My photo upload is steadfastly refusing to work, and I’m tired from trick-or-treating, so the Halloween pictures will have to wait a bit. Suffice it to say that Sam was healthy enough to both attend school and trick-or-treat, and the highlight of the evening was Julia, whose diaper I failed to check before we left the house, with the result that it literally fell off her ass halfway through our route, leaving my darling daughter sans undergarments in a witch costume that was prone to ride up. That I did not photograph.

Fortunately, she did not eliminate either in our little red wagon or down her legs, and I was able to get her home and into a Pull-Up with no bodily fluid excretion. That alone made the whole night worth the price of admission.

At the moment, our kids are having candy for dinner. That’s the rule at our house: on Halloween you get candy for dinner, and on Easter you get candy for breakfast. I mean, where’s the harm? It comes but once a year, and at times it’s wise to forego the parental controls and just allow some hedonism.

Sam has been sick with some sort of flu since last Friday, and I’m now down with it too. My mission today: To get this kid to stay in bed already so he can return to school tomorrow and go trick-or-treating tomorrow night.

See y’all in November . . .

So, the weather has calmed down; the air is cooler and the winds are gone. The fires are still burning, but are closer to containment. It looks to be all over by this weekend.

The ash is falling like snow flurries and I have to use my windshield wipers each morning to clear it. The air still reeks of smoke, everywhere, and the schools and day cares are keeping the kids inside for the fourth consecutive day. My boys are stir-crazy by the time I pick them up, and they have spent each evening running around the house like crazy people just to blow off steam.

As advertised, the Santiago fire in Orange County was found to be arson. Many So Cal wildfires are deliberately set by some asshole or another; it’s impossible to understand why. They also found a guy trying to start a fire up in Victorville yesterday. Nice. This firestorm is being called the largest natural disaster in the U.S. since Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

Meanwhile, I’ll just be glad when the air clears and the kids can play outside again. I hope this happens before the boys tear down the very walls.

As you already know, Southern California has been on fire since the weekend, when the Santa Ana winds kicked up and turned the region into the world’s largest outdoor blow-dryer. The winds are blowing constantly, with gusts recorded up to 100 mph, temperatures are in the 80s and 90s, and humidity is in the single digits. Add to this the drought conditions we’ve had for the past year, and it adds up to one giant tinderbox.

Fortunately, none of the fires are close to our house. But we  can see and smell the smoke, and see the ash falling. The sun, when it’s near the horizons, looks more like the moon, a big blank orange orb. Schools and daycares are not letting the kids play outside, and lots of people are going about breathing through paper masks.

This is pretty much SOP for October in So Cal, yet every year it takes me by surprise. I remember the year Laguna Beach burned down, back in the 90s; San Diego County, due to the high proportion of brush and hillside, always takes a hard hit. Just an odd fact of life in these parts, like earthquakes and waterspouts.

Today the winds are mostly calm at the coast, but they’re still blowing steadily inland, where the fires are. It’ll get worse before it gets better. Meanwhile, we are thankful that we live so close to the water.

Harry Potterphiles, take heed: Dumbledore is gay.

We out here in So Cal have got gaydar, let me tell you. Yet none of us saw it coming. Not Ben, not Sam (who has recently developed gaydar), none of us. But it DOES explain a lot. I wouldn’t say it explains his inexplicable closeness with Harry, because that would be implying pedophilia and therefore WRONG. But, you know, I’m just saying.

Happy butt-surfing, Albus, wherever you may be. I hope that up in Heaven it’s raining men.

After a few weeks of cool weather and even a little rain here and there, temperatures are predicted to climb into the high 80s early next week. That’s at the BEACH, people. It’s because of those freaking Santa Ana winds.

And as if that wasn’t enough, this is the year they moved back the return to Standard Time. Halloween is meant to be dark and chilly, but it looks to be bright and hot this year.

So Cal: Can’t you get anything right? Don’t even get me started on the gas prices, which have risen to over $3.00 per gallon again.

(I know, what a stupid pun of a title.) Autumn has always been one of my favorite seasons, and much of it had to do with the fall colors. Back East, the oaks and maples and so on would turn into rainbows of color come the fall, and although the raking got tiresome, suddenly the whole world was pure eye candy. Along with thunderstorms and lightning bugs, autumn color is one of the things I miss most sorely about home.

The trees in Southern California, you see, are not normal. That was one of the first things I noticed about the place. Of course there are the legendary palm trees, but even apart from those, you don’t get your usual oaks and maples and birches and weeping willows. Instead, in addition to the palms, you get a lot of eucalyptus.

Eucalyptus is not native to California; it’s an Australian import which has somewhat run rampant. You never want to park under a eucalyptus, because (1) for some reason they are always filled with shitting birds, and your car will be completely bespattered by the time you return; and (2) their branches are prone to break off on windy days. I mean BIG branches, the type that has you calling your insurance agent because your roof is crushed. Probably for these reasons, many So Cal parking lots are lined with eucalyptus. This is also true of our townhome community, and every time there’s a storm or Santa Ana winds you have to find someplace to park where the eucalyptus trees aren’t. Which is approximately nowhere.

Apart from the eucalyptus problem, So Cal trees are relatively inocuous, but mostly boring, boring, boring. And very few of them change color in the fall. There is one noteworthy exception — I think it’s the California sycamore — and they’re turning delicious shades of red and gold right now. If it wasn’t for these (and pumpkin spice lattes from Starbucks), you’d never know it was autumn at all.

So, you know, if you live someplace with gorgeous autumn color, drink it in and enjoy it, and be glad you don’t live in some godforsaken desert.

Search engines come and go, and Ask Jeeves has long since turned into Ask. But I miss Jeeves! I used to while away the hours asking stuff like:

Jeeves, do you smoke pot?

Jeeves, are you gay?

Jeeves, do you enjoy sex with animals?

It was endlessly entertaining to see what came up. Wasting time on the Internet hasn’t been nearly as much fun since Jeeves left.

Ben and I listen to a ton of comedy talk radio on our local FM talk station. We used to be devoted Howard Stern listeners, except that when Howard moved to satellite radio, I bought a Sirius setup for Christmas 2005 and Ben, nearly two years later, has not installed it. Which is really okay with me, because I started listening to Howard’s replacement, Adam Carolla, whom I’ve adored since his days on The Man Show.

All of this makes me a bit of an oddity and is further proof that I am part guy. All the women I know despise Howard Stern and listen to music radio, if not NPR; all the men I know love Howard and Adam. When I arrive at the school parking lot to pick up Sam, all the daddies (plus me) are listening to Frosty, Heidi and Frank on their car radios, and all the mommies are listening to, I don’t know, whatever music women listen to these days. Kelly Clarkson? Beyonce? All these people sound alike to me.

One of the best things about talk radio, though, is that despite FCC regulations, you can say absolutely anything, however obscene, so long as you use the proper code. F’d in the A, for instance. Or That’s a bunch of bull S. As rather freewheeling, fun-loving parents who are trying like hell to be responsible and raise our kids right, Ben and I have adopted talk radio code when speaking to each other in front of our kids.

So far, it’s working out fine. If, on the other hand, I get a call from the school someday informing me that Sam has said F you in the A to a classmate, we’re going to have to rethink our strategy.

Julia, my two-year-old, has developed a habit of stashing random items in odd places. The boys never did this, so I’m figuring it’s peculiar to her, and it can be quite frustrating at times. I never know when I’ll open a dresser drawer to find my good sunglasses inside, or come across a plastic bucket containing nine pacifiers. We have purchased approximately twelve hundred pacifiers since she picked up the habit, yet can never find one. Because she has stashed them all over the house.

Yesterday the day care lady complained that Julia had climbed up a chair, helped herself to three large nectarines from the fruit bowl, taken a bite from each, and then stashed them in various toyboxes and hidey-holes. That very night, Sam discovered a half-eaten apple buried in our own toyboxes which was so old it had practically mummified.

It’s not just limited to food, either. A few weeks back we purchased her a new pair of Skechers sneakers, the cool kind that lights up when you walk, and although purchased at a discount they were not cheap. Within a day or two, they had vanished. We asked Julia where her shoes were, and she unhelpfully led us to her old pink Crocs. On the Skecher issue she kept mum. Finally, we broke down and bought her a new pair of sneakers, and surprise! that very night we found her Skechers hidden away in a nightstand.

The absolute worst, though, was when she got her hands on my wallet. I had foolishly left my purse on the bedroom floor, and discovered Julia removing all of the contents of my wallet. I gathered up all the cash and credit cards and sundry items in evidence, only to discover later that my debit card — the only card I ever use — was missing in action. I knew it had to be somewhere in the bedroom, but after hours of searching it was still nowhere to be found. Just as I was about to call the bank for a new one, on a hunch I reached down inside a magazine bucket that sits next to my nightstand, et voila — my check card, which she had slipped down the side where it wasn’t readily visible. The girl is a menace.

We watch her like a hawk these days, but I’m sure she has surprising things squirreled away all over the house. I hope she draws the line at dog poop or live insects, or we are in for some nasty surprises.