Halloween.

Our neighborhood has a ton of kids, but our house is not in a very good spot for trick-or-treaters, it’s kind of at the end of the main drag close to the freeway (which is awesome for snow plowing, just FYI) so folks tend to stay closer to the elementary school that is further from the freeway – that part is more neighborhood-y. Also, for whatever reason, it seems like our end is a little unsocial, there are a few mystery houses where no one knows anything about the residents and then there is us, for we are super weird. (No we are not weird. At least not weirder that you are.) I kind of resented all the to-do when the kids were around, though I did make some epic Halloween costumes – many years I wouldn’t buy candy and kept the lights off. One year, I think we weren’t home and accidentally left the lights on! Confusing the 4 youngsters that came to our door. Also, we have doorbell issues. We’ve gone through so many doorbells and they are never 100% satisfying. Right now, we have a google home doorbell, which is a great camera, but a poor doorbell. Sometimes it doesn’t ring, sometimes it only rings on your phone and sometimes it’ll ring Jeremy’s phone and not my phone and sometimes it’ll ring on the 17 google speakers scattered around the house like electronic, eavesdropping garden gnomes – spying on your every move and sending the data to China or Anthropic. And sometimes it runs out of charge and then nothing works.

Jeremy mentioned that he wanted to celebrate Halloween and that he’d like the house decorated. I dream of the 12 foot tall skeleton that Home Depot sells and the only thing holding me back is where to store the damn thing off season. One idea is to leave it up all year and dress it for holidays throughout the year and essentially store it outside. So I decided to start small and just buy a human-sized skeleton and try it out.

I am charmed! I like my house better already. I bought a second human sized skeleton that I plan to put in the tree, up higher and am eagerly awaiting its delivery today. I hope I don’t hurt myself doing that – what a classic suburban injury that would be.

I think I’m going to go to a trunk and treat this weekend. I dream of this monstrosity. But I’m not going to do that – no time. But I will think of cookies.