Maybe I should be grateful we had only two dozen! If we’d had a hundred trick or treaters the Milk Duds and Doritos would have run out and I would have had no choice but to start giving out my precious peanut butter cups.

YES, I loved the paintings! I remember really excellent paintings from at least one other of the Poe movies, maybe Masque? I have read that Vincent Price was a connoisseur of such things and I wonder if he perhaps had something to do with selecting the artist?

That’s sad EB won’t be there for Christmas. But you will have your cousin and the girls as well as Mimi Puff, right? Do EBs parents know he won’t be bringing Mimi Puff along? It would be awful if he arrived and his parents looked disappointed for it to just be him! I can’t imagine how difficult it would be to care for…

Yeah, I liked Masque a lot better! I wonder if maybe the digital versions were subject to some kind of generic remastering that brightened scenes that were meant to be darker? The brightness made no sense at all, the dialogue kept suggesting the action was taking place in dark rooms! At one point a character lights a…

Halloween movie this week: The House of Usher from 1960. I’ve seen two other adaptations of this story, both from 1928 by some coincidence, either of which I’d recommend instead. The 1960 version wasn’t terrible, it was certainly more thoughtful than most B-grade horror movies. I think I mostly resented how bright it…

I’m glad to hear you won’t be travelling for Christmas. That trip must have totally worn you out when it was just you and EB, I can’t imagine looking after Mimi Puff the whole way. Yes, it would be much better if everyone would come to see you instead, maybe just one or two at a time. I hope Kristy isn’t scheming…

Don’t tell anyone, but I secretly opened one of our boxes of Halloween candy today. I just opened it a teeny little bit and sneaked out a couple KitKats. You know how it is when you suddenly get really hungry and its easy enough to have a protein bar or apple or something when that’s all you have in the house but when…

Oh yeah, The Haunting! You are right, that is the best of the bunch! The prologue by itself is scarier than most movies!

To tell the truth, when I was little I never liked Trick or Treating much. Because where I grew up it was so cold by Halloween I always had to have a big jacket over my costume! A ghost costume just does not look very scary when you have a parka over it and big fuzzy mittens, haha! So I thought of Trick or Treating as…

I only tried Milk Duds for the first time a couple Halloweens ago and I was really excited because the little yellow box was so appealing! And then they turned out to be monstrous wads of tar that nearly yanked my fillings out! Were ours just stale or are they supposed to be like that?

Halloween movies this week. Last Year at Marienbad is a great movie to watch at any time of year, but it is most suited for nights when you need the comfort of ghosts. There really aren’t very many good gothic ghost stories out there. The Uninvited? The Innocents? Far too few! Marienbad isn’t usually considered gothic…

I hope your weather improves soon so you can take Mimi Puff around outside a bit before winter arrives. Have your neighbours met her yet?

Do the girls want to hold Mimi Puff and carry her? That can be kind of scary! I’ll bet they can hardly wait until she is big enough that they can play with her! You are so right about how families living together is a good idea when there are children. A single parent never gets a moment’s rest. Did your cousin hold…

Oh I am definitely hungry for more mystery! But I suspect the historical society here doesn’t know what our house used to be.  And I wonder if they might be a bit embarrassed to admit this part of the town’s history! But I will tell the historical people what I’ve discovered once I’ve stripped the wallpaper off all of…

I’m relieved to hear school is as far away as April. Although that is still too soon because its school and school can never be too far away. Mimi Puff is a Halloween baby! OH! Have you watched the Great Pumpkin or Grinch Night or Garfield Halloween with her yet? So many traditions to share with Mimi Puff! Is…

Not math! Claudia, everything was going so perfectly and then you have to mention MATH! I can’t believe you are dealing with school again so soon!! I mean, I’m glad its the school you actually like, but even the best school is still a school! Is there day care right at the school? That is so soon to be apart from Mimi…

Mimi Puff! I’m glad to hear the delivery went well and that Scholastic will have to make up their own adventure. A regular delivery is a big enough adventure on its own! How did it feel to have little Mimi Puff in your arms for the first time?

CLAUDIA! You’re a mom!! I’m glad notifications work here because I haven’t visited this thread for ages! It doesn’t look like we can get to the end without LOAD MORE COMMENTS maybe a million times?

This week I watched The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes, which I highly recommend if you love Holmes stories. This is a very lonely and melancholy Sherlock but its not a depressing movie overall, there is an engaging mystery to go with the introspection. And the music is beautiful!

I watched Alexander this week. Having just watched Troy the week before it was impossible to not note one identical scene, where the hero of the story in a vulnerable moment finds a knife held to his throat by a woman who had previously been under his control. In both cases he disarms her by asking her to kill him.…