Halloween week! I had originally planned to just have spooky Halloween photos this week but I couldn’t quite make it work. At this point in 2026, after all, daily life is scary enough that a few bony revenants would be a welcome relief. What’s that? Oh yes, they’re all in the Senate. However! I will be glad when this election is over and so, probably, will you. I should have gone as a political text message but I decided it was just too alarming. So instead I went as a fat distracted grandmother in a fuzzy green onesie with polka dots. It was also alarming but not in a good way.

So! The week in photos! The rains have returned more or less and with them the rainbows. In Astoria we go directly from spider season to rainbow season. On Monday I took Harvey to a new vet across the river in Washington. He is apparently physically extremely healthy, which is good, but there’s not much to be done about his crippling anxiety, which is less good. Argh. But the vet’s office is two blocks from the beach and anyway, crossing the river early in the morning is awesome. On Tuesday Five carved pumpkins with her mom and here is her pumpkin in the foreground. Wednesday, I took Harvey for a walk by the marina and oooh, stormy golden hour light. Thursday, here’s a rainy window photo near the college. I really like this photo a lot. Friday, Five and I carved pumpkins and here they are, along with Mr. Binks looking like the embodiment of Halloween. And yesterday was Halloween, and here are Five and her bff coming away from an extremely scary house that they bravely trick or treated anyway. Five’s friend was Rani from K Pop Demon Hunters (there were many Ranis, last night) and when she got scared she yelled for her sword, which was great. Five was the fairy princess spirit of the forest and looked amazing. “I’m here to protect the forest,” she told someone at my office on Friday solemnly, “from humans.” The college where I work does it UP for Halloween and it was a fantastic year for the student costume contest. Five and I stopped by to say hello to the giant inflatable dinosaur munching on the art building and check out the spooky carnival.

Halloween: we went downtown first – downtown Astoria does a sort of trick or treat / impromptu Halloween family parade on Commercial Street every year. It was packed; it always is. The businesses have people sitting in front handing out candy or other treats – on brand with the expired corn nuts, deals only! Some of them, this year, made people go inside, which is either brilliant, or, maybe not: I would totally have bought a jar of eggplant spread at the little European grocery but I couldn’t quite see lugging it along. We saw tigers and many inflatable dinosaurs, Harry Potter is still around, sigh, lots of witches and wizards, lots of KPop demon hunters, some teenagers with light up jellyfish umbrellas, someone from Mars Attacks on rollerskates (she wins) several Waldos and one tiny, just starting to walk, sasquatch who was stumbling happily all over the sidewalk. Too many great costumes to even count, really. I took a bunch of film photos and I hope they turn out. And then, after dinner at Fort George – many more costumes – we went to Coast Guard housing for trick or treat. Coast Guard housing also does it UP and it was fabulous. I bowed out after the red house, above, and came home to try out my Instagram witch wine (see last week.) I had muttered my intentions, put it on the windowsill of my room to be “moon bathed” – well, okay, granted it was sort of streetlight bathed and possibly sunlight bathed when there was sunlight, but one does one’s best and one’s best is decidedly not leaving a full bottle of wine out in the front yard where the moon actually hits. Weirdly enough, half the cork had come up. That was strange. I drank a little bit; it tastes like – wait for it – cheap red wine that’s on the way out! And he’s not dead or in jail, sigh. So the magic did not quite take, YET, but hey, cheap red wine: what else should you drink with Halloween candy? My son reported that we had three total trick or treaters – score, more candy for us.

Now on to Thanksgiving and Christmas and then, as Five would like to be sure everyone knows, Valentines Day and Easter and then the Fourth of July and THEN, then, Five will be SIX. It is good to know where you are in the year. Onwards through the fall we go.