40 kids for Halloween trick or treats.

I was doing very well not eating any of our candy. Then a neighbor showed up and gave me a thank-you bag of cookies and chocolates for helping on the weekend. I scarfed that down. They were *my* sweets. 

Mom is out of the hospital now

>That must be scary for her.

Actually. No. She also has short term memory problems. She doesn't remember that she was in the hospital. The short term memory issues are a blessing and a curse. Dad must always be near her in case something goes wrong. After the wrong is dealt with, mom doesn't remember what happened and goes back to being her cheerful self.

Saturday our neighborhood association held a Halloween event for the local kids. We didn't keep an official count. Judging from the photos about about 40 people attended plus 8 organizers.

I helped build our "Haunted Trail" and did the crosswalk duty-- the event was at a park that crosses a street. The husband took registrations and watched over the Haunted Trail.

Sunday we held a brunch for the mother-in-law. Monday is her 85th birthday. It was a costume brunch. Everyone showed up dressed in their Halloween best.

I invited C2. He backed out when he discovered that we were wearing costumes.

Quote from him from our chat... "Is this a big event where your husband bought special napkins and a little dog will be running all over the place and group pics will be taken and I have to pretend that I like people?"

Of course good news can't go unchallenged. Mom is in the hospital. She will be OK.

For sometime now, years, Mom has been prone to seizures and groggy episodes. When she has a groggy episode, she becomes quiet. She can't safely stand. It's like she's half asleep. When an episode comes on, dad will put her to bed or lay her on the sofa. Five or ten minutes later she will snap out of it, return to normal and not remember anything wrong.

This morning she had an extended groggy episode. My parents had breakfast. Everything was fine. Then she started to fade out. Dad put her to bed. That was two hour ago. She wasn't snapping out of it so dad brought her to the hospital.

Good news from my mother. The results from her latest scan look good. There is no sign of cancer in her right now.

Our fall schedule is full. The husband and I are visiting my parents for two weeks in November. Add some work travel and a few holiday parties to that, and all of a sudden it's Christmas before we have a free weekend. 

The husband and I have been discussing our perennially full schedule. We'd like to have a few smaller fun events where it's just he and I. Maybe we'll take a cooking class, or glass blowing. Maybe Spanish lessons together. 

I had a two day work trip to San Francisco. This time the days were packed. With the prior trip, I had one very busy day, followed by an empty day. Perhaps the company is becoming a little more open to working in person.

While I was away, Seattle had terrible air quality. For two days in a row, Seattle had the worst air quality of any place on earth. Even Pakistan had better air quality.

The husband's cousins are back at our place. For the past few weeks they have been touring the west coast. They had a good time. They were camping often. The camp grounds are shutting down, so they returned early.

Banking story... the cousins are from England. They discovered they can't pay their credit card bill while they are traveling because their bank needs to send them a text to check they haven't been hacked. Of course, they can't receive the text because they are in the U.S.

Their bank has a branch nearby. The tellers at the bank couldn't fix the problem.

However, they discovered that if they are on the bank's wifi, then they can use their banking app without the extra check. All good, sort of. The cousins now go to the bank once a week. Hang out in the lobby to do their banking. Explain to security what they are doing, and then get on with their lives.

Wednesday, my CEO was in town. We had a large all-hands meeting at the office. Afterwards about twenty randomly chosen people, including me, went out for dinner with him. It was an interesting experience. 

My first takeaway is that I would hate to be a CEO. It would be exhausting. Half the crowd was angling to talk to him-- share their ideas, ask him difficult questions, complain. The other half went out of the way to keep their distance. Thought out it all, the CEO kept a smile on his face and had pleasant conversation with everyone. He drew the quiet out. He listened to the same trivial complaint half a dozen times and took it calmly and seriously.

Thursday, the Husband and I had a date night. Dinner at "The Fog Room." It has nice views of the Puget Sound. The weather is warm and we sat outside. Air quality is still low. Smoke is pervasive. Everywhere smells like a campfire. None-the-less, we enjoyed our dinner on the patio.

Towards the end of dinner, the Husband suggested we meet up with his brother for dessert. The brother-in-law lives nearby. So we switched restaurants and spent an hour chatting with him. It was good to catch up. He seems to be doing well. 

Saturday we attended Salmon Day's with Allen & Even. Salmon Day's are is the local, annual street fair. We celebrate the return of the salmon to the city. We eat street fair food-- corn dogs, deep fried spiral cut potatoes, mini-donuts. We check out the artists.

This was the first Salmon Day's since the pandemic.

The fried food stands had huge lines. The husband and I joked that if we ever wanted to quit our jobs and become street fair vendors, then mini-donuts and elephant ears are the way to go.

Sunday we walked up the stairs of the Space Needle. This was a charity fundraiser. The Space Needle has 832 steps. 

We did it in 17 minutes and 58 seconds.

The fastest stair climbers did it in five minutes. In an interview the fastest man said he does stair climbing all the time. Friday he did the Columbia Center for practice. Today he is flying off to Tampa for another climb.