I'm not trained in this ====>>>> i think that sums up whether or not you should stick these in your diet ken

It was cold out there today. I froze mt tush off taking Kenzie around. We had 20 or so kids, which is surprising for the weather today, plus there wasn't anyone home for a while, so I'm sure we missed some of the earlier ones. I live on the edge of town, so I never know what to expect. Over the years, I've had as little as 4 and then as high as 70. So I have tons of stuff left over. We went to our new (South African) neighbors house. They invited us in for cookies and juice. (that was there treat) While I was there, I had to show her how to use her self cleaning oven. I'm always entertained by the bunch of them. Cultures are so different. They show so much enthusiasim towards things we just take for granted. Anyways --HAPPY HALLOWE'EN!!! Shelley

Great story! That reads like the synopsis of a novel. I have been looking for a chance to offer my own 'true' stories that have happened in the last 2 1/2 years since I have moved to rural Maine. I live in a lovely but impoverished area of mid-coast Maine, a place with a long history for these shores. The hospital where I work 12-hour night shifts has been developed piecemeal over the last 50 years, with parts of the hospital dating back to those days, and virtually all of the building now used for a different purpose than originally designed. During the day, the hospital is a busy place, hundreds of people coming and going, many visitors, day patients, business meetings, etc. At night the population drops dramatically, just the patients and the staff that cares for them as well as the usually busy Emergency Department. One night I had to take some filing into the Outpatient Surgery department. This area is down a hallway that is virtually deserted at night. During the day it is filled with patients having routine, relatively simple procedures. They are prepped in this area, and after the procedure they spend a short time recovering here and then go home. At one time this area was a regular hospital ward, with patients lined up in beds around the wall as used to be common but is unheard of these days. I frequently went there at night to do a bit of filing. It was always dark and deserted, and I easily did the filing just using the emergency lights. But this night when I walked in, I saw a patient in a bed - not sleeping or resting, but thrashing around. I was astounded, not just to find someone there, but apparently alone. I approached the bed, calling for help - I don't remember exactly what I said, but something like, "I need some help here! What is going on?" As I reached the bed I looked away, hoping to see a nurse or aide, and when I looked back...the bed was empty. Empty and made up for the next day, just as it should be. I stood there for some time, my mind just blank. What had I seen? Had I imagined it? Some kind of prank? Eventually I filed the papers and went back to my duties. This being Maine, ghost stories are considered fairly normal. The next morning when my co-workers came in and I when I gave report, I included the incident in the night. They listened with a level of attention that I rarely received while passing on the usual mundane facts. One of my co-workers has worked at that hospital for nearly 30 years. After I finished the story, she said told me that area had been a general ward for some years, and then had been an ICU in the very early days when that department was being developed, before it moved to the new and more modern wing. I'm really not sure what I experienced - a memory, an hallucination, some kind of weird image from the past? Or as Dickens might have said, a bit of undigested potato?

Who wouldn't be proud, what fun to have an author in the family. Love your homage to Halloween and your sister. It's so special.