Have you met the Switch Witch? She’s pretty popular around here.
See, sorta like Santa, she comes while children are sleeping. Only instead of just dumping a buttload of presents and skedaddling, she scoops up all that extra Halloween candy and leaves behind one sweet little gift. I wrote about my love affair with the dear old hag for Parents.
This morning, Harry woke up to find that his green pumpkin bucket, which last night was filled with suckers, SweetTarts, Tootsie Rolls, and Starbursts, held one single item: A Lego General Grievous (don’t ask; it’s part of his Star Wars obsession). One look at that picture tells you how that went over.
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On a more serious note: Sandy. We rode out the storm safely here, with nothing more threatening than flickering lights and a few hours without cable and internet. My family did ok, too, with only two out of three brothers losing power. We were very, very lucky. But one neighborhood over from us had some pretty heavy flooding, and as I’m sure you know there’s major damage throughout the area. Schools have been closed all week and won’t reopen until Monday. Stephen hasn’t been able to get to work thanks to flooded subway tunnels. Plus his office is on the far west side, which also suffered flooding; the building remains closed. We’re both freelance, so the not-able-to-work much thing is going to hit us right in the checkbook, which was underfed to begin with. But still: We’re incredibly lucky. Many of my friends are camped out with family and friends since they’re still without power. And countless more lost everything.
If you’d like to help, FEMA’s got a pretty thorough guide to contributing with cash, goods, and volunteer work.