Curses...

Halloween seemed to have been cursed this year. The neighbor who had expressed great interest in our house informed us that he didn't think he could swing it after all. The trees felt obliged to shed their leaves in one fell swoop all over our freshly raked lawn and our fairly new and unfairly expensive Miele vacuum cleaner fizzled and died last night just as the Rock was going to clean up the substantial quantity of paper bits all over the carpet from the demon paper shredder which had just stroked out and died without warning. I cut my finger on sharp scissors and the milk was sour when I poured it over my cereal in the morning. There was a little pall of doom prevailing in our household yesterday and I think evil (or at least ornery) spirits were loose. However, the ghosties and ghoulies who visited us in the evening seemed pretty benign. Just hungry.

Halloween is over now for another year and our thoughts are turning from witches and black cats to fat turkeys and full bellies. How fast we change gears... Soon the snows will come and the gleaming icicles will be hanging from the roofs and the world will become a wonderland of sparkling white and there will be a special kind of quiet that can only be had when the snow blankets everything and mutes all sound and makes it seem "otherworldly." I love it when that happens and it amazes me when the same neighborhood that "sprouts" outlandish and raucous demons and ghouls one month becomes a dazzling fantasy land in another. I think I'd better get out the baking supplies. The holiday hormones are at work...