Dude, Monday night was a spooky night. It got me in the mood for Halloween with a quickness. It had all the key elements:
1. Full moon. If you're a night, and you want to get spooky, you have two options: full moon or new moon. Everything else is just funny (gibbous) or romantic (crescent). And overcast nights, at least in the city, are too bright to be spooky.
a. Supplemental wispy clouds. A full moon in a clear sky runs the risk of bringing the brightness of midday to objects below -- not spooky. If partially veiled by wispy clouds, though, it's going places.2. Strangely localized low-lying fog. I went out for nacho fixins last night, and when I got back I found my entire backyard was covered in a four-foot deep white mist. The front yard, and all surrounding environs, were not covered in mist. This was, you guessed it, spooky.
3. Cat acting freaky. In the kitchen, as FLOGette was doing dishes, our cat Bonzi came out of nowhere and charged into her leg, and then the garbage can, at full speed. She then sat under a dining room chair staring agitatedly at a point just above my head for 3 to 5 minutes. After that she settled into a pattern of trotting around the house and staring fixedly at various things only she could see. Spooky!
4. Dogs getting riled and making odd noises in the wee hours before dawn. Running around the bedroom sniffing madly, being put outside to sit and growl on the deck, occasionally sprinting to the backyard, barking. Repeat. This, too, is spooky. (I suppose it comes to seem spookier still when you find that your dog has learned how to access your blog.)
5. Also I met the devil.