a time to gather stones together

There is a billboard on the way to my house that advertises high stakes bingo, and the lady on the billboard who is pretending to be surprised and delighted by her imagined bingo wins has way overtweezed her eyebrows.  Ladies:  stop doing this.  It looks dang stupid. 

How did you like the debate last night?  I thought it was fine.  Our kids like to point with their fists and imitate each candidate telling an imaginary moderator that what the other one is saying simply isn't true. 

Are you so excited for Halloween?  Are you dressing up or being boring?  Grant wanted to be a viking, but that didn't work out, so he's going to be one of those guys that tries to sell you fake watches.  I told him he has to wear long pants under the coat so he doesn't look like a flasher.  Emmett is being a ghost, Ike is being a harbor seal, and Willa is being Rapunzel.  I made a freaking AMAZING wig for her.  Thanks to Jenny for the inspiration.  Thanks to Jenny also for the inspiration for John and me--we're going as Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox.  I think I'm going to make meat loaf in the shape of severed feet for dinner.  It's a good time. 

Oh!  By the way, we took our kids to Frankenweenie last week during fall break.  SPOILER:  the dog dies.  That wasn't a problem, but then later, SPOILER:  the dog dies again.  And Willa started sobbing like her heart was going to break.  Oh, dear.  I consoled her as best as I could, but I finally had to tell her that if she didn't stop crying I was going to take her out.  That shut her up, because she wanted to see what happened to the dog.  SPOILER:  everything's fine.