Halloween will arrive this upcoming Wednesday (and my sister’s birthday very shortly thereafter). This weekend we went to a Halloween party – technically a pumpkin-carving party. And before that, we had a neighborhood birthday party to attend. So Will had a big day yesterday.

The birthday party was for a girl in our neighborhood. She lives down the road from us, and we know her parents, Bill and Robin, because they are good friends with the couple that used to live across the street from us. The birthday girl, Casey, turned six on Thursday. Her parents threw her a pretty cool party on Saturday. They rented a giant, inflatable space-walk slide. Will was too anxious around the swarm of kids to go up and slide down it. But after everyone went inside to watch Casey open her gifts, Malin and I were able to coax Will up to the top. He thoroughly enjoyed sliding down. He got dreadfully upset a couple of times while climbing up to the top, though. The material was very slippery, and he was shorter than many of the other kids that were climbing up (despite being quite tall for his age – most of the other kids were a little older). So he had a tougher time reaching the railing (seatbelt material that ran up the length of the climb onto which the kids could hold), and he had a tougher time with each step because they were further apart than normal stairs. But, overall, a good time was had by all.

After that, we had a couple of hours during which to unwind. After unwinding, we were off to a pumpkin-carving party in Decatur. A friend and co-worker, Rob Cleveland, was the host. Every year at this event, he comes out in costume as “Gripper Man”. The word “gripper” is, apparently, slang for men’s briefs. Gripper Man has a super-hero cape, a big emblem on his chest in the shape of the aforementioned underwear that is emblazoned with the letter G. And, of course, Gripper Man wears grippers – over the top of this pants. Unfortunately, Malin did not bring her camera…

I was able to catch up with a friend of mine, Eric, who was also attending the party. We used to be coworkers, but he now works up towards Alpharetta doing .NET development, so I don’t see him regularly. Since I am notoriously bad at keeping in touch with friends via e-mail and phone, it was good to see him to catch up, and to see his wife, Elizabeth, and his three kids. It’s always interesting to see how our friends’ kids grow, too. His youngest son is the same age as Will, and his other two are five and seven. The oldest, Anna, is so big. I remember seeing her shortly after she was first born…

Will was enthralled most of the night with a toy train set that included several of the cast of Thomas the Train: Percy, Trevor, and Toby. Luckily, the hosts, Rob and Stephanie, let us borrow one of the train cars to placate Will. Otherwise, he would have likely made quite a scene during our exit. This party was our first glimpse of Rob and Stephanie’s newest kid: Benjamin, who is about 10 months old I think. We also got to see how their older two kids have grown (6.5 and 4.5 years old).

We didn’t end up eating much at the pumpkin-carving party, so we stopped on the way home at one of our favorite Pizza joints: the Fellini’s on Ponce de Leon. This was also the location of one of our first dates, back in 1999. They make good pizza, and this location is surprisingly kid-friendly considering its location and how much of the clientèle are college students.

Today was the complete opposite of yesterday: 100% lazy lounging. Well, actually there were household chores to do. But mostly lazy, and no going out of the house…

On an unrelated tangent: I was depressed to see this morning the debate on Face The Nation (on CBS) and all of its talk of getting tough on Iran. I think it is ridiculously premature to suggest that a military option should be on the table. The “tough rhetoric” of the Bush administration certainly doesn’t cool things down. Its frustrating to see everyone join in the war-mongering. Even the Democrats, who supposedly were elected into the majority in Congress in 2006 because the nation was ready for a change in Iraq, have begun marching down the path towards war. Was Iraq a lesson to none of us? If you know my friends Jason or John, you’ll know that they are big supporters of Dennis Kucinich. The reason is largely the issue of our government’s bad habit of meddling in the Middle East and starting foreign wars. Dennis Kucinich is one of the very few candidates running that is completely opposed to the current war and a potential war in Iran, and he does seem to have more integrity than most of the other folks in the race. If you consider yourself a liberal or a left-leaning independent, you may find that Kucinich is the candidate for you, too. Take this test to find out.