A most unusual Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. I don't know, however, that this was my favorite Thanksgiving.

My family decided to drive out to California to visit my nephews. (My brother and his wife just happen to live there too.) I generally like to spend holidays at home, but I guess traveling at Thanksgiving is better than traveling at Christmas.

I used a few of my vacation hours to leave work early on Wednesday, and we took off. Parts of I-80 were pretty snowy in eastern Nevada, but it cleared up in western Nevada. We spent the night in Winnemucca before continuing our drive on Thanksgiving morning. We had a motel room with very noisy pipes, so I woke up and had a hard time falling asleep again. It was not a good night's sleep.

On Thursday morning, we stopped at Del Taco in Reno. As I finished my breakfast burrito, I felt very full. I didn't think it was that big. Oh well, I thought, I just hope I get my appetite back for Thanksgiving dinner. 

(Speaking of breakfast burritos, whenever I think of them I remember that one time Jan Terri called them "breastfast burinos.")

My brother's family doesn't really do American traditions, so we decided to eat Thanksgiving dinner at a Hometown Buffet. I've never gone out to eat for Thanksgiving before, and it's not my ideal holiday, but it would have had its perks to gorge myself while visiting with my family. Unfortunately, it would not turn out that way.

As we got to the restaurant, I could tell that there was something different from just being too full. I hadn't eaten that much. I was chilly, and it wasn't that cold. And even though I hadn't slept well that night, I seemed excessively tired. I got traditional Thanksgiving foods on my plate, but only tiny bits. I couldn't even finish my roll, and I never waste food. I had to have pumpkin, pecan, and apple pies, but I could only eat a few bites of each. (They were small pieces, so I wasn't as wasteful as it sounds.) I was super tired, and I couldn't bear the thought of eating more, so I sat with my head on the table. I know that's not polite, but it was all I could do.

After we went home, I took a nap, and I felt better, but after watching Free Birds that night, I felt worse again. I went to bed with chills, so I was dressed quite warmly with lots of warm things on the bed.

At some point in the middle of the night, I was literally dreaming about Pilgrims when I woke up really warm and not feeling well. That time I could tell this wasn't going to be a go-back-to-bed-and-feel-better thing, because I was already in bed. I got up and went to the bathroom and tossed my cookies (or, rather, my Thanksgiving dinner). It was the first time I'd done so since 2004. I'd forgotten just how unpleasant an experience it is. I didn't remember that "it" ends up in your nose. However, once I was done, I was sweating--and felt much better. I felt fine the rest of the trip--maybe not 100 percent, but probably around 90 percent most of the time.

Although the Thanksgiving holiday wasn't great, it was a still fun weekend visiting my nephews--Preston, who is 11, and Franklin and Nathaniel, who will be 8 and 6 in January. Franklin is generally the shyest of the three, and Nathaniel is least shy, but among us it was almost the opposite. Nathaniel didn't bond a whole lot with us--it's not that he was shy, he just did more of his own thing. Franklin, however, loved talking with us. He loved to tickle me (I am very ticklish) and get "puppy rides" from me. The others did too, but not as much as Franklin. He loved calling me simply "Uncle," and he began calling his dad "Uncle's Brother." (It was only a year and a half ago that he learned his dad and I were in the same family, and it kind of blew his mind.) He's grown into a delightful kid.

We climbed up nearby Albany Hill, which is within very close walking distance from their apartment (their fourth dwelling since they moved to California in 2012). Surprisingly there's a significant Wikipedia article about the hill. Hopefully next time I'm there I'll be feeling better and can go on a trail run there.

 I've never seen so much graffiti as I saw in their neighborhood. Franklin spotted a "gangster tree" or "graffiti tree."

We asked Nathaniel if he would quit growing up, and he responded, "I can't, it's the life circle."

I love visiting them, but I actually am getting less sad to leave them. That's because I know they'll remember us, and they won't change as much from visit to visit as they used  to do. I just wish they would move to Utah.

***

This is the last week of Pumpkinundation Roundup. You'll have to let me know if you want me to do it again next year. Now, some people say, "Why can't you have pumpkin pie for Christmas?" They point out the lyric "Pennyslvania and some homemade pumpkin pie." Well, that song doesn't specifically reference Christmas. What about "when they pass around the coffee and the pumpkin pie"? That song is even less Christmassy, and coffee doesn't have anything to do with Christmas either. What about "Later we'll have some pumpkin pie and we'll do some caroling"? You got me there, but one song hardly makes it so. Besides, when was the last time you "rocked" around a Christmas tree?

Basically I consider pumpkin pie and all other pumpkin things to be a fall thing, not a Christmas thing. That could change, but that's how it is now.

I didn't really have anything new this week, except that I made a smore with pumpkin spice marshmallows and candy corn Hershey's. It was better than the one I had with candy corn marshmallows. I also had pumpkin pie at Hometown Buffet, but I was in no mood to take pictures.

I'm going to do a recap of all the pumpkin and candy corn things I consumed between September and now, with ratings on a five-star scale. Arby's pumpkin cheesecake shake wins the distinction of the worst pumpkin thing I had. I can't pick a favorite, but I loved the Spiced Pumpkin Pie Clif Bar, Pumpkin Pie Pop-Tarts, and Taco Time Pumpkin Pie Smoothie. All candy corn items have three stars (except for Brach's Autumn Mix).

Nature's Path Pumpkin Flax Granola***
Planters Pumpkin Spice Almonds****
Calley's Favorites Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies****
Pumpkin Spice Frosted Mini Wheats**
Pumpkin Spice Oreos***
Pumpkin Pie Pop-Tarts*****
Spiced Pumpkin Pie Clif Bar*****
Kashi Pumpkin Spice Flax Granola Bars***
Sunbelt Bakery Pumpkin Spice Granola Bars***
Dreyer's Slow Churned Pumpkin Patch Ice Cream****
Kneaders spice cupcake***
Quaker Pumpkin Spice Instant Oatmeal**
Chobani Pumpkin Harvest Crisp Greek Yogurt**
Eggo Pumpkin Spice Waffles****
Pumpkin Spice Peeps****
Pumpkin Puffins Cereal **
Hershey's Pumpkin Spice Kisses**
Pumpkin Pie Blizzard*****
belVita Pumpkin Spice Breakfast biscuits***
Archer Farms Pumpkin Corn Tortilla Chips***
Kodiak Cakes Pumpkin Dark Chocolate Minute Muffin****
Homemade Argentinian pumpkin soup****
Homemade pumpkin waffles*****
Pizza Pie Cafe pumpkin dessert pizza****
Arctic Circle pumpkin pie shakes*****
Nielsen's Frozen Custard pumpkin concrete****
Dark Chocolate Pumpkin Seed barkThins  ***
Homemade pumpkin pizza dough***
Nestle Toll House Pumpkin Spice Chips***
Fiber One Pumpkin Bars***
Thomas Pumpkin Spice Bagels****
Kneaders pumpkin chocolate chip cake*****
Sara Lee Iced Pumpkin Cakes ***
Little Bites Pumpkin Muffins***
Taco Time pumpkin pie smoothies*****
Taco Time pumpkin empanadas****
Great Harvest Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Bread****
Homemade panfried pumpkin with tomato sauce**
Homemade pumpkin chocolate chip cookies***
Hostess Pumpkin Spice Cup Cakes ****
Kneaders pumpkin spice steamer**
Entenmann's Pumpkin Donuts****
Kneaders pumpkin cheesecake***
pumpkin bread at a Halloween party***
Homemade Pumpkin Black-Bean Turkey Chili ****
Corner Bakery Pumpkin Whoopee Pie *****
Corner Bakery Gingerbread Pumpkin Bundt Cake****
Wilton Pumpkin Spice Candy Melts **
Various pumpkin pies**** (they're all basically the same)
gooey pumpkin butter cake*****
Stephen's Pumpkin Spice Hot Cocoa***
Arby's Pumpkin Cheesecake Shake*
Franz Baker Shoppe Pumpkin Filled Pie**
Atlantis Burger pumpkin eggnog shakes****
 QuestBar Pumpkin Pie Bar***
 homemade pumpkin chocolate chip bread (I didn't make it)***
Village Inn pumpkin pancakes ***
Arctic Circle Pumpkin Oreo shake*****
 "bite-size" pumpkin chocolate chip cookie****
pumpkin cake donut****
 Kneaders pumpkin bread**** 

Candy Corn Peeps ***
Lofthouse candy corn cookies***
Jet-Puffed Candy Corn Marshmallows***
Hershey's Candy Corn bars***
Hostess Candy Corn Cup Cakes***
Charms Candy Corn Pops***
 Candy Corn Taffy***
 Brach's Peanut Butter Cup Candy Corn***
 Starburst Candy Corn ***
Candy Corn M&Ms***
 Brach's Autumn Mix ****

I could continue doing a roundup, like gingerbread, peppermint, or eggnog, or in a couple of months red velvet. But for my own health, I don't think I should do that. 

Meeting myself

Most of you know that I am not artistic at all. I never have been. This week I put my ugly art skills to work.

My ward had an activity where we decorated bears to donate to charity. My mom had donated some fabric to use, and some of it had flowers on it, which made it very easy to make a Care Bear-like toy. It was easy, and I figured I'd mess it up if I tried to do anything fancier.

The next day, my niece invited me to her mutual activity. (In my mind I like to call it "M.I.A." since I work with Mormon history.) The mutual activity was cupcake wars, where we had to create cupcakes based on a scriptural theme. Our theme was "Stripling Warriors." (When we presented, I pointed out that the scriptures don't actually say "stripling warriors" but "stripling soldiers." Look it up.) That may have been the most difficult theme. And since we had a hard theme and no artistic ability, we created the ugliest cupcakes imaginable. (And when I say they're ugly, I'm not fishing for compliments or trying to be humble. They really were ugly. And fortunately I have proof.)

Other groups did scenes, but we tried to do a lot of individual things connected with the story. So we put "2000" at the top (which let us win "most recognizable," which was the same as "also ran"). On the left we put flowers and a book, representing their mothers teaching them. We put some pretzel sticks in holes on the cupcakes to represent the buried weapons of their parents. And since they were injured but no one died, we did some bloody wounds, with a crossed-out gumdrop cemetery. I was terribly embarrassed with how ugly these were.




Saturday I went down to Orem to see the musical of The Addams Family. When I went to pick up my tickets, they seemed to have a hard time finding them. Then a stranger came up behind me and asked, "Are you Mark Melville?" I said yes and didn't know why he was shaking my hand. Then he introduced himself as Mark Melville! They had given him my tickets, and he was trying to figure out why he had extra tickets. I've Googled my name and found other Utahns with my name, but this was the first time I met one. I would have talked to him more if it had been a better situation, but we were in a crowded hallway.

(It bugs me when people call us "Utahans." I've lived in Utah my whole life. We're Utahns, not Utahans. And Blogger's spellcheck keeps telling me "Utahn" is wrong but "Utahan" is right.)

I own (and have watched) the complete 1960s Addams Family series, and (nowadays) I fully acknowledge that by no means is it a great show, especially the first season. But it has an interesting premise, which lends itself to decent remakes. The musical is about a grown-up Wednesday falling in love with a normal boy. It was better than I expected--cheesy, but sometimes witty. I think they opted to go for the Addams family of the movies (which I don't watch), making the play inconsistent with the TV show. In the series, Fester is Morticia's uncle, not Gomez's brother, and Wednesday is younger than Pugsley (and they're elementary-school age). The original series had Thing as a mysterious creature, an arm that could come out of boxes (and other things) and travel from box to box throughout the house. The musical opted to go with the dismembered hand--which I think was a poor decision, because it was just a dumb fake hand, and Thing in a box seems to be perfect for a play--you just put someone under a table with a tablecloth.

While other people are listening to Christmas music now (won't you be tired of it by the time Christmas gets here?), I listen to Thanksgiving music. Admittedly my Thanksgiving playlist isn't that great. I'm now more interested in quality than in quantity, but that hasn't always been the case. Some of my better Thanksgiving songs are the music from A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving, including "Linus and Lucy with the Band." The Thanksgiving version of "Linus and Lucy" is the best of all versions, but only the first part of it is on the special. I acquired it on a CD entitled The Charlie Brown Suite and Other Favorites. This afternoon, our cat was standing in the doorway, trying to decide whether she wanted to go out, and I could hear the Thanksgiving version playing, but it was the second half, the part only available on that one album. I wondered if my phone had randomly started playing my Thanksgiving playlist, but it was our next-door neighbors, whom we barely know! I've been trying to figure out why they would have been playing it, since it's pretty obscure. I have heard it on Pandora, but that's because I have a Vince Guaraldi station.

This blog took me way longer to write than it should have.

***

Pumpkin season is winding down, so Pumpkinundation Roundup is getting sparser.

 Village Inn sells these pumpkin pancakes. They're OK. They do actually taste like pumpkin.

 This Arctic Circle Pumpkin Oreo shake is my second Arctic Circle pumpkin shake this year (the other being plain). I like pumpkin shakes, and I like Oreo shakes, so this was a great combination.

 I wanted to make candied yams, so I made them with pumpkin spice marshmallows (reviewed a few weeks ago), but you couldn't really tell a difference. (I know the picture looks like vomit.)

Then at a party I had a "bite-size" pumpkin chocolate chip cookie. This one tasted a bit more like a regular chocolate chip cookie than most pumpkin cookies; I don't know if it was the recipe or the cookie-to-chocolate ratio. (Also, do you like my new orange Chucks?)

It snew a little.

Let's see...what happened this week? It wasn't very interesting.

It snowed. Or it snew. I once had a linguistics professor say that his six-year-old said it snew--and then I had a twenty-seven-year-old roommate who said the same thing (and immediately realized what he had said).

When I check the news, it is the weather that has the most impact on my life, impacting what I wear, how I drive, and what activities I do. But years, or even months or even weeks, from now, the weather means practically nothing.

What confused me is that we didn't have a lot of snow, and it wasn't that cold, yet there's still a lot of snow around. I went trail running for an hour and twenty-eight minutes and passed lots of snow. Fortunately I went where it wasn't too muddy.

I also went to the symphony and opera with a friend. The opera was a French opera, L'Enfant et les Sortilèges, and it was a rather silly show yet had serious opera singing. It was bizarre.

Opera singing is OK in operas, but outside of operas it's not good. I think it's very much an Emperor's New Clothes situation. No one likes it, but they know it's supposed to be fancy and sophisticated, so they don't want to seem plebeian by saying they don't like it. I hate it when the MoTab has operatic guests, because the only people who like them are the musical bigwigs who have been told to like it.

There were probably more eventful things this week, but I can't remember them at the moment. I'm blogging at someone else's house because our power is out.

***

Pumpkinundation Roundup isn't that big this week.

 I had a pumpkin cake donut from a grocery store at an event. It was a typical cake donut, which isn't a bad thing.

 This isn't a ghost, but my hand holding a sample piece of Kneaders pumpkin bread. It was pretty good.

 This Kneaders gingerbread turkey doesn't belong here, except that it's a vehicle for candy corn. I think this was Jelly Belly candy corn, because it was smooth and a little smaller. Gingerbread is normally a Christmas thing, but it's appropriate for Thanksgiving when it has a turkey shape. It tasted like a ginger snap. This is part of why I consider candy corn a Thanksgiving candy, because it shows up in a lot of crafty turkey desserts.

 When I was younger, I loved these little "pies." Of all the pumpkin things there are, you'd expect that this Franz Baker Shoppe Pumpkin Filled Pie would have pumpkin in it, right? Well, this was pumpkin flavored. There's no pumpkin in it. It doesn't taste like pumpkin. It doesn't look like pumpkin. It doesn't taste that good. What's the point?

 Atlantis Burger makes these pumpkin eggnog shakes. I think they just put pumpkin-flavored eggnog in it, not pumpkin and eggnog. It's mainly eggnog, meaning I feel a little guilty eating it in October or November.

This QuestBar Pumpkin Pie Bar tastes like a protein bar, not pumpkin pie. But it does have a pretty orange coating (which doesn't show up in the picture).

Beggars, Peanuts, Candy Corn

Ah, my favorite month of the year. As exemplified by this week, you can get warm temperatures, or snow. There's something to please everyone.

On Wednesday I was walking over to lunch when a beggar asked for money for food. Perhaps I shouldn't share this, because it could seem like bragging and nullify any charity I did. But I invited him to come to lunch with me, and he accepted. I tried to strike up conversation, but it was a little awkward, since I'm an awkward, quiet person, and he wasn't a conversationalist, and I didn't feel like I could ask my regular questions because it could make him uncomfortable. I didn't think I could ask about education or occupation, and outside of those, what can you talk about? I asked about his family, but he doesn't even know where his siblings live because they don't talk to him. So I didn't think even that was a safe topic. We--or at least I--tend to think of the beggars as addicts. But watching him eat (and order a warm sandwich and hot coffee) reminded me that regardless of whatever addictions they may have (I know he was at least addicted to cigarettes), they still have basic human needs. In fact, I felt more compassion so that I gave him some extra money at the end. He said it was for a bus fare to his mom's house in Ogden. There's definitely something weird there, since it's counterproductive to use money to take a bus from Ogden just to ask for money for food in Salt Lake. But I kind of didn't care if he was going to use it inappropriately, since I knew he did have appropriate needs.

On Saturday my sister and niece and I went to see The Peanuts Movie. I suspect most of you know I'm a big Peanuts fan. I've read almost all of the strips (most of them are online--maybe all of them are now), and I own a lot of the TV specials, and I own lots of clothing and other fan items. (I've become less inclined to get them anymore, since they just paste a few stock pictures on the memorabilia and then draw on the pictures to make them "different" or seasonal.) Therefore, this movie had great potential to disappoint. I'm happy to say it did not.

First off was the animation. When they announced that it was going to be computer generated images, I thought that was a horrible idea. (I was expecting it to look more like this. Vomitrocious!) You guys have probably all seen the trailers, so you know it wasn't usual CGI. I found it quite charming and clever the way they blended the CGI with the 2D look. It's the most innovative animation I've seen since The Lego Movie. (OK, The Lego Movie wasn't that long ago. So Lego Movie and Peanuts Movie were the most innovative animation I've seen since Toy Story.)

And I think the story and the dialog were pretty true to the original. There were some things that bothered me--like how Meghan Trainor songs seem a little out of place. But then I remembered the 1980s Peanuts specials, which weren't very good and had weird songs. (The musician who replaced Vince Guaraldi in the mid-70s was named Ed Bogas. From then on, the Peanuts music was literally Bogus. The joke writes itself.) Honestly, this movie is truer to Peanuts than the 80s shows were, even though Schulz was alive then. This was a great movie.

Just so you know, there is something after the credits. Everyone else in the theater walked out and missed it. But it's not much--kind of along the lines of what they did after Frozen.

Also, some places have called this the first Peanuts movie. It's definitely the first of its kind, but it's not the first. There were four theatrical movies: A Boy Named Charlie Brown (1969, the trippiest movie I've ever seen, but it's quite charming), Snoopy Come Home (which featured songs by the Sherman Brothers, who did the music for Mary Poppins), Race for Your Life, Charlie Brown (1977) and Bon Voyage, Charlie Brown (1980; these latter movies feel more like TV movies. I haven't seen Bon Voyage in its entirety, but I just bought it, so I will watch it soon).

Anyway, I don't intend this blog to be a movie review site (most of the time). The 45-degree weather was perfect running temperature, so yesterday (Saturday) I did the longest out-and-back run from my house that I've done, since my trail running days are numbered for the season. I went up to Tunnel Springs Park, then past the radio towers, then a portion of the Bonneville Shoreline Trail past that--but not quite as far as Ensign Peak. Then my knee started hurting. I don't know whether it was my old shoes or my lack of strength training. I'll have to do more leg exercises.

***

This week's Pumpkinundation Roundup is largely a candy corn roundup, since this is the week I buy lots of clearance candy to use for Thanksgiving, since I don't know how long it will stick around. I always go overboard, but I'm trying to improve. (Baby steps.) It's this time of year that ruins my dreams of becoming an underwear model. (Just kidding.)

 (This is irrelevant, but you have no idea how happy I am that some of the Cuties have Thanksgiving stickers! It also proves that I do sometimes eat healthy things.)

 After an institute activity there was homemade pumpkin chocolate chip bread. (Since I ate this I refrained from eating cookies.) It was good.

 I find it a little puzzling that Candy Corn M&Ms are more common than plain white chocolate ones. They're good if you like white chocolate. They're better than the Hershey's candy corn bars. (A funny side note about M&Ms. In 2013 and 2014, Target's exclusive M&M flavor was pumpkin spice, which sold out really early in 2013. This year, they switched to pumpkin spice latté. Not being a coffee drinker, I didn't get those. But when I went to Target on Friday--five days after Halloween--most of the fall M&Ms were gone; there were a few Crispy ones (which I had to get since it's been years) and a few candy corn ones. But there were literally shelves and shelves of the PSL M&Ms! I don't know whether it's because they were gross, or because there are lots of non-coffee drinkers around here.)

 Brach's Autumn Mix is a Thanksgiving standard. They come with plain candy corn, and I think Brach's candy corn is the best brand. They come with Indian corn, which has chocolate tips. I like them, but I'm sad they no longer have white tips. And then the pumpkins are good too. But these are only good when they're fresh. Also, you can't eat too many or you get way sick of them.

 Before a temple night this week, someone shared this dessert. I can't remember what it was called--gooey pumpkin butter cake? Whatever it was, it was amazing.

 This Stephen's Pumpkin Spice Hot Cocoa is fairly tasty, and you get a big whiff of spices when you open it. But it doesn't really taste like cocoa or pumpkin. It has an orange color that's both festive and a little disconcerting.

 I went to try the new Arby's Pumpkin Cheesecake Shake. This is an interesting item, since it's not a shake flavored like pumpkin, but a shake flavored like something flavored like pumpkin. For the first few sips, I could just taste the pumpkin, and it was pretty good. Then the "cheesecake" kicked in. It was awful. I'm not a big fan of cheesecake, but if this actually tasted like cheesecake, it would have been fine. It was more like plain cream cheese. Except that I don't remember cream cheese being so bitter, but then again I never had it in a shake like this. I hope that next year they see the error of their ways and do something different with the pumpkin. For now I'll stick with the minty shakes they do for Christmas and St. Patrick's Day.

 Since I quite enjoyed their pumpkin spice Cup Cakes, I had to try the Hostess Candy Corn Cup Cakes. They have the colored sprinkles, but that's the only connection I noticed to candy corn. It just tasted like plain cake. But then again, what flavor is candy corn?

 I actually got these Charms Candy Corn Pops for my cousin who's on a mission, since at Thanksgiving two years ago we had some and he wanted to go buy some. But I did take one out of the bag for the purpose of this roundup. These taste almost exactly like butterscotch. Which is good if you like butterscotch.

 Every year I get Candy Corn Taffy (which I think is made by Sweet's here in Salt Lake), even though they're not overly flavorful and can be sickeningly sweet.

 I refrained from getting caramel candy corn and instead got Brach's Peanut Butter Cup Candy Corn, which I haven't had before. The white tips are plain, the tan middle is supposed to be peanut butter, and the brown ends are chocolate. But I think it's a different chocolate than the Indian corn. They taste very artificial. I mean, they are artificial, but they don't have to taste that way!

 I do like Starburst Candy Corn. The reds are cherry, the pinks are strawberry, the oranges are orange, and the yellows are yellow. I mean lemon. It's Starburst flavor in a candy corn texture, although I think they're not as smooth as regular candy corn. I don't care much for the cherry (I don't know if it's the flavoring or the coloring), but I like the strawberry ones.

I used the pie pumpkin I roasted last week to make Pumpkin Black-Bean Turkey Chili. It had peppers, onions, garlic, cumin, chili powder, turkey (I used ground turkey), pumpkin, tomatoes, and chicken broth. I liked it, but it wasn't as flavorful as I had hoped, even though I accidentally spilled spices in it.

 

After seeing The Peanuts Movie, we went to Corner Bakery, where I got this Pumpkin Whoopee Pie. It was very good, but there was slightly too much filling.

My sister let me sample her Gingerbread Pumpkin Bundt Cake, something that's suitable for Halloween and Thanksgiving and Christmas. But it just tasted like ordinary spice cake to me. Which is good, but not unique.

I got these Wilton Pumpkin Spice Candy Melts to put in little Thanksgiving molds I have. (My niece did most of the candy making.) Now, these candy melts are meant to be decorative more than they're meant to taste good; but you'd think that if they bother to change the flavor, they'd bother to make them taste better. They still taste pretty plasticky, but with spices. I mean, I'll still eat them, but they're by no means great candy.

And then I bought some Walmart pumpkin pies for an event, and they were typical pumpkin pies. Which means they were good.

This was Halloween.

Ah, the last week of October.

I was able to get in what will likely be the last evening trail runs of the year, but not as much as I would have liked. Wednesday was particularly satisfying. I ran continuously up steep hills (knowing that it was getting dark and I had to turn around soon) among the colorful leaves. It was twilight, and I kept hearing an owl hoot. It was a little gloriously spooky. But a little dangerous, because it was cloudy and dark so I couldn't really see all the hazards of the trail.

There were a few frustrating things. I got a new laptop back in April, and after only a month or two it quit closing properly. If I simply closed it, it would remain open between a centimeter and an inch. Only by pressing down on the hinges would it close properly. Just recently I decided I'd had enough of that and contacted Toshiba to get it fixed. So they sent me a box in which to ship it to them.

They decided to send it FedEx. And they required a signature. Unfortunately, FedEx working hours are my working hours, so I wasn't home to get it. And they wouldn't leave it without a signature, and they wouldn't let me leave a signature on the door.

The little slip they provided said, "Guess what! You can go online and schedule a pickup!" (Well, it didn't literally say that.) I thought this was the best option. So I go online to try to do that. Turns out I have to make an account, which is annoying. So I make the account. And then I have to provide a credit card number, even though I'm not buying anything. And once the account is created, I still have to do more steps to schedule a pickup, including verifying information they creepily found about me (which I did not provide and which included erroneous information about my dad's address). And once I got through all that, it said, "Well, your package isn't eligible to schedule a pickup." (Well, it didn't literally say that. The options were just grayed out.) I was very annoyed. So I had to spend my Friday night driving out to West Valley to pick up an empty box, because that was the only way I could get it at that point.

Halloween was satisfying. My parents went to Hawaii with my grandparents and didn't take me, so my niece had to spend Halloween with me, since her mom worked. We carved pumpkins.

I did the ugly one on the left; that's the pumpkin I won at a race. Allie designed the one on the right but I carved it because she was trick-or-treating. I did the little one, put I didn't put a candle in it because I later roasted it to use the flesh.

I was really startled with the amount of trick-or-treaters. We usually get around ten. This year we had 32, 33 counting my niece. I wasn't prepared for so many, and I gave out way more than I expected. In addition to candy, my mom had bought some tiny Play-Doh cans. The kids loved those! Then they were all gone, so I tried to figure out what else I could give out in case I ran out of candy. I went to my Halloween box and found some spider rings and a glow-in-the-dark bat that I don't use, so I gave those out. I had to put something in the freezer and saw Otter Pops--and I thought that was a good thing to give out, especially since it was a warm Halloween.

Right before I went to bed, I looked outside and found a rat on the ground. Our cat, Jenny, likes to bring us dead rodents, but this was the biggest one I've ever seen (the rest have been probably large mice, maybe small rats). We had been out there not long before, so it was a fresh kill. When Jenny came in, it looked like she was limping slightly, so I hope she's OK. I've been trying to keep my eye on her.

 Today I took a shovel and took it to the garbage. There were flies on it, but it still looked quite fresh--its eyes glaring at me, its teeth poking out of its gaping mouth, its whiskers reflecting the light, its six-inch tail stuck in a permanent curve.

The other black thing on the brown bag is an older dead mouse.

Last week I found three in a row.

Halloween is over for another year, but now it's my favorite month.

***

My Pumpkinundation Roundup has included flavors of caramel apple, pumpkin, and candy corn. I consider pumpkin spice to be suitable for both Halloween and Thanksgiving but more appropriate for Thanksgiving. I consider candy corn to be appropriate for both holidays but more appropriate for Halloween. And I consider caramel apple to be suitable only for Halloween. So this is the last time you'll see caramel apple on this.

 I went to a Harry Potter-themed Halloween party, and they had this thing which looked like pumpkin bread, but I'm not sure if it was, because all I could taste was cinnamon.

 I bought these Entenmann's Pumpkin Donuts. They were pretty good, and they used real pumpkin (but caramel coloring). I used them for the classic Halloween game with my niece.

 Hershey's Candy Corn bars come in both small and large sizes. They're basically white chocolate with little yellow and orange sprinkles. I'm actually surprised they exist. They're good but not great. I gave out an entire bag to trick-or-treaters, but I had another bag, so there are still leftovers.

 At work they had a pie-eating social, so I snagged a piece of pumpkin pie before heading back to work.

 I went to Kneaders and had pumpkin cheesecake. It tastes just like what it is, pumpkin (and spices) and cheesecake. I'm not a huge cheesecake fan, so it was just OK. I think cheesecake is better in small doses.

 I bought one of these cheap Happy Apples caramel apples. The caramel and nuts were fine, but there was something off about the apple. I didn't want to get listeria, so I ate the caramel and threw the apple away.

 I had to get these Caramel Apple Sugar Babies to give to trick-or-treaters because I couldn't bear the thought of going another year without them. (I did successfully give the rest to the trick-or-treaters.) I'm not a big fan of Sugar Babies, but the caramel apple variety are one of the best Halloween candies ever invented. I know in the past they've also sold them in theater boxes, but I didn't see those this year. They are extremely satisfying; you can feel satisfied after only a few, but you can also keep eating them because they're so good.

 I think these Jet-Puffed Candy Corn Marshmallows are new this year. They make lots of holiday marshmallows, but a lot of them (ghosts, stars, bunnies) are just vanilla flavored. These didn't say vanilla, so I assumed they'd be candy corn-flavored. If they are, you can't taste it. They just taste like regular marshmallows. And they only have two colors (yellow and orange, no white)--so they don't taste like candy corn and don't entirely look like it either.

I roasted some of them on a little firepit we have and put them on a s'more with some candy corn Hershey's. But they're too small to trap much heat or provide a good ratio in a s'more. I also don't think s'mores were meant to have white chocolate.

 The Jet-Puffed Pumpkin Spice Mallows actually taste like something. Too bad it's not pumpkin. All I can taste is ginger, whereas usually you taste cinnamon or nutmeg. They're OK. I often use them in hot chocolate this time of year, but it hasn't been cold enough for that yet.

These Pecan Pie M&Ms don't technically belong here, but they're interesting enough for me to include. They were a Walmart exclusive this year (but I think the Candy Corn M&Ms started out as a Walmart exclusive and now they're everywhere). I consider pecan pie to be only for Thanksgiving, not Halloween, yet I suspect they'll end up in the clearance bins along with the Halloween candy this week. Pecan pie is one of my favorite Thanksgiving things--I like it better than pumpkin and apple--so I had to try these. They definitely have a unique flavor, but I'm not sure it's pecan pie, since half of the thrill of pecan pie is the texture--the chewy pecans in the sticky goodness over the crust. Whether these taste like pecan pie or not, they're still quite good--probably better than plain M&Ms.

And since caramel apple season is over, I'm going to list all the caramel apple things I had and give them a rating on a five-star scale.
Caramel Apple Jolly Rancher Lollipops***
Caramel Apple Peeps***
caramel apple salt water taffys***
Kneaders Oreo caramel apple*****
Stephen's Caramel Apple Cider*
Caramel Apple Caramel Cob***
Kneaders cinnamon caramel apple*****
Happy Apples caramel apple: disqualified
Caramel Apple Sugar Babies*****