Halloween and stuff

So last night was Stella's first Halloween. She was adorable as an Octopus, as you can see, but the night didn't turn out exactly as I had planned. See, last year, when I was pregnant with Stella, Anna was pregnant with Daniel, and Henry was 10 days old, I had this soft little picture of all of us taking the kids trick or treating this year. As I handed out candy and patted my barely noticeable belly last year, I thought of how I would dress up our little girl or boy (I found out the next day that she was a girl). Unfortunately, Henry was sick, and Daniel's Aunt was in town, so we didn't get to all get together. And Stella was more than a bit fussy. I felt bad, although we assured ourselves that she would be fussy with or without the costume;) Luckily, though, Jeff and Tara showed up and Tara and I took Stella to about 4 houses of the neighbors we know just to show her off a little. After all, she WAS all dressed up with nowhere to go! We wound up having a great time because it'd been so long since we'd all hung out together. Nothing special, just beer, way too much pizza (I'd unfortunately ordered 3 mediums just before Ashley called to say Henry was sick. Then I couldn't get through to the pizza place to change my order), and the candy Stella had gotten and that we had left over. Unfortunately, this year we didn't have very many trick or treaters, unlike past years when the doorbell is constantly ringing between 6 and 8:30. So I'd been stingy with the candy early in the night, and wound up giving the late trick or treaters, the uncostumed teenagers, big handfuls of loot. But it was fun.

On another note, I ran into our neighbor this morning, who I'd run into a few weeks ago. We chat when we see each other, and last time we'd talked he'd said he was joining the Army. I couldn't believe that someone would join the army in the middle of such a terrible war. When I ran into him today, I asked when he was leaving for the Army and he said not until January, which disappointed him, because he'd wanted to go right away. Apparently, he had to wait for an opening in the position he wants. I asked him what that was and he said Combat Engineer, he said they demolish bridges and rebuild them and rebuild roads. I told him to be careful and that he'd be in my thoughts, but I couldn't help thinking it was like playing Russian Roulette, who would willingly place themselves in that situation? I guess young guys who don't really have a lot of career prospects and look to the military as a way to shake them up and give them a career path, or at least more direction. Our neighbor had worked at HEB, and just returned this month from a year long motorcycle journey across America. I think a lot of guys like that join the military. It made me sad, like I would be seeing my neighbor's face on the news come next year, as one of the fallen. I hope not, but I also wish we didn't see anyone's neighbor's face on the news as one of the fallen. I can't believe how badly this war has been screwed up and if I stop to think about the fact that we just invaded another country with no provocation and completely fucked up their infrastructure and killed over half a million of them, it makes me cry. So I don't think about it, which is even worse. We are a disgusting, bloated country that throws its own weight around just to feel important. I'm sorry.