There were tricks...and then there were treats.

OH NO!

Not more Southern California fires!

No, this time the smoke is actually just artificial fog from our next door neighbor's fog generating machine. The not quite Santa Ana style breezes carried most of it into our yard, where the scariest thing to see was, well, basically nothing at all.

(My uber non-scary front porch, with freshly re-potted planters.)

Well, maybe you could call my creeping fig a little, well, creepy.

We have the sweetest neighbors and they always go all out for Halloween.

Their little boy (age 2) made the rounds dressed up as a green dragon. Complete with roar.

Joseph and his mom dropped by early in the evening, and Tiggie was very impressed with Joseph's costume. He and Joseph have had a love/hate relationship since Joseph was old enough to sit up.

They got to know each other one day when Joseph and his mom came by, and Joseph was just old enough to sit up by himself. Joseph was plunked down on the living room carpet, where he looked all about.

Tiggie was sitting in the big green chair, also looking all about, as cats do.

It was just a happenstance that Tiggie and Joseph saw each other at the exact same moment, and had identical reactions.

Like pull the head way back while opening eyes wide.

Like "What in the world is THAT thing???"

We explained to Joseph (he who had five very large dogs in his household...) that that was a "not a dog."

It seemed much easier to put it that way than to try to explain what exactly a cat is.

(How would you explain a cat to someone seeing a cat for the first time anyway? Or the second time, or the third time for that matter....)

Joseph has chased after Tiggie as a creeper, then a crawler, then a toddler, and now a runner.

Tiggie always manages to stay just out of reach, but then always sneaks back for another round of "chase the Tiggie" to keep the game going.

When Joseph was at the door last night, Tiggie came up and observed him at a reasonable distance, ready to pad out of reach if necessary.

Tiggie never came near the door for any other visitors.

He knew Joseph's little voice, even when it was coming from a pint sized dragon.

Isn't that sweet?

I got a treat too this morning.

A couple of weeks ago I noticed the local section of the Houston paper had a place where you could submit your digital photos. Going by the Member Name Jillinthehat, I posted the picture of the dragonfly wings that I had posted on my blog awhile ago, the entry where Bernie and I went down to the lake for our morning devotions.

Tons of people post their pictures which can be seen in a gallery by going online. Once a week one person's picture gets featured in print.

Ta dah!

My picture made the front page of the local section.

Now that's one sweet treat.

Published photographer: ME!