Happy Halloween to you, too.

I won a Halloween costume contest in Ringer Park today and my prize was 12 sticky eyeballs. I handed them out to the kids at the party, who were simultaneously grossed-out and delighted. After a while, their grimey hands caused the eyeballs to lose their stickiness and fall apart. Darth Vader here asked me if he could have a new one because his was broken. This was his face after I said no. It was a gift, not a guarantee-- plus I'd already given the rest of them away to other kids who also wanted new ones.


Liam Rushe, 5, from Allston, celebrates Halloween dressed as Darth Vader at a party in Ringer Park.

Whittier Street

I spent a good chunk of time shooting and interviewing some very nice folks in the waiting room of this community health clinic for a CSM weekly article on MassHealth. You'll see my contributor's byline at the end of Mark Trumbull's weekly magazine article: What lessons Massachusetts holds for US healthcare. Mark is brilliant, but I was proud of my reporting on this article.

Also, a cute kid with the sniffles:



Carol Wideman cares for her great-nephew Dewight Andrews, age 15 months, as he waits to be seen for a cold at Whittier Street Health Center in Roxbury, Mass., on October 2, 2009. Wideman is currently making expensive COBRA payments to Harvard HMO after being laid off from her job. She says MassHealth works fine for her great-nephew, and thinks it's good for kids. PHOTO: SARAH BETH GLICKSTEEN / The Christian Science Monitor.

Father & Ford

My editor said I was lucky to find this pair during the hour I had in the middle of a weekday to find a photo to accompany a CSM weekly magazine article on Obama's fatherhood initiative. I told him I make my own luck. This family was great. I'm just thankful they didn't send me out to photograph "bipartisan accord".



Togetherness: Paul Christie of Somerville, Mass., enjoys lunch with his son Ford. The father of two boys works nights but says he tries for two meals a day with his family. A new federal initiative is advancing the value of active parenting.

Freelance hoopster

Jenn Bliss, who organized Friday's East Somerville Honk! Festival, and acted as parade marshal during Honk!Fest's Sunday march down Massachusetts Avenue, enjoys some hula hooping during the Environmental Encroachment band's performance on Saturday in Davis Square.

I asked Jenn if she was affiliated with the Chicago-based Environmental Encroachment Band as she took a break while performing with them at Honk! last night. She said no, she was just freelancing. I saw her around the festival a few more times after photographing her. She looked like she was having a heck of a time. And, yes, that's her real last name.

My first Christian Science Monitor weekly magazine cover photo

Just a still life I lit and shot in the studio. I'm not famous, but that stethoscope is. Thanks, Skenderian Apothecary.