the_oracle

I hope your Halloweens went well. Mine took a delightful turn, even if I am paying for it now.

I woke up a little later than intended, but since my plan was to stay up as long as possible, the sleeping in probably worked out for the best. After breakfast, I went ahead and scared myself by paying bills and then firing up Halloweentown High so I could carve my JOL.

I would like to reiterate that I loathe gutting pumpkins and I'm not super fond of actually carving them, but it's not Halloween if I'm without a lit jack-o-lantern, huffing that sucker on a regular basis. Some years I get a little more ambitious than others, but since this year's pumpkin was bigger than the friggin' sink, I decided to keep my inspo pretty easy and just copied one of the NINE BILLION ghost buckets I got from McDonald's this year. Seriously, I have 8 buckets and it's just four each of the ghost and witch. Would it have killed the universe to throw me one cat? Maybe a zombie? Sigh.



So, that took forever and a day. I finished my movie and fired up Twitches 2, but my attention was split for that, so I eventually just restarted it when it was lunch time. I took out the bits of pumpkin that didn't get chucked and offered them to the squirrels and the crow that flew by overhead. Not sure if I had any takers, but I tried. Gonna make the seeds in a few because I knew I wouldn't have the energy to do that yesterday.

Mums had to hit CVS, so I went with and fell in love with a Halloween thingie but I wasn't paying full price for something I'm fairly certain is on sale right now, but not entirely sure since yesterday was my first time in a CVS in YEARS. Which is funny since I could walk to the CVS if the city didn't hate sidewalks and public transportation. Anyway, on our way out we saw that one of the neighbors had put up an inflatable. At first I thought yay, someone did a last minute decoration! Annnnnnnnnnd then I realized it was their Christmas Bucees inflatable. BOO. HISS.

Came home, enjoyed some sunshine (I know, so weird) and went about gathering things for Halloween night proper. Filled the bowl with my bag o' candy, grabbed some glow-sticks (is it Halloween if you don't have a green glowstick? I think not.), put on my Robin Hood costume (so comfy and POCKETS, which came in handy) and turned on the various lights. So damn cozy.

I was hopeful we'd get our first trick or treaters ever, since there are kids right next door now but as the sun set and I wandered outside, I suspect they went elsewhere. :( Widget headed out to wherever Widgets go now, and I decided to walk to the fancy part of the neighborhood and see the house with the eye-lights at night, and then see the giant skellies in their element on HALLOWEEN.

Just picture this little Halloween elf every time I say Halloween and it'll be pretty accurate.

Anyway, put on my leggings because it was kinda chilly and I knew I'd be out for awhile, remembered to wear my sneakers, and headed out. The moon overhead was nice, and there was a slight breeze. I debated putting my hood up but since I'd forgotten to put on glowstick bracelets to go with my necklace, I decided to not chance it unless it got too cold. Put a water bottle in one pocket and my phone in the other and hit the road to see the giant skelly I pass most often. It did have its eyes lit up! And this is where I made maybe my second mistake. To get to the fancy part of the neighborhood, I could continue going the way I was going, or I could loop back and go the back way, which is the way I normally go. I debated it and decided to keep going, forgetting that while the main road would be less crowded since there's a median and I'd only have to worry about traffic one way and that way was less likely to have as many cars since everyone was coming home, the road I was currently on? Yeah, people are coming home.

That road is clearly coasting with the only other decorations that I saw being the paper skeleton on the house that's clearly pro-genocide. Terrifying and also fuck them.

Main road into/out of the neighborhood has two houses that are FAB and I'll share pics later, but I also ran into a family heading out to go trick or treating. :D And had I been paying attention, I would've noticed how everyone seems to do trick or treating now, as I passed a few people sitting in their driveways.


Made it to the fun houses (yay!) but chose not to play frogger with road crossing and just admired their beauty from across the road/medians. Onward to fancy!

First house had a billion trick or treaters crawling all over it, and I realized that the pops I'd been hearing were because someone trusted a nine year old boy (guessing the age here) with a fucking cap gun. Nearly got run over by three golf carts and grumbled to myself a little over this, but also told myself they're trick or treating, I don't care all that much if the adults have golf carts. (I do, because the adults in some cases were clearly teenagers or adults who were definitely drinking and driving.) But when I decided to head into the less populated by golf carts section to see the eye house first, I passed some people in their drive way who offered me candy. :D

So for the first time in ten years or so, I went trick or treating. The first time alone, actually. Put my candy in my pocket and continued on to see the EYES. I quickly realized that I felt weird taking pictures of someone's house while they were just sitting there and I also didn't take pictures of children I don't even know because that's creepy, so I didn't really take many pictures last night. But I enjoyed the everloving shit out of seeing the houses all lit up and so many kids running around. I got wished a Happy Halloween by a little girl dressed as Minnie Mouse (and her parents/adults) and felt like I was walking on air.

One of the things I loved most about going out on Halloween, whether it was trick or treating myself or with Widget, is when the sky changes from dusk to nightfall and because I'd chosen to head out at what I'd consider normal trick or treating time (so not for very little kids, but like maybe 7 and up), I got to be out and about during it.

Saw the eye house, didn't get a good shot of it because the people were in their driveway and there was a cop car sitting down at the house with the mummy tree (I'm guessing the fancy dock area was having a party or something? Or maybe they're just paranoid, I dunno, as I didn't investigate), and then decided rather than circle back the way I came, I'd go down the road that never seemed to have any actual decorations.

I learned that they don't seem to have street lights at all, which meant once I was away from eyeball house and the house that put up two solar mini trees:

it was pretty much all darkness with people shouting and chatting from various driveways. At the other end, after I crossed the road to avoid trick or treaters and also the skunky pot cloud, I did see quite a few lit JOLs.

Waved to the nice candy people again and headed off to see the other skelly. This is when I realized that yeah, apparently very few people still wait at their door for ToTs anymore, as nearly everyone was in a lawn chair at the end of their driveway, or you'd have a house with two or three people from various houses handing out candy. Kid!me stomped her foot and screamed about how unfair it was that in order to hit the truly fancy parts of my neighborhood growing up, we had to hoof it up a million steps and there was nary a golf cart or car to be found. You earned that freakin' candy and got a workout in the process. But adult!me, other than getting twitchy at having to dodge so many people, definitely enjoyed the chatter that floated through the night. It was comforting and something different from what I grew up with and what Widget and I experienced during his ToT years.

I also got to witness the fact that kids do still understand the rules of which houses to hit, as a cheerleader very seriously told her cohorts that they shouldn't go to a house which had lots of lights on but no porch light, since that meant they weren't handing out candy. Since we were in the fancy part, I didn't think it was like ours, where the HOA fucking still hasn't fixed it after years. I hope the people in the house didn't expect trick or treaters.

At multiple points I did wonder when we stopped teaching people which side of the road you walk on because holy fuck. I also wondered why so many people parked IN THE STREET on Halloween. Not even partially on the grass, these assholes had huge trucks (and it was always a truck) just parked in the damn street.

I hit the house with the free little library, admired their porch set up, but didn't take pics since right next door they were clearly having a little block party. I loved the person who called out, "Happy Halloween, person I don't know!" to me. After that, I turned right and headed around the circle, and the next big group I passed was pretty close to the street and I swear they looked like they were posed for a group photo, they were all so close to each other. The dogs (not leashed) lost their minds as I went by, and it wasn't until I was nearly two doors down when I heard someone say, "Oh that's why Molly (the dog) was going nuts, someone just went by." Madame, I am not a small person. My costume had white that was pretty visible, and I was sporting a giant green glowing necklace that hadn't faded. I didn't blend into the shadows, like, at all. The fact that NONE of these people saw me was both amusing and a little weird as fuck. I shook it off and admired the house that tends to go pretty all out and they had music and extra lights. After that, it was pretty much done in the fancy part, though I did pass a few more houses decorated but those all had bowls and I didn't think I should partake. It was one thing when people offered (full size bars!) but I wasn't trying to wind up on Nextdoor with some Ring camera footage. Though, given that I was Robin Hood, maybe I should've gone hood up and done so. Hmm.

Anyway, made it out of the fancy part and headed home. My legs were starting to scream (keep in mind I'd just done this walk not too long ago, though that was during the day, and I'd added to it) and I wanted to get home because I was hungry. Had to dodge traffic around yet another truck parked in the street, and then wonder why this section of the neighborhood was so foggy/smokey and it just occurred to me that maybe someone had a fog machine that didn't actually work that well. D'oh. Wished another set of kids a happy halloween and stupidly took the longer way home because I thought I'd see more lights. I... did not. So my legs cried and by the time I made to our street, I'd kind of blocked out any lights I'd seen before and just wished the ducks a happy and safe Halloween, then all but ran for home.

There was a moment when I turned back into our part of the neighborhood when I saw a bunch of kids go into the complex by the pool that has stairs and thought, "oh, dang, so they really are just ignoring our section, but will brave stairs?" but I think that maybe they were just going home at that point.

Made it home, admired my skelly family, and then rang the doorbell and found out that I was the only trick or treater. Woe.

More candy for me. :D Had tacos, watched half of Over the Garden Wall, and then passed out sometime after 10 because I am old and had been up since 6am.

It was magical and wonderful and weird all at the same time, just the way Halloween should be.

First up, mystery solved on why I feel more tired than I expected: period. Booooooooo. BOOOOOOO. And not the fun, festive Halloween kind either. BOO.


I've been meaning to properly keep up with my staycation in an effort to actually make sure I do shit, but before I even started it, we had that whole tire fiasco which could not be plugged and that's been hanging overhead, all not festive like and shit. I swear, every year for Halloween, there's some car shenanigans and I do not appreciate it.


Anyway, Saturday morning after work and the initial car swap, I came home and walked over to the next parking lot over to see the pretty Halloween lights. ♥ They have an inflatible arch and spooky lights and I love it. I came home because I was not dressed for a longer walk (I literally went out in my work clothes, which did not include long sleeves because I don't wear long sleeves at work unless I'm sick or something is really weird) annnnnnnnnnnd basically ditzed around online, I think, til my brother called and gave us the bad news about the tire. He came over, swapped the cars, and went on his way. I know I stayed up later than I intended, but I don'... wait, no, I was reading We Used To Live Here and got sucked in until I forced myself to go to sleep. That night we drove around the ~fancy~ part of the neighborhood to see the lights since I figured the Saturday before Halloween was my best chance prior to the big night to see everything. We have a second giant skelly in the neighborhood! :D And the second one has dramatic lighting. Oooh, ahhh.

I think this year we might have more than even 2020 which is I think the year I remember seeing more than average because a lot of people did decorate even when they hadn't before (or since). I was a bit disappointed in myself for not doing my usual weekend before Halloween morning/afternoon walk to see if anyone had set up for a Halloween party, but I don't think anyone had one since we saw no evidence of any and we did go out just early enough that short of parties for kids, we still should've seen one or two Southern goodbyes in progress, or party debris or something, even if it was just a few extra cars or people going home.

I digress. I have to go doublecheck today/tomorrow, but I think one of my favorites has either taken the year off or given up, as the house that has always had a cemetery set up in their yard? Nope. They have something small on their porch but no display and that makes me a sad panda, especially since we lost the skelly party house a few years ago. Not sure it that was a case of them moving, since this year and last they've had happy scarecrows, but I miss the skeletons. Sigh.

Still, people clearly had some fun (someone turned their tree into a mummy, there's another house with smaller skellies climbing trees and there's a yard with eyeballs!) and I have been itching to go back and look closer.

Thing is, on Sunday we had a storm roll in after my jaunt to McDonald's to try and snag the black cat McBoo buckets (I was not successful then or later). On the one hand, it meant that the weather was nice and spooky (clouds rolling in, a strong breeze, and it was cool), when Cass and I went to visit Jess in the hospital. On the other, it meant that it started to rain and kept going for longer than the one day it was called for.

Like, Monday was a total washout, which was fine since I spent that catching up on The Chicken Sisters S2 (highly recommend). Originally the forecast called for it to roll out overnight but uh, yeah, no. That did not happen.

Tuesday I went on a shorter walk in the mist and popped in and out of the parking lots to see which sections had decorated. I only found one so far that didn't have anything I could see during the day. I'm also pretty sure they don't have anything lit up at night, but I'm willing to concede that they might. Anyway, the morning was chilly and the kind of rainy where you don't see/feel individual drops but at some point you realize all your clothes have a light sheen of damp that you can wipe off and repeat the process. Mist. I thought it was going to burn off and be a sunny day, but no, it remained cloudy and overcast and everytime I thought maybe we were just going to have a cloudy day, the rain would come back through. A very me kind of day, but not exactly inviting to go for a long walk. Mums and I hit the store to pick up our order and once more tried for the black cat McBoos and once more wound up with witches. I don't need this many witches, Universe. I would've been just as happy with any of the others I don't already have. Le sigh.

Tuesday I went down for a nap and didn't feel all that motivated to do anything, which I now realize was because I was in the perfect pre-period curl up and sleep phase.

Yesterday, Mums and I went out to procure a pumpkin. Why did I wait so late? Well, remember I'm in the south and that means if you get one too early, it'll rot, even if you keep it inside. I don't think that would've happened this year since it's been pretty cool, but we frequently have a cold snap the week before Halloween (or even the two weeks before), and then Mother Nature remembers to turn on the oven again. Also, when I last stopped into my usual store, all the pumpkins (all twelve) failed to speak to me. I can appreciate a warty pumpkin from someone else, but I am not there in my JOL journey yet. So. Pumpkin pretty easily snagged at the first place we looked, and I grabbed two other things. I looked longingly at McD's but really didn't want to chance yet another set of witches, so we headed to the technically closest Walgreens to me. Yeah, never again. I remembered it being an absolute bitch to get out of before, but this time? It was a fucking nightmare. My anxiety went so friggin high, I can't even begin to put it into words. I did manage to secure the candy I wanted, and the price wasn't terrible (well, it was, but it was still cheaper than the grocery store even before I used my rewards). But yeah, on the way there we had to stop so I could properly secure my pumpkin, and getting out of the parking lot, back to the road we needed? Fuck that noise. Stop fucking building around here, people. In a couple of years it shouldn't have gone from nightmare to nightmare on SPEED.


I went ahead and made beef stew last night as I'd been dreaming of it for the better part of a week and I think I did a pretty good job. :D

I can see the sun peeking through the backdoor, so maybe I should go change and head out on my walk before the yard people come and fuck everything up.

Oh, and fuck the trash being picked up before 5:30AM. That's just insane. Like my ass was out there at 5:38am and they'd long since been gone since I didn't hear them while rushing, trying to grab the last two bags that didn't make it out yesterday. They're not supposed to start picking up anything until 6am!


Anyway, off to poke my nose outside and see how I feel.