Recipe for Black Cabbage:

You’ve heard of red cabbage, this version is even easier.

INGREDIENTS

1 Cabbage

Place in rear of drawer at bottom of fridge. Cover up thoroughly with carrots, celery, lettuce, apples. Squeeze in a few lemons if there’s room.

Leave for six weeks.

Not so delicious, but isn’t it easy?

I’m thinking we need a second fridge…

Seeing as we’re almost in October, the stores are starting to be filled with Halloween stuff, and I’ve got to admit, I’m getting a little excited.

I’m a sucker for a holiday. At Christmas we don’t have one tree, we have three - huge green and gold theme in the family room, small silver and blue theme in the living room, and very small silver one in the front hall. I do Thanksgiving every year - the entire family, both Beloved’s and mine, and whatever waifs and strays are around. I adore any holiday that involves decorating, gathering people together, and feeding them.

I think perhaps this was because growing up in England, we missed out on so many holidays. No Thanksgiving, Christmas is relatively low-key, and certainly back then, Halloween just wasn’t done. One year, I must have been around nine, some friends and I decided to go Trick or Treating.

The first house we went to, the woman came to the door, saw us, screamed, and slammed the door in our faces. Given that our costumes consisted of our mothers tights pulled over our faces, I’m not entirely surprised. (I know. I have no idea why we did that either).

She did re-open the door, and then very sweetly rummaged in her fridge for something to give us. I think our loot that year consisted of tangerines, a few mouldy apples, and a couple of fifty pence pieces. Entirely disappointing.

Then, living in the little Coach house, just before I moved to America, I had stocked up on bags of mini chocolates, thinking that, as we lived in an area with so many kids, perhaps we would get Trick or Treaters. The doorbell rang once, at around nine O’clock. I went to the door and found two very scary, menacing men standing on my doorstep. ‘Trick or Treat,’ they said, threateningly.

I know they were expecting money, but I produced all three giant bags of mini-chocolates and handed them over, and I have to tell you, their faces instantly became the faces of children, filled with delight. If they weren’t so terrifying it would have been very sweet.

I used the intercom from that point forward.

Here in Westport, the beach is the place to go Trick or Treating. Almost every house is decorated, the roads are pretty much closed to traffic, and tons of kids wander around going from house to house. This year the Smalls are supposed to be with The Republican, but I begged to keep them and he has acquiesced. (For the record, the Republican makes many changes to the schedule, usually swapping weekends. He is the only man I know who has regular ‘work’ commitments on the weekend. Although oddly, he didn’t while we were married. Funny, that).

So we are planning a small Halloween bash before Trick or Treating, and I am wondering how to carve the pumpkins this year. I always set out with wonderful intentions for dramatic, intricate pumpkins, but I always forget how much bloody work it is to carve those pumpkins. I found this picture online, and I am desperate to have a few of these on my lawn because it made me laugh, and how hard can it be?

Failing that, there is always this:

I will be the Wicked Witch of the West this year. I have the costume already, and green make-up. I’ve never understood this whole idea of adults dressing only in costumes that makes them look gorgeous and sexy. Put it like this, one year, I must have seen twenty Evil Queens from Snow White. I don’t want to look gorgeous and sexy. I want to look entirely different, unrecognisable. And Biscuit will be Toto, carried by me, in a basket.

I’d love the kids to join in on the theme but they refuse, which is a shame, because for the last couple of years we’ve had a Star Wars theme. The boys have been different combinations of Darth Vader, a Clone Trooper, Storm Trooper and Boba Fett, and Mini-me and myself have both been Princess Leah, which is very cute given that we are identical anyway, just one big and one small.

We tried to convince the au-pair to be Chewbacca but she wasn’t having any of it. She went, unsurprisingly, as a sexy schoolgirl.

Which has just given me an idea. I think I should try and convince Beloved to join my theme. I’m thinking he’d make a wonderful Glinda…

I have discovered a new obsession: The Sarah Palin baby name generator.

You feed in your name to discover what you would be called if Sarah Palin was your mother.

So far I have discovered that I am Trough Gutted Palin, and the kids are, by order of age,

Crank Widow Palin
Hump Gizzards Palin
Clop Clutch Palin
Nam Guadalupe Palin
Slap Spear Palin

And perhaps my favorite of all is Beloved:

Bang Walmart Palin.

Yeah, baby!

(To my reader who left a comment recently regarding my obsession with Sarah Palin, saying, basically, enough, already, I have to respond with I’m so sorry, but I can’t stop. There’s just too damned much comedic value in it).

Interestingly, on Saturday night we went to a gala dinner in Bedford for a native plant center in Austin Texas, honoring Martha Stewart. We were amongst the youngest there, and I rather suspect we were in a roomful of Republicans - gasp - and we found ourselves talking to many middle-aged men who all think Sarah Palin is utterly fabulous.

They all started with these words: ’she’s hot.’ A couple went on to explain that she’s a true American, she hunts, she fishes, she’s the type of woman who built America and made it great two hundred or so years ago.

I listened to them in astonishment, because the skill set required to make America great two hundred years ago is a very different skill set required to make America great again today. America is no longer the leader of the free world, no longer the superpower it once was, and the world has become a very small place - foreign relations are crucial, and perhaps more important, the curiosity required to want to learn about them.

‘I can see Russia from my porch’ doesn’t quite cut it, nor does an ace shot from a plane.

Still, I’m almost dying with excitement for the debate on Thursday, and more than that, to see what Tina Fey comes up with on SNL afterwards.

By the way, if you’re wondering why I’m posting this at 4.57am, I’m wondering too. Wondering why sleep decided to abandon me these last few weeks… It’s not funny, kay?

As my reader would say, enough, already. Come back, sleep. I miss you.

I’ve had an interesting email I wanted to share with you. It’s from someone called Margo, and I only share this with you because, well, she seems lonely, in need of friends, and I thought if any of you have some extra time on your hands, perhaps you could email her? She sounds very nice, this is her email:

Hello… You don’t know me but maybe I want to know you ;)…a little about me:)I am tall, with not bad body pretty girl…I very want to meet man of my dream, i dont know how should he to look.. I have a lot of time for meetings and if you have any ideas how to spend it with me… just email me back at MARGO@flhsupplies.com i will reply back with some really cool photos with me …and maybe you will want to meet me next day))) see you. kiss

I will say I’m not entirely sure why she has written to me. I suspect she has heard on the grapevine that I have a very handsome brother, but he has been married and with child for rather a long time, and I don’t quite know how to break the bad news to her, which is why I thought I would share this with you, in the hope that we can bring a little light into her lonely life. Also, it warms my heart that she ended her plea with a kiss - how lovely is that?

Some of you may have brothers or uncles who are in desperate need of a tall, pretty girl with a not bad body, and I have a sneaking suspicion that when she says she doesn’t know how should he to look, I think she means she doesn’t very much care. Hell, for all we know this is her way of letting us know she has a fetish for horrors - the uglier the better.

I’m also impressed that she clearly has the ability to meet with your brothers, uncles, etc, the next day. I’m thinking that whatever flhsupplies.com is, she must be pretty damn successful. In fact, in order for her to absolutely be certain that she has the possibility of meeting any of you the very next day, she can’t possibly fly Commercial. I mean, how could she be sure there would even be any last-minute availability on Continental or American. So I’m betting she uses Netjets, which means, my friends, not only is she tall, pretty with a not bad body and a serious job, she’s also wealthy.

And because I want to help, (although really, I don’t know how willing I’d be had she not sent me that sweet little kiss) and because she’s asked my specific advice as to ideas of how these many thousands of men should be spending their time with her, I’ve come up with the following ideas, which I think are blissfully romantic, and I’m sure would make any man happy:

* Take your NetJets jet (although I could be wrong, it could be Marquis) to a romantic place in the Caribbean, say, Jamaica Inn, for example, and have a romantic stroll along a starlit beach before sitting down for dinner and whispering sweet nothings in one another’s ears.

* Arrange a private box at a game for the sports team of his choice, including a romantic picnic of champagne, caviar, and a molten chocolate lava cake the two of you can share, whilst whispering sweet nothings in one another’s ears.

* Charter a luxury yacht for a midnight cruise around an island of your choice, and organise his favourite band to serenade you both as you lie in one another’s arms and whisper sweet nothings.

In fact, I even found a website that Margo may be interested in. Sugardaddie.com is for women who wish to date millionaires. Okay, I realise that Margo is the millionaire here, but there seems to be an option for men wishing to date ‘Sugarbabes’, and I think we can all agree that Margo is the very model of a Sugarbabe. And there are pictures of some extremely handsome men on the website, who are obviously men already enrolled as sugardaddies, therefore clearly searching for the woman of their dreams.

Who knows, with your help, we may end Margo’s lonely days forever.