The Daily News:
A Halloween for the Ages!

Matt and Coley enjoying the
 goulishly delicious
 Frydendall Ball,
Disneyland, California. 

Supergirl Isla and Daddy.

Supergirl Isla

Batgirl Maren

The city can sleep safely tonight.

The Frydendall Ball.

1   Was anybody else as dazzled by this Halloween as I was?

2  First off, it proved beyond doubt that we have a second baby boom happening.

3  I feared shortages of candy and I over-bought. I settled on handing out cheap, two-inch lollipops from Big Lots later in the eve.

4  Our house rests down the street from an elementary school. I drove to the store at around six p.m. and on my return found groups of seven kids and four adults gathering everywhere for the Great Haunt. 

5  The air was abuzz with electricity and anticipation.

6   We plugged in electric pumpkins rather than carving the award-winning pumpkins we got from this magical patch. Those I chose carefully. One was clearly a Cinderella coach; another a Disney's California Adventure Tow Mater's Junkyard Jamboree tractor. A third I picked out because it had the look of a classic Jack O' Lantern. And one yellow summer-squash became an elegant swan. I never carved them. Each looked like these things. That was enough for me.

7  I poured us a couple of beverages, grabbed some chips, dip, and food from Rafa's, a take-out Mexican restaurant hidden in a Shell station nearby. Best Mexican place in town.

8  San Franciscans might relate to this: Rafa's has food that tastes like The Hot House, of Playland fame. 

The Original Hot House, Playland-

at-the-Beach, San Francisco.

9  The sauce. My God lads and ladies. The sauce. I felt I was sitting in a car at Ocean Beach. 

10  AND we hadn't eaten a bloody thing all day.

11  After a fine Manhattan, we settled in, eating and awaiting doorbells. I took a tortilla chip, put dip on it, took a bite and a sip, and settled right into Le Luge when the doorbell rang.

12  I jumped up excitedly, because I love answering the door on Halloween. I opened the door to around eight ghouls, goblins, princes, princesses, and a zebra.

13  Right in my face, however, at eye level mind you, was an enormous baby's face. Some teenager went as a gigantic baby. At first my mind couldn't wrap itself around it. Then it materialized. A baby with a head twice the size of mine, staring at me, eye-level. 

14  "Trick-or-Treat!" they said, followed by yells and giggles. 

15  As I tossed the candy into the bags, I relaxed my shoulders and said, "You guys are scary!"

16  The zebra became upset. 

17  "How can I be scary?" he asked. Little guy. "I'm a zebra!"

18  It stopped me, but only for a sec.

19  "Well, I think you're an awesome zebra!" I said. 

20  "Happy Halloween!" they said again, turning and moving to the next place. I said, "Happy Halloween!" right back and closed the door.

21  The babies of the Baby Boomers have had babies. 

22  Large ones. 

23  The tone was set; the game plan: in order to get them to ring the doorbell, I had to have a mouthful of food, a sip of wine, and moment of peace. The second I gave into relaxation, the doorbell was sure to go off. 

24  At first we switched off answering the door, but soon it became clear this was going to be a record-breaking Halloween. 

25  It became routine soon enough. 

26  At one point, Josh and Caitlin sent us pics of Isla and Maren dressed as Supergirl and Batgirl. Somehow the costumes fit, and the city became safe.

27  My first instinct was to drive over, but I feared antsy candy maniacs and greedy ghouls would dash across the street in search of sweets. Discretion overruled me. Too many little ones dashing about. 

28  The adults also dressed out. One couple became both Waldo and Waldo. Easy to spot. They waved. It convinced me that someday, they were going to die within minutes of each other. They smiled and waved once more. Tweedledee. Tweedledum.

29  Other parents dressed as Jedi's, Vader's, painted zombies, ballerinas, Jokers, and Batmen. And fat Bat Wimminz. 

30  All pushed strollers. 

31  Classic. One of the best Halloweens ever, and the reviews showed it. 

32  I couldn't keep up. Shannon's wedding celebration, the Frydendall Ball came to us from Disneyland. Matt and Nicole were honored guests.

33  Family and friends kept posting pics, each with a bit of hilarity, some with quirkiness, and all with celebration. Best Halloween of the Decade, according to many. I agree.

34  As the night moved on, the doorbell got abused. It usually calms down around 8:30, but this went well into nine. When I finally decided to shut it all down, I opened the door and looked around.

35  The silence became instant, save for a few shadows silhouetted down the street in front of the school. 

36  I looked at my driveway, and someone had lost a purple glow necklace. 

37  I generally never pick up anything that has hit the street, save for a few lucky pennies.They're good luck. I'm convinced. 

38  They're instant good luck because already you are richer. Richness is underrated. 

39  I brought the glow necklace inside and laid it on an end table.

40  I eventually kicked back in Le Luge and drifted off for a few hours. 

41  At around four, I awakened. The Halloween houses on the mantle were still lit, the house cold, and the dishes in need. 

42  I decided to clean. I swept through the room de-cluttering, rinsing, wiping, and putting things in the dishwasher. The cartons containing Rafa's Mexican food had almost nothing left. Licked clean. I got everything cleaned up and shiny, and was about to sit down when I looked over and saw the glow-necklace. 

43  I picked it up, and all the juice came out of it and spilled on the end table. I grabbed some paper towels and wiped it immediately, but then got glow-in-the-dark purple juice all over the paper towel, the table, and my fingers. 

44  The trouble there is that you can't just wipe a glow-in-the-dark necklace, dip it in dishwater, and throw it on a drying rack. The stuff you wiped up glows in the dark, and gets on everything.

45  I feared scratching an itch.

46  I washed thoroughly with dish soap; I just hope the keys on my laptop haven't suffered any permanent paint jobs. I'll know soon enough. I then wiped everything that glowed until it didn't. No small task, but it had to get done.

47  I did a cursory clean-up of everything else. I knew I had the morning, which would begin probably at around 4 a.m.

48  Gained an hour anyway, which helped me sleep.

49  When 4:30 a.m. came round, I knew it was 3:30. I ran the dishwasher and straightened, emptied garbage, de-cluttered still more, grabbed a comforter and hopped back on Le Luge. No point waking anyone.

50  I hopped online and cruised Facebook, throwing liberal amounts of "likes," and even a few comments. After a bit, I found a strange documentary on The Beatles and let it take me wherever.

51  I eventually dozed deeply and slept soundly.

52  

53  Fun stuff. 

54   Moving On, Part One: I shall continue with writing lessons, beginning this second. 

55   Over the past few months, I have shared different means of editing. I find it gets tougher to do when challenged. This morning I'm going to work off what I wrote last night. 

56  My focus? I hope to go back through the first couple of thousand words and remove 80 per cent of the adverbs.

An adverb is a word used to modify a verb, or to make more specific, a verb, an adjective, or another adverb. 

A bit complicated, but if you use THE vulgar word, I could demonstrate the differences. While this is done routinely these days, I remember discovering this on my own. 

The word is f**k. 

It is now considered chic to tout f**k the most versatile word in the English language. I claim I discovered this while teaching the Parts of Speech a bazillion years ago. 

So with little fanfare, I bring to you the most vulgar grammar lesson ever. I do this for your own good. Work with me. 

Listen: the word modify means "to make more specific." If you have a truck, you just have a truck. It's a thing. It's a noun. If you have a red truck, the word red modifies the word truck. It makes the word truck more specific. 

Below you will find three columns. The column on the left gives the Part of Speech. The column called Function tells what that part of speech does. The column called Use in Sentence uses bold letters to show you the location of the part of speech in the given sentence. You ready? Here go:

Part of Speech        Function                        Use in Sentence

Noun             Names persons, places     You stupid f**k.

                      things, ideas.                     John is a stupid f**k.

Pronoun        Takes the place of a noun.  He is a stupid f**k.

Adjective      Makes a noun or pronoun    Look at that f**kin' guy. 

                      more specific. 

Verb              Shows action.                   Many people f**k.

Verb (linking) Links noun or pronoun   She IS a stupid f**k.

                        to a noun or adjective.     John is f**ked-up.

Adverb           Modifies verbs.            He f**king ran!

(Tells to what extent he ran. Its use here indicates frantically and swiftly, possibly nervous. This is similar to the Nor-Cal use: He hella ran! Do you see how it makes ran more specific?)

Adverb            Modifies adjectives.     Are you f**king stupid?

Adverb            Modifies other adverbs.  You did that f**king                                                                                   incredibly!

Preposition      Shows the relationship of a noun to 

                         another word in the sentence.

                 

                          As far as I can tell, the word f**k 

                          can never be a preposition. 

                          Here is how it is used if the noun is a f**ked up 
                          dog who is running: 

EXAMPLES:    The f**ked-up dog ran through the house. 

                           (This shows the relationship of the dog

                             to the house. Get it?)

MORE:               The f**ked-up dog ran around the house.

                              "       "           "     "   in the house.

                                                              outside the house.

                                                              from the house.

                                                              away from the house.

Do you get the basic idea of what a prepostion does? 

Let us return to the Parts of Speech, using the word f**k:

Conjunction      Joins words.  

                                    As far as I can tell, the word f**k 

                               can never be a conjunction. 

                           The conjunctions are and, but, or, nor, for, and                                        yet.

                            Memorize quickly: And starts with the letter a, 
                            the first letter of the alphabet. The word but starts
                            with the letter b, the second letter of the alphabet.

                             Or, nor, and for all rhyme, so all you need to 
                             remember is the word yet. 

                              Oh, and the word so worked its way into being
                              a conjunction, so we can throw that into the                                               mix.

                              Got it? Close your eyes. Tell me the con-                                                   junctions.

                               You can do this with the word fanboys as well.
                               Each letter is a conjunction. 

IMPORTANCE:     These are the only words that can be used with
                                a comma to join two complete thoughts.

EXAMPLES:

                                 John is a f**kin' idiot, and he is a f**kin'
                                 horse's a**.

                                 He might be a f**kin' idiot, but he's still a
                                 decent guy. 

                                 Any other use of two complete thoughts must
                                 be separated by a semi-colon, or with end 
                                 punctuation.

                                 John is a f**kin' idiot; he's also a f**kin'
                                 horse's a**.

                                 or

                                  John is a f**kin' idiot. He's also a f**in'
                                  horses a**.

Interjection     A word with no                F**k! I stubbed my toe!
                         grammatical function       Oh, that's okay.
                         in a sentence.

56  That is a lesson I could never give, even though when I'd tell others about it, they would encourage this mischief.

57  I furbished a disclaimer on Facebook, rating this PG-13, but I think they changed the rating system back to M, meaning "mature."

58  This was anything but.

59  This should be rated "L" for "lark."

60   It was an L of an effort. 

61   I gottago. Hope you enjoyed the lesson. Admit that you chuckled a few times. 

62  See you again.

63  Have a GREAT day.

64  Peace.

~H~

        

                                 

fin.