We are on the downhill side of October, so hang the orange and black!

I shall be in the Cities this Friday. Where will you be liveblogging? Any chance of the MOA? I know where that is, and would be more than happy to go there, and buy YOU a cuppa. I'd even wear my hat shaped like a Badger, so you would know who you were dealing with.

Stay tuned! MOA sounds good, now that I think of it - good suggestion.

Wm. F. Buckley, way long ago, in print claimed that the absolute best peanut better is made by Redwing, possibly Red Wing, which makes house brands for everybody. Apparently it could be recognized by the yellow screw-on cap.

My own palate was unable to distinguish that much, but it did seem to be a little more food-like than Skippy.

Favorite Indian restaurant name : The Jaded Palate.

When was it, exactly, that Halloween became an occasion to decorate the outside of one's house with $10,000 worth of plastic inflatable crap? When I was going door-to-door with a pillowcase years ago, the most you'd see was a cardboard witch on the door, or maybe a Jack O'Lantern on the porch. And of course, there was the one neighborhood weirdo who did a whole front-yard diorama of scarecrows, tombstones, etc. But he was the exception. Now, October 31 has become the orange and black alternative to Christmas!

Since the holiday is just a bit more than two weeks away, I think Halloween decorating time has arrived...if you're inclined to decorate, which I'm not. I have a generic Autumn flag out (in addition to the American one, of course), which will be traded for the Thanksgiving flag around the second week of November.

My son (11 years old and LOVES Halloween) wanted to put the Halloween decorations up the last week of September. We waited another week or so and finally let him put them out. We now have a front yard littered with styrofoam gravestones and plastic skulls and bones.

Poor kid, he just got braces so won't be able to enjoy much of his trick-or-treat haul this year. Ha ha! That means even more Snickers for me!

Any time in October is generally acceptable for Halloween decorations, says I.

But we do seem to have turned a corner this weekend. Yards that were bare on Friday afternoon contained inflatable pumpkins and cardboard gravestones by Sunday. And I'm okay with that, since the holiday is just two weeks away.

It's Vaguely Neutral Fall Time at my house, though. Maybe it's because my kid is only 10 months old, but I can't get excited to decorate for one holiday in October and a different holiday in November. It's all leaves and festive gourds for me until it's time to break out the chanukiah, thanks.

I, too will be in the cities this weekend and would love to see you liveblog, but please, ANYWHERE but MOA! How about Gavidae Commons, or Brits, or a bookstore somewhere? You could promote your books at the same time.....

I agree with the previous poster who said when they were kids they kept it to a minimum. That's all we ever did. We had a poseable paper skeleton that we hung on the door, and we always bought a pumpkin to carve into a jack-o-lantern. That was it. No fake gravestones, no pumpkin-shaped lights, no fiber optic or neon signs formed in the shapes of ghosts or pumpkins or "BOO". Just the skeleton and the pumpkin. I do recall one year my mom took a white bedsheet, bunched up a pillow in it, and made a ghost that hung from the roof over the front porch. Once in a while she'd dress up to scare the trick-or-treaters. One year I remember she and I both dressed as werewolves. She would open the door and growl and snarl at them. I don't remember this part, but she told me how she made one little girl so scared that she refused to come back to the house afterwards. Her dad had to come up and get the candy.

She wants to do something for this year. We haven't decided what yet. Last year I put a blacklight bulb in the light fixture over the porch, and turned on the strobe light. One little boy was scared to death, and his father had to carry him up the stairs.

Patrick, you and your Mom better watch out when dressed as werewolves. Skunks are the natural enimies of werewolves, you know, and those little critters are everywhere. I have written an essay an the subject, including the heroic efforts of skunks in MN to combat the werewolf threat, that I can send you.

Sounds like you have a fun Mom. My own Mom failed at her one attempt to scare the little kids in the neighborhood. My folks had the worlds ugliest cat at one time, a one eyed, one eared old tom, named Lazarus. Man, he was an ugly cat.

Mom decided that she would hold Lazzy out when she opened the door, to scare the tricks or treaters. What she did not know was that old Laz loved to sleep on the warm sidewalk in front of the house. Besides being the worlds ugliest cat, he was also the world's most affable cat, so when small children would come by, he would roll over to have his tummy rubbed.

So when Mom would sweep the door open, and thrust the ugly beast out at the kids, instead of screams of dismay, the kids went, "LAZARUS!".

It's a fun time of year, watching the wee ghosties and ghoulies out going bump in the night. I wish some of the older ones would realise that teenagers don't belong out trick or treating, and that if they must go out, at least dress for the weather. A couple of Halloweens ago, on a cold rainy day like today, I saw a group of teenage girls, dressed as Little French Maids, and shivering like tuning forks, but when I told them that they should perhaps put on coats, they said that they wouldn't be Little French Maids in coats. Ah, well, teenagers.

I am an irredeemable Philistine when it comes to fine food (and modern art, actually). I try to behave myself when I go to upscale restaurants with my buddy, Tom (a gourmet), but I seldom am able to read an entire menu through without blurting out something inappropriate. When did food get so sophisticated? Last week's snorter: an appetizer featuring "hand-hacked guacamole."

I so wanted to order the appetizer and ask if I could substitute regular-old-smushed-up-with-a-fork guacamole for the more exotic offering, but I restrained myself.

Such energies, however, cannot be forever contained, as my friend later learned (to his horror) at the museum when I poked Marisol's "Women and Dog" and said, "Is that a real dog head?"

As God is my witness, I make no efforts to make a fool of myself. It's like talking in tongues or something.

Since this thread is moving more toward scaring the kids on Halloween than the actual decorations, here's my favorite story:

A few years ago, we found a pair of giant hands on 6-ft poles at the In the Heart of the Beast Halloween sale. While my husband played nice and handed out candy, I sneaked around the side with a giant hand and tapped the kid on the shoulder. Now that was fun!

Funnily enough, when we decided we were tired of tripping over the poles in the garage, we set the hands in the alley, and they showed up planted on the slope of the Walker Library the next day.

Now there's plastic animatronic crap to add to it as well.

"Gutplug Agcorp?"

You're kidding me right?

Gutplug?

Seriously?

"Get Your Piehold Filled by Gutplug ... Plugging Guts Since 1926."

Mrs. Butterworth is rolling over in her marketing grave.

You aren't kidding about the orange and black alternative to Christmas. Yesterday, I drove past a house that had a "Halloween tree" on the lawn. It was a Christmas tree made entirely of orange lights. My dad says we can genuinely call them "holiday trees" now.

It's just the natural extension from the strings of orange Christmas lights that started popping up a few years ago. Who wants to put up and take down Christmas lights twice in two months?!

Halloween and Christmas have merged, I guess, but I wouldn't fault Tim Burton's "Nightmare Before Christmas" movie for it. I blame Big Lots.

*nod* Yeah, I'm just waiting for some store to start selling Easter decorations. Just think of it--pastel-colored lights, giant inflatable bunnies and chicks (the baby chicken kind, not...well...)