... blogging for trick or treat.

As I sit here in front of the apartment, I'm looking out on a lawn that is relatively free of leaves.  This is because I took the combination of my leaf blower and a rake and mad a big fucking pile of them on the curb.  the pile takes about half of the front.  And the worst part is that I only need to look UP to see that the trees are still pretty full of leaves (2-3 more piles to rake, at least).  On one side, the neighbor's tree is mostly empty.  The other side, two barren trees.  Of course, my leaves go flying into his yard, so....

So we get done with that, I cram some PB&J into them and throw together costumes.  This year it was a fairy (which was fun to put together for $4) and some kind of Road Warrior-ish looking thing (a chestplate, shield, gun, $4).  As you have surmised, I'm a cheap bastard. But when you have a 3-year-old and a 5-year-old, and the 5-year old doesn't give a shit until he actually sees the candy, why blow lots of cash?

The unfortunate aftermath of last weekend's need to go beg child care from the Succubus  is that it gave her an opportunity to ask to take the kids out trick or treating.  And since at least one of the kids wanted to go with her, I relented.  It meant that I could sit in the cold and hand out candy to all the other kids (and have some leftovers for me).

Luckily it's not that cold, have the neighbors on the porch handing out candy as well, I don't have to chase after the kids, and I have time to blog about this (it's 6:51 at this moment).

It started out pretty lively, but as the darkness falls, it gets quieter.  I had the opportunity to carve my pumpkin (right, with the blog post in progress behind).  I got artistic, deploying the heavy blade, the thin blade, and the electric hand saw.  I had some lights left over, so being the geek that I am, I wired the bastard up.

For the most part, the costumes were good, mostly bought, some creative.  Thankfully, there were no punk preteens too lazy to actually put on a costume.  I was thinking either rocks or eggs.  The egg would be cool because it would be intact when I put it in.  But at some point, crack.  As long as the bastards don't see it go in, victory is mine.  Although the rock would be more evocative of the It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown.

And since I have the time to look it up: 

Now if the Succubus would just get the younglings back, I could call it a night, snap a pic of them in costume (I forgot to prior), dump the pics, and shut this down (with significant candy-age left).

(hours later)

Yeah, I'm done, but I have to add the pics before I post.  And since the kids were late in getting back and I bedded them first, I let the post sit for a few. 

But the pics (without the kids in their costumes) are here....