Halloween 2021

Finally! Coming up on 21:45 local, and our trick or treater count is finally not at zero! Five kids just climbed the hill (we can see the parents out at the curb) and for that they each get a fistful of candy. At least it’s better than last year and the year before, when the guest count was…checks notes…ZERO!.

This is what we get for renting a place a bit off the beaten path and at the top of a huge freakin’ hill. No one comes up here unless they live here, and I haven’t seen anyone up here who has kids in the three years we’ve been here.

I miss the old house on a flat, busy street a half-block from the local elementary school. I miss bringing the telescopes out into the front yard and letting everyone look through them while we chatted and handed out candy. I miss having the little kids and the adults, many looking through a real telescope at the moon or Saturn or Jupiter for the first time just being awestruck. I especially miss the teenagers, trying to be cool in front of their friends, but also trying to sneak a second or third look before they leave, preferably without their friends noticing.

I don’t think it’s a COVID thing. I think it’s an “out in the boonies” thing. Even though, to be clear, we’re right in the heart of the San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles, with multiple major five-lane city boulevards running north-south and east-west within a mile in all directions. Hardly a wilderness.

Any more late guests? I’ve just lost about eight pounds in the last two months. I would really like to NOT eat this leftover candy.