After the wonderfulness [sarcasm alert] of this week, which included being sick on Monday and Quasimodo on Wednesday due to a fall on Tuesday, I was ready for a better weekend. The end of the week did trend better: we had a "fall festival" at work and Friday went normally enough, but sadly James had to work today.

Yeah, I took the opportunity to sleep late. As a Facebook post said, "The best treat this weekend is an extra hour of sleep." LOL. It was nice because I mostly tossed and turned during the night. (Once again I have better dreams in the daytime. Was I nocturnal in a previous life?)

As Aubrey Spivey can probably attest, Tucker's "magic cookies" make him instantly walk into his crate at night. He was down to four. So I harnessed up the "terror," put him on a solid instead of a flexi leash, sat him on a towel in the passenger seat of the car, and took him downtown with me. The parking lot at Cobb Parkway was full, so I worked around the back of downtown and parked at the public lot behind Johnnie McCracken's pub.

Wow. Not only was the Farmer's Market going great guns, but there was a big Hallowe'en event in Glover Park. They had school choirs performing, kids in costume, scarecrows, a big Scholastic Book Fair table, and boxes of free books, mostly children's books, but also some adult volumes. I found an old Dell Yearling book about Ethel Roosevelt; when you see books about Theodore Roosevelt's children they are usually about Alice. The park was filled with families with kids in and out of costume, and even some dogs dressed up. Tucker greeted a pair of schnauzers, many mixed breeds, a shy chihuahua, two toy poodles (one dressed up like bumblebee), a diffident greyhound, and a cocker spaniel. Then, as we were rounding the second row of Farmer's Market booths, there ahead near the Big Daddy dog biscuit tent was a big German Shepherd, even bigger than Tucker's "deadly enemy," the Shep down the street. Tucker did not bark at him, but confidently trotted up until he was about two feet from the big dog, who was standing calmly looking at him, not hostile, just interested. Tucker looked at him for about ten seconds, then retreated behind me. No question who won the dominance game that time.

We walked past the Corner Shop to peek in and say hi to the proprietor, then walked all the way down to DuPre's before returning to the car. Stopped by Dunkin Donuts and got a chicken salad on a French roll for lunch (as I said, not much on chicken salad, but suitably bland for my dang freaky digestion, and the bread is good), then returned home. I think I tired him out. :-)

Later I spent time resetting most of the clocks—Daylight Saving Time being gone, gone, gone finally—and decanting all but one of my calendars (the other is for work and is in my bag) and putting them in place for the New Year. Discovered FX marathoning The Simpsons annual "Treehouse of Horror," so stopped there until it was time for James to come home.

About four o'clock someone knocked on the door. I was busy at the moment and didn't get downstairs until after they'd gone. Figured it was the mailman. Sure enough, the mailbox was crammed with medications  James ordered from Kaiser, my coupon book selection from Barnes & Noble (The Santa Claus Man), and miscellaneous mail. I just had them in hand and was heading back to the porch when I heard a shout from down the street and there was big old plush Max lolloping toward me with his kid following behind. I collared him for her and he rolled over on his back to get his tummy rubbed. What a sweetie.

I noticed that our neighbors across the street were out for Hallowe'en (their little boy usually goes trick or treating) and had blocked their stairs with "caution" tape. I didn't have any of that, but used Tucker's long leash to block ours. I hoped this would stop the kids from coming up on the porch like they did the past two years and banging on the door (as late as 9:30!) even though we had no lights on. [It did. I think four houses in our neighborhood had lights on.]

At six I took Tucker outside and when James got home we were off to West Cobb Diner for supper. We were held up for about ten minutes while police cleared yet another nasty accident at Dallas Highway and John Ward Road (there was one yesterday), and then were served almost supernaturally quickly at the Diner. I guess the advantage of going out to eat on Hallowe'en night is that there aren't any crowds out there. We both have turkey leftovers. And I finished the next Mary Russell mystery, The Moor.

Came home to watch The Real History of Halloween, the For Better or For Worse Hallowe'en special "The Good-for-Nothing," and It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown. (Oh, and more "Treehouse of Horror" episodes.)

Labels: books, dogs, food, Hallowe'en, pets, seasons, shopping, television

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 11:58:00 PM

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