During the summer, it’s not at all unusual for me to stay up in my office working until 7 pm. By then, the sun is beginning its descent over the park, I clean my brushes, Jay throws a huge hunk of meat on the grill and we retire to our front hill, where we sit on our Adirondacks, me with a glass of wine, him with a glass of scotch and the occasional cigar and when the sun hits the top of the school across the street, the meat is done and its time for dinner. It’s a wonderful existence.
Now, it’s dark out by 5:30 and my brain just says “I’m done.” There’s no way I have the energy or will to keep working another hour and a half.
Today, we walked around the lake at 3:30 and got home at dusk. I went upstairs, looked at the designs in front of me and thought ‘no.’ Now, its 7:30 and not only is dinner over, I cleaned the kitchen a half an hour ago. Nothing left to do but binge watch A Series of Unfortunate Events.
Who says there’s nothing to like about winter??
Halloween was very fun. It was warm enough to get away with wearing costumes, as long as they were warm, fuzzy costumes, like oh, say…Elmo.
see the different colored shoes? | Josie requested our traditional Halloween dinner: homemade macaroni and cheese. I use the recipe in the Better Homes and Garden cookbook (the one with the red checkered cover) and it’s delicious. I think one of the reasons its so good is that it calls for American cheese, instead of cheddar. Cheddar is yummy but whoever takes a huge mouthful of it? This year, I sliced up a couple of compare tomatoes and placed them on top. Soooo gooood. I think it would be good to throw in hot dog chunks too, but I don’t think I’ve ever done it. We ate early. Josie and Katie were late for dinner and they barely got here in time to wrestle the last few bowls of mac n cheese out of Zack and Jay’s hands. Then we ladies got into our costumes and headed for the party at Katie M’s house, where we’ve been spending Halloween for as long as I can remember. Katie wore a bright blue fleece, a blue stocking cap and some blue face paint, to be Cookie Monster. Adam was bringing BoopityBoop Elmos to the party. Josie wore a frilly shirt, a waist coat, leggings, tall leather boots, an ascot and a pony tail. On her head were a pair of pink pointed ears and she stapled a few curls of ribbon to the back of her coat to complete the costume: ‘Ham’ilton. She’s very into costume puns. A few years ago, she was Haramzombie for the zombie pub crawl. I wore a fur coat and a beard. I was the bearded lady from the Greatest Showman. My sister wore a red frock coat with black lapels, a black top hat, white pants and high boots to be PT Barnam and my niece Bean wore a lavender tutu and pink wig, as the trapeze artist, Ann Wheeler. Katie (sister, not daughter) had a huge spread, including two kinds of chili, soup, both pumpkin and corn muffins and tons of candy. All the cooking and decorating had been done by her daughter Meg, all Katie really did was provide the kitchen for Meg to work her magic in and the dining room for the rest of us to enjoy Meg’s considerable talents. The front yard boasts a bonfire and lots of chairs. Katie’s neighborhood is perfect for trick or treating: no fences, few hills or stairs and tons of kids. My Mom and Dad have never missed a Halloween party and they weren’t about to let a little thing like Dad being in a wheelchair mess this one up. They got to the party before I did! Megan and Ty did not try to get into town this year, due to it being a school night and Megan being too sick to stand for more than ten minutes at a time, so our party was rather short on kids. We had Nanners, Bean, Tot and Boopity Boop. And ten adults to tag along while they trick or treated. Nearly all of us were in costume. In addition to those of us who were characters out of the Greatest Showman, Meg was a parrot, Tot was Minnie Mouse (he looked gorgeous) and Molly was The Bard. She made it look easy. It’s always fun to spend Halloween with toddlers. They can’t remember last year. All they know is that everyone looks weird, they get to dress up as their favorite character and then we all go run around outside in the dark. BoopityBoop were confused but game. We brought no stroller, so it was hard at first to herd them down the street. At the first house, after the nice lady put candy in their pumpkin shaped ‘purses’, Boopity then marched past her, intending to check out the rest of her house. By the third house, they’d figured out that people were giving them candy. Candy! They kept pulling pieces out of their buckets and saying “woah.” Normally, we have no trouble telling the two of them apart but with their hoods on, they were so identical we had to resort to different colored shoes to know which was which. The highlight of the night was the moment a terror of tyrannosaurs came thundering down the street: nine junior high kids in matching tyrannosaur costumes with inflatable tales and heads which were eight or nine feet tall! The twins did both sides of the street and we called it a night. Then back to Katie’s house to check out the loot, eat some more chilli and corn bread and relax. All in all, another fabulous Halloween. |