The Scariest Thing About This Season

Hint: It’s not the ghosts and goblins

Who’s with me in the belief that the scariest thing this time of year is election season?  It seems like we can’t turn on the TV or radio without hearing horrible ads about every single person running for office.  Sure, the presidential race is dominating the news, but all the local races have turned into mud-slinging contests.  Every day, I go to the mailbox and pull out one or two pieces of actual mail and walk the political flyers to our recycling bin before I go inside the house.

This past week, I’ve kept the TV turned off, or turned on to Netflix and Disney where I can skip the ads.  I’ve tried my best to avoid doom-scrolling social media. Just dip in for a quick post promoting something I wrote then back out again. 

The last couple of days, I tried something radical. Something refreshing and restorative.  I turned off all the devices and got the heck out of the house! 

My husband and I went to a local cider mill and walked the nature trail, ate yummy food, and petted some farm animals.

Cider Mill and Pumpkins

Nature trail, leaves, and pond.

It made me a little sad to see these guys trapped behind bars, but they seemed okay with it so long as they received a steady supply of visitors providing snacks and scratches.

Goat, baby cow, and sheep looking for a snack.

I found a disproportionate amount of happiness in apple pie and apple cider!

Apple cider and apple pie. I love pie!

We found a lot of delicious foods in the gift shop, along with a few curious flavors. Toe Jam anyone?

A variety of jams, jellies, and syrups with some unusual names.

I got my nails done!  Don’t you just love those little sparkly leaves?

We drove around the neighborhood and admired the Halloween decorations.  We usually do this with Christmas decorations, but this is the first time we’ve cruised around looking at lights for this particular holiday.  I never realized how many people go over the top for spooky yard décor.  They are often the same people who put Clark Griswold to shame at Christmas.

(Where does one store that 12-foot-tall skeleton during the off-season?  Does he share a bunk with the life-sized Santa and eight not-so-tiny reindeer?)

Halloween on our street.

A couple houses nearby attracted so much attention that they were on the local news.

Halloween nearby. That had to be a lot of work!

The weather on Halloween night was quite warm, seventy degrees and windy.  Today is expected to be twenty degrees colder as a front blows in on that strong wind.  Last night, we sat in front of the house with a bowl of candy and greeted a variety of trick-or-treaters ranging from infants up to late teens, early adults.  I don’t care how old they are.  You dress up, you get candy.  And one lucky visitor grabbed the special treat I buried in the bowl.  Can you spot it in the picture? Live mas.

Can you spot the special prize?

Of course, the season is topped off not by pumpkin-spiced everything, (I hate the taste of pumpkin.  There, I said it.) but by Taco Bell rolling out their Decades Menu.  They brought back the tostada from the sixties, the green burrito from the seventies, the Meximelt from the eighties, and the Gordita Supreme from the nineties.  Halloween was the release date, and I was there at 11:00 in the morning, fresh from my nail appointment, to snap up one of each decade and scurry home to share. 

My favorite has always been the Meximelt, and it did not disappoint.  My husband is split between the tostada and green burrito.  I can’t speak to the flavor, but the burrito travels much better than the tostada.  This guy looked pretty sad when I got him home.

Sad-looking tostada.

Mentally, I’m feeling much better after getting out in the world instead of hiding under the covers.  This morning, I’m surprised that I don’t feel terrible physically.  Between the abrupt weather change and two days of poor eating – I had a small pie and Taco Bell, plus some random candy nibbles while handing it out – I thought I would be miserable.  I’m a little swollen from the salt, and I woke up with heartburn around 4:00 and finally got out of bed at 5:00, but that’s not too bad. I’m tired and will have a quiet day around the house, without listening to the TV or radio.  There are over a hundred CDs in a storage cabinet in the living room.  Now, where did we store the CD player?

What are you doing this week to keep your sanity as our country plays hopscotch with democracy?  Give me your best tips and tactics below.  Pictures of your pets in costume are also greatly encouraged, but I don’t think you can attach pictures in comments.  Just DM the pics with a little something about them and I’ll make a separate post featuring all the furry faces.

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