the pieces of my life

Didn’t work. Adam remembered that he had to go vote today.

Kara had a friend in town so I went with them and one of her other friends to the House of Blues this morning for the Gospel Brunch. It was one of those things where you had to go in with the right frame of mind. The cheese factor was extreme and had I not been totally game, it could have been horrible. But, that said, I had an absolutely amazing time, and I’d definitely go again. The food was fine–I don’t think anyone’s going for the food. The greens were made sweet, which I’m not a fan off. Good collard greens with vinegar. Mmmm. I think I could live off that. But the prime rib was yummy and there were lots of breakfast options as well (although folks that know me know that I’m really not a breakfast-food kind of person). The highlight, of course, was the singers. The Spiritual Soul Sisters. Wow. Talk about energy. They sang and danced and had us singing and dancing (“gospel aerobics,” they called it), and when they told me to clap for Jesus, well, this good Jewish girl clapped right along with the rest of the crowd. The whole event made me long for my Jazz Fest trip to New Orleans, where I always spend lots of time in the Gospel Tent. Praise the Lord.

5,086. It’s amazing how much I don’t remember from my early days at my former job (not that that’s what I’m writing about. No siree. Not at all. No way!). I’m e-mailing loads of folks saying, “What was this?” or “How did this go?” If anyone has anything interesting for me to insert into my novel, let me know! I take advice and suggestions from everyone for this thing.

And just a couple of months ago, I thought a big tree in a big backyard was a good thing!

The HBS Halloween party was a flashback to my old New York days. A lot of people paying $6 for mediocre drinks and looking desperately to get laid. Kara and I couldn’t help but notice that all of the partners had on outfits that pretty much covered their bodies (a nun, a pregnant bride, a coroner), while the HBS women had on outfits that bared all (cheerleaders, French maids, a lot of whores [that’s women dressed as; that’s not my judgment. Well… no, It’s not my judgment] with their male pimps with them) and the men were mostly trashed. Adam didn’t understand why I told him annoyedly that if he let one more half-naked woman touch his Q-Tip head, I was going to knee him (although I said it with slight more description). Overall it was a decent time, although the setting was definitely more of a hook-up place than a meet-people-and-talk place (there was nowhere where the music wasn’t extremely loud), although we did speak for a while from a very nice couple from Minneapolis (he’s in Adam’s section).

Our first experience with trick or treaters last night. Even though we had a house in Seattle, we were not in a heavily kid-populated part of town, so our house was ghostless. I tried to hurry home last night to be there to hand out candy (Adam had instructions that if I wasn’t home yet, he was to tell they children that he was not authorized to hand out candy), but traffic was worse than I’ve ever seen it (did everyone have the same idea?) and it took me an hour to make the half hour ride home. Although I hear the worst of the traffic was on the highway to Salem. [A side note: when I called home, Adam excitedly said, “Nightmare Before Christmas is on TV!” This is his favorite movie, so I said, “That sounds like a good excuse to not read your cases.” But then when I got home, I said, “It’s not on TV! You put on the DVD!” to which he shrugged and said, “Same thing!” Um, no?] We had a massive bowl of candy, and even though, with Adam’s insistence (which I wholeheartedly agreed) I studded it with lots of chocolate, the real candy of choice last night was the Sprees. Kids with good taste! I have to say, I got a complete kick out of the really little ones. They were so cute and hesitant and bordering on terrified. They’d very carefully take one piece of candy from the bowl, and when I said, “You can take another one, too,” they’d turn and look at their mother or father and wait for their nod of approval before turning back to the bowl and very carefully selecting a second piece. There were only two batches of the greedy kids, from whom I had to physically lift the bowl away as they attempted to clean us out. I think kids over the age or nine or ten should be banned from trick or treating. I was surprised to hear (although I didn’t see any) that kids in their teens trick or treat in this part of the world. I remember the last time I trick or treated. I wasn’t going to, because as a sixth grader, I was really too old, but we were all hanging at Andrea’s house, which was in a development, and the group of us decided we really wanted the candy after all, but the whole time I was out, I just felt ridiculous.

265. It’s a start. But it’s now bedtime.