For those of you who haven’t visited the WALTnow! blog (see sidebar) this week, you must…absolutely MUST…check out this.

Just be sure that you’re not sipping a Diet Coke, or it’s liable to squirt out your nose.

Trivia Tidbit: WALTnow! is the spiritual godfather of this Virtual Tapas Bar. Way back in June 2004, I was perusing WALTnow! (which, at the time, was called “My Life as a Walt”) and thought to myself, “So THAT’S a blog, eh? Hmm…that kinda looks like fun.”

All this talk about Halloween has gotten me thinking about candy lately. In particular, the Halloweeen candy that I used to snarf en masse during in the 1970’s–a simpler, gentler time when children were neither clinically obese nor allergic to peanuts.

So…for lack of any better ideas at the moment, I’ve listed below my five favorite Halloween candies from the KC & the Sunshine Band era.

1. Mallo Cups: These were my favorite of favorites. They looked like Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, but contained a creamy, marshmallow and coconut filling. Then–as if to elevate this most perfect of candies to even greater heights–the cup’s top layer of chocolate was embedded with coconut flakes. Chocolate, coconut, and no peanut butter breath! What more could you ask for? The best thing about Mallo Cups, however, was that my friends hated them as passionately as I loved them. This meant that on each November 1, I’d enjoy a buyer’s market for Mallo Cups on the candy-trading floor.

2. Mounds: What could be better than a candy bar that’s 98% coconut?

3. Almond Joy: These should’ve been even better than Mounds, because they used milk (rather than dark) chocolate. But then some marketing knuckle-head decided to desecrate the coconut by slapping a whole almond on top of it. Fortunately, that pesky nut was easily bitten-off and spit-out.

4. Brach’s Sundaes–Neopolitan Coconut: You probably don’t recognize the name, but you’ve all tasted it. These are those pink, white and brown-striped coconut cubes that came individually-wrapped in cellophane. A pure hit of coconut, sugar and food coloring! Loved ‘em. LOVED ‘EM!

By the way…is anybody noticing a trend here?

5. And finally…Baby Ruth: OK, OK…let’s try to move beyond the “Caddyshack” stigma and judge this candy bar on its merits. I had an odd, illogical, disfunctional relationship with Baby Ruth candy bars. Every Halloween, I would find a few in my sack. I’d eat them and my reaction was always the same: “Goddamn! These are great!” But then, despite the fact that every US candy store and supermarket carried them, I’d go the entire year without buying or eating another. To this day, I can’t explain why. It makes no sense. I should’ve been eating a Baby Ruth with every meal. But just like the movie “Groundhog Day,” the circle repeated itself year after year after year.

And just for the hell of it, my least favorite Halloween candies were the following: Zagnut; Clark Bars; Dum-Dum lollipops; and…most hated of them all…CANDY CORN!

Honestly! Have you ever met anyone who liked Candy Corn?

[Note to readers: The following essay was written on October 26, 2005. Why is this important? I’ll tell you in a few days.]

Spain doesn’t celebrate Halloween, and I find that very sad. Why? Because Halloween isn’t just my favorite holiday, but it’s also my only opportunity each year for socially-acceptable cross-dressing.

For those of you who are not familiar with Halloween, let me provide a little background. Halloween falls on October 31st, and is much-loved in the US by children and childish adults alike.

During the weeks leading-up to Halloween, trees lose their leaves. Apples come into season. People decorate their homes in a Vincent Price motif. And on one very special night, entire families gather around the television to watch “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown!”–or at least, they did during the pre-VCR/DVD/TiVO days when I was growing up.

But the best thing about Halloween is “trick or treating.” On Halloween night, children dress in costumes–ranging from scary to silly–and go from house to house ringing doorbells. When the door opens, the children shout, “Trick or treat!”…the homeowner puts a piece of candy in each child’s sack…and then they move on to the next house. By night’s end, the children have accumulated enough candy to last until…well…until November, at least.

I, by the way, trick or treated until I was 22 years old–at which point I decided to stop. Why? Because I noticed that many homeowners were greeting me with a basket of candy in one hand and a canister of pepper spray in the other.

Anyway…Spain, as I said, doesn’t celebrate Halloween. But that hasn’t stopped me from being prepared during each of the five Halloweens that I’ve spent here. I always stock-up on candy *just in case* some enlightened, iconoclastic Spanish youth in full Spiderman or Carmen Miranda regalia should decide to turn the status quo on its ear and ring my doorbell with pillowcase in hand. But alas, my doorbell falls silent each October 31st and I am forced to quell my depression by shovelling a wicker basket full of Conguitos into my mouth throughout the following two weeks.

But this year, my friends, things are going to be different. My Halloween isolation is coming to an end. Why? Because my three year old daughter’s birthday falls on October 29th and we’ve invited her friends and classmates over for a birthday/Halloween bash.

I’ve been preparing for weeks. I spent 50€ on a shopping cart full of plastic skulls, spiders, bats, witches, black cats and other props needed to convert my living room into an Ozzy Ozborne music video. I have an ample supply of make-up on-hand with which to paint the kids’ faces. Sitting beside my front door is a beefy scarecrow sporting a hockey mask and sickle. I’ve even assembled all the ingredients needed to make carmel apples and orange-colored Rice Crispies Treats.

There’s only one thing that I’m missing: Clark Bars!

Despite my best efforts, I just couldn’t find any Clark Bars in Spain! Sure, they’re disgusting. Sure, every American kid is disappointed when he empties his sack at night’s end and discovers that his Halloween booty is 75% Clark Bars. But can one properly celebrate Halloween without them?

If the US Ambassador is reading this, I’d like his opinion on the matter. And no, I cannot wait until he has finished watching “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown!”

It may come as a shock to people living in northern Spain’s Ireland-like Asturias region, but much of Spain has been suffering a nasty drought lately. Things have been especially parched here in Guadalajara—a province whose “How I spent my Summer Vacation” essay would need only two words: “On fire!”

Local officials in my hometown of Cabanillas del Campo have spent many a disturbed coffee-break pondering drought-related issues. The first indication of a looming crisis appeared last June. That’s when City Hall distributed an urgent message advising that municipal water supplies had dropped to a lowly 38% of capacity and pleading that citizens conserve water whenever possible. Suggestions included tightening drippy faucets, running dishwashers only when full and turning off the shower while lathering and shampooing.

I took this plea to heart, and then took it a step further by making the greatest sacrifice that a male of our species can make: I stopped watering my lawn.

This was a painful decision, yet an easy one. A beautiful garden, I reasoned, is clearly less important than assuring an ample supply of drinking water for the children of Cabanillas. Besides, an unwatered lawn is a lawn that won’t grow—and I’ll admit that the prospect of locking-away my lawn mower until Spring 2006 had a certain selfish appeal.

Well…my lawn quickly turned a deep shade of straw-yellow, and took on such a texture that only a well-trained Yogi would dare attempt to cross it with bare feet.

I couldn’t help noticing, however, that the squishy feelings of civic responsibility to which I’d fallen prey had not yet infected any of my neighbors. Indeed, a quick survey of the neighborhood established that mine was the *only* house sporting yellow grass. Everyone else’s lawn fell into one of two categories: (a) lush and green, or (b) buried under six inches of concrete—this latter category being a peculiarly Spanish phenomenon that I’ve not encountered elsewhere…except, perhaps, certain dangerous sections of The Bronx.

Still, I didn’t care. My yard looked like hell, but I wore it as a badge of honor.

Besides, I was quite enjoying the drought. I had, after all, spent thirty-two years living in lousy climates before moving to Spain in 1999 and as a result, eleven months of uninterrupted sunshine ranked pretty low on my “Personal Registry of Misery & Human Hardships.”

But alas, the dry-spell ended two weeks ago and Cabanillas received its first meaningful rainfall since November 2004. And when that first raindrop fell, something odd happened. I felt…excited. For the first time in my life, I actually felt *excited* about a rainy day. It was new! It was different! It was a change of pace! I could finally pull my red, flannel, lumberjack shirt from the closet. I could finally go jogging without the threat of acute sunstroke. And best of all…the air no longer smelled like dry-roasted dog poo.

Yes my friends…I was excited!

And then, twenty minutes later, the excitement passed. The rains, however, did not. They’ve continued (on and off) for more than a week, and my grass is already showing disturbing signs that my lawn mower’s retirement will be short-lived.

Perhaps I prayed too hard for rain. The next time I have an urge to dress like a lumberjack in the midst of a drought, I’ll just hop in my car and drive to Asturias.

Spanish bartenders don’t tolerate age discrimination. They’ll serve alcohol to any patron—no matter how youthful-looking—who can establish his maturity via the following quiz:

BRIGHT-EYED PATRON: Bartender! Gimme a beer.

BARTENDER (leaning forward on one elbow): Do you intend to drink it from a glass? Or from a human nipple?

PATRON: Uhhh…from a glass.

BARTENDER (slapping the countertop): OK! Here’s your beer.

Of course, I’m exaggerating a bit. Spain has a minimum drinking age which, I’m fairly certain, is somewhere in the two-digits. And I’ve no doubt that most bartenders observe it conscientiously. But I’m still taken aback each time I discover that the person on the next bar-stool and I share a special affinity for the year 1985 (i.e., I completed my last semester of high school; he completed his last trimester of fetal development).

How could I not be taken aback? I come from a country that goes to the other extreme. In the US, one’s first legal sip of beer (at age 21!) often coincides with the sprouting of one’s first gray whisker. I had forgotten about this absurdity until last month, when I returned to the US for my first visit in nearly two years.

I was in a “gourmet” (i.e., overpriced) hamburger joint and ordered a pint of Bass® ale. The pimply-faced waitress asked to see proof of my age. Now, I’m a 38 years old. And if you’ve looked at my profile photo, it’s quite apparent. But I’m also familiar with the US’s inflexibility in these matters (and, in fact, spent most of my adolescent years finding ways around it), so I handed her my Spanish residency card—i.e., the only ID that I had in my wallet.

She held it at arm’s-length between her thumb and forefinger—in much the same way that a 7 year old from Tennessee might gawk at his first escargot in a French bistro—and said, “This isn’t an Illinois driver’s license.”

“I know. That’s because I don’t live in Illinois.”

“Ummmm…I need to, like, ask my manager. We usually don’t accept out-of-state ID’s.”

“But…but…the nipples! I won’t use nipples!”

Ten minutes later, the manager came to our table, took a brief look at the craggy, hairless relic that is my cranium, and said, “OK. We’ll get you that beer.”

Incredible, isn’t it? In this light, Spain’s relaxed attitude toward serving alcohol seems sensible. I’d imagine that there are some Spanish teens reading this essay and thinking, “Perhaps that study abroad program isn’t such a good idea, after all.”

The people I feel most sorry for, however, are US soldiers. They can be sent to war at age 18…but can’t legally drink until they’re 21. That’s not just illogical; it’s cruel! Why cruel? Because if I were being sent into a battlefield, I’d want to be as rip-snortin’ drunk as humanly possible.

Fortunately for our troops, I think I’ve found a loophole. An 18 year old soldier can’t drink a beer while stationed in the US, but what if the war was on foreign soil? Say, a country that does allow 18 year olds to drink. That would be OK, wouldn’t it?!

Of course, the existence of this loophole makes me happy that there are no US military generals under the age of 21. If there were, they might be tempted to invade Spain for this very reason.

This post is brought to you by my new friend, Mac Mini. Cute, isn’t she?

I picked it up in Madrid this morning, and…I like it. But it feels strange. Kinda like getting behind the wheel of a new car after you’ve traded-in your old beater that had 200,000 miles.

This is the first Apple that I’ve owned since the IIe that my parents gave us for Christmas in 1984. I continued using that same 64K workhorse all the way through my first year of law school in 1991 (and boy, did I get a lot of funny looks). But then I was shuffled into the corporate world and, by necessity, succumbed to its odd insistence on using Windows-based computers.

Earlier this week, however, it became apparent that I needed to buy a new computer for home use. The choice came down to the following: a fickle, temperamental, crash-prone Windows PC vs. an Apple that even a monkey could operate.

My decision, therefore, was a no-brainer…and so far, so good. I got her unpacked, configured and zipping through the Internet in less than an hour–despite my having the technical savvy of a sea otter.

But perhaps the nicest thing about being an Apple user is that I can finally stop worrying about viruses. Why? Because–as I’m told–my Mac Mini is immune to them. So I now surf the Internet in a tranquil, zen-like state. It’s a feeling that, I’d imagine, is analogous to participating in a Hollywood orgy after receiving an FDA-approved AIDS vaccine.

Perhaps that’s a bad analogy. We are, after all, talking about a Mini.

Last Sunday, I decided to expand my jogging horizons beyond the goat pastures of Castilla-LaMancha and participated in the CSIC 10K race through downtown Madrid.

Five thousand people participated in the run—of which ten were actually trying to win it. My goal wasn’t to finish first; but rather, not to finish last.

I felt confident that I would achieve this goal. Here’s why.

I was wearing my iPod Shuffle MP3 player…as I always do when I run. As you probably know, the iPod Shuffle doesn’t have a screen and the songs play in a random order. You therefore don’t know which song is coming next. I hit the “Play” button as I crossed the starting line, and what do you think was the first song to hit my ears? It was The Byrds singing:

Jesus is just alright with me.
Jesus is just alright, oh yeah.
Jesus is just alright with me.
Jesus is just alright.

So I knew from the first step that Divine intervention was on my side. I finished the run in a little under 51 minutes. The last person finished much later.

The race’s winner, by the way, finished more than twenty minutes before I did. I wonder what song was playing on his iPod?