My Halloween Resolutions

1. I will not eat more than one piece of candy per day...unless it is a special
occasion...like today, for example...but, even then I will not eat as much as
the four year old Spiderman next door.

2. I will cease all witchiness. I will not screech at, cackle in the face of, or
cast evil spells on The Man with the exception of magic potions which
I will continue to concoct.

3. I will be nice to ghoulies and ghosties and long leggety beasties and
other things that go bump in my local Walmart

4. I will not sit around on my big fat pumpkin. I will exercise like a banshee.

5. I will clean out the other half of our creepy, haunted cellar within the next 30
days. I will remove the giant-sized cobwebs, even the one that says "Save Wilbur,"
and all those other mysterious things lurking there, like the dried-up, petrified
osage oranges that The Man put around down there more than five years ago to
deter spiders...yeah, right! I will use my broom for something other than flying
EVEN THOUGH THIS PART OF THE BASEMENT IS FULL OF THE MAN'S STUFF
THAT HE HAS NEVER ORGANIZED AND NOW IT'S ALL A MESS AND THERE'S
OLD RUSTY, GREASY TOOLS AND I DON'T KNOW WHAT ALL.

6. I will devote more time each day to reading and studying in an attempt to learn
new tricks, like la lingua italiana, for one. E un incubo! Che fatiga!

7. I will work on being more open-minded, leaving all paths open for thought...
even those crossed by black cats.

8. I will keep my spirits up, glowing like a full moon in the face of perceived
horrors that come my way.

9. I will take time each day to sit in quiet solitude unfazed by the wailing and
moaning and thumping of The Man because he wants his lunch.

10. I will memorize something every other month, starting with the following
quote from Shakespeare's Macbeth which I will recite the next time I make
dinner for guests:

Round about the caldron go;
In the poison'd entrails throw.—
Toad, that under cold stone,
Days and nights has thirty-one;
Swelter'd venom sleeping got,
Boil thou first i' the charmed pot!

Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn, and caldron bubble.

Fillet of a fenny snake,
In the caldron boil and bake;
Eye of newt, and toe of frog,
Wool of bat, and tongue of dog,
Adder's fork, and blind-worm's sting,
Lizard's leg, and owlet's wing,—
For a charm of powerful trouble,
Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.

Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn, and caldron bubble.

Scale of dragon; tooth of wolf;
Witches' mummy; maw and gulf
Of the ravin'd salt-sea shark;
Root of hemlock digg'd i the dark;
Liver of blaspheming Jew;
Gall of goat, and slips of yew
Sliver'd in the moon's eclipse;
Nose of Turk, and Tartar's lips;
Finger of birth-strangled babe
Ditch-deliver'd by a drab,—
Make the gruel thick and slab:
Add thereto a tiger's chaudron,
For the ingrediants of our caldron.

Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn, and caldron bubble.

Cool it with a baboon's blood,
Then the charm is firm and good.

Okay, everybody! Let's eat!!