Chicagoween

Once again, Chicago has said it loud and clear: this is a city for children. We have never seen so much hoopla over Halloween -- anywhere! I caught myself on Sunday referring to the holiday in the past tense as if it were completely over; that's how much pre-Halloween festivity we had already enjoyed by that point. To give you an idea, there were four Halloween parties before we actually went trick-or-treating. But on to the real thing...

This afternoon the boys and I walked over to our local business district on Lincoln Avenue for a Trick-or-Treat extravaganza. Just walking up and down a 2-block stretch filled their candy bags to capacity. After dinner we all went out to some houses in the neighborhood and had a great time.

There were so many more trick-or-treaters here than in San Francisco! Within the first five minutes of dinner we had as many kids at the door as we would get in a whole night in the Inner Sunset. Also, we actually knew well over half the families who came to our door; it's hard to describe what a satisfying feeling that is. As annoying as it was that the owners' realtor came and made available an Open House tonight (HUH?!), it was gratifying to have near-strangers make faces at me, demonstrating quietly that they could see just how lame that was and that they knew it sucked for us. People here are really awfully nice.

My two favorite moments tonight were:

1) When Lyle suddenly "got it" -- this trick-or-treating thing, it wasn't only about putting on his doggy costume. It was ALSO about getting treats! He stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, pulled out his first candy and held it up to me in wonder, exclaiming, "Dessert!"

2) When Baxter, in a big crowd of people, got caught up in the excitement and yelled out, "Look at that guy dressed up like a dog!!!" We all turned and looked: it was a dog.