2002-11-01 - 12:49 p.m.

On the internal soundtrack: "Right Turn", still. I put it in there on purpose to get rid of "Yellow Submarine" and it hasn't left.

Wheeeeee!

I had a good Halloween!!

I was a nervous, anxious wreck at first, thinking nobody would come down my alley, but I ended up getting quite a few people. They came in bunches.

During one of the lulls, I realized that I was sitting far away from Poindexter on the couch because, subconsciously, I thought I needed to be as close to the front door as possible. Once I figured that out, I laughed and moved over.

I didn't get any pictures this year. It's tough because the front door is at the end of a hallway, so I don't have room to move off to the side and record their reactions to Monster-Poindexter lurking in the distance. I'll try harder next year.

Highlights:

- During the commute home, I saw a small Elvis. I got all excited and said, "Look, an Elvis! Oh, and there's another Elvis! Three Elvises! Oh my gosh, no, FOUR Elvises!" There were three kids and a dad, all dressed up like Vegas Elvis, with the glasses and the beaded costume with bell bottoms. It was SO FUNNY.

- First group at the house was three tween boys. I was completely unprepared (had just headed upstairs to get out of my skirt and into jeans), so I just grabbed the big warty hand to open the door with. Poindexter told me that they said, "Ooo, scary" without sounding the least bit scared. Made me laugh.

- Best group was three or four kids all in the five-to-eight range. I threw open the door, jumped into the door frame, and they all screamed and ran away. Then I pulled off the mask and they came back, laughing. Then we got the jaw-drops when they spotted Poindexter lurking. They were chatty too, discussing the whole experience. "You scared me at first!" the one kid said.

- There was a dad with three 5-to-8s, plus a 3ish clown who couldn't decide whether to laugh or continue to cling to her daddy's legs. She did both. The dad could not stop laughing the entire time he was at our door. He'd stop momentarily to talk to a kid, then look at Poindexter again and start laughing again. He was great.

- At about 9pm, I dragged Poindexter out for a walk up by the restaurants, to see what we'd see. I wore my Scream costume. We encountered a big group of teenagers in costume, and just as we passed them I threw up my arms and rushed at a couple of them, then walked away. The whole group laughed.

- Sometimes the kids were too busy picking out their candy to notice Poindexter. One time two moms hanging back saw him and pointed him out to the kids. Once one kid noticed, and kept yanking on a candy-absorbed kid's arm, "Look! Look! yank, yank Look!".

- I saw at least three kids, possibly more, with the "stoned" Scream mask from "Scary Movie". Some of them were too young to probably know what it meant, but I wonder about the others.

On our way back from our walk, we ran into some neighbors. These are the ones who are restaurant freaks and have the incredible roof deck. We all walked back together, and they invited us inside for a house tour.

ohboy.

Their entire house was beautifully done, but really it was the roof deck that got us. The thing fits the entire footprint of the house (must've been 20x20 at LEAST). They had a lot of problems getting it done right, but it must have turned out okay in the end. As Poindexter put it so eloquently, "It's built like a brick shithouse." And the views were even more spectacular than I'd imagined. It's incredible up there.

We gave them a tour of our house too, although it certainly wasn't anywhere near as spectacular. They seemed interested to see how it would be when it was finished.

Both of them seem to really, really love Philadelphia. They called it "the best-kept secret on the east coast", more than once. They love their house and they love the city.

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