Hurricane Punch

Gobble, gobble! The time has surely come when our thoughts turn to food, folks and fun, and so it behooves me to send out a whole cornucopia of good wishes for the holiday, and I would be remiss without adding, all the trimmings. While the Holiday Police may scoff, I still say there's no wrong way to celebrate this auspicious occasion - which in fairness, to an alien landing from a far distant galaxy, would appear to be a holiday dedicated to nothing but vast quantities of food, marathon shopping, and non-stop football on every side. So as a reminder for all of us, and whatever alien visitors in our midst, it is important to keep in mind that we have much to be thankful for, and not lose sight of those less fortunate. In this season of giving thanks, we are all Pilgrims in our own way, offering hospitality and welcome where it's needed, to one and all, all for one, one for all, and not to mention, one-size-fits-all. So in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, and foul-weather conditions of all sorts, here's one of my all-time favorite storm-related stories from "Dave Barry's Complete Guide to Guys," and it goes without saying, "I'm not making this up." ================================ Chapter 9: Guys in Action I want to talk about some of those unsung guys. I want to start with the absolutely true story of a guy I happen to know personally, and how he came through in the clutch during what could have been a serious natural disaster. I'm going to call this guy "Wally" and his wife "Lynne." I am giving them aliases because this story involves the use of marijuana. Let me stress for the benefit of any impressionable young readers out there that marijuana is very, very bad. Medical research has shown that people who use marijuana are more than eight times as non-users to eat raw cookie dough. And the figures are even more frightening for pepperoni. But there was a time, not so long ago, when many people were unaware of these dangerous side effects, and it was during this time that Wally and Lynne used some marijuana in their home in Miami. Then they decided to spend the evening lying in bed, watching the Mel Brooks movie The Producers on TV. This happened to be powerful marijuana, and Wally and Lynne were extremely wasted. I am certain that you, like myself and Bill Clinton have never been in this condition, but we know from reading medical journals that a person under the influence of powerful marijuana is comparable -- in terms of alertness, reaction time, problem-solving skills, and overall central-nervous-system functionality -- to linoleum. A person in this condition is not capable of quick thinking and effective decision-making. People in this condition can take upwards of two hours to open a can of soda ("Do you realize that this pop tab -- Just this pop tab! -- is actually billions and billions of MOLECULES??" "My God, you're RIGHT!" That is the condition that Wally and Lynne were in, watching The Producers, when suddenly the show was interrupted in midscene by an alarmed-looking announcer with an Urgent News Bulletin: A major hurricane was heading directly toward Miami. A moment or two passed while this information worked its way into what was passing for Lynne's and Wally's consciousness. Then: "Oh my God," said Lynne. "Oh my God," agreed Wally. "Wally," said Lynne, (Who somehow had the presence of mind to use his alias) "what are we gonna do?" So there it was. Wally was in the ultimate guy pressure situation: There was trouble on the way, big trouble, and his woman was looking to him to make a decision. Wally knew, even in his severely impaired state, that he had to act. The hurricane shutters needed to be closed. The yard needed to be cleared of loose objects that could, propelled by hurricane winds, become deadly missiles. Emergency supplies needed to be gathered. It might even be necessary to evacuate, as Wally and Lynne lived in a low-lying area, near the water. And there wasn't much time: The TV was now showing satellite photographs of the monster hurricane, moving closer, closer. Wally looked at the screen, then at Lynne, who was watching him anxiously, waiting for him to say something, depending on him to come through. Fighting to clear the dense fog from his brain, Wally considered the situation, and, finally, he made a decision. "Lynne," he said, "We're gonna die." It seemed like a solid decision. There was no way, in their condition, that they could evacuate. There was reason to doubt that they could, without assistance, remember how to open the bedroom door. On the screen, the TV news people were sounding more and more urgent. In the bedroom, Wally and Lynne were becoming more and more distraught. They wanted, desperately, to act, but they were hopelessly nonfunctional; all they could do was wander back and forth in front of the TV, Lynne in tears, Wally tugging helplessly at his hair, both of them watching the increasingly grim newspersons deliver the increasingly bad news. "We're gonna die," Wally repeated, so as to keep them focused on the issue at hand. Nobody -- especially Wally and Lynne -- knows how long they spent in this agony. But then, suddenly -- and this is why I am darned proud to be a guy -- Wally had the glimmer of an idea. Call it an inner reserve of guy strength; call it instinct; call it the Will to Live. Whatever it was, something deep inside told Wally that things could not end this way. Somehow he knew there was an answer, and if he could just concentrate hard enough, he would be able to dredge it up from the deep recesses of his brain ... If he could just remember what it was ... Wait a minute ... YES! That's IT! He turned and faced Lynne. She looked at him, tears streaming down her face. But something in his look told her that maybe -- just maybe -- they had a chance. "Lynne," he said, "we're watching a tape." He was right. They had forgotten that they were watching a borrowed videotape of The Producers. Unbeknownst to them, it had been recorded as Hurricane David approached South Florida; since this event had occurred several years earlier, the danger now posed by Hurricane David to Wally and Lynne, was, mathematically, quite small. "My God, you're right," said Lynne, and in her eyes there was love, and - yes - worship. And why not? They were going to live. Her guy had come through.

Young At Heart

Hello World, While everyone knows that I hate to be an alarmist, I feel it's only fair to point out to an unsuspecting public that it's already more than half-way past the middle of November (as in, YIKES!) and [here I should warn everyone to please sit down and hold onto their hats] Thanksgiving is next week already (as in, DOUBLE YIKES!!) believe it or not, because the month started on a Thursday, and so this is the earliest that Thanksgiving can be. So anyone who is not already prepared for the annual turkey trot with all the trimmings, well, they'd better step lively, or find the cornucopia caravan passing them by in a cloud of sweet potatoes and pumpkin pie, by golly. Of course, after that will be Black Friday, which historically ushers in the holiday shopping season in earnest. Not so fast! This year, desperate retailers chasing after The Almighty Dollar are introducing a new shopping experiment, and starting their annual sales extravaganza right on the holiday itself ("Brown Thursday?") rather than waiting until the day after, as before. So everyone without something better to do, will be out at the stores, either working or shopping, at midnight on Wednesday, and clear through the whole weekend, without giving ol' Tom Turkey so much as a second thought. By the time Cyber Monday rolls around the following week, people won't even remember that there was a holiday in there to begin with, because nowadays when it comes to Thanksgiving, we can say for sure that "Commerce is the Reason for the Season." I'm guessing that sound that we can all hear must be the unquiet spirits of the poor aggrieved Pilgrims, and not to mention, the late and lamented Norman Rockwell is probably spinning at warp speed by now, and I can't say that I blame him. And while we're on the subject of holiday shopping, a person can't help but notice that in the local area, it's been weeks already that the supermarkets are awash with Christmas decorations and wrapping paper of every description, and not a cardboard Pilgrim or turkey napkin in sight. (I realize that the mighty Indian is often referred to as The Vanishing American, but I wouldn't expect them to take the Pilgrims and pumpkins right along with them, and that's not just a lot of Jimmy Crack Corn, believe me.) These days, it's easy to tell it's Christmas wrapping paper, even from a distance, because the display is inevitably a veritable sea of blue - which is apparently the new politically-correct yuletide color, after the traditional red and green of yore must have been considered too old-fashioned or controversial. Next they'll have a Project Runway Santa Make-Over where he's all decked out in purple (another big color for Christmas nowadays) with a shiny black sleigh, and the reindeers tricked out in hot pink and lime green, with torrents of navy blue garland festooned everywhere. (Anyone can tell you that when it comes to corporate holiday greeting cards, black, purple, pink, lime, tan and navy blue are all the rage, and you couldn't buy one in red and green if your life depended on it.) Of course, it does no good to complain, as the dinosaurs and I can surely attest, but frankly, I'm not willing to just slide down that wanton slippery-slope to a Blue Christmas, and that's not just the pink and purple candy canes talking, by holly. Speaking of the holiday season, I was coming home from work last Monday, when it was suddenly dark at 5:30 because of the switch back to Standard Time over the weekend, and I was met by a myriad of merry twinkling Christmas lights all along Main Street, that the city puts up for decorative purposes every year. Personally, I thought this was just a wee bit too early for this type of illuminated spectacle, since it was only November 5th at the time, and with Thanksgiving being so early, the first Sunday in Advent isn't even until December 2nd, a good long ways away yet, even as the reindeer flies. But on the other hand, it was only a week after the calamitous Hurricane Sandy barreled through the region, and countless thousands of residents were still without power, heat, telephones or gasoline, and subsisting in a post-apocalyptic environment of deprivation, where all the conveniences of modern life had been wrenched away, and every long cold day was another miserable, uncomfortable hardship to be endured, with no guarantees that tomorrow would be any better. So it occurred to me that maybe the city planners figured under the circumstances, people were probably so starved for some good news for a change - and what better way to cheer folks up, but Christmas lights and plenty of them, shining from pole to pole, with their implicit promise of better days ahead, and not a moment too soon, that's for sure. For beleaguered locals, this might have been just what the doctor ordered. Or at least, Dr. Santa Claus, that is. In other good news, the World Series champagne was barely flat in San Francisco when it was already time for the baseball awards to be given out, and the voters had their say on league MVPs, Manager of the Year, Sportsmanship, Congeniality, Neatness, Punctuality, Penmanship, Cleanliness, Trustworthiness, Swimsuits and Evening Gowns - or whatever else they give away awards for nowadays. In an otherwise appalling season for the hapless Mets, their one bright spot was 20-game winner R.A. Dickey, who capped a career year by winning the Cy Young Award for pitching excellence. While Tampa Bay's David Price squeaked by in the AL voting with a scant 4 points over last year's winner Justin Verlander, there was no such ambiguity in the NL voting, as Dickey blew away his nearest competition with well over twice as many points. So I guess this was another holiday story after all, with an early Christmas present for the junior franchise in New York, and all of their long-suffering fans, and I ought to know. Because when it comes to being just what the doctor ordered, this would be hard to beat, or in the immortal words of Dr. Santa Claus: "HO HO HO!" And finally wrapping up with the best news of all, at least for us, and as early Christmas presents go, I can assure you that this one was a whopper, maybe even better than the Cy Young. In spite of hurricanes and nor'easters, power failures, fallen trees, gas rationing, snow, floods, fires, riots and plagues of locusts (I may have just imagined that last one) they finally delivered our brand new television, and you can believe me when I say that it is everything we could have hoped for and then some. It's a Sony Bravia XBR model with all the bells and whistles, just packed to the rafters with features upon features, many of which we don't even understand. (They claim it has what they describe as "Intelligent Peak LED," so I'm thinking we may not actually be smart enough to own this TV.) Of course, it has full HD and 3-D for our viewing pleasure, plus WiFi, which comes in handy for the included Internet apps like Netflix, YouTube, Facebook and more, plus access to all the games, photos and music that anyone could ever want. Its measurements from side-to-side and top-to-bottom are impressive, but what surprises me is how they cram all of that into a flat screen that is a mere 2" front-to-back, and is a mystery to me, I'm sure. The picture is spectacular, with a clarity that is astonishing, whether up close, at a distance, or even from the side. Now, you don't have to watch it from the side, obviously, because it pivots easily on its stand, and though large in dimensions, it weighs in at only 25 pounds, so it's a simple matter to turn it wherever you like. It has certainly launched us from the steam-powered past into the 21st century at a stroke, and light-years away from our technology-challenged contraptions of yesteryear. Heck, I'll bet even ol' Cy Young himself couldn't do that, evening gown or not. Elle

Fun House

Hello World, Well, there's certainly no denying that this week looked a whole lot better in our estimation than last week, and that's saying a mouthful, believe me. I won't go so far as to say that I've established a new standard for what constitutes a satisfactory week around here ("Okay, any 7-day period without a hurricane in it is a good one from now on") but the idea wasn't far from my thoughts, I can tell you that. It seems that I've seen enough bad weather to last me a good long time, and getting back to normal has an undeniable appeal that was under-appreciated until the recent untoward events. The pastor at our church quipped that he's already lived through three of what the media described as "The Storm of the Century," so he figures that he's set for the next 300 years. I admit that math is not my strong suit, but frankly, it's hard to argue with logic like that. In the aftermath of Sandy, millions of people lost their electricity in the tri-state area, most of them for days at a stretch, and for many thousands of unfortunate customers, even longer. It goes without saying that home generators flew off the shelves at stores everywhere, but in an ironic twist, the ensuing gas shortages made it difficult for people to get fuel for their cars or generators, which is the foul weather equivalent of adding insult to injury, and then some. We lost our power at home on Monday afternoon, even before the super-storm really hit its full stride, and it was a long cold and dark week, that was not only uncomfortable and depressing, but so monumentally boring that it's a wonder our brains didn't just explode from lack of stimulation. Friday night after work, we came home and saw the lights on at our house for the first time all week, and an innocent bystander anywhere near us would have been forgiven for thinking that we just won the lottery. And in many ways, I don't mind saying, it certainly felt like we had. I would also like to go on the record as stating that electricity is definitely NOT over-rated, and God bless Thomas Alva Edison! Of course, I stayed at my post last Wednesday night, hoping against hope that anyone would be out trick-or-treating in the storm-ravaged wilderness that was once the Queen City of the Sound, but no such luck. Other municipalities had officially canceled the holiday, either imposing a curfew on trick-or-treating, or banning it altogether, and then designating a make-up day for the festivities later, such as over the weekend. All things considered, I was disappointed that New Rochelle didn't follow that same plan, and they never officially canceled Halloween, so there were no provisions to reschedule it for another time, as I was hoping they might, giving us a second chance to enjoy the holiday fun under better circumstances. So I never got the opportunity to see any costumes, as I always enjoy, and I was still stuck with all 100 goodie bags that I started out with, and just had to disassemble all of them later, and it was with a heavy heart that I did so, alas. All of the fun-size sweets didn't seem very fun at all in the end, except perhaps at the employer of last resort, where the staff swooped down on them like a pack of vultures when I brought them in to work. We may forget a lot about what happened last week, but if nothing else, I'll remember this as The Year That Sandy Stole Halloween. It's true that this week was better, but for thousands of people whose lives had been turned upside-down - with flooding, fires, downed trees, no lights, no heat, no transit, no gas, and spoiled food - we weren't all out of the woods yet, not by any means. So the last thing that anybody wanted to hear was a nor'easter bearing down on the area on Wednesday, which is really kicking someone when they're down, and should be prohibited under the terms of the Geneva Convention, or whatever meteorological conventions these weather systems subscribe to. People who had just gotten their electricity back on Saturday or Sunday were plunged into darkness once more, as high winds snapped even more power lines, some of which had just been repaired from the week before. On top of all that, it was cold enough that the storm brought us actual snow, thanks not, and heavy-laden branches caused even more trees to topple, and even more thanks so very much not. This time we were luckier, and it wasn't as bad around us as many other places, particularly in that we kept our electricity through it all, which as we all know, is like winning the lottery, and I ought to know. Or to paraphrase our friends at Coca-Cola: "Everything goes better with electricity," and they're not just whistling Dixie, by golly. In the midst of all this destruction and catastrophe, what should come skulking along in its odious way, but the bothersome switch-over from Daylight Saving Time back to Standard Time - or as we refer to it at our house, Temporary Winter Time. After all, it only lasts about 4 months of the year now, which is hardly what I would consider "standard" by any definition of the term. Many of us who just reset all of our clocks, timers, appliances and electronic devices on Friday when the power came back, then found ourselves scrambling around again on Saturday, changing them all over again in the "fall back" to Winter Time from the long months of DST previously - and I don't mind saying that we did not think much of this idea, and you can believe me when I tell you that I am unanimous in that. At least now we can enjoy a short winter where the time stays where it is, that is, unless we have more storms, and once again, thanks ever so much not. One good thing that we did during "hurricane week" when we had no electricity, was deciding to go to the movies for a change. After 4 long days in the cold and dark, it was nice to be somewhere warm and bright instead, and a welcome relief from the boredom at home. Since we got to the cinema way ahead of time, we were able to relax and savor a leisurely dinner of Freschetta personal pan pizza, which is a concession stand highlight that we never pass up on a movie date night. Because it was the day after Halloween, the usual vast array of options at our nearby multi-plex were limited to mostly horror movies (and why anyone needs to see horror movies in IMAX 3-D is certainly a mystery to me, I'm sure) so we didn't have much to choose from. What we ended up seeing was "Fun Size," a Halloween-themed teenage comedy that we found charmingly cute in many ways, with some genuinely funny moments that managed to cheer us up in spite of it all. The young cast was engaging and perky, with a handful of film veterans to make us old-timers feel right at home. The story was somewhat madcap, but surprisingly clever, compared to the ordinary juvenile films with their sophomoric and low-brow humor that is designed to be embarrassing and offensive, and succeeds on all counts. I can't deny that the movie got some terrible reviews, from people who ought to know, but we thought it was pleasant and entertaining, and an amusing diversion during an otherwise dismal week. We also did some shopping while we were at it, and it was refreshing to be out and about where things were just like normal, during a time that was less than ideal in so many ways. I won't say that we made the President's economic advisers leap for joy at our paltry purchases, but for us, it was a nice break from the grim reality that had us in its steely grip since Monday, and not a moment too soon. As the inimitable Gracie Allen once famously observed, "It's lots of fun to have fun, even if you don't enjoy it!" Elle

Quick Sand

Hello World, "Better luck the next time, Sandy, gotta tell you that we're through." Of course, the dinosaurs and I can remember those lyrics from an old song by Dion & the Belmonts, but they've taken on a new significance now, after the apocalyptic events of this week, not just in the local area, but all up and down the east coast, and islands way out at sea besides. Yes, Hurricane Sandy was more than just an unwelcome interloper in our midst, cutting a wide swath of devastation across thousands of miles, and wreaking havoc on everything in her path. (The dinosaurs and I can also remember TV's Sandy Becker and baseball's Sandy Alomar, so it's certainly true that Sandy can be a man's name as well, but we can tell by the National Hurricane Center's 2012 list of hurricane names that this Sandy is female, because the names alternate on the list by gender - and where one is questionable, like Chris or Leslie or Sandy, you only need to check the names on either side of it to see if it's male or female.) Sandy roared into New York on Monday, and while the full force of the storm didn't hit until later at night, they started sending non-clinical staff home from the hospital as early as 10:15 in the morning, and I can never remember that happening before in all the years I've worked there. Bill stayed at work all day, but by the time he got home, it was beginning to get really ugly out there, and it was just about 6:00 PM when the electricity went out for good. Now, I take no responsibility for hurricanes in general, and this one in particular, but I will admit that it was entirely our fault that millions of people lost their electricity - for the simple reason that we made the mistake of buying a new television set last week. Since the last TV set that we bought was almost 30 years ago, it's a wonder that this electronic anomaly didn't just blast the whole planet right into a bizarre parallel universe where electricity didn't even exist in the first place. On the other hand, you would think that all of those millions of other people racing out to buy generators would have counteracted our misguided purchase of a new TV set, but no such luck. And to one and all, far and wide, all I can say is you have my sincerest apologies. Our neighborhood of old trees survived the onslaught better than it might have, except for a very large limb of our sycamore, which fell onto the butler's pantry on the side of our house, and the other half landed in the Dumpster of the house next door, where the neighbors had previously skedaddled out of here in the dead of night. It was after midnight that the time-worn storm doors outside of the French doors shattered, when I couldn't save them in time after I heard them banging - somehow the ferocious wind rattled them to the point that it extricated the door frames from the cord and bracket keeping them closed, while still leaving everything intact, until they flew open and slammed against the stucco on the side of the house, sending shards of glass flying wildly in every direction. The reason that I couldn't run outside to save them was that at the same time, the other French doors in the back of the living room were about to blow right in, despite various locks and braces to prevent this very thing, and I managed to catch them just in time, thereby successfully keeping our cats safely inside, and the miscellaneous wildlife critters outside where they belong. Previously these doors were inside the enclosed porch we used to have, before the great porch renovation project, and had never really been battle-tested in extreme outside weather up to this point. Considering that the wind picked up a heavy 6-foot wood step-ladder and blew it right off the porch. it's obvious that the French doors were no match for the storm's fury. The wind howled all night until the wee hours, along with scattered lightning, although there was no rain to speak of throughout it all. During the worst of it, the same refrain kept running through my head, "There's got to be a morning after," the theme song from The Poseidon Adventure, another example of nature run amok, and admittedly small comfort except perhaps clutching at straws. The pundits and prognosticators really weren't kidding when they dubbed this monstrosity bearing down on us the aptly named "FrankenStorm." We awoke on Tuesday to find that we still had no power at home, and Bill discovered that there was also no power where he works, so they were shut down for the duration as a result. I was glad to get to the hospital, where at least there was plenty of heat, electricity, and computers, even in our old rattle-trap of a building and the other out-buildings around the campus. After a while, I did realize that my office was noticeably colder than the other offices around me, and it took very little sleuthing on my part to uncover the culprit - which was that the high winds overnight had blown out a small plastic window panel next to the air conditioner above the back window in the room, that was allowing way too much of the great outdoors into the not-so-great indoors at the time, believe me. I scurried over to the Facilities Management department to file a work order for it, and in jig time, the crack Engineering team flew right over to replace it with brand new plastic and lots of sturdy caulk to hold it in place. They even replaced the burnt-out ceiling lights while they were at it, as an unexpected added bonus. Since it turned out that I would be going home to a house that was still cold and dark, it was nice to be toasty warm and brightly lit at least while I was at work. Meanwhile, in the "Timing is Everything" category, unfortunately Halloween fell on Wednesday during this calamitous period, when there was certainly nothing worth celebrating, and nobody in the mood for it besides. I figured this was as good a time as any to break out my emergency backup costume, since it had turned out to be not much of a holiday under the circumstances, and I thought that people needed to see a big bright jolly pumpkin with a great big smile to cheer them up. This worked better than I could have expected - in fact, people loved it and fell all over me everywhere I went - and I can tell you that I have never heard so many "adorables" and "cutes" in my whole life, by golly. I think people were really starved for something happy and sweet (most especially those beleaguered folks trying to subsist with no power, no phones, or no hot water) and it seemed that they could really relate to this sunny smiling pumpkin in their midst. (Although it must be said, like even the most iconic costumes, that there were still people who introduced me as an M&M or Reese's Pieces, rather than the junior version of The Great Pumpkin, which should have been obvious to anyone.) I could not have been more popular everywhere I went, and everyone wanted to take my picture, so they were not just saying that they liked my costume to be polite. Being small and round as I am, it's not much of a stretch to dress up as a small and round pumpkin, and I think what people appreciated about it most was that in their own minds, it suited me to a T, and cute was the word of the day. But more importantly, it's really true that people were so overwhelmed by the hurricane and its aftermath, that most of them didn't even realize that Wednesday was Halloween in the first place, and I saw it over and over again in hallways and stairways all around the campus - I was watching the blankest looks on the faces coming toward me, with only the faintest recognition at the last minute that I was dressed up in a costume for the holiday. In light of the situation, the one thing I really didn't want was a "high-concept" costume that I had to explain to everybody, when no one was in the frame of mind for it - and so I felt that something simple, cheerful and obvious was the only way to go. I noticed when I made my rounds that many people were still off because of hurricane-related problems, and whole departments were deserted, where I would normally pay them a call. The Adult Day Care program was closed as a safety precaution, so there was no party there, which is always a highlight of my day. The poor staff had already put up decorations and had their costumes, so you can imagine they were pretty unhappy at this turn of events. At least the nursing home party was still on, and we all scooted over there, to find them having their usual rollicking time of it, with costumes, party hats, seasonal decorations and snacks galore. When I made my entrance into the day room, the DJ started singing "The Night They Invented Champagne" from Gigi, only substituting the word "pumpkin" for "champagne," which didn't actually make any sense, but everyone was having too much fun to notice. Everywhere else I went, I was the only fun they were having, and I was glad for a chance to spread a little sunshine in an otherwise dismal week. I even got some candy, which I have long since learned not to expect, although there was the usual attrition along the way in the time-honored "reverse trick-or-treat" tradition we've come to expect at the employer of last resort. The way things were going, I figured that they needed the candy more than I did anyway. All too soon, it was time to hurry home and take pictures - outside this time, because it was way too dark to take any inside. After a quick meal, all we could do then was sit around in the dark waiting to see if any callers would brave the elements (I know I would when I was that age) so I could give away any of 100 goodie bags I had already assembled beforehand. I figured we would hear voices and see flashlights out in the street, so we could then let them know we were open for business as usual, even though things were very far from the usual in our neighborhood. It turned out there was not a single solitary soul all night, even all the way up to 10:00 PM, on our street and the streets around us, there was not a sound anywhere to be heard in any direction. This was certainly a first for us - over the years we've had rain, freezing temperatures, the 9/11 attacks, and in spite of it all, we still had callers come to our door for candy, even if in smaller numbers, but this is the first time ever that we hit absolute zero, and how sad is that. Bill was home during the day, and said there was nobody all day either, even when it was still light out, which I found even more depressing on top of everything else. In the end, I was really glad that I had my emergency bright cheery pumpkin costume to do its part under extremely challenging conditions. Considering what happened to what should have been a happy holiday time for everyone, I guess it was appropriate for Hurricane Sandy to trample through the area around Halloween, and live up to the "FrankenStorm" designation for real. Now, I don't know about anyone else, but I'm in the mood for some pumpkin pie. Elle