I am anticipating a large amount of trick-or-treaters at my house this year and I made sure to buy enough candy. My apartment gets more trick-or-treaters than you could imagine! Our neighborhood has hundreds of kids in it, no exaggeration. Adding to the already-heavy Halloween foot traffic, there are housing projects nearby and those families bring their children to my neighborhood for trick-or-treating.

We run out of candy every year long before the older kids get there… you know, the ones dressed in black, reeking of shaving cream, carrying pillowcases full of eggs and TP. If you don’t give them candy, your house or car might get egged.

This year, I am prepared! I bought six giant bags of candy. Yes, I paid way too much on candy, and I bought the good stuff. We’re talking, six giant bags of none other than Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. Hell, if I’m buying candy for neighborhood children, why not buy something I like. I’ll burn off all the calories walking to the door every three seconds.

After the trick-or-treaters, the gang and I will be heading off to Salem. If you haven’t experienced a Halloween in Salem, you are truly missing out. Where else is an adult able to roam the streets in a costume without looking like a freak?

Everyone, in these parts anyway, is now aware of the passing of Red Auerbach.

I’ve never been much of a basketball fan but growing up during the Larry Bird era, the Celtics were a big part of my childhood. To this day, I can still remember the Celtics’ starting five that my dad taught me when I was six (Larry Bird, Robert Parish, Danny Ainge, Dennis Johnson, and Kevin McHale).

I vaguely remember the first Celtics game I attended, at The Garden of course. I do, however, vividly remember how clearly you could see the players’ underpants through their white basketball shorts. I was a weird kid.

My only memories of Auerbach are of my dad discussing him and the Celtics. Red Auerbach is such an important part in Boston’s prolific sports history. He will be sorely missed.

I have gone to Hell and returned! Yes folks, I have gone into an iParty in search of a Halloween costume four days before Halloween and lived to talk about it!

That store is a living nightmare, and not the cool Halloween-ish kind. Children were running wild, screaming, pulling, yelling, and iParty’s tightly packed store aisles didn’t aid in the congestion. Mothers were frantically trying to grab the last Superman costumes, little boys were chasing one another with plastic pirate swords, and cranky employees were lackadaisically sorting through the inventory thrown all over the place.

See, I tell myself every year, every single fucking year, “Don’t wait until the last minute, Angela.” Do I ever listen to myself? Nope.

There was a very limited selection of decent Halloween costumes for women. Obviously, Halloween is the best time of the year for girls to dress like total sluts; the holiday gives them an excuse to let their inner hobag out, and iParty’s costumes definitely reflected that. Why dress as a [insert Halloween costume type here] when you can dress as a slutty [insert Halloween costume type here]. I had a choice between being a slutty cheerleader, slutty nurse, slutty frenchmaid (that’s just obvious), a slutty witch, a slutty angel, a slutty devil… the possibilities were endless.

I did find a Beer Bottle costume that I looked at for a few minutes. Ultimately, I opted for a witchy-looking dress, found a witch hat and a witch broom and my costume was complete! And no, it’s SO NOT slutty.

After forty minutes in line, my purchase was complete. I spent WAY more than I wanted to and after battling a raging tide of feral children and ignorant parents, I was finally able to leave iParty, angrily grunting as a walked to my car. Thank goodness I only have to do this once a year!

Working on a busy main street, it’s never a dull moment in front of my office. With crackheads running up the street, and juvenile panhandlers loitering, there’s always something going on when I step outside for a smoke break (I take many, many smoke breaks by the way ). I should also mention, my office is located steps away from a very large high school and this school (stupidly?) allows its students to go outside for lunch.

Today, the Monday-boredom was broken up a bit when two students from the high school began fighting right in front of me. This was not so much a fight as it was one much bigger kid beating the crap out of a far smaller, skinnier kid. I would think that your point would be proven when you have your combatant on the ground pleading for you to stop but this kid continued to wail, kick and punch on the skinny kid. His assault didn’t stop until a man driving by jumped out of his car screaming.

“Did you fuck my girl?!?!” Big Kid screamed at Skinny Kid, after of course, he finished pounding his head into the pavement. I guess he buys into the ‘kick ass, ask questions later’ philosophy. I also wondered, why not dump the girl, but I guess she can do no wrong?

Big Kid finished his rampage screaming, “This ain’t over!” as he walked away, further adding, “If you say anything at school, you’ll get it ten times worse.” Ten times worse? What’s that, murder? Over an alleged fling? Seems kind of harsh to me. This girl must give great… oh, nevermind.

Big Kid didn’t get very far. The man in the car, you remember, the one that broke up the fight, signaled to the police officers that stand by the high school as the students have lunch. His futile attempt to flee was squashed by the dispatched police cruiser.

Alas, my cigarette was smoked and I went back into my office. Let’s hope something exciting happens on my next smoke break which I plan to take… now.

I think I am developing an ear infection. Who knew people over the age of 7 could get these things? I’m not experiencing pain but my ears are plugged up and popping as if I was on an airplane. It’s really unpleasant having your ear blocked up. Every bite of food I take, every chew is amplified in my head. When I speak, it echoes in my brain. It’s more annoying than anything else. I do have a gynocologist appointment tomorrow. I wonder if he’ll be able to look at my ear too?