Night of the Scarecrow

Another Halloween come and gone... sigh. This year's was particularly satisfying. Our regular Halloween festival at work, which is always a hoot, was even better than usual. Lots of costumes, jack-o'-lanterns, trick-or-treating, and cash prizes. Rather than my customary reading of a scary story, Ms. B. and I got together and performed some dark tunes, including my original, "Scan in Progress," October Project's "Bury My Lovely," and Blue Oyster Cult's "Don't Fear the Reaper." All went well except for Brugger mixing up some lyrics during the October Project. They slid by without causing a row, but you just watch it there, Brugger! My Syd the Salacious Scarecrow costume not only caused a couple of near myocardial infarctions, it took third place in the contest, which earns a nice cash prize, and Ms. B. won first place in the jack-o-lantern carving contest, for an even nicer cash prize. And that is why Halloween is my absolute favorite day at the office. Not to mention I took off the second half of the day and also worked in a vacation day today.

Big surprise, I went geocaching during the afternoon — it was a beautiful day for it — and for the evening, Ms. B. and I partook of festivities at our friends Dan and Faun's place. Dan has had health issues that precluded him being as active as usual getting his house decorated, which is one of his favorite things, so several of us got over there early to help put things in proper order. The end result was beautiful. For me, the highlight of the evening was getting into full costume and guarding the house against the young trick-or-treaters marauding through the neighborhood. Scared the bejezus out of several, but most fun was this one little girl who so loved the costume that she wanted a big photo op with me. Her dad took a bunch of pics and said she was going to be thrilled with them. I do so love seeing kids being raised right.

Alas, for my day off, it's pouring rain, so I doubt I'll be heading out to the geocaching trail. Tomorrow, though, is another day.

Hope you had the happiest of Halloweens.

Scary Dan in front of his own personal castle of horror