Halloween has always been one of my favorite holidays, though to be honest, it's been a couple of years since I rocked a costume. In fact, the last full-on costume I did was when I channeled Frida Kahlo for an Oscar party I hosted the year FRIDA was up for several nominations. Still, tonight Joe and I are going to continue a tradition we started last Halloween, and that is packing up the dog and taking him to Wendy's to help pass out candy. Wendy goes all out on every holiday, and for Halloween she sets up one of those iron fire pit things in the front yard, bundles up and camps out to greet all of the neighborhood kids. This year, she's added some blow-up Haunted House thing I can't wait to check out. It's nice. I've never done the candy thing at my house because A) there aren't that many kids in the neighborhood and B) with Scouty, having someone knock on the door every 10 minutes would turn him into Frankendog. He still goes postal every time the mail man comes (bad pun intended).

Today is also the birthday of Chris, one of the sweetest, classiest, coolest women I've ever known, who also happens to be a part of my writing group, the WIPs. Hope you have a fantastic day, Chris!

This weekend marks the beginning of the Birthday Rush. My mom's is Sunday. I usually go all out, because even though my mom is now in her 50s, she gets very sad if people don't make a big deal out of the day. Last year my gift was tickets to see MENOPAUSE: THE MUSICAL; she requested them specifically, but my real gift was pretending to enjoy it as much as she did (I didn't. I'm sorry. Bad jokes about hot flashes do not tickle my funny bone). This year, Joe and I have decided to prepare one of her favorite meals from scratch. This doesn't sound like that big a thing, but the meal happens to be chicken mole. Traditional Mexican black mole is a recipe that has like 40 ingredients and takes four hours to cook. We're heading to the Mexican markets tomorrow to try to track down all of the crazy peppers and spices needed to make her dream a reality. Side dishes include Mexican rice, pot beans, and, as an extra-special treat, Joe's going to make homemade white corn tortillas in a press and everything. It should be fun.

The birthday gauntlet goes something like this:

11/3 - Joe's Grammy
11/4 - My former editor at Razorbill, Kristen Pettit
11/6 - Joe's grandfather (a.k.a. Pop)
11/7 - My friend Carolee
11/13 - My friend Jaime

Then I get a slight, two-week respite before it's Joe's birthday (12/5), followed immediately by my stepfather's birthday (12/6), which is also shared by my Uncle Jeffrey.

And since my friend Candace was organizing a women's conference around her birthday, we still haven't had her actual celebration. (Kind of a good thing, since the present I'm making her isn't exactly done yet. But she's a fellow procrastinator, so she understands.)

I think the most frustrating thing is that this is the time of year I love to shop. I'm a shopper any time of year, but my favorite kind of shopping is the stuff I do for other people. Unfortunately, between the economy and my upcoming nuptuals and a laundry list of fix-ups that needs to get done around the house, the holiday budget is the smallest it's ever been. Candy and I are planning a couple of craft days to see if we can make some gifts, but if any of you remember me talking about my in-progress craft room that Joe and I started to redo 14 months ago ... well, let's just say it still isn't done. And all of my many craft supplies have found "temporary" homes in random closets and corners. I'll be lucky if I can find my paint caddy and store of brushes.

No matter - today is a day for FUN and FROLIC.

Hope you all have a great Halloween!