Boo, y'all........

The house is all decorated for Halloween..... out came the black cats and pumpkins, the witches and ghosts... all things happy. No scary-faced skeletons and vampires in this house.... the black cats are smiling, the witches aren't the least bit wicked, and the pumpkins have happy faces. Even the ghosts are more ethereal than edgy.

I don't know exactly when Halloween became so grotesque, but I don't remember so much of that when I was a kid. About the worst that could happen to you on Halloween in the 1950s was for a kid to pop out of the bushes in front of someone's house and yell "Boo!!!!"  And you screamed for a second or two, then laughed........ and it was all over.  Halloween should be filled with fun, not nightmares. But that's just me.... and I'm sure that most people don't agree.

The shops in town here are all Halloween-ed out already...... next to Christmas in Texas, I think Halloween is one of the biggest holidays for decorating.  When we lived in Clear Lake, I would also decorate the outside of the house as well, putting pumpkins on the heads of lawn statues, and an orange and gold mask on a green Buddha statue that was on our front porch.  Our next door neighbor V would string up spider webs all over her front porch, with huge black spiders hanging from the webs. But out here... with all the scorpions and wasps that we have....... outdoor decorations just don't stand a chance. As it was, when I unwrapped the paper honey-comb pumpkins that I had outside last year for the night of our Halloween party, there were three perfectly preserved and flattened wasps that fell out of the honey-combed paper. Needless to say, I won't be doing that again. All the decorations now stay inside the house, no exceptions.  The inside of this house looks like an explosion of Halloween.... the outside barely whispers Halloween at all.

Doggie stories....... my friend J has a new Chihuahua....... after much deliberation, J named her Taco Bella.  Perfectly cute name for a perfectly cute little dog.  Bella has already been photographed in a pink and white sweater, and a pink princess hat..... the paparazzi on this road just seems to be always ready to aim a camera at unsuspecting canines.   J wasn't exactly in the market for a dog, but Bella was found on the porch of a friend of hers..... the friend couldn't keep her because she already had two dogs and the husband said 'Enough already.'  (See? It's always the husbands.)   So J offered to take the Chihuahua on a trial basis. Well, we know how that goes.... once a dog comes into a house, it quickly becomes a member of the family.

My friend A in North Carolina is searching for a German Shepherd...... she's been to the rescue sites near her home, and she thinks they've found the perfect shepherd that will be a good match for Rosie, her Golden Retriever.  A had another Golden, but he passed away recently..... and after a short time, A was ready to adopt another dog.  A has always adopted older dogs... full grown and fully trained...... she doesn't want to go through the puppy stage, plus she wants to see 'the finished product' when the dog has matured.  A and her husband have given so many older dogs such good lives.... at a time in those dogs' lives when a lot of them would have been considered un-adoptable.

So..... a new little dog for J...... and soon, a new big dog for A..... and Halloween is coming---- one can only guess at the costume possibilities for these two new 'kids!'