Halloween: A washout

In my ever-continuing quest to be the coolest neighbor ever, I purchased full-sized candy bars again this year for Halloween. On account of last year being glorious Halloween weather, we blew through our 120-bar stash. This year, I was determined not to run out, so I bought:

• one box of full-sized Snickers
• one box of full-sized Hershey's Milk
• one box of full-sized M&M with Peanut pouches
• two boxes of full-sized Skittles/Starburst combo

And then it rained. Oh, but it rained. And we maybe had 40 trick-or-treaters. Towards the end, I was giving every person who came to the door one of each. I said, "You have to take these. You have to save us from ourselves."

And still there are leftovers. Mostly M&Ms, Snickers and Hersheys. I don't know what it is about kids and Skittles-Skittles-bite-sized-candy-taste-a-rainbow-of-fruit-flavors, but it's all they want. It was the older kids who took chocolate.

A man came dressed as Sherlock Holmes with a young daughter. He was collecting candy for his son who was sick at home. I said, "Swine flu?" He said, "Nope, just a head cold." Then he turned to look at our glorious display of candy and he said, "You guys always have the best candy - full-sized bars and everything!"

And then I began to weep quietly, totally by accident, because I was so happy that the reputation I've been fostering is catching on. Scott mercilessly made fun of me for crying. That's okay. I still love him.

(Aside: Last night we watched a terrible film, Away We Go. Save yourself the trouble of seeing this. You think it's going to rock with Maya Rudolph and the guy from the Office since they're awesome. The part where it was written by Dave Eggers and directed by Sam Mendes means it should be out of the ballpark, right? Wrong, my friends! In any case, Maya Rudolph and the guy from the Office were talking about how they are more in love with each other than the other people are, and I was shocked to learn that people besides me believe this about themselves. I always exclaim to Scott, "We love each other so much! We are, like, so much more in love with each other than the other people who are in love with each other!" And it turns out I've been living a lie. Well, not living a lie, exactly, but really telling myself a story, that's for sure.)

The young people from down the street who have been pulling up our plantings? They came buy. I addressed about half of them by name, which seemed to scare the pants off of them. "How do you know my name?!" I said, "Uh, you told it to me and I remembered it?" I didn't remind him that it was when we called the authorities on them, because I was giving them candy and I'm trying to foster friendship.

I think it's working. I don't want to get too over-excited about it, but we didn't get vandalized at all this Halloween. And everyone was so nice! I love being a part of a neighborhood and community. It makes my heart happy.

In other news, our upstairs washer and dryer are installed and working. More on house projects on a different day.

What's new in the neighborhood?

Well, we bought a car. For the last year and a half, we've been driving a free car from Scott's parents, but the lease will be up on it soon and we needed to make a move. So we made one. There's a shiny, used 2004 Hyundai Accent taking up space in our driveway now. I'm a little bit not excited about it because it's nothing like the lap of luxury we've been sitting in for the last year and a half, but it's a much smarter car for us: small, low miles, excellent mileage, etc. And yet, I admit I will miss having heated seats.

Scott hates heated seats so he will be unaffected by this one part of our new car. He says sitting in a heated seat is like sitting in a seat that's been pre-farted. I can see his point, certainly; I just don't agree.

In case you'd like to stalk us, our new car is light blue.

With the snow melting, we're finding all the dog turds that one of our asshole neighbors has been letting his dog leave in our tree belt and on our sidewalk. Give me a break! We think we know who it is, but we haven't seen any deuce-dropping in action. If we don't catch them in the act and keep a photographic record, the police can't do anything about it. We only know this because our neighbor called the cops about it when they were hitting her yard.

All we can say for certain from looking at the specimen is that it's a small dog. I think I'd just like to have a casual talk with the owner about dog turds and see if we couldn't come up with some sort of amicable resolution without involving the cops. I mean, the Holyoke police have bigger fish to fry than some stupid dog owner letting his dog lay cable in our yard.

That said, I found this customizable sign that I want to get and post on our fence. They print the message for you. I want it to say, "Please pick up your dog's turds." Do you think it might help, or do you think that it will make people throw dog shit over the fence and into our yard? I think it might help because it will show that we have a sense of humor. But they might laugh all the way home to get their catapault and then they might start launching. I'm a little bit sceered.

I also want to get a sign about litter. We're on a corner lot and the cross street is a major pass-through for teenagers and winos. I don't think we can stop the drunks from dropping the nip bottles, but I think we can stop the teenagers from dropping their gum and candy wrappers. Maybe I'm too optimistic. Scott goes out at least once a week and picks up all the trash on both sides of the street in our area. He can't stop giving.

Last summer, someone bought a box of drumsticks (you know, the ice creamy treat), ate them all, put the wrappers into the box and then threw the box over our fence. Talk about infuriating. If I knew who did it, I could probably have set fire to them with just my gaze. Hell, I was mad.

I think the main culprits in our war on litter might be the kids directly next door. I caught one littering over the summer - he threw a brownie wrapper and an ice cream pint right into our driveway - but faked I didn't know he was the litterer. I asked him if he saw anyone throwing trash into our yard. He said no. I asked him if I could count on him to help me keep the area litter free. He said I could. And we haven't had any actual litter in our driveway since, except for the kind that blows into the yard from someplace else.

I'm making it sound like we live in a trash heap. We don't.

Hey, remember Madame Trash Heap from Fraggle Rock?

I have an entire program of flowers and plants planned for the outside and inside of the fence though, to make it look less like a fortress and more like a friendly home. Maybe that will help.

Updates

My new orthotics seem to be helping. I'm not over the bastard plantar fasciitis yet or anything, so it's not time to have a party over it, but I think there's a good chance I'm on the right track.

I think when it's finally over, though, I really will have a party. I can't think of a better reason to celebrate than a return to good health.

Here's hoping it's sooner rather than later.

Some neighborhood hoodlums broke a window in our house. It was a giant ruckus and basically terrible. Mostly for reasons that had nothing to do with the window breaking and everything to do with Scott running after the children who did it and then not coming back or calling me for nearly an hour while I imagined the group of them pushing him down and kicking him in the head and leaving him dead in a ditch.

I'll say this: Scott runs like a gazelle. He's in great shape and he caught up with those kids before they even knew what hit them. I think the children know now that they can't fuck with us, because if they do, Scott will chase them and then talk with them about why they broke our window, while they all claim they had nothing to do with it (then why were they running away as soon as the window broke, pray?). Of course, we can't prove that any one of them was the one that broke it, so even though we made a report, basically the cops can't do anything. So frustrating!

Those fucking kids are ballsy, though. They did it while we were right there! Sweet god.

I bought us new cell phones (I got the black one; the Count got purple). They're much fancier than our old cell phones. I also bought myself a blue tooth device called Jawbone, which is apparently the top of the line. Now I get to walk around like one of those assholes with a bluetooth device in my ear in public. Don't worry. I'm not going to be that guy. I totally promise. I only got it because I sometimes have to be on conference calls for work and it's hard to be on the phone for an hour on a cell phone without hurting my arm, neck and ear. I'm just a human.

They sure do soak you for this bullshit. However, unlike basically everyone else in America, we sent in our rebate forms, so they're giving us some cash-money back.

It was really time for me to get a new one. I'd had my old one for three or more years. Upon my telling her that I got a new cell phone, my old carpool-mate at work pretended to lift up something very heavy, held it to her ear and said, "Hi, I'm Jennifer Myszkowski answering my phone."

Everyone is a comedian.

Story Corps is coming to the Basketball Hall of Fame. I really want to go and interview my dad about this story - either that or I want to interview my sister about, well, everything - either that or I want to haul No-legs down there and interview him about his role in the printing union in the '40s and '50s or accidentally setting off the alarm in San Francisco when he was on night watch during WWII - either that or I can think of about a hundred other topics/people to interview. I only wish I could do it all.

This is my favorite time of year, when it's still warm during the day, but it gets really cool at night and I can sleep with a blanket. It's supposed to be sunny and lovely this weekend, so I'm really excited about everything going on. It's about the busiest weekend of the summer for us so far.

I must spirit myself away to prepare.