Trick or Drinkin’
This was, hands down, one of the best Halloweens I have had since I was a kid.
I spent much of the day preparing for NaNo, creating an outline and organizing my notecards. Then I picked up the girls and we got all costumed up and met other little Westlake kids to trick or treat in the neighborhood. I had not done this for several years, letting their dad take them. But this year he wanted me to do it, so I packed up my little Belle and Harry Potter’s friend Hermione and headed over to the meeting place.
The moms were emptying a bottle of wine into plastic cups. “Here’s yours!” they called merrily and outfitted me with a good 12 oz glass. “This should get us around the block then we’ll call for reinforcements to run us out another bottle!”
We lined the kids up for a group picture then began walking the block. All the parents waited at the ends of the long walkways as the kids climbed endless steps in the hilly neighborhood. Everyone sported wine or beer or opaque cups with sippin’ straws. One of the women who opened the door glanced up at us. “I see you all are trick or drinkin’!” she called. We toasted her with our white cups and rounded up the kids to push along to the next manicured lawn.
The streets were mobbed and kids called out to each other in every direction. Here everyone knew everyone else. I had forgotten the camaraderie–the genteel sheen glossing every conversation. We did have fun.
After the girls complained their loot had gotten too heavy, I whisked them back to their father to prepare for the kickoff for National Novel Writing Month.
I missed kick off by some three minutes, but settled down and spun out my first two thousand words of the miscarriage novel. I have posted them to the novel blog. I discovered some of the women in other time zones were actually counting down the minutes until I started writing the book! This will be way fun, even though the book will be an undeniably heavy read. It’s only been 12 hours since I posted the first chapter, and 200 people have already surfed over to read it. I have SO got to sell this sucker! They are counting on me!
I worked at Katz’s until 2:30 a.m. and then got my blog updated as well as other minutiae until 4 a.m.
A most extraordinary day! Good luck to all my fellow wrimo friends!
