We took Bubba downtown today to walk around some different territory. He had fun collecting some new scents and piddling on new plants. There was a block sale on 41 Street so we did a little sidewalk shopping and Bubs got lots of attention, which he loves. We passed one house that had another basset behind a chain link fence. When she saw Bubba she began to howl with excitement. We took him up to meet Polly, who was eight years old. I got the feeling that she was a backyard dog because the children were playing out front while she watched from behind the fence. She seemed starved for attention. It made me sad because she was such a nice, affectionate dog. So friendly. Her owner kept telling me how she had had 10 puppies (not recently, I hoped!) and how he'd had a dog when he was 20 and his wife thought he should have another. Whether he really shared that opinion or whether he should have had another dog was debatable from what I observed.

This evening we went to a harvest festival up in the El Dorado foothills with my brother and his wife. There was some awesome tri-tip and samplings from a chili cookoff. The winner was a "stringy rattlesnake chili" which was to die for (and I may!). Man, that was the best chili I've ever tasted. Spicy to the extreme and really smoky tasting. I hope it wasn't made out of real rattlesnake, but if it was, then tonight I discovered that I love rattlesnake chili! My niece couldn't come to the festival because she was finishing homework she'd promised to complete and hadn't in time to attend, but we joined her later at my brother's house where we all told ghost stories and read some other tales of the macabre. It was a fun family night on the cusp of Halloween that I won't soon forget.