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My dad has good reason to gloat right now, but he isn't: for years he has been ridiculed and teased for his extensive collection of Halloween candles, some of which extend back 40 years. Some of these candles I've seen my entire life (we didn't burn those), but a few of them are cheap white wax, painted over, and we had no problem burning those. Lots of cheap melting ghosts and witches, and fragrant pumpkin-pie votives.

There was a delicious spicy-pumpkin scent in the air last night during our adventure. Orange in black.

To add to that motif, my mom and I went downstairs to look at the moon and Mars, and it seemed like half the island was out on the streets, chatting by the lights of the generators. Trellis, the diner downstairs, set up tables outside with huge plastic tubs of cole slaw and things and people were eating up the food before it could spoil. It was like a block party.

My mom said it reminded her of the old days of the stoop culture, which doesn't exist much anymore in our increasingly wired/disconnected world. (The only people you see outside anymore, chatting, under normal conditions, are old people. One of the reasons I love old people.)

We made our way down the dark street with a flashlight, got to the courtyard by Blackwell House and peered up through the trees at the sky over Queens, and there was the moon, big and golden and low in the sky, and I'm pretty sure that we gazed at Mars, too. More orange in black.

And luckily, we only live on the fourth floor, so it wasn't a hard climb back.

Why are you in Tavie's head? 2:23 AM | shower me with attention