we could think that if we only could make something fast enough, we could get to other stars in no time. Then Albie is like, "Wait, there's a speed limit! No going past C." And we were like, "Oh, man! At that speed, the next galaxy is more than two million years away!" And he's like "Sorry, dude. Better pack a lunch."

But it gets worse. Now we know that time would pass differently for the people moving near that speed than for us on Earth, moving at Earth speed. What kind of craziness does that lead us to? It's why space-faring capitalist companies like in the Alien movies would never work. You'd launch from Earth as an employee of Earthy McEarth Enterprises (EME), and by the time you got to your destination, EME had merged, failed, the pieces bought up, a new company planned, created to fanfare with various funding rounds, had an IPO, got absorbed in an LBO, the main company failed, tried to get a government handout, crashed, and everyone is dead because the sun went nova. 

Don't be fooled by so-called Universal Time. It doesn't apply to the universe. Is it ever the same time all at the same time throughout the universe? If at my house it's Monday, August 15, 2033, 8:09:12 a.m., is it something different all over the place? I can't understand it. 

Well, one thing young and old can both agree on with time, and that's when it's something fun, it's over too soon. And that's true on whatever planet you happen to be on. 

When it's bad, it ain't bad enough.

The bear situation has been getting to me. 

If you're just joining us, there is a black bear that has been roaming the neighborhood, making himself quite at home in daylight hours as well as in dusk and dawn. It was seen most recently by me from the porch last Wednesday as he sauntered down the street. 

My wife wants me to call the state fish & wildlife office. The local authorities have no interest in bear matters, so it must be referred to the closest state office -- one county and forty miles away. So you can bet they'll just come racing down here with sirens wailing, ready to capture a big ol' bear. Yeah.

Every time I take out the trash or take out the dog in the dark, I also take out my big ol' cop flashlight, the kind you can use to beat the fight out of a fleeing felon. Probably would not give me the edge in a fight with the bear, but it's better than nothing. I believe it when they say bears would really prefer not to get too close to humans -- but this guy is already taking liberties. 

Meanwhile, we have Eastern Coyotes again all of a sudden. Do they follow bears, looking for scraps? I don't know, but my wife has heard them howling, and I'm pretty sure I saw one in hot pursuit of three deer through the gloaming.

So last night I dreamed I was outside the house (not my actual house) and looking into the backyard (way larger my actual backyard) while on the phone with my friend Will (my actual friend). Dog Izzy was in the back. Suddenly through the high grass bordering the yard came a multitude of wild critters -- a rhino, cheetah, a gigantic African elephant, and other assorted miscreants. Izzy froze at the sight. I said, "Will, I'll have to call you back," and got the only useful-ish thing at hand, my three-pound sledgehammer. I wished like the comic book Thor I could use it to shoot lightning, but I figured if I screamed enough and bopped the right people in the snoot, I could give Izzy a chance to run for it. Just as I made my move, I woke up. 

I have to say I was a little proud of my dream self, ready to plunge into danger to save my beloved dog. Most of the time I consider myself the kind of guy who, in a crisis, looks around to see who else is stepping up to solve the problem, and if no obvious problem solver appears, to kind of shuffle sideways out of the area. So, yay for dream me, I guess. 

Yeah, there I am.

Should I call the government about my bear problem? Not because of my own worries, but because it's dark when the teens are on the school bus stop now. Plus Halloween is coming, and that means little kids at dusk carrying sweet, sweet candy. I'm afraid our bear will think it's like a frozen dinner with the dessert in a separate compartment. 

Have you had to deal with bear business like this? Anecdotes and advice are welcome. 

Halloween in mid-September.

boo

I know, the candy has been out for more than a month already. It was displacing back to school stuff in New York before the kids even went, you know, back to school. But that's no reason for the rest of us to get hysterical over Halloween, when it's not even autumn yet. 

That is, unless you're the people who live down the street from me, who already started decorating. 

They put out a tremendous lawn display, but that's just for starters. After I took this picture, the inflatables started to appear, plus a giant skeleton in a stand-up coffin of some kind. Last year they were so laden with lights and other electrical effects that their power bill for October was probably larger than the other eleven months of the year combined. It becomes the kind of house where parents of small children wonder if letting the little one go to the door is worth the candy, lest Li'l Iron Man soil his armor. 

Technically lawnmowing season isn't over for the rest of us, but they've called it. However, I was amused to see that they've put a skeleton and a suitable toy to use for lawn work. 

Lawn work in hell -- even worse than in Florida.

Many memes are getting involved in this year's display. 

I hope to get some good shots when the whole thing is up and running. I can tell you that walking the dog in the dark morning and coming across their display is really a little unnerving. 

Hell, if I were a creepy monster and I wanted to hide somewhere, I'd hang in their yard until November. No one would know. 

P.S.: It's not just candy anymore! Scrub Daddy, the finest dish cleaning sponge available, has come out with a Halloween line this year. And remember, cleanliness is next to -- spookiness? 

Short takes.

It's Saturday! What do we got? Memes, candy, food, folks, and fun. Let's wade in. 

1) Cutest Halloween candy

After the holiday I was given this by a friend:

It's the tiniest box of Tic Tacs I've ever seen! Held exactly eight of the little candies. They call it Tic Tac Travels, which makes sense, because it really doesn't work as Halloween candy. Kids like Tic Tacs all right, but they're not the chocolate/sugar bomb kids crave on the day. Mints are for grandmas. 

However, the back of the box also has a cute mascot, so there's that.

2) 

3) Saw this in the freezer department:

Didn't buy them, because I want to stay married. But damn -- little pizza-roll-type snacks stuffed with the amazing taste of White Castle hamburgers? Are you kidding me? If I was having a bunch of guys over to watch football in the man cave, I'd get two bags. And open the windows. Just as well I have no man cave, I guess, and am still off the wokefest NFL. 

4) 

5) Last but never least, always happy to see someone take a shot at overrated stuffed shirt Bill Nye. And DST. 

End DST! Set the sun free! 

Superpuff!

I'm overarmed and overprepared for Halloween, because I don't want to have a repeat of years before -- dashing out the door as the candy supplies dwindle and the dog is going nuts and my wife frantically holds down the fort while I rush to the supermarket where only Christmas candy is available on Halloween night.

I've never had a kid with a teal pumpkin, but I respect that some of our plucky urchins have food allergies, and always try to have verified safe nut- and peanut-free treats available. Which is one of the reasons I bought the Justice League Candy Sticks. 

The sack holds forty little boxes, each one with pictures of the heroes of DC's Justice League -- Superman, Wonder Woman, Flash, Batman, Cyborg, Aquaman. That is, only the ones who appeared in the movie. Traditional members like Green Lantern and Martian Manhunter did not make the cut. 

Each box contains two little "candy sticks." But what are those? If you're an adult and you've been one for a while, these should look familiar. 

You got it -- candy cigarettes. Basically nothing but sugar with a little flavoring, not that the kids mind. They used to put a little red dye on one end for your "light." My wife actually called it before I even opened the little box: "That sounds just like candy cigarettes." She could tell by the rattle in the box.

We're counting on the kids to have no knowledge of history and just eat them, instead of walking around holding them in their fingers, pretending to be smoking. But who knows? These things are still sold as candy cigs, mostly in foreign countries where no one cares if you smoke, unlike in this Great Land of Liberty. You can buy them in the "cigarette" packs from Old Time Candy. 

These days, with governments frowning on tobacco but greedy for marijuana money, the kids would more likely puff them while pinching the candy to their lips, toking away like Mommy and Daddy. 

It's just weird, though, to see superhero-themed packages with candy cigarettes inside. I am old enough to remember when many of the adults around me smoked cigs, but even then, it was not something you'd see anyone in the comics doing except the bad guys. Well, maybe a few guys like Punisher or Wolverine or Constantine, but they were not particularly good guys. You'd certainly never associate smoking with Superman. 

...usually. 

Ooky.

I'm sorry I've been out to lunch -- well, more than usual. Last week was nuts, mostly workwise, but also MRI wise and dogwise (he desperately needing a bath). This week could be just as whacko, but we'll see. 

Meanwhile, we're more than a week into October, about that time that anyone who is going to decorate for Halloween has at least started doing so. Let's see how it's going.

Very festive. The garbage can is a nice touch.

Enter... what? The house? The grave? 
Message unclear.

A jolly pile. But we all know this is a 
repurposed snowman. The factory in China
threw the switch from Christmas to Halloween
and they started to come out like this.

I think I first saw the tall one in 2020, the year of the world's
stupidest pandemic, and thought it ironic that the plague doctor,
one of the scariest looks ever devised, was meant for public safety. 
Well, he's being scary again. He seems to have scared
Pumpkin Child into fainting.  

spoooooookynah

I'll see you tomorrow for Indignant Persons' Day (observed), although probably not to comment on the holiday this year. Brace yourself for -- something different! 

Cryptosale!

Hello, fellow cryptocurrency investors! It's time to once again expand your portfolio by sending me your worthless, value-cratering American dollars in exchange for dynamic, upward-looking Fredcoin! Fredcoin is the only cryptocurrency that doesn't suck, and don't just take my word for it. Why, have a look at this unsolicited endorsement from famous cartoon character Nancy!

That's right, Nancy! Fredcoin is the wave of the future, and that future is not found by looking back to yesterday, but forward to tomorrow! You ever get clobbered by a wave while you were looking toward the shore? Of course you have. Knocked down, grit in your mouth, crabs biting your toes -- who needs it? Well, you can avoid all that by watching the horizon with Fredcoin! And waiting for your crypto shyp to come in! 

Why now? you ask. Why not later? Why shouldn't I just sit around and not order Fredcoin now?

Isn't that silly. There's no reason to not order Fredcoin when you could be ordering Fredcoin. It's just that simple. 

And what better time than during our pre-Halloween sale? Yes, my friends, for a limited time you can still buy Fredcoin for the same price as always, rather than waiting for those dollars to devalue some more. That could happen before our Halloween Crypt-O-Currency Bonanza, and wouldn't that be a fine trick-or-treat? So stop being patient and order today! 

As a special bonus, every order over $100 will come with a genuine e-signature by me for your NFT autograph collection. Sure to be worth something some day! 

Good thinking, little unnamed cartoon peon! Think ahead to the future with Fredcoin, and leave all other coins behind. Be like Nancy! Yell out "Me for Fredcoin!" Yell it at the bank! Yell it in the ice cream parlor! Yell it in the asylum! Yell it on the bus! Yell it at the Federal Reserve! Let everyone know that Fredcoin is the coin for you! Accept no substitutes! 

Fall, schmall.

Everyone says summer is great, but they can't seem to kick it out the door fast enough after Labor Day. 

Never mind the Halloween candy in July -- that's a lost cause, and I think lost because we just like excuses to buy sacks of little candies and eat them and then have to replace them. The stores would put them out in March if they thought they wouldn't look like they'd been left over since last Halloween. And it's not like little candies in big sacks aren't available year-round. It's just that the variety is better at Halloween, and we can convince ourselves we're being festive! and not gluttons. These are for the kids! Yeah, that bag will have been reduced to a pile of little wrappers and human waste before October even starts. 

Well, today is the first day of fall, and as usual, the stores have been all-out for Halloween for weeks, beyond the candy. Labor Day: School supplies out, Halloween crap in. Like this, at CVS:

I'm calling the exterminator

You're not even trying to not be
a Christmas tree, are you?

The weird thing, my neighbors started following the trend. Usually no one puts out Halloween stuff before October 1 -- maybe a generic scarecrow or something that could be just a general autumn decoration, but "Boo"? Foo.

But one product has already got a jump on Christmas, and it is not whom I'd have expected. Sure, my wife's craft catalogs start with Christmas in spring, but they know people need time to make serious projects. And yeah, I've seen ads for some Christmas events like the Rockefeller Center show in the city and the invitation to waste the holidays and your savings at Disney, but people always plan trips months ahead. But a Christmas-themed cereal box in September?

The answer of course is General Mills' sponsorship with Hallmark Channel, home of a million Christmas movies. My sources tell me that the channel is running 31 new movies this year, starting on October 20, so you'd better believe they're ready for autumn to be on its way and get us thinking Yuletide thoughts. 

As usual, I feel like I just took the tree down. Can we push Christmas off till April 2024? Is that too much to ask? I’m not ready.

Auuuughtumn.

Well, as predicted, Halloween arrived early this year, and arrives earlier every year. I remember complaining to a store chain once about Halloween candy on display in August. This is from the box store on Friday, July 28. 

Because you need a tremendous bag of SpongeBob
Halloween candy in July.

And the grocery store yesterday, July 29. 

Well, that's just candy, right? Not like the whole store has given up on summer and started in with fall. 

Ha:

We are one month and nine days from the start of summer; the end of summer does not arrive for another two solid months. But sure, break out the fall stuff. 

I know, I know, no one goes by the equinoxes and solstices. They go by Memorial Day and when does school start, by Christmas and maybe -- because spring always gets short shrift -- when can I start my tomato plants. 

Rushing the seasons in a retail setting has to be the fault of the consumer, ultimately. If we weren't willing to buy a five-pound sack of fun-size spooky-themed Nestlé bars* in July, they wouldn't sell it. Picture the scene at PlastiCrapCo:

🌞🌅🩳🏄

"Johnson! Get in here!"

"Yes, sir?"

"And none of that! You know what my pronouns are now!"

"Yes, xir!"

"Better. Johnson, pool noodle sales are down 15 percent since three weeks ago. The surge from the start of the season, which began during Easter, is decidedly over."

"Yes, xir, but it's not like pool and barbecue season is over. People will be having fun in the sun for more than a month yet."

"'Fun in the sun.' What would they teach you in marketing class if those words didn't rhyme? If I ever hear you say 'yummy in the tummy,' I will not be responsible for my actions."

"Sorry, xir."

"Nothing is yummy by the time it's in the tummy! There are no tastebuds in the stomach!"

"Of course not, xir."

"So don't fight with me! Now look, Johnson, we need to get that consumer excitement back! Time to ship the, er -- What's on the way? Let's check the container list from our friends in China. Ah! Halloween costumes and decorations!"

"Yes, xir! I'll get right on it."

"See that you do, Johnson."

"And xir? It's Johndaughter now."

"Oh, er, sorry about that, Johns-- daughter. Please don't report me to HR."

👻👺👿💀

Of course, I have in the past failed to get enough Halloween candy and made an emergency trip to the store, and wound up giving the kids Christmas candy, because the Halloween stuff had already been dumped. 

Life moves fast enough! Stop shoving things along! 

* Or Her/She Possibly Trans Candy.

It's autumn!

Once again, Walmart has said, "Still more than a week to go in July. Back to school!"

I understand that some colleges start early, and even in these technological times those students still need basic school supplies. But those of us in the New York area, where school doesn't start before Labor Day, know that this is a sight that, in late July, leads to much wailing and gnashing of teeth among the kids. I could almost hear them gnashing away as I took the picture. 

That was last Friday. I am almost dead certain that the next time I go to a supermarket, probably this upcoming Friday, July 28, Halloween candy will dominate the seasonal aisle. Pool noodles, water guns, folding lounge chairs, all that stuff will shoved aside. 

It has been more than a month since the longest day of the year, and surely autumn is looking to make its move. This shot came from the morning walk with baby dog Izzy. Autumn, lurking. 

I think that the scarecrow is behind the hedge because it's going out with the garbage; that seems to be where the family keeps its trash cans. But maybe not. Maybe it's just there to watch over us, to snicker and say, "You fools, playing in the sun! I was once young and carefree like you. Then the autumn chill stole into my straw, and now my time is waning and almost done. Memento Mori!"

Or maybe their dog peed on it. Either/or. 

Beat it, pumpkin.

I don't want to belabor this Halloween autopsy, but:

1) I was completely bollixed up with work yesterday and had little time to think of a new blog topic; 

2) It seems appropriate to pick over the ghastly carcass of Halloween; and

3) I was de-decorating as I went around the house, making room for Pilgrim-related décor. 

It's this last bit that did get me thinking, for whatever amount of thinking I was able to do.

We don't usually let Halloween stick around, do we? The hearts might hang around until March; shamrocks might stay out until April; and Christmas stuff might laze about for months. Halloween? As soon as its over we look around, embarrassed, like we've awakened from a drunken affair of convenience and are all ashamed but trying to be polite, then we put it behind us as fast as possible and move on.

Of course, Halloween has the bad luck to be on the last day on the month, and month's end usually brings a desire for a change. The shamrock may not look silly on March 24, but the ghost hanging around on November 6 looks lost. You really feel the need to get rid of that stuff on November 1 in case any time-displaced costumers show up looking for candy. Down come the ghosts! Down come the skeletons! Hurry! Hurry!

I think that would be the case even if Halloween were not up against the giant Thanks-CHRISTMAS behemoth that starts on November 1, Frankly, I'm glad Halloween does its bit just to keep Christmas at bay a little. You know I love Christmas, but if the retailers were 100% cranked for it after Labor Day, I'd be exhausted by December 1. As it is, Christmas is such a huge deal that it has a 12-day hangover attached.

Maybe the theme of Halloween also makes us want to give it the hook before the applause has faded. Who but the most morbid of us wants to wallow in spooky graveyard stuff all the time? It's a pretty small population compared to those who like cheer and joy. It's funny that in Halloween films, the festivities go through Halloween night; except in places like Rutland, Vermont, which has a parade for the day, it's all over by ten p.m. -- earlier if you have a town curfew as we do. Most of the time it's a school night, a work night, for some even a church night; most of us can't and won't go deep into the wee hours with pumpkin-scented foofaraw. 

So for a guy who didn't have much to say today, I said a lot. This may be my last mention of Halloween for the year, for which most will be grateful. Happy Thanksgiving! 

Post-Halloween post.

Yesterday was exhausting, but more for work reasons than Halloween reasons. That said, I do have a short list of post-mortem thoughts on everyone's favorite holiday of mortem. 

Née $100,000 Bar

1) I was good. Well, pretty good. The only official piece of holiday candy was from the 100 Grand fun-size bar. It's still a great candy bar, the chewy caramel nicely offset by the crispy rice. I knew it was originally marketed as the $100,000 Bar, but I didn't know how far the name went back or where it came from. MeTV, where nostalgia is important, tells us that the bar was introduced in 1966. I always figured the name was part of some campaign where Nestlé spent 100 Large to develop the perfect candy bar, but I was wrong. MeTV says,  "After the success of quiz shows in the 1950s, Nestlé came up with the idea to create a candy bar based on those programs. In particular, the company was inspired by The Big Surprise, in which the grand prize was $100,000."

2) We got left with a bunch of candy. Last year in the Post-Chinese Death Virus mania we had so many trick-or-treaters that I had to run out to get more candy, just to find that the store was already stocked with only Christmas candy. I'm sure the kids didn't mind getting candy in Christmas colored wrappers, as long as they didn't think I'd been holding it since 2020. 

This year I overbought. I guess we had between 25 and 30 kiddos, and we were prepared for more than twice that number. It is impossible to estimate properly, at least in this neighborhood.

3) Izzy was pretty good about the doorbell ringing. Last year he was not the only dog in the house, and as long as Tralfaz was not freaked out he was okay to be cool as well. I worried that this year he would be nuts with the kids coming along, but not so much. However, as with Tralfaz and Nipper before him, Izzy went berserk on the lawn, trying to sniff the trails of every kid who had been walking around. 

4) But the real problem here is that Izzy has been sick. He picked up an eye infection, probably at the groomer (that was the vet's figuring). It started in one eye a week ago; we went to the vet and got antibiotics, an anti-inflammatory, and eye drops. It got worse and spread to the other eye by Saturday, so I had to drive him to an animal hospital because although our vet has Saturday hours, they were booked solid. Which ruined all my plans for Saturday, by eating a couple of hours out of the middle of the day. 

But I'm glad I did, because that vet gave him eye ointment. She said eye drops just run out of the eye anyway. Izzy doesn't like the ointment, but he'll tolerate it. He's a good little patient. Very little trouble over pills. He seems to be getting better, but the eyes still look infected. SpoooOOOooky, even.

So those are some thoughts, and if you don't like them, I have others, How was your Halloween? 

Coldest robot.

Eleven years ago we had a snowstorm here two days before Halloween, which was also on a Monday that year. Snow on Halloween may be de rigueur in places like North Dakota and Saskatchewan, but not in the southern tier of New York. It was not a blizzard, as I recall, just heavy, slippery snow, and it caught everyone by surprise. Weekend workers, plow guys, schools that had to remain closed Monday, even trees that had not yet dropped their leaves (you didn't want all those limbs, didja, tree?). All the local towns and villages barred trick-or-treating, although I seem to recall roving bands trying their luck the following Friday. Those that did made out well. The early bird gets the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.

A friend had posted pictures of the Great Pumpkin Snowstorm of '11, and it reminded me of another Halloween quite a few years earlier than that. 

I don't remember all the costumes I wore over the years of trick-or-treating; there was the Superman costume I wore to pieces after the fact, the inevitable bindlestiff getup, and probably a vampire or pirate in there. Most are forgotten. But I firmly remember the year I got the much-envied robot costume by Ben Cooper. In addition to being pretty skull-like for some reason, it had a battery pack that lit up a little lightbulb in the forehead. All the high tech of the worst third-grade science project, but I could not wait to go out and impress everyone with my costume.

There was a problem. And this problem is something else that I'm sure is familiar to children of North Dakota and Saskatchewan. That day was the coldest Halloween I'd ever endured -- possibly the coldest I have ever endured -- and there was no way Mom was letting me go schnorring for candy without my parka. 

A robot in a parka? THAT'S CRAZY TALK! Robots are made of steel! They don't wear parkas! I think we can all agree on one thing, and that's that a robot, even one that for some reason was packaged by Ben Cooper as if wearing a spacesuit, can endure common temperatures on Earth. No parkas needed! ROBOTS DO NOT WEAR PARKAS!

Well, you'd better believe this one did. It was that or stay home.

I guess it was not as embarrassing as I probably expected. I'm sure that around the neighborhood we had Supermen wearing parkas, ghosts wearing parkas, skeletons wearing parkas, ballerinas whose long coats covered their entire costume, vampires whose mothers made them wear scarves and woolly hats. It was freaking cold. Any sane person would not have been wandering around, but we were kids looking for free candy without adult supervision, so, yeah. 

That was close to my final real trick-or-treat experience. Those Ben Cooper costumes would last for one night, and little more; even if I had not outgrown it by the following year, or associated it with bitter disappointment, I would not have worn it again. It makes an amusing story now, though.

I laugh at the experience, as I do all those Halloween experiences. You usually forget the candy itself as the years go on, but you remember the things that happened. I hope you have some good memories of Halloween to smile at today. And may your trees be free of snow and TP.

Moments and mements.

Yesterday I was out and about, rather busy being social. (Me! Out amid the populace! Can you imagine?) Therefore all I can offer you this morning are some stolen moments and stolen memes, collected with the utmost care over the latter part of October. 

And, because I got my first Christmas catalog of the year in the mail yesterday: