Day 304 - beware of things going bump in the night

 Today is the 2nd day of the 44th week, the 31st day of the 10th month, the 304th day of this rather scary babbling experiment, and:

• Beggars' Night 
• Books for Treats Day
• Carve a Pumpkin Day
• Day of the Seven Billion - in 2011, this is the day designated as the approximate day the world's population hit that number
• Girl Scout Founder's Day
• Karwa Chauth - this day is marked by fasting an prayers by wives that their husbands may have long and prosperous lives.  The festival itself starts at sundown, and foreshadows Diwali, which usually is about nine days afterwards  
• Halloween or All Hallows Eve
• National Caramel Apple Day
• National Doorbell Day
• National Increase Your Psychic Powers Day
• National Knock-Knock Jokes Day
• National Magic Day
• Reformation Day
• Samhain - and it is Beltane in the southern hemisphere 
• Scare a Friend Day
• Sneak Some of the Candy Yourself Before the Kids Start Knocking Day - oh come on, doesn't everyone buy candy they like so if you don't give it all out, you can eat it yourself?
• Trick-or-Treat for UNICEF Day
• World Cities Day
• World Savings Day

Quote of the day:

" Another belief of mine; that everyone else my age is an adult, whereas I am merely in disguise. "

~ Margaret Atwood,  Canadian poet, novelist, literary critic, essayist, teacher, environmental activist, and inventor  

And the really cool part about it?  I can pretend to be adulting, and no one even notices!  So that is my costume for today - and I pretending to be a mature adult.

Back in the day, before iPhones meant that we had a camera handy and could take snapshots wherever, where I worked used to dress up for Halloween..  In the mall, at Mother Goose shoes,  I used to dress up as a monk - having appropriated my son's JaWa costume that I had made for him.  At C&F, I usually went full western garb, complete with Stetson.  Some departments would coordinate their outfits - our Operations group dressed as Robin Hood and his merry men on year.

But the other banks were stuffier, and the practice of dressing up apparently fell into disrepute.  

Shame - adults enjoy cosplay just as much as the kids do!  Certainly that explains the way we dress at cons.  I used to love to just sit in the lobby and enjoy the parade of incredibly detailed and realistic costumes going by.  

I do miss the days when crowds of costumed kids would crowd on our porch, crying "trick or treat" and jostling each other to get to the candy.  It made the night so ...  exciting and fun.  Of course, our modern predilection for ruining everything had to do that to letting the kids run about after dark as well, it stopped being safe.  And letting kids take candy from strangers?!  Even when my kids were young, I only let them go to houses where I knew the people, and encourage trick-or-treating at the mall, or going to parties instead.  

May your chocolate not melt, your house not be wrapped in toilet paper, and the ghosties let you sleep at night this haunted eve!