Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween, my friendly ghosts and ghouls! I hope your day is filled with plenty of fun, frights, family, and of course, sugary sweets. After all, this is basically the only day of the year besides Thanksgiving when gorging yourself on a particular food item is not only allowed, but encouraged. I myself will be digging into a bag of chocolate-covered pretzels tomorrow night while handing out candy to trick-or-treaters.

Sadly, my family typically does not get into the Halloween spirit. We don't dress up (though, I probably would if I had a reason... dressing up is no fun if you're simply going to sit at home), we don't decorate (I carved a pumpkin, but the rest of the house is barren), and we don't have any fun with it. For us, it's yet another excuse to eat junk food. Sad but true.

To be fair, when we were all younger, we did do the costumed, trick-or-treat, candy thing. I remember one year I was a weatherman who'd been hit by lightning... hair standing up, "burn" marks, the whole nine yards. I was also a black hole back in my astronomy phase as a little kid, but I don't remember much of that one. But now that we're all grown up, we only celebrate the Big Four Holidays: Christmas, Thanksgiving, Easter, and New Year's (with 4th of July being a semi-annual reason to stay up late and watch fireworks).

When I get my own place, I vow never to go a year without decorations of some kind for all the major holidays. I mean, shouldn't there be like a "Halloween Carol" movie for those Scrooges out there who dislike All Hallow's Eve? It's the one time a year you get to get away from yourself and be something or someone you aren't! Oh well, there's always next year.

As an aside, those of you who are actually interested in my crusade to keep funding for the NSF's political science department: no new news on the amendment's passage or failure. There's been no action on it since it was introduced on the Senate floor on Oct. 13. Updates remain forthcoming.