This Halloween was bittersweet for me. My youngest son turns 14 in 4 days. For the first time in his life I didn't make his costume (he bought stuff and used stuff from other years). For the first time, I didn't have to gripe about having to carve the pumpkin to his specs, because he did it all while I took a nap. I haven't even seen him since 7 pm because he spent the night out in the studio with friends.

But I'm also sad because, while our town doesn't "regulate" trick-or-treating, the Main Street merchants close the street and everyone showed up down there from 3-5. And because of the change to Daylight Savings Time, it was still daylight when that was over. Project Graduation had a carnival. A local filmmaker showed his new horror film for free at the theater. By the time it was dark, all the kids had gone home. I figured we'd get lots of people walking home, since we live just 3 blocks from Main. But no, we got exactly ONE family. I wish I had given them handfuls of candy.

I did take my dogs downtown and let my new pup get used to lots of new and interesting things. (She's not as scared of skateboards as he was, so that's good.) There was a firefighter dressed as McGruff, and my old dog went nuts over that. It was pretty hilarious.

But the saddest thing is my son didn't trick-or-treat at all, and so I didn't get any SMARTIES!!! :::boo-hoo-boo-hoo:::

Karen