Orange food, a skunk in the house

Hope everyone had a great Halloween! We stayed home and had my parents and Alexandra over for dinner. My parents live on a private road in the forest so they get no trick-or-treaters, though we don't do much better. Our neighborhood kids all abscond to the nicer streets, so it's not very Halloweeny 'round here. However, early in the day, a skunk did get into the house! Oh no!
What an adorable Camille-skunk! Unfortunately, I didn't have any candy to give her, what with the low trick-or-treater expectation. In the almost seven years we've lived here, the number of trick-or-treaters has gone down steadily, from maybe five or six doorbell rings to last night only TWO. We are inevitably left with a giant bowl of candy, because even though I say I'm not going to buy any (or at most, one bag), when I get to the candy aisle. . . some demon possesses me. After the incident of the skunk, I went to the store for candy, and though I only bought two bags, Alexandra brought two more -- and then we had a grand total of THREE kids come to the door!

Alexandra was not, ahem, looking quite herself last night. . .
ha ha! Trust Alexandra to bring some wackiness. (Apparently, after she gave my dad eyebrows for his birthday last week, he stuck them on his bathroom mirror at face-height so that now when he is shaving it looks like he has enormous shaggy eyebrows.)

It was an inadvertantly orange-themed dinner last night, with each thing having either pumpkin or apricots in it. Also, everything we made was out of the current issue of Martha Stewart's Everyday Food magazine: penne pasta w/ creamy pumpkin sauce garnished with fried rosemary; apricot and shallot-stuffed pork loin; apricot and goat cheese radicchio salad; and pumpkin layer cake. Yum!

There's just something about a frosted cake on a cake stand; I love it. My mom brought caramel apples and three kinds of cookies, so we did okay in the sweets department, I'd say. And to think, just the night before, Jim and I were scavenging the cupboards for old chocolate for want of dessert! What a difference a day can make! Oy. Now, what to do with it all? Eat it for breakfast?

OOH! Exciting news for fans of Joss Whedon. Thanks to Gwenda for the link. Yippeee!

OOOOHH! And more important news: it's "cupcake roundup time" over at Cupcake Bakeshop. Look HERE and drool!