…gave us enough to fill the big black Halloween bowl three times. I gave it all away, except for the four Kit-Kats, one package Peanut-Butter M&Ms. Well, I also set aside a single Snickers bar for me and a peanut butter cup for Fuzzy, but still five pieces of candy is about the amount of leftovers I was hoping to have.

I turned out the lights a little after 8:30, because I was out of candy. Apparently, most everyone on our block was also out of candy, or just decided 8:30 was a fair time to quit. It seems reasonable to me. We didn’t have any stray teenagers this year, only those who were accompanying their little brothers or sisters, and all the kids were polite, though one crew in costume as witches offered the statement, “Jesus loves you,” as well as “Happy Halloween.” I found that kind of creepy, honestly. Right up there with the woman at McDonald’s drive-through telling us to “have a blessed day.”

There were no Harry Potter characters this year – I think because the series has ended, and the movies are now directed at people too old to dress as little Harry or Hermione for Halloween. My favorites of the night were Minnie Mouse (aged 3.5) who curtsied and said, “Trick-or-Treat, please,” and the chef who showed up in dinosaur themed chef pants, and a chef’s hat with a dinosaur pin, carrying a stock pot to gather his candy. “I love that you’re carrying a pot,” I told him, as I dropped three pieces into it, each landing with a satisfying CLINK against the copper bottom. (We’re a corner house, so usually get kids early in their rounds).

Later, near the end of the night, a group of young boys came by, all dressed as pirates and muskeeers, peeked through my foyer and saw the ceramic ghosts all lit on my side table, and Beetlejuice on the tv and said to his friends, “Wow, she has a cool house. She gives good candy AND has a cool house. I like this house.” Then, to me, after thanking me for the chocolate, “Are you an artist?”

“Actually,” I said. “I’m a writer.”

“Wow. You must be pretty creative then,” he said. “Cuz you have a cool house, and it looks like you’re an artist.”

I suddenly have a new appreciation of ten-year-old boys.

My favorite moment of the night, however, was when a single father wheeled his developmentally disabled, chair-bound princess up my walk. Her siblings had gone on ahead of her, and were several houses away, and her bag was nearly empty, but she had curlicues of ribbon in her hair, rouge on her cheeks, a lovely dress that hid the braces on her legs almost completely, and the biggest sparkling brown eyes I’ve ever seen. She looked to be about seven.

“Happy Halloween,” I said to her, helping her with the bag (her father was holding the chair steady), “you look beautiful.” I stuck four pieces of candy in there, figuring Dad would tire out pretty quickly. We chatted for a few minutes – she liked my pumpkin lights – and I offered her father a bottle of water (the high tomorrow is projected to be 68 but today it hit 80, and pushing a chair up and down the long hilly walks we all have is hard work). Other kids were crowding her, and he looked upset, but I caught the eye of another parent, and told him, “No, take your time. They’ll wait.”

And they did.
And as they were leaving, one of the little girls in the next group said, “That girl in the wheelchair has really pretty hair.”

So, no parties, no pizza, and my pumpkins are classic jack-o-lanterns this year, but even so…it’s been a great Halloween.

The weather is warmer than the crisp day I was hoping for, with a projected high of 78 for my part of Texas, but right now the morning sun is still soft and gentle, and the breeze is soothing, and just strong enough to make music as it wafts through the wind chimes outside my kitchen door.

I have mint tea steeping on the stove, which will hopefully chase this persistent headache away, and two pumpkins awaiting their doom in the dining room. I might go back to bed for an hour. I might not. I might grab a cotton throw and take it and my tea out to the deck, and listen to the chimes and watch the ripples in the pool, as the wind ruffles my hair.

I have enough candy for two big treat bowls. Less than last year, but we still have butterfingers in the freezer from last year. This years offerings are: Kit-Kats, Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, Snickers, Milky Ways, 3 Musketeers, and Peanut Butter M-n-M’s. I was pleasantly surprised to find that a “serving” of any of these but the peanut butter cups is two or three fun-size bars / paks, and roughly 7 grams of fat per serving. So, I guess I can indulge in ONE piece of chocolate tonight after all.

Or maybe two.

We won’t talk about the fat content in the peanut butter cups. Actual peanut butter has less.

In other news, last Friday I received a Halloween treat from Hootin’ Anni herself, and so, as suggested, I’m passing it on to five other bloggers. They are:

1. Jill of A Conglomeration of Morphemes
2. Ms. Kat of My Single Mom Life
3. The Atomic Bombshell, who can be found here
4. JHS of Colloquium
5. Green Tuna of Tuna News

And now, my tea is ready.
Happy hauntings.

I meant to post this earlier, but, now’s as good a time as any. Despite the sadness of my cousin dying a few weeks ago, there is a bright spot, which is that I got to reconnect with another cousin, Cathy.

Cathy is actually more like my older sister than any mere cousin. She was my best friend, babysitter, playmate. She inspired me, let me babble, answered all my questions, taught me how to use a Super8 camera, and gave me my first bra. We used to sing together, we used to catch lightning bugs together, and I haven’t seen her since my grandmother’s funeral in 2001.

I miss her.

Her kids were all toddlers the last time I saw *them*, and she was still in college. Now, the youngest is fourteen, and Cathy’s a real estate agent, and as many in that industry are right now, struggling a little.

But she’s fierce.
And I know she’ll survive.

I’ve made a personal resolution to call her once a week.

Just to keep in touch.

* * *

In other news, Aunt Peg is improving.

Appetizer
Name a great website you would recommend to others.
Other than this one? I heartily recommend you check out my book blog, Bibliotica if you’re any kind of reader, and if you like to write and want more prompts and projects to help stretch your writing muscles, visit CafeWriting.

Soup
On a scale of 1-10 (with 10 as highest), how often do you dream at night?
10. I dream every night, but I don’t always remember what the dreams were. Last night, though, I dreamed I was shopping for wedding bands with Beetlejuice and Data (geek, much?), and they were fighting over which one of them I would pick – magic vs. technology – until I reminded them that I HAD a husband, thanks. Even if he is still away. Le sigh.

Salad
Did you have a pet as a child? If so, what kind and what was its name?
I had a mostly white poodle-mix with a faint brown spot in the middle of her back. Her name was Taffy, and we kept her in a lamb cut, not a poodle cut. Note to self: next dogs will have curly, non-shedding poodle hair.

Main Course
If you had the chance to star in a commercial, what would you choose to advertise?
I’d do a PSA about the spaying and neutering animals, or getting them from rescues and pounds rather than breeders or pet stores.

Dessert
What is your favorite kind of hard candy?
I live for peppermint stars, because they’re sweet and refreshing, but I also have a special fondness for butterscotch buttons, and those little round tins of fruit drops – usually lemon or raspberry, but sometimes coffee – remind me of my grandfather.

I’ve mentioned before that when I’m writing, I like to have movies going on in the background. DVD’s of television shows work well, too, because one disc is good for three or four hours and there are no commercials.

Over the past few weeks, my “writing companions,” have included the second season of Forever Knight which not only featured an entire episode that kept calling back conversations about Scottsdale real estate, as well as some great commentary from Nigel Bennett and Geraint Wyn Davies, the entire 10th Kingdom miniseries which featured Scott Cohen (Max Medina in season one of Gilmore Girls as the Wolf, with dirty tail-stroking subtext, and, in honor of the season, another viewing of Tim Burton’s Beetlejuice, as well as my old standby The West Wing in which I’m half-way through season six, and finally own season seven, but refuse to watch it til I’ve finished six.

With the exception of Beetlejuice all of these choices are very conversation-heavy, which I like. It’s the cadence of human conversation that keeps me in the groove. Music or dance or too much action, and I get distracted.

I feel like the cobwebs I’ve removed from around the house with my trusty vacuum cleaner this week have somehow taken up residence in my mind, because even though it’s not quite eleven, I feel tired and groggy, as if my thoughts are as shrouded in spider silk and dust as the legs of the bar stools were before I went on my mad cleaning adventure.

The house is all sparkling clean, but I’m feeling muted and muzzy and I think I might actually turn out the light a bit earlier than usual, not even read before going to sleep, just curl up with the dogs.

It’s chilly in my room, but I like that. The heat is technically on, but the temperature is turned down pretty low because I don’t like to wake up hot, and I have flannel sheets on the bed, and the dogs are sweetly curled up on Fuzzy’s pillow.

I miss Fuzzy.

And the cobwebs are like gauze stretching from wakefulness into sleep.

Cleaning the upstairs bathroom today, the one we really don’t use that much because the master suite is downstairs, I found a bunch of Clinique make-up in the medicine cabinet. I don’t wear Clinique any more, having switched to Aveda, but I opened the jar of base anyway, and caught a whiff of a familiar scent, and suddenly:

I was five years old and dressed as Pocahontas and my mother was dabbing base on my pale skin to make me look darker.

I was seven, and watching her do her morning make-up, staring into one of those pink plastic makeup mirrors that was normal on one side and flipped (pivoted really) to a magnifying mirror on the other.

I was ten, and had that mirror in my room, and I would stare into it and try to decide if I liked my eyes or not.

I was eleven, and calling my grandparents to tell them I had “become a woman.”

I was fifteen, and had dyed my hair for the first time, and the dye spattered the mirror when I rinsed it out.

I was twenty-one, sharing a mirror with my mother, as we got dressed for my grandfather’s funeral.

I was twenty-four, and doing make-up for my own wedding.

I was five and fifteen and twenty-five and thirty, and all ages in between and yet to come, and I was struck with a sense of home.

And I called my mother, and told her I loved her.