It's just going to have to stay October here for a few days, until I get around to either making a design or going back to the old one, which is almost impossible for me to do, usually. I have a start on a new design, but I haven't looked at in a few days, and it needs some work. And I figured since it's The Day of the Dead today (and continues to be celebrated tomorrow), I'm okay with the Halloween design.

After all that running around last night--to the gas station, to the grocery store for more candy, through the Taco Bell drive-through for a hasty dinner, rushing home to take the pumpkin back out onto the porch and light it, to eat quickly before the kids started arriving, to pour the candy out into the bowl, to be sure I knew where both cats were so they couldn't bolt out the door--

No one came.

Not one single soul rang the doorbell and called "Trick or Treat." Not one. I hadn't expected a lot, but surely someone would have come by. We heard a couple of groups in the street, and Bob said once, "Here they come," but no one ever actually ventured up onto the porch. I'm sorry now I went to all the trouble, but of course if I hadn't, I suppose 100 little ghouls would have beaten down the door.

I suppose I'll have forgotten all about it next year. But wait, that's what this is for, isn't it?

Jon Carroll was cranky about Halloween this year, too.

Many of you who have been reading this journal for awhile will remember Gingko, who wrote Dreaming Among the Jade Clouds. I heard from her friend Ceit this morning (Ceit writes Book of the Amber Dragon) that Gingko took her own life Sunday night. I'm shocked and saddened . . . what else can I say? She did beautiful, meticulous work that I often studied, but could never come close to. She was a complicated person with many demons that she tried to keep hidden, but that finally overwhelmed her.

Her husband wrote a tribute to her here.