Corner of Bourbon & Division

NaNoing with tcaptain and mayabanana who came last night for Hallowe'en along with luvenditti. They spent the night, and we stayed up until midnight to celebrate the start of NaNo. We each hit quota, and tcaptain and I finished up with over 2,000 words.

Now we've had a breakfast of waffles and bacon, I have had coffee (very important), and we are about to start writing again. I'm hoping to get a LOT of writing done today, because the days when I'm at work I likely won't have the time or energy to get much written.

Well, yesterday was a mixed bag of clusterf*ck and just plain awesome. Let's try this in point form:

1- Shave To Save Wrap-Up

I had never been to Fairview Mall before (little did I realize that it was right near the Chapters in Pointe Claire: if I'd known that, I would have saved myself a lot of hassle), so I consulted Google Maps, which has never led me too far astray before. This goes to show that there is indeed a first time for everything.

Google Maps took me directly to the Beaconsfield Golf Club. This was not only singularly unhelpful, but also far away from where I wanted to go. I ended up driving around Pointe Claire Village in the dark at 05:30, swearing under my breath because there wasn't a single solitary soul to be seen anywhere. The only gas station I found was closed, so no way to ask for directions. I finally spotted a car with its hazard lights flashing in someone's driveway, and a woman came hurrying out of the house. I pulled over and hopped out, caught her before she could make a getaway, and asked for directions. The lady (whose name I never got) was super super nice and actually led me all the way to the mall! I thanked her profusely and went to the Shave to Save Wrap-Up bash.

The event itself was kind of anti-climactic. There was breakfast, the radio hosts chatted away into their microphones, more people got their heads shaved, I talked to some people I didn't know, and they gave a cheque for $436,000 to the Québec Breast Cancer Foundation. It was nice, but unremarkable except for the really big cheque. :)

2- Hallowe'en Prep

After the event, which lasted a full hour longer than I had anticipated, I rushed off to do grocery shopping and to buy a pumpkin.

Then I hit traffic.

Then I hit construction.

Then I hit the traffic trying to avoid the construction.

Then I hit more construction.

Then I hit more traffic trying to avoid yet more construction.

Then I hit traffic due to an accident on the 20.

I got home at noon, and spent the next hour flying around Montreal trying to get everything done. I had originally planned on being home by 10:00 to get things done. I managed to buy all my groceries and three pumpkins, but didn't get to Home Depot to buy Teflon plumbing tape. That'll go to next week, I guess.

I got called "sir" on two separate occasions, by service people who saw me from behind. I refrained from answering: "Thanks but that's not the gender with which I'm choosing to identify today!" I figured it wasn't the right day to be messing with people's minds. ;) They were very apologetic whenever I turned around: from the front I am very visibly female.

By 15:00 I had cleaned out all three pumpkins but was running horrendously late on everything else. I resigned myself to the thought that I wouldn't have time to cook the carrot soup and vegetarian lasagna that I had originally planned to make for when my guests arrived, and resolved to ask them if they would be okay with pizza.

BorderCrossing arrived at 16:00, dressed as a zombie! After I poured some squash soup into her (poor girl was so busy all day she'd forgotten to eat!) she gamely helped me with the rest of the Hallowe'en decorations while I carved the jack-o'-lanterns (one was a bat and the other was a typical scary face type of thing: I didn't think to take pictures, sorry) and pureed the third pumpkin to make pumpkin pie. BorderCrossing did a great job with orange and black balloons, yellow hazard tape, and glow-in-the-dark fake cobwebs with plastic spiders hanging off them. The place was suitably spooky by the time she was done, and fairly screamed "Hallowe'en."

The first trick-or-treater caught me unprepared at 17:00. I hadn't yet lit the candles in the jack-o'-lanterns, nor had I put candy in the big bowl. I am forever shamed. Nonetheless, I scrambled a bit and managed to provide candy for the little tyke.

3- Hallowe'en Proper

tcaptain and maya_banana landed on my doorstep at around 18:30, looking very snazzy in their top hat and blue wig (respectively).

Things were moderately under control by then, and the trick-or-treaters were arriving in regular bursts. There was one wee little boy dressed as a Mountie! So cute! I told him: "Maintain the right, young man!" and he waved. Did I mention cute?

tcaptain and maya_banana very nicely volunteered to go forth in search of pizza, leaving me to flap around the kitchen continuing to get stuff ready while BorderCrossing helped and tried to get me to not be quite as hysterical. She doesn't know me well enough yet to know that I find it physically impossible to *completely* relax when I'm hosting for anything more than one person. Two people makes it a party, and that means that I want everything to be just so, even when it isn't.

The pizza was delicious, and I had at least provided enough beverages for the evening. We had a great time hanging out, eating, and giving out candy to the trick-or-treaters, who were all unfailingly polite, as usual. Only one small boy, who was dropped off by car, didn't say "thank you" for his candy. One kid out of the whole night really isn't bad.

Memorable little kiddies:
- the girl dressed as Pippy Longstocking, who had braided her hair and threaded a thick wire through it so that her pigtails stuck out horizontally: very ingenious
- the teeny tiny Mountie mentioned earlier
- the little cowboy (about seven or eight) who was so shy he hid under his Stetson the whole time
- the sproglet in an indeterminate animal costume who beamed at me and said "Bye!" about eight times while never moving to go at all in spite of his mother's entreaties
- the vampire siblings, who giggled a whole lot when I teased the sister about not biting her brother

tcaptain and BorderCrossing made the unexpected discovery that they used to live about 15 minutes away from each other in Ontario in their youth. Their was much reminiscing about local landmarks and the like, which got very exuberant and was lovely to behold, if mostly incomprehensible to both maya_banana and me.

My Great Pumpkin Pie Experiment turned out pretty well. I used a recipe from allrecipes.com which called for vanilla ice cream to be used instead of whatever is normally used in pumpkin pie. It was good, but had a weird foamy texture that was reminiscent of quiche. Next time I may try to find a more traditional recipe. It was good, but not what I wanted to make.

maya_banana made my cats' night by fussing over them and offering tons of pats and scritches and love and overall attention. Gretzky, Pan-Pan and George all made fawning idiot of themselves. It was great.

luvenditti made an appearance about ten minutes (possibly less) after tcaptain and maya_banana had called it a night. She and BorderCrossing sat down and chatted and commiserated about their jobs in high schools ("I don't have a name at school. At school I'm 'But Miss!'") while I took the opportunity to tidy up the kitchen, which looked like a bomb had gone off in it. The good news is that the kitchen is now sparkly clean!

Of course after that the night was kind of short, as I had to be at work at 06:30 today. I left BorderCrossing half-asleep under a pile of cats (not her choice, I might add: the cats love her in spite of her best efforts) and hauled myself off to the bus stop in a timely fashion.

Work today was a giant clusterf*ck. If I have time tomorrow I shall post about it in a f-locked post. For now, my bed awaits, as I have work again tomorrow. Whee!

Nearly 05:30, and I must be off to work soon. No overtime again! *happy dance*

I forgot to buy a corkboard yesterday, but I can remedy that this week. I got my pumpkin lights up yesterday, and they are much fun. This afternoon when I get home I will put up most of the other decorations (except for the fake cobwebs and the balloons, which will go up on Friday, as they are more time-sensitive in nature, in that the balloons will deflate and the fake cobwebs don't do very well out of doors for more than a few hours).

This week's schedule is a little borked, because I'm working evenings tomorrow instead of days, as I have a dentist's appointment in the morning. Ah well. Healthy teeth are important. In the meantime, the cats are fed, I've had coffee, and the day is young.

I might try making some spaghetti sauce tonight when I get home, depending on how much time I have and how I'm feeling.

Isn't my life exciting? Still, I wouldn't have it any other way.

Funny how, even though I'm technically on vacation and am not working, my days are still full. Granted, a couple of them have involved several episodes of Stargate and MacGuyver, but for the most part I've been running around doing much-needed errands and suchlike. I'm rather hoping that next week turns out to be less busy, as I haven't even remotely gotten around to cleaning yet, which is one of my Major Goals for this vacation.

Did Hallowe'en for the third year in a row with Jan and t!, which was much fun, except that poor ai731 has a really bad cold/sinus thing and seemed absolutely miserable, which is no fun a all for her. This year instead of distributing candy we made a point of giving out homemade gingerbread cookies. I bought some candy as a standby, and the cookies had about an 85% success rate, which is pretty good all told. The few kids who refused the cookies gave us very bemused (and sometimes disgusted) looks, as though to say: "It's Hallowe'en! We're here for candy. Don't you know anything?" It was amusing, anyway.

Tomorrow is the first day of NaNoWriMo, during which I expect to get very little written, unlike last year's 10,000 word display of insanity. I am getting a haircut in the morning, then seeing a movie with my mother, and then meeting up with the Capricornucopia crew for some more playwriting goodness. If I write 1,500 words of my novel, I will consider it a successful day for NaNo.

Eventually I will get back online, I promise. I know I've been MIA for, gosh, weeks really. Possibly months. My non-internet life has become very very full and very very busy, and by the time I get home and switch on the computer I have just about enough energy to read LJ and my webcomics and then hit the proverbial hay. With luck, once I've caught up on my sleep and run all the errands I've been putting off for two months, I will have more time and mental energy to catch up with all my internet friends, whom I've missed very much.

Happy Hallowe'en, everyone!