the passionate ailurophile

…because now I’m afraid I’ll fall asleep if I stay in bed, and then I’ll miss the Red Sox parade. We can’t have that, now, can we?

We now have a plan for Halloween. As you may know, we stopped giving out candy years ago. Why should we reward the little punks around here, who torment us the other 364 days of the year?

Last year, I was sick, too sick to go out to dinner or anything, as we usually do to get away from the knocking. But I should be okay for tomorrow.

I have been trying to find someplace that I can get to on the bus, but that Mike can drive to, park, and meet me when he’s done work. I don’t want to sit here and wait for him to come home. He usually doesn’t get home until 7PM, and the knocking will have long since began. Around here, they start knocking within a half an hour after school lets out.

Sadly, the only place I could find was the Square One Mall. That is very easy to get to on the bus, though. And they FINALLY have a real restaurant in there again. One that serves beer, I hope. It’s called Ironworks Grille & Tavern…to me, “tavern” = “beer”. Given how much I “love” malls, beer is gonna be necessary.

For the longest time, that restaurant stood empty. When the mall first opened up, they had a Houlihan’s in that spot. Houlie’s was actually pretty good, but I think the whole chain went under several years ago.

After that, a new branch of the Dockside opened there. I’ve been to the Dockside restaurant in town here, and it is awful…the food sucks and skeevy people tend to hang out there. I’ve only gone into the one at Square One Mall a few times, just for a beer. It was less skeevy than the Malden location, but I’m sure it has the same crappy food. That’s probably why it went under within a year. The skeevy Malden location is still there, though.

It stood empty for a couple of years…every so often I’d check the Simon malls website to see if another restaurant moved into it. I was happy to see this new Ironworks place.

This mall also has a Dick’s Sporting Goods, where they have the new Red Sox World Series gear. So, before I go to the Ironworks to drink beer and wait for Mike, I’ll have time to go there and get ourselves properly outfitted. I have a coupon for them, anyway…$10 off a purchase of $50 or more. The New Hampshire Fisher Cats were handing them out after every win, and they don’t expire until January ‘08.

I’m sure I’ll spend more than $50…Mike says he wants a regular sweatshirt, and I’ll probably do what I did in ‘o4 and get myself a hooded sweatshirt AND a T-shirt. I want to be able to show my Sox pride in any kind of weather.

Mike will drive straight to the mall from work. We’re VERY nervous this year about staying home and having the car parked out back on Halloween night. The local FFA™ has been VERY busy lately. They are probably the ones who vandalized our front porch last week.  Also, we’re seeing a LOT of smashed pumpkins around.  Who knows what they’ll do when it actually IS Halloween.  I fear for our new car being vandalized, and don’t want it parked here tomorrow night.

And people expect me to give these little thugs FREE CANDY?  I don’t think so!

So, we have a plan.  If the Ironworks place turns out to suck, we can go someplace else for dinner when Mike shows up with the car.  Restaurants tend to be empty on Halloween night…most people are either at home giving out candy, taking their kids trick-or-treating, or are at Halloween parties.

And that will be fine with me!  They are having trick-or-treat at the mall, too, but that’s much less annoying than dealing with the knocking on the door at home.