The 100 day dash begins... again!

Ah!

Once again, we Autumn People find ourselves at a magical turning point in our year!

Hallowe'en is 100 nights away.

Oh, okay, there's a matter of some hours over that time, but I never really count the partial days -- and as a Hallowe'en haunter, the extra time is always required!

As I mentioned last year at this time, a hundred days out is the time to be asking questions about this year's needs, wants, doubts and hopes.

It's also the time when you begin having the weekly nightmare: it's 4 pm on October 31st and you haven't put anything up yet, and people are starting to arrive.

But mostly it's the time to finalize ideas, set designs, and start getting busy.

My graphics tablet and I are hoping that somewhere in my haunt (thinking the Treat Room) we will hear a tolling clock and then dim light will expose to us this vision:

Can't imagine the kid (or grown-up!) who wouldn't want to take candy from the Red Death...

As well (in my case anyway), some much needed supplies are in order. Not on order yet (money-money-money-money... mon-ey!), but soon. Things most folks would view and never for a moment think about a Poe-colored Hallowe'en.

Things like-

... and numerous other odds and ends.

Tomorrow I will mention to some of my co-workers that we're a hundred nights out from Hallowe'en and they will all say something like "Ooh! Only a hundred days? Better get busy then!" and laugh as if one hundred days was all the time in the world to work the kind of Hallowe'en magic we work.

But one or two will grin and nod quietly, and find a moment later to ask me in a near whisper, "So... what's the big piece for this year?" -- and I'll know a fellow Autumn Person.

In honor of the moment, I've removed the hilariously hideous pipe organ Stars & Stripes and replaced it with George Winston's solo piano classic, Autumn. I also removed the Jaws theme and in its place added the beautiful The Trees Weep Leaves from David Huntsinger's underrated, little known and currently out of print Autumn In New England album. Two songs that call Fall to us, envisioning a breeze and a falling leaf even as we sit in the heat thinking Summer may have decided to stay forever.

Yes, there's plenty of Summer left, plenty of time for so much... but it's coming, folks.

God bless it, it's coming.

DDSP!