Lydia as the Wicked Witch of the East (that’s the witch the house lands on, right?) and Kate as Rosie the Riveter, a little while ago before they left to go trick-or-treating. As far as I’m concerned, the Rosie costume is another triumph for Kate, who was Mary Poppins last year. Plus, she makes it look easy: “what, this old thing?” She’s even got the wristband.

As I write this, I’m sitting on the porch handing out candy and counting the costumes. As of 7:32 PM (92 minutes down, 28 to go), I have seen

(6) Princesses
(5) Buzz Lightyears
(5) Witches (four regular, one sexy)
(5) Aliens (all in one group, each a different color)
(3) Dorothys
(3) Zombies
(3) Blind Mice
(3) Hippies

Those 33 costumes represent half of the about 70 trick-or-treaters I’ve seen so far today, which means that fully half are on the long tail: one werewolf, one cowgirl, one Super Mario, one pirate, one Karate Elvis, one Nancy Drew (my favorite)…

The Pareto Distribution balances at about 3 people per costume: in other words, the number of people who arrived in a costume worn by at least two other people was about equal to the number of people who arrived in a costume worn by only one or no other people. This balance remains steady since I last sampled costumes in 2006, and I think is a solid quantitative metric demonstrating that WEST CHESTER IS AN AWESOME PLACE TO LIVE. Since it’s not just a horde of the same store-bought costume.

Other trends since 2006: Princesses steady, football players down from five to two, Buzz Lightyear up with a bullet. Surely there is some sort of shiny Web 2.0 app out there that’ll let me do a visual trendline!