Happy Halloween

 I've been writing about how much I miss doing the Halloween Howl.  But when the date came around that we would have run it (last weekend) it was near 90 degrees - and I didn't miss getting into a hot costume and running around for several hours.  And I definitely don't miss the hours of taking everything down and cleaning up afterwards (one year, as I was setting out costumes, one of my actors asked "Do they ever wash all these costumes?"  And my answer was "if you spell "They" with "ANN" then the answer is yes.")

I enjoyed Halloween in my own low-key way. I've been watching old horror movies; really old ones, from the 1930s and '40s.  Overdone makeup, really artificial costumes and special effects - and they are so fun.  This morning  I had sweet bread for breakfast.  I finished reading "Pet Semetary."  I was looking at a list of top horror stories, and realized that I had never read it, even though it's one of Stephen King's most well-known ones.  It's also the one where he put it back in a drawer after he finished it, because he thought he had gone too far.  I think maybe he was right about that.

I carved a Jack O'Lantern in the traditional way.  Pumpkin is a New World vegetable.  The original lanterns were carved out of turnips.  Publix didn't have any turnips, but I got a rutabaga.  I don't know if turnips would  be any easier, but trying to hollow out that rutabaga was like trying to hollow out a rock.  But I eventually succeeded, and after the photoshoot it is now (minus the candle) presiding over my usual offerings of bread, milk, and whiskey (well, some  of that slivovitz that I've been trying to get rid of for a few decades).

I wanted something a bit barbaric for dinner, so I spatchcocked a Cornish game hen and then roasted it on a bed of sweet potato, potato, and the insides of that rutabaga.  I've written before that I used to hate it when Cornish hens were served at formal dinners.  Eaten nicely with a knife and fork, you can get about a half-dozen decent bites from those little carcasses.  They are best eaten in solitary splendor, when you can just tear them apart and eat them with your fingers.  Which I did.

All in all, a good Halloween.