Spooky deadlines

October draws to a close, and November swiftly approaches. This means several things. First, it means that I and everyone else who agreed to write a story about mermaids in September are late. The end of October also forms something of a hard deadline for that, since everyone who had planned on writing a mermaid story is also doing NaNoWriMo, so new adventures will soon take precedence. I already talked about my own plans for the month.

But the end of October also brings us the yearly ritual of gouging the innards from a gourd and carving it into a human semblance. This year, because there is so much television and only so much time, I did my brainstorming while watching the episode of Angel with the killer tree, and then did the scooping and carving while watching the latest episode of The Walking Dead. But my creative mind, apparently, was elsewhere.

I was pleased with the result.

A dapper o'lantern.

And here is the gentleman in his natural habitat.

Hullo children.

That was yesterday. Sadly, he has been nibbled on a little by the ravenous beasts which scour our neighborhood at night, but the result is merely that his mustache is a bit lopsided.

Today Girlfriend and I realized that a pumpkin on our stoop would of course be an invitation to roving packs of children tonight, and if we didn't want to be paid in the currency of "tricks" then we would need to acquire some "treats" with which to buy them off. Thus I ran out to Target today to pick up some candy, half fearing that they would be thoroughly picked over by the time I got there. Fortunately, they were still well stocked, and wisely so, because I wasn't the only adult in the candy aisle.

However, enjoying the capabilities of my new phone, I did take a surreptitious picture of the Target's "seasonal" section.

Winter is coming.

The staff were already at work converting the display. I remember when it was fashionable to complain about this happening the day after Thanksgiving. Apparently if we had wanted to hold that line, we should have instituted a policy of exchanging Thanksgiving gifts or something. Because this year it looks like T-day's just getting a pass.