My Personal Saint

November 1st is J's birthday, and All Saint's Day, as he likes to remind me, as if there is a direct correlation between the two facts.

Growing up, he brainwashed his many siblings into giving him a portion of their Halloween candy as his due, and continued with our kids. They were happy to give him the items they didn't like, as they did with the black jelly beans at Easter. Nowadays, his birthday is spent shopping the Halloween clearance sales, for next year's ghouls, and he made out pretty well this year, with a handful of masks for .10 each.

We drove down to RI Thursday to spend the night, leaving the dogs with Grandma and Grandpa while we went to MA Friday to help with the move to Sectaur's new house. He couldn't take time off, so Ameranth was directing the movers who were hired to move the big stuff. Such as the 3 couches that had to go out the way they came in last year- through the window to the fire escape, that has a spiral staircase. No way were we about to try that!

The new house is less than a mile away from their apartment, and most of the day was spent loading up the van, pulling the other car into the parking spot to hold it for the next load and feeding the meter. After a load or two, I opted out of the stair trips and stayed behind to clean the apartment. Ms M came up early to take Anna away to play with her dog for the day, which helped greatly. Then she came back to help us finish up. Underestimating the sheer volume of belongings and a shortage of boxes resulted in a lot of unpacked stuff lying around which nearly made us turn around and leave.  Just kidding! We wouldn't have abandoned you guys.

Anyway, they are settled in to the very nice little house he bought and will be much happier there than above the bar with the karaoke Thursdays. I don't know how long Ameranth will want to live with her brother, and vice versa, but for now it's working out.

I had posted a picture of my apple squares last week and got quite a response. My father sent an email saying they read my blog and thought perhaps they should get a square or two for lodging and dogsitting?  That was already in the plans, I assured them.

Then I found out that Ameranth and Ms M discussed the fact that it would be pretty cruel to post the picture if some weren't headed their way. Of course I had planned to bring them down with us. The last one was sent home with Ms M for Mr C, and I assume it made it there safely. (If it didn't, Mr C,  then I was mistaken and she didn't take it with her)

We headed home again Saturday, aching and tired, with no Halloween candy in the house. J had his candy tithe from his children, 4 small bars of candy, and Tictacs for emergency backup. We haven't had anyone show up for several years, but lo and behold, a friend of Shoeshine's showed up with his son. Yay!  The spooky music played and the ghouls swayed in the wind, and J was happy.