Peak season

I hope everyone is enjoying as spectacular a fall day as we may have ever had!   Mary and I went for a foliage walk through a local garden and immediately regretted not bringing the camera along.  Still, photos never seem to do the foliage the justice it deserves.
 
There's a down side to all the gushing about leaves.  The leaves themselves, in the yard.  So the big question here is:  when to rake?  Does one do a mid-season rake knowing that more leaves will fall and make the yard look just as it looks now and knowing that you have no place to put the leaves?  Most of our neighbors have opted for NO.  Wait until the day before the signs go up in the neighborhood announcing the leaf clean-up.
 
Another big question is: when did people really start to go overboard with Halloween?   We have giant spiders on the side of the house, spiders webs over all the shrubs, mummies and ghouls all over the yard, tombstones with Freddy Kruger's name on it.  What's wrong with a pumpkin, carved like a 5-year old did it? 
 
We had a five-day work-week around here.  And one We recommend a movie we saw recently as well:  The Boys are Back.more to come.  Uggh.  We break up the week with a class at church each Wednesday evening, and Mary has guitar class on another night. 
 
Saturday, we got together with a friend from Mexico City for breakfast, and Margaret joined us.  We then went out for dinner at Cuban restuarant.  Too much food.   Forgot to mention that Margaret got a part-time job at a coffee/wine bar in an up-and-hopefully-coming neighborhood of DC. 
 
Had another first this week:  I walk by Joe's workplace every day on the way to and from the metro station.  This week, I ran into him on the street!!  And he didn't ignore me!!  He's been busy working on a couple of proposals.
 
Annie called on her weekend start night (Thursday) sounding worried about the shift the next group was going to have as several of the girls were on the verge of a meltdown.  She has been trying to rival Margaret's experience with the local DMV. 
 
That's all from down here.  Nice to see lots of contributions!!  Love.