Happy Halloween!

I've already made all of my outside forays for today. The sun and warmth of yesterday has compacted and melted the snow down to about 3 inches in the backyard; and it's supposed to reach 57 degrees today. I've got the patio door open right now, and the kits are running in and out; Gimpy appeared yesterday afternoon, and he and three other young squirrels went through almost a pound of peanuts. I managed to get another 200 members of Mom's family tree into the database, at which point Lovey would not let me work at the keyboard anymore, so I read to her and Banichi for the rest of the evening. I did pick up a large turnip this morning, and plan on carving it, just to see what it takes. (After all, our pumpkin carving tradition originated with carving a turnip for a lantern...) In next week's Breeders Cup, it seems that Zenyatta (an undefeated mare with a record of 13 straight wins) will probably be running in the BC Classic against the males on Saturday, instead of in the Ladies Classic on Friday. If she runs against the boys, she will be made the betting favorite for the morning line.

The kick-off time for the CU Homecoming game has now been moved to 11 a.m. (we play the Missouri Tigers) - this is the third "new" kick-off time announcement. Between Homecoming and Halloween, the police have planned to have a huge force in place. Not to mention the fact that today is also the annual Naked Pumpkin Run (where both males and females run on Broadway and Pearl Street, wearing nothing except running shoes and a pumpkin on their head), and the idea of having The Mall Crawl return seems to have picked up backers, especially since the police are so against it. Last year, the police sort of enforced the law, and arrested 6 of the Naked Pumpkin runners - they were astounded to learn that since they were running naked in a public street they had to be registered as"Sex Offenders." It seems that the Race is expecting more runners this year, even though, if caught, they will be labeled "Sex Offender" for the rest of their lives. The Mall Crawl is a party that tends to cover the entire Pearl Street Mall, and usually consists of people in their late teens, twenties and thirties; and they get thoroughly drunk, high, and rowdy. The last Mall Crawl ended up with a riot and 57 arrests. Since a couple of guys on Facebook started tossing around the idea of re-starting The Mall Crawl, the two guys have received visits from the police (telling them they'll be held responsible for any trouble, if it occurs). The police have already stated they'll have at least 40 on-duty people on the Mall from this afternoon onwards... It almost seems as if each "side" is egging the other on. And, finally, today is the Gorilla Fun Run in downtown Denver; one runs a race, wearing a gorilla suit/costume in order to raise money for the Mountain Gorilla Foundation. Go 'Rillas!!!!