Weekend in New England.

Yes, I am also familiar with the Barry Manilow song by the same name. I am familiar with many, many Barry Manilow songs. Just yesterday, at our last field hockey practice of the season, I sang "Looks Like We Made It" to my assistant.

Last weekend, Todd and I took our cute kids for a stroll around a nearby pond so that we could immerse ourselves in the fall foliage before each and every leaf is blown from its tree, and it is completely gray and depressing and bleak outside. We made it maybe a quarter of the way along the path after over a half an hour, and then we turned around and went home for lunch. Here, Marley throws her best pose, no doubt learned from any of the dozens of Disney Princess products we own or have seen en masse on a store shelf. And Rudy looks the way any self-respecting sidekick should: on her toes, a little off balance, but totally game for whatever comes her way.

Coming Bean's and Toot's way this afternoon: Downtown Trick or Treat! An annual spectacle of little kids in cute costumes and grubby adolescents just there for the candy who should know better on a cleared-of-traffic Main Street. Marley will be a beautiful pink and sparkly fairy and I will be, finally, as I have envisioned now for over a year, DJ Lance Rock. Rudy is supposed to be a cuddly, ridiculous bumble bee, but since she screams and cries and claws at the costume each time we put it on her (and by the way, gleefully tease: "She's an angry bee! She's a mad bee!"), Marley and I went through the dress-up bin and (no surprise here) easily pulled together a sidekick fairy look that I'm fairly certain will be Rudy's costume of choice.