Happy Hallowe'en 2011

Seeing as I already had my scare last night, when I thought I'd lost about 60 photos from Journalfest, I'm tucked in at home having a quiet evening with the kitten caboodle, downloading photos, catching up on what I missed when I was away last week with only a tiny little bit of access to the Internet. 

Actually, it sounds more like April Fool's Day around here - a major snowstorm hits New York in October? Toronto mayor Rob Ford calls 911 after being ambushed by a TV crew from the comedy show, "This Hour Has 22 Minutes"?  (what channel will you be watching tomorrow night at 8:30 pm when they show that tape?!)? Tony LaRussa resigns from baseball??  It's like the whole world went mad while we were out there at Journalfest!!

Heading back to work today was much easier when I discovered this cookie waiting on my desk (everybody in our building got one, it's what they call a "desk drop" in the property management business):

It kind of looks more like Cookie Monster had a serious accident and required bandaging than an actual mummy, doesn't it? No matter, it was delicious.

But now that it's dark and the haunting hours are at hand, I can't stop thinking about this amazing antique ledger book Brian Kasstle had with him yesterday at breakfast (shown in photo below). 

My JF buddy Irene and Brian with his ledger book

It was full of newspaper clippings circa 1912 of stories of people who had died gruesome and/or terrible deaths. It was quite a ghoulish collection and yet, totally fascinating.  The book was literally jammed full of newspaper articles like these ones:

Ironically, in the middle of all these stories of bizarre deaths and murders, one of the clippings had this heart-shaped paper clip:

Happy Hallowe'en, everyone!