I went out shopping for a few minutes, earlier tonight, and couldn't help feeling a bit strange about the fact that I wasn't on guard for attack. I'm still not quite used to Kew Gardens Hills, I guess.

See, Halloween night is not the greatest time to be on the streets in Far Rockaway. In fact, it pays to be careful in the entire week leading up to it, but one tends to stay indoors with the doors safely locked on the night itself, the better not to be pelted with eggs, or stones, or whatever. At least if one lives on the Jewish side of the metaphorical tracks.

Not that I ever had any real trouble, myself. But some of my siblings have, and I've been within striking distance when eggs were flying through the air, so this was more than the usual paranoia.

But that was always okay, because I generally wanted to be home on Halloween night anyway. Because that's when my favorite radio show of the entire year was usually broadcast: Zacherle's program of Halloween music, on local oldies station WCBS-FM. He'd play "The Monster Mash," and "Witch Doctor," and "The Cockroach That Ate Cincinnati," and "The Thing," and "They're Coming to Take Me Away, Ha-Haaa!" and so on, and gloriously so forth.

See, I love Halloween music. There are really only two ways you can go when dealing with stuff like ghosts, ghouls, hobgoblins, and so on: horror, or comedy. And in the case of popular music, the latter is very much more likely. In short, Zacherle's Halloween program is the best opportunity for hearing novelty music all year, if you live in New York City, where, alas, Dr. Demento's radio show isn't carried on any local station.

And so I was looking forward to hearing it again this year, being under the impression that it was going to be airing at 8 PM.

Well, guess again. A minute or two after 8, I returned to my apartment and hurriedly turned on the radio, only to discover that "The Doo-Wop Shop" was on the air, Zacherle's program having just ended. Oops.

Not that I'm complaining, and I'm glad I went. I'm just a little selfish. More to the point, I'd rather have had her to myself for five minutes than have had the free-for-all for an hour. More productive, for me at least. Ummm, see the first two sentences in this paragraph again, though.

At any rate, she seemed to be moving her arms more than she had been on previous visits, but there's nothing really dramatic to report. Not that I expected there to be. "Slowly but surely" remains the operative phrase.

That's what I do, y'see. I save the pennies I get with my change in a coin holder I have, which holds about $1.10 in pennies. When it gets full, or if I'm running low on cash, I spend them on something. This hasn't been a problem in the past, although this was the first time I tried it at this particular store. The cashier was not amused, but he accepted it this once.

Not my problem, at any rate. So far as I'm concerned, pennies are legal tender, and that's all there is to it. So there.

I blame the New York Times for reporting the story in the first place, although my focus wasn't really on the report as much it was on my reaction to it. Still, it does seem just slightly possible that the Coca-Cola people are simply backpedalling, while spinning the story their way, no?

The truth is out there.

It's not going to be tonight, at any rate. I've gotta go to sleep so I can go back to the ocular plastic surgeon early tomorrow afternoon. Plus I'm behind on my reading for class, as has been the case for awhile. Sigh.

On the bright side, my column for the college paper was sent off earlier tonight. It's not a very good column, but 'twill serve. I'm just glad I've managed to get it in on time two weeks running.