I survived the week and am alive. ALIVE!!! Picture Dr. Frankenstein standing over me screaming, “It’s alive!” and you have the right idea. It’s Friday and while I have a busy day at work, it’s an unpacking/sorting/organizing sort of day, which is just the thing when you don’t want to have to think too hard. We also have a massage therapist coming today as a treat for the team and I have a half hour massage after all of this lugging/sorting/etc. Sweet!
And today, of course, is my favorite holiday, Halloween. And tonight our friends Aldyth, Brad and Maureen are coming over to watch scary movies (well, Zombie Strippers may not be scary, but it should be entertaining and hey…zombies!) and hand out candy if we have any trick-or-treaters. I’m making jack-o-lantern shaped pasta and we have Zombie Zinfandel to serve with it. Works for me!
We don’t get a lot of trick-or-treaters in our neighborhood, which is a shame. It’s mainly families so I would think they’d be out and about, but for whatever reason our street is devoid of them. Bums me out because I love looking at all the adorable little rugrats in their costumes. Nothing cuter than a butterball toddler bundled up in a furry lion or ladybug costume. My brain melts when I see them, just the same way it melts when I look at kittens.
In Glendale, Brian and I used to have mobs of trick-or-treaters. We’d decorate the front porch, Brian would wear costumes and lurk in the shadows to give the kids a good scare (the teenagers trying to be tough cracked me up; hard to be tough after you’ve screamed like a five year old girl), and we’d play Night of the Living Dead loudly in the living room. My new Halloweens in San Francisco are different and it took me a while to reconcile myself to the changes, but this year promises to be a good one.
My favorite Halloween, though, was the year Beezle showed up. Halloween of 1996. Brian finished carving the jack-o-lantern into a grinning cat face, set it out on the porch and lit the candle. I heard a loud ‘Doh!!’ and went outside to see what happened. Brian pointed to the bottom of the porch stairs. I looked and saw the tips of little black ears, then big gold eyes followed by nose, whiskers and the rest of a tiny black kitten. The brain melting commenced as the kitten crawled up the steps straight to my feet. I scooped him up and Brian said, ‘well, hey there, little Beelzebuddy!’ He started purring and that is how Beezle came into my life. I have a pictures somewhere of him sitting in the jack-o-lantern after we took the candle out looking as cute as any Halloween card kitten; I wish I had it to post here today.
Beezle is now a grumpy 12 year old alpha male, but still his mother’s little darling. And still the best Halloween present a gal could ask for. And because I got such a good present for Halloween, I’m gonna share one with you as well – as part of the Fatal Foodies Halloween Trick-or-Treat event, if you leave a comment at my blog from today through November 8th, you will be entered to win a copy of Murder for Hire: The Peruvian Pigeon. Be sure to go to Fatal Foodies as well as other members are doing the same thing! You’ll find links to their blogs at Fatal Foodies, which is a very cool blog all on its own! Also be sure to go to my friend Marvin’s blog and check out his Halloween story, based on five silly elements I gave him. I’ll let you go over there to check out what I did to him. Heh. AND check out Make Mine Mystery for Free for all Friday fun!