This is Halloween

Ongoing notes as the night goes on:
I've set up my decorations. Short, wide candles in a sort of candleabra over the door. I don't know that they've been lit since last year. I had to spend some time recovering wicks. One found something besides wick to burn. It burned fast and wax ran everywhere. There's a nice trail of red and some splatter. My audio track is playing. I adjusted the volume so the background hiss matched nicely with the ambient traffic noise. You won't notice it until the muttering and whatnot kicks in. I put the LED bulb from the bathroom under the steps for a nice bluish glow. Alas, with all the lights from the Howard University building across the street it isn't as effective as it should be. A hollow owl that looks just like the ones Grammie used to have is lit up next to the door. The weather is in the 70's so Gandolf is planted up in a tree to talk to people who come close. She'll probably scare people more than anything.

(sigh) Way too much light. A little time with a slingshot would help a lot.

Well, shoot. Possibly the last nice evening until April and I wanna sit inside so trick-or-treaters have to approach the house. I decided to sit outside and read until the first kids come by then go inside.
Wait, what's that? Ah, the sweet screams of people freaked out by parrots.

Stupid candles. The wicks are burying themselves again.
Seven visitors so far. They've cleverly disguised themselves as black kids. Popular costume this year.

10 kids. 1 adult. 1 costume. A toddler in a fuzzy animal outfit. A bear or a bunny.

12 kids. 2 adults. 3 costumes. Couldn't tell what these two were, but masks were involved.

Two ninja turtle and a princess with their parents.
6 high school students. Gandolf really liked one of the girls.
Two more kids dressed like blacks.

Maybe next year I'll go back to last year's audio track. It got a better reaction from people. A few people have noticed my audio, but no real reaction. Then again, I've been getting a pretty old crowd.
The only candle that hasn't eaten it's own wick is the one that dumped most of it's wax early in the evening.

OH! That was beautiful! Some guy was power walking down the sidewalk when The Voice in my recording said "Weep for me". He stopped dead and stared at the house. Then after a couple of seconds moved on.

Gandolf has been sitting up in the tree for hours. I offered to bring her in and she refused. She wants me with her, but she's not willing to give up her branch.

Ok, nobody has come by in an hour. Time to pack it in.

Conclusions:
People in DC don't have the usual hangups about being too old to trick-or-treat but they do have those hangups about wearing costumes. Kids don't trick-or-treat at all.