Tag: Halloween candy

Letter to the Larks

Dear Morning Larks:

Some of you have been rather prideful of late, going on about how the early bird catches the worm, morning is the most productive time of the day, rising with the dawn is the path to success, and so on. Some of you have been extra judgy about it, too, calling Night Owls “lazy” and “unambitious.”

Let me tell you something: Owls keep the world running, so you need to stop it with the stigma. When it’s 2:00 a.m. and you need an ambulance or emergency surgery, or your house is on fire, or you hear someone break in, it’s the Owls who will save you. It’s the Owls who watch your property while you sleep, take calls on 988 when you’re having a midnight crisis, capture the overnight news while you’re dreaming, and maintin national security by monitoring air, land, and sea while you’re slumbering blissfully unaware of the myriad ways your enemies pose a threat. Owls transport your mail and packages, drive your food across the country while it’s still fresh, and even take you and your loved ones from Point A to Point B in safety, though you call overnight flights “red-eyes” like that’s a bad thing. Owls maintain order, and without them you would be screwed.

Furthermore, Owls are hardwired. Over the years, research has shown that a tendency toward wakefulness at night is hereditary. One study found 351 genetic factors that influence whether a person prefers mornings or evenings. Another study suggests that Owls are more creative than Larks. Yet another study suggests that Owls have better cognitive function than Larks.

I believe all of it. My father did some of his best paintings at 1:00 a.m. and my mother, who had an I.Q. of 163, would not be able to sleep until 3:00 a.m. and would walk into walls when she got up for work during the week. I, myself, am an Owl, as verified by the Morningness-Eveningness Questionnaire. Given my druthers, I would go to sleep between 1:30 and 3:00 a.m. and get up between 8:30 and 10:00 a.m. I do my best work between 4:00 and 7:00 p.m. and have another burst of creativity around 11:00 p.m. And at the risk of sounding boastful, my I.Q. qualifies me for Mensa.

So kindly cease and desist with your slanderous characterizations of Owls. We are not defective, lazy, unambitious, unhealthy, or undisciplined. We are merely of the night, and you need us.

Sincerely,

Owls Everywhere

And now for today’s candy: Sixlets! Not quite M&Ms but not quite malted milk balls, Sixlets is a “chocolate-flavored candy.” They are very light and have a nice little crunch, but I remember them always tasting a little stale and reminiscent of mothballs. Still, they’re a classic, and I love the nostalgia they conjure of Halloweens gone by.

Boo-kends

I’m not much into decor, at least for myself as I’m terrible at putting interiors together (bad Libra, BAD), but when I saw these bookends, I had to get them.

They sit on my bachelors dresser, holding my growing collection of Barnes & Nobles Collectibles Editions and a few other books.

I call the one on the left Edgar and the one on the right Allan. Seems fitting for the subject matter of most of those books. I’m about halfway through a novel I’m reading, and then I’m going to read the Lovecraft. I’ve never read any Lovecraft before, but the first paragraph of the first tale, “Dagon,” has me chomping at the bit.

I am writing this under an appreciable mental strain, since by tonight I shall be no more. Penniless, and at the end of my supply of the drug which alone makes life endurable, I can bear the torture no longer; and shall cast myself from this garret window into the squalid street below. Do not think from my slavery to morphine that I am a weakling or a degenerate. When you have read these hastily scrawled pages you may guess, though never fully realize, why it is that I must have forgetfulness or death.

Heck, maybe I’ll just read that tonight, since I had to take the book off the shelf anyway. “Dagon” is only a few pages long.

I saw my bookends while picking out these for a buddy’s birthday last summer.

She put them to very good use.

An doll in Egyptian clothes with two cat bookends.
Image: Kada Walden

She collects Barbies (although the one above is a Monster High doll, the Howliday Cleo de Nile), so if you’re into that, check out her awesome YouTube. In fact, even if you’re not into Barbie, check out her awesome YouTube, especially if you love spooky season. Her Halloween display is a thing of beauty, dark, delicious beauty.

Speaking of things dark and delicious, here’s today’s candy, good ol’ M&Ms. My friend is so elegant, I couldn’t put something tacky, crummy-but-good, or flat-out terrible below her video.

Sweet (Mary) Jane

Ever have one of those days when everything breaks? Today was one of those days. There I was, chugging along at work, highlighting passages in a PDF of a study I was writing about so my editors could see where I got my facts and figures, and suddenly there was a pop-up asking me whether I’d like a free trial of Adobe Creative Suite or just purchase it outright. When I took too long to answer—because I was hella befuddled—it quit. Then I got an email telling me I had lost access to Adobe Creative Suite Pro or some such. Right as I was typing this into a group message on Teams, our art director sent a message saying he was dead in the water because he lost access to Adobe Creative Suite. A friend at another organization said the same thing happened there, too: People were suddenly losing their access at random.

Eventually access came back except for me, but one of our IT folks sorted it out and I was up and running for about an hour when suddenly my Word crashed. Thank goodness for autosave or I would have cried. Word never fully recovered so I finally just called it a day and headed home, when along the way I discovered that the escalator at my work Metro stop was broken. Fortunately, it was the one where I enter the system, so I only had to go down the stairs and not up, but maybe I’m not the only one whose depth perception goes bonkers after about 25 steps down on an escalator. Or maybe I am, and I’m the only one who just kind of suddenly freezes up for want of seeing where the next step is.

Then the Metro itself broke and I got stuck in a tunnel for about half an hour.

After all of that I was very glad to get home, where I could pause to admire the tree-topper on the Halloween tree in the lobby.

We’re having a Halloween door decorating contest and this year I may just participate. I’ll have to think about it. If I were more social I’d decorate my whole apartment, get a Halloween tree and ornaments, and have a party, but I haven’t hosted anything in over 20 years and I’d probably give myself a good bit of anxiety worrying that no one would show up. Decorating a door might be possible, though.

And now, for today’s candy, the Mary Jane, a molasses and peanut-butter taffy candy invented in 1914.

Someone left a comment on a social media post about how these always fall to the bottom of the treat bag when you trick-or-treat. Come to think of it, yes, they always were on the bottom, along with the pennies. (Don’t get me started on people who gave pennies. I hope no one does that anymore.)

I hated them as a kid, but sometime in my 20s I fell in love with them. Perhaps molasses is an acquired taste. Today I’d be just as afraid of these pulling out a filling or pulling off my crown as the flavored Tootsie Rolls in the previous entry. Some candy I just won’t eat anymore, but for those who like these, looks like you can buy a 30-pound case of them for $152.79 at Oh! Nuts, the website where I yoinked the picture. Your dentist will love you, if not your primary care physician.