So we're doing a pumpkin decorating contest at work

I decorated the pumpkin itself, but it was supposed to be part of a diorama. Because of getting sick, I thought I'd miss it, so I kept the pumpkin to put on my desk when I can go back to work but recycled the cardboard I was going to use and threw away the little bit I'd done, including arms for the pumpkin and a stand for it.

One of my co-workers on the committee told me to bring my pumpkin on Thursday when I go back as they'd saved me a spot. So, I pulled the cardboard out of the recycling bin (fortunately before the rain) and spent a dreary day assembling the Headquarters from Inside Out 2.

Here's the final product. I'm not an artist or anything, so it's certainly not perfect, but it basically meets the vision I had in mind and was fun to do.  I need to do something creative more often. Oh, and note there's an LED tealight under the 'idea' light bulb receptacle on the console. I thought that was a nice touch.

I also tried on my Halloween costume and it will go well. It's Sadness from Inside Out 2 as well. I have an oversized white turtleneck sweater (with lined side pockets!), I'll wear it with jeggings and my dress shoes (hers are ballerina pumps, mine are Mary Janes, but oh, well). I have blue tights and gloves, a blue Sadness wig, and blue makeup (I haven't tried that yet). I got some setting spray to keep the blue on, let's hope that works, as the sweater is rather nice and I don't want it stained. I'll be sure to take pictures of the whole thing.

Well, I'm ready for Halloween

It took me a while to figure out my Halloween costume for this year. (I didn't want to do Maleficent or my skeleton costume again since I did them the last couple of years. So I'm going to be a butterfly. It's pretty, doesn't involve makeup, is one-size-fits-all, and it didn't cost much. I just needed a black T-shirt without writing and this. I will not be in high heels. :) It does require a choker around the neck that I don't like, but it's very stretchy and got better even after a couple of minutes. It all folds up nicely. The mask is just embroidered floss, and the bulkiest item is the antennae. The colours are beautiful. I'm very happy with it. Also, there is no wire, just finger loops, so I can both put out my arms and type at my desk with no problem.

What a glorious day

It's a beautiful sunny Saturday, with the sunlight streaming through my bedroom window, which is nice, as the plants (and we) have had to endure several days of gloomy, rainy weather.  Our area actually moved trick-or-treat from Halloween to Tuesday due to inclement weather.  So the kids were out on a sunny evening that had mild temperatures and then the next day it was pouring and would have been terrible for them.  And since then there's been wind and rain.  So it's nice to see the sun.  Plus the kitten is playing with the sunbeams in the hall.

I slept 12 hours last night, even with being up in the middle of the night for about an hour.  It was good to get some rest.

Halloween was an absolute success.  Many of us dressed up in the hospital.  I got a co-worker who gets up at an ungodly 4 am each day so she can work out and get ready to call me at 4:30 am so I would have plenty of time to do the makeup, etc.  I left home at 6:30 am and arrived at UK's lot at 6:55, and at work about 7:10 am, so I was a little early, but not much, and there was time to chat with others, play a bit on the laptop I brought, and take pictures.  Thankfully, I was not the only person on the shuttle to wear a costume; Mr Incredible was there as well, although the guy lamented that the pyjamas that he was wearing (they were cheaper than the costumes with the muscles) had no pockets, and therefore he was carrying his phone, keys, and badge in his hands and had no idea what he would do with them during the day.  :) Welcome to the world of women, who rarely have pockets and if so, they're never deep for anything of note.

I had street clothes, the lightest I could find, as I knew I'd be hot, underneath mine, although they were polyester so that probably defeated the attempt at staying cool.  And I had no pockets.  But once I clocked in, I put my badge on my pants waistband so I'd have my keys and badge with me without ruining the effect of the costume.  Granted, the whole point is to ID someone, but I was more concerned with the fact that our badges unlock various areas of the hospital and I didn't want to get trapped anywhere. :)

Here are some pictures from that day:

At home, after finishing the makeup

In the break room

Up in our department

Also in the break room

So I think it went really well, it delighted the kids, and we had great fun.  Today I'm going to pack it away and take it, along with the summer clothes that have been sitting in my room in a couple of tubs, to storage.

I have a lot to do today:

1. First, get caffeinated and ready for the day.
2. Go to the pharmacy for YKWIA when he gets up.
3. Get gas for the car.
4. Drop off the summer clothes and the Maleficent costume at the storage unit.
5. Do a couple of shelves (dusting) in my room. I do two shelves every Saturday to keep all the books in the house clean, on a rotating basis.
6. Launder the bedding.
7. Go on a grocery run.
8. Do the game notes.  Last week we barely survived an evil witch and yes, I called it, Cthulhoid faeries.
9. Do some cooking.  We're making pumpkin beignets, among other things.
10. Straighten up my room.
11. Read more of The Rabbit-Proof Fence by Doris Pilkington.
12. Make bread.
13. Water the plants.
14. Watching more of 'The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina' on Netflix; we've watched four episodes and it's really good.

What I do not plan to do is go anywhere near the University of Kentucky, the stadium--Kroger Field--or downtown.  There is a Kentucky-Georgia home football game that determines who goes to the Southeastern Conference tournament, and Kentucky is usually incredibly well, bad, at football, and a season where they've lost 1 out of 8 games is almost unheard of.  We are well known for our basketball programme, but football?  Anyway, the fans can be a little intense, which is why LEX 18 (the local NBC television station) posted this on their Facebook page:

I personally don't get the appeal of sports. I don't get that sort of fervour at all.  But hopefully, win or lose, it won't come down to that sort of thing.  Since the last major incident was a car being flipped on the street next to us at work, the police are using our gated lot as a staging area to keep order.

The full effect

I had a blast for Halloween at work. Thanks to Morgan Hall, who took the picture. The costume was a hit, not only with staff,  but with kids and parents. It was great being able to celebrate Halloween at Shriners again. There is,  however,  glitter everywhere. :)

Costume!!!

I got up early, ready to put the makeup on, etc., and still managed to be ready two and a half hours early. So I went to McDonald's and spread glitter there, drove into work, rode the shuttle (and was a great hit!) and showed up an hour early, touched up the makeup, and now I'm waiting to clock in. Happy Halloween!

I haven't fallen off the face of the planet

but I never seem to make time for writing lately, something I'm going to try to do more towards correcting. Weekends are better than weekdays, of course, as I'm working and often having hectic 8-hour days of staring at a computer screen and hitting drop-down menus and dragging things into coloured boxes. Today was no exception, but even though it was busy, at times five to eight charts deep (and continuously for over two hours that way), lately I've been better at taking things like that which would usually feel me with lots of anxiety and just breaking it down, taking it one step at a time, and going forward. It's all you can really do, really, and keep your sanity. And if you just keep up your spirit and interact with each person in a friendly, yet business-like manner, it seems that most people are pretty understanding when you're piled deep in charts, trying to check people out as quickly as you can humanly do.

After I finally caught up and everyone had gone home, I called one last person about an appointment first thing in the morning to reschedule, as requested by my boss before she left, then closed up shop. I earned my own key to the bay doors today. This is my second week as a regular employee. I also got my last cheque as a contract worker today, and I put it into savings before coming home. My roommate was out meeting someone for dinner, and so I ate (fish cakes, an avocado-cucumber salad, and escarole soup, all cooked by him, and very tasty), fed the animals, and laid down and listened to some music on the speaker rather than my headphones, but I didn't really relax until he came home, tired and needing some alone time. He's in his room reading and drinking tea. I'm in the library with Pandora playing on the computer in my headphones, catching up on some things. I have barely seen any news or for that matter, done much with social media over the last few days. I have been working around the house after work and on the weekends, doing errands, etc. This weekend, on Saturday, I made a special trip to my storage unit to retrieve most of my winter clothes. I then spent Sunday (Brenda was ill, so we didn't play, much to the game master's dismay, as he has a really evil adventure to run next time) taking the old clothes out of the closet, bed drawers, and cedar chest and switching out for warmer ones, while keeping shorts, capris, and tank tops out to sleep in. But the light blouses, skirts, and the like all went back into the two totes I'd pulled out, along with some other things that made it here but should be in storage. Not only was it cold yesterday, YKWIA actually saw some snow and sleet, although of course, it didn't stick. But it's definitely time to break out the winter clothes.

I also opened up my Halloween costume and tried it on (well, I didn't pull the tights on, as I was afraid they'd run, but I checked the sizing, anyway, because I was afraid they'd pair a 4X costume with regular-size tights. It's a dress that has a full puffy black skirt, but it is otherwise covered with bones, with bones across the chest as a sternum/rib cage, and bones down the sleeves. There are gloves with the hand (but not on the thumb, which is a bit disturbing), and then the tights have all the leg and foot bones. I'm going to wear my Mary Janes so that the top of the foot bones show through. I am going to use makeup that I've bought for a skull face and neck, too. I considered spraying my hair white or silver, but the bottle specifically says not to do it on very fine hair, so instead, I found a witch's hat at Kroger that has the same sort of crinoline as the skirt but is tattered on the cone like it's been in the grave. So I'm going to be a skeletal, undead witch. There were only two issues. One, if you look at the picture on the package, the skirt on the model (who is in high heels) goes to mid-calf, whereas for me, it goes to my ankles, but that's a common thing I have with skirts, as I am only 5'4". Also, while the costume itself has lots of silver thread throughout it, rather than glitter, whoever packaged the thing threw approximately a handful of very fine glitter inside for fun, so when I took it out, there was glitter on the inner lining of the skirt. My roommate, who recognises that glitter never truly is removed from the house once it finds its way in, specifically said, there'd better not be glitter. Of course, there was, and without thinking, I twirled in the skirt, and well, glitter went everywhere. I swept up most of it (thank goodness there are no carpets in this house), and I took up the dog blanket that was at the foot of my bed because it was covered before the dogs could roll on it. I then shook the costume outdoors, but there's still LOTS of glitter. Which means I'm going to leave a trail in the car, on the UK shuttles, and all over work, much to the consternation of housekeeping. But hey, it's all in Halloween fun, right?

So the plan is to wake up early, shower, create the skull face and neck with the makeup, put on the tights and dress, then the gloves and shoes, and go to work dressed that way. I'm really excited about Halloween, and I'm glad we're still dressing up and having the kids at work trick-or-treat. To that end, though, I should go to bed pretty soon. I normally get up about 6:15 am to get to work by 8:30. I think I'll have to try for 5 or 5:30 am just to be sure. Hope your Halloween is wonderful and safe.

Halloween 2016

Here I am at the hospital I work at's Halloween Trick or Treat, where staff dress up and patients come around to the various departments. It was fun. I went as a library science student from Miskatonic University (the fictional college in HP Lovecraft's horror fiction in the equally fictional Arkham, Massachusetts). I had a plush Hound of Tindalos, a book-shaped box labeled 'Necronomicon', my MU School of Library Science t-shirt, and a tote bag with the MU Orne Library logo on it. Dr. Armitage would be proud. Oh, and did I mention light-up tentacles on a headband? Definitely have read the wrong books. There's also a closeup of the tentacles and Hound of Tindalos, and my props out in the hallway before the kids came by. The skeleton is the library's Old Charlie.


[picture above taken by Morgan Hall of Shriners Hospital for Children].

PS

I had to do some minor electrical work to the headband, as one of the wires had come loose. I got it back in the right spot, and it does, indeed light up. So I'm ready for Halloween. :)

I'm trying

to make things more ergonomic at home as well as work, to be better for my neck. To that end, I've hooked up an external keyboard to my laptop, and I went by YKWIA's and got one of my monitors (I have two, one with the desktop he has borrowed, and one that he had borrowed before his desktop tanked). I found a nice, sturdy box to elevate the monitor, which doesn't adjust normally, that my Bulova clock came in when I reached my ten-year anniversary at the hospital. (Yes, I have kept this box for nearly 10 years, without using it for anything. Have I mentioned I'm a hoarder?) Unfortunately, I forgot to get the power cord to the monitor, so I can't hook it up just yet, and I apparently didn't hoard an extra monitor power cord, and so I have the entire laptop up on the box, which does better for looking at the laptop screen. Just having my normal ergonomic keyboard on its tray should help.

Today my neck, shoulders, and arm have been pretty painful. I have taken ibuprofen, arthritis Tylenol (not at the same time), used the muscle rub--nothing has come close to taking it away. The muscle rub actually does best, because I think it actually gets to the nerves, as opposed to the oral medicine. I will have to go back and look at last night's post that I did while under the influence of the muscle relaxers. I remember it being damn difficult to type. I was also waiting for my bread to bake, and it had something like 12 minutes still on it, and I was trying to patiently wait while practically falling over. So the relaxers do make me loopy after all. I definitely cannot take them till bedtime tonight--I'm getting A, who is doing a special shift at work, at midnight, and I certainly can't drive if I take them.

Today was good. I was as productive at work as one in severe pain could be, and I got all sorts of things done. I found out that they can participate in DOCLINE (the National Network of Libraries of Medicine's interlibrary loan system) even after I'm gone and there is no longer a library, because they will have access to enough electronic journals that if they're willing to lend, they can borrow as well. That gives research and other clinical staff access to the information they need.

I also paid some bills, went to my allergist, got my shots, went to the grocery store, and took a care package over to YKWIA (and picked up the monitor, sans cord). I now have a Halloween costume to wear to work Monday. I'm going to wear my Miskatonic University School of Library Science t-shirt, with a headband I got at Kroger with light-up tentacles. Yes. A graduate student who has read too much, most likely. I have a box that looks like a large book, and I'm thinking of putting something on it (that's removable) that says Necronomicon. There's only one person at work that I know who has read HP Lovecraft, so most people really won't get it, but they'll like the headband, anyway. :) That's the second Cthulhoid costume I've worn to the hospital, the first being Great Cthulhu himself.

Alright, I've hooked up the keyboard, I've eaten. Now I am going to put away the rest of the groceries, queue up some music through the Bluetooth headphones, and start folding clothes, after rubbing some more of that stuff on my neck and shoulders. It really is the best option. I should have gotten some more while at Kroger's. Oh, well. Tomorrow is another day.

One of the fun things about working in a children's hospital

is that we dress up for Halloween and the kids trick or treat around the various offices. Since Halloween is Saturday, we're doing it tomorrow. So I am going as 'Soft Kitty' from 'The Big Bang Theory'. In fact, it's sort of purple Soft Kitty--one because I love purple, and two, because my soft kitty shirt is heathered purple with the grey striped soft kitty logo and the song written out on it. So the costume consists of:

1. Soft Kitty T-shirt
2. Long purple shirt under the t-shirt, like Sheldon wears
3. Purple and black cat ears headband
4. Purple pants
5. Purple fake fur 'leg warmers' (elasticised at the knee, hanging down like bell bottoms)
6. Purple fake fur tail
7. Nose with cream blush, whiskers and kitty mouth drawn on with black body makeup
8. The official Soft Kitty plush, which YKWIA gave me a few years ago, that plays the song when you squeeze its paw

I do wish I had a pair of purple socks to wear with my Mary Janes. But alas, I (surprisingly) do not. I do have purple snow boots, but they are a bit uncomfortable for being in all day, and my purple sandals won't work, either. But I think I've done well on a limited budget--I had everything except the cat ear headband, which was less than $3, and the faux fur items, which were free at work. (I also picked up a 25 cm long moustache they were giving away in recreational therapy, because you never know when that might come in handy, but didn't manage to work that into this costume. Maybe next year.) Tonight I need to see if my sewing kit includes a safety pin for the tail to go onto the pants, which I have to get out of the closet, where it's still put away with the winter things. I also found some cute (free) treat bags and holders that look like a blue monster, so I got some candy and I'm going to fix them up for my lunch buddies and my friends, and I found some (free) Happy Pumpkin Day cards to give them. Can you tell I love Halloween? I'll try to make sure I have a picture to post after all is said and done. The funny thing is I'm taking a friend to the doctor tomorrow afternoon and probably won't have a chance to change. :) Fortunately you can usually get away with a costume near Halloween.

This is adorable...

Haaaa!!! When your Halloween costume is on point...

Posted by Tyrese Gibson on Friday, October 16, 2015

Dogs always look a bit more content than cats in costume

15 Adorably Bookish Pet Costumes

Some of these are quite amazing.

I had a really great time today

dressed up for our trick-or-treating at work. The kids were absolutely cute, everything from dinosaurs to Disney princesses, to Thomas the Tank Engine. One of our departments went as the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, with disposable turkey roasters on their backs painted green with the appropriate initial, etc. Another did a farmer and his animals. There were super-heroes and super-heroines in abundance. And one lady had a great shirt that said, 'If the broom fits, ride it.' Few of my co-workers really knew anything about the subject of my costume, but I got many compliments, including people who thought I'd do well as a redhead. I realised the wig could be used for Ariel or maybe even Merida from Disney, although the latter has very curly hair. The wig worked pretty well, although like all wigs it was a little itchy and hot. Here is what I looked like:



I got caught up on other things at work that had taken a back burner to the scheduling training. I'm going to go back up there tomorrow for a couple of hours and spend some time up there next week, as well. Since work, I have:

1. Hunted down the ingredients necessary for pumpkin gingersnap caramel cheesecake for the dessert contest tomorrow, as well as a fruit bowl for the birthday baby shower we're having.
2. Brought home a small pumpkin to carve for the contest tomorrow.
3. Gotten all the groceries in, although of course the one bag I dropped had eggs in it. Only one broke, though, and I was able to salvage it for cheesecake.
4. Put the cold groceries away.
5. Taken the itchy, hot wig off.
6. Returned my hair to something resembling it's normal appearance, so it isn't sticking up in all directions.
7. Gotten into shorts and a tank top.
8. Taken my dentures and contacts out, and set them both to soaking in cleansers of the appropriate type.
9. Scrubbed all the makeup off my face.
10. Put all the makeup I had strewn around the bathroom back where it belongs.
11. Eaten some Kroger Tuscany bean salad, cheese, and crusty bread.
12. Sat down and gone, 'whew!'

So now it's 7 pm. I need a little decompression time before beginning to carve and bake. I must remember that 'The Big Bang Theory' is on tonight, back in its regular slot. But in the meantime, I'm going to chill for a bit. If I start things about 8:30 it should work out.

How's that?

Here is the magnifier pendant with a mediaeval portrait of Arthur and his Knights.

Listening to Loreena McKennitt

which is appropriate for this time of year, as the album has both 'The Lady of Shalott', which I am dressing up as tomorrow for our trick-or-treat at work, and 'All Soul's Night', which is almost upon us. Right now, I'm listening to 'The Stolen Child', which I find to be quite haunting. I have my skirt and blouse all ready for tomorrow, and a wig that is a bit darker than Loreena McKennitt's but in the same style, with bangs and long waves, so in a way I'll be dressing up as both her and the doomed Fae.

Tonight I took a friend to an appointment and helped him with something. Tomorrow there's the dress-up and trick-or-treat, and I need to wish another friend a happy birthday, as he catches up with me in age. Tomorrow night I will be carving or decorating a pumpkin for a contest on Friday, fixing some cut fruit for a breakfast baby shower in my new department, and baking a gingersnap pecan caramel pumpkin cheesecake for another contest at work. Then Friday night is not just Halloween, but Samhain, a religious holiday for me. I never seem to get kids coming for candy to the door--I live in an apartment, and I guess people just aren't comfortable with that. But I'll get a little candy just in case. But I will also put together a libation and spend some time remembering the dead.

Okay, time to add a couple of touches to the costume--I'm going to print out the Tennyson poem for my cubicle and take a magnifier that doubles as an ornate necklace and copy some knights out of one of my books on the Middle Ages and use that as my 'mirror' tomorrow, hopefully without cracking it from side to side. :) [Image: John William Waterhouse]

Well, despite a nap, I have finished the notes

although Brenda had to cancel this week, for good reason. So tomorrow I'll go over a little later than usual, do the usual Sunday things, and visit. Maybe later in the day I can do that laundry; I'm not really wanting to do tonight.

One of the tangents we went on during the game was the costuming of the upcoming show, 'Reign', which is supposed to be about Mary, Queen of Scots in the court of the French, but which seems to be mostly, as I put it, 'teen angst in fantasy mediaeval dress'. Of course, it should have been Tudor-style. Brenda is a professional costumer and long-time Society for Creative Anachronism participant, and the game master is a gay man with a history degree who also studied theatre. Nothing was architecturally correct, the clothes were just completely Renaissance Faire, and as I (also a history degree, and lots of graduate level classes, mainly dealing with Europe form ancient to French Revolution) looked up earlier, Mary didn't go to France as a teenager for the first time--she was five and grew up at the French court. In other words, there is nothing vaguely historical about this show. There was much frothing. See for yourself:



Now there were a couple of interesting trailers we saw, also from the CW network. There's the 'Tommorow People', which originally was a British show that both YKWIA and I grew up with in the 1970s and loved, that was then remade in the 1990s (it was okay, not as good as the original), and now it's made it to America, with a much darker feel and yes, teen angst. The jury's out on that one. Here's it's preview:



Another was 'The 100', which looked interesting. It's about 100 young prisoners who did not fit into an overcrowded society in a space station sent back to Earth decades after a global nuclear war as a test to see if humanity can return. Here's that preview:

Some excellent (mostly Doctor Who) Halloween costumes

Winners of the BBC America Costume Contest Revealed!

The winner is an excellent River Song. I'm not surprised that under 'scariest' category there's a Weeping Angel--they give me the willies.

Halloween pictures

It was fun, although it will take me awhile to get the nail polish.

Happy Halloween

Today I dressed up as a zombie gas station attendant (hey it was kind of lame, but I didn't have much in the way of ideas this year). So I wore my uniform, put on white makeup with dark circles around my eyes to suggest the undead or a skull, and put fake spiderwebs in my hair and on the shirt. I didn't have a picture taken of it, though, even though I had my camera with me. The picture to the right is a decorated statue in one of our hallways. The artwork is by Virginia Leake and is called 'Blue's Cat'. It was donated to the hospital sometime after UK had their public art auction of wildcat (their mascot) statues (Lexington had recently done a similar one with fibreglass horses).

We had trick-or-treating for the kids at work; hence the dressing up. The kids come to each department and we hand out candy. There weren't that many kids this year; Fridays are kind of light on census and outpatient clinic visits. But it looked like they had a lot of fun.

The biggest hit in costumes were probably those of the information technology department, who all dressed up at iPods. They had white cardboard boxes with a transparent sheeting where the screen would be, and the buttons and Apple logo were printed on them as well. I remember one saying his screen kept fogging up. I wish I'd gotten a picture. Nancy was in that department; I think she would have approved.

I had thought to dress up at the gas station as a librarian, but 1) I wasn't working tonight and 2) it's a lot harder to dress as a librarian, even with stereotypes like buns and glasses. I don't have a long skirt and crepe-soled shoes, either. Basically, if I dressed as myself, no one would get it, work name tag or not. So, it's just as well I wasn't working tonight.

Of course, it's also a religious holiday for me. So I'm home early and enjoying some time at home. Normally I would make an offering, but I hate to say it, I don't even have spring water, and I miscalculated with my chequing account (I forgot an ATM charge for using another bank's machine), so I can't really get anything right now. Sigh. But I like to celebrate on Old Samhain, too, and that's the 11th of November. I'm sure things will be better then, so I'll give a libation then.

I'm going to spend some time tonight on notes. I don't have to be at work until 2 pm tomorrow, so maybe I can do notes and clean the apartment some. I'm working until 10 pm. Sunday's the game, of course. Then Monday-Wednesday I'm off at the hospital so I can do a massive cleaning. I still have to work Monday and Wednesday nights at the station, though.

Tuesday I'm off completely; I asked off at both jobs for Election Day, partly because I'd like to go vote, take a friend to vote, and check on the results throughout the night. A few years ago there was another big election and I took my friends to vote an hour or so before the polls closed and wound up being two hours late for work because we got locked into the polling place and it took so long for them to get through the line. This election sounds like it's going to be a record one, too. I'm going to try to go about 10 am and I'm taking my friend at 3 pm, so I'm hoping we can get around the big crowds. Mine should still be lighter, since I live in a precinct that is almost entirely my apartments, and many apartment dwellers do not vote. But I think that might be different this time. We have two big races--the presidential one, of course, and also the senate race between McConnell and Lunsford. It should be apparent how I'm voting from things I've written here (and the Obama graphic). But remember, no matter how you're planning on voting, VOTE! Exercise your right to choose your leaders.

Sorry I didn't post last night

I'd thrown up rather awfully out of the side of my car whilst picking up some friends (who quickly moved to the back seat and called for Lysol) and went home and slept to let the dizziness to subside. I wasn't sick with a virus. It seems to have been either 1) emotional, 2) I ate something bad 3) my period or 4) some combination of the above. I also managed to blow a blood vessel in my eye, which is now quite red.

Is it just me or am I becoming more of a danger to myself lately?

PS Burritos not as good coming up as they are down. Fortunately I had a couple tonight that seem to be sitting better on my stomach.

Today I didn't really dress up for Halloween beyond wearing black, but when trick-or-treating started at work (the kids come 'round the offices, which have candy for them, all coordinated by the rec therapy folks), someone let me borrow a Jason masque and I put the hood of my jacket up and apparently was suitably scary. Of course, I had to go without my glasses to wear the plastic masque, so I had to be a little careful when putting the candy into sacks and pumpkins. It was great fun. :)

Second work was uneventful except for some malfunctioning pumps that those affected handled with great aplomb, for which I'm grateful, as all I could really do is refer them to the manager and bag the pump so no one else could use it.

Tonight I finished up my notes for the month and then got some meds from the pharmacy, came home, and then I gave a pomegranate as offering to Hekate along with some mead, a departure from the regular honeyed burgundy, since tonight is a special night. Although She is considered a Graeco-Roman Goddess and She is my Patroness by mutual choice, my heritage is primarily Celtic. We've worked it out over the years. So even though the year dies and is reborn in Celtic tradition tonight, rather than at the various times found in the Greek or Roman world, I worship Her tonight on Samhain a little differently than I do all other nights. Besides, she's not really Greek, but older than that, some say Karian, or Thessalian, but She is associated with wild magic and death, both associated with Halloween. All I know is that She has made a wonderful difference in my life, and so tonight I thanked Her for the blessings of the last year and entreated fortune for the coming one.

In my office is a line drawing of Hekate, with the following Orphic hymn's translation:

I praise lovely
three-formed Hekate Enodia,
saffron-veiled,
of Sky, Earth, and Sea,
who celebrates
Bacchanalia at the tomb
with the souls of the dead,
Daughter of Perses,
Lover of solitude,
honored with cakes,
Nocturnal One,
Protector of dogs,
Invincible Sovereign,
heralded by the roar of wild beasts...
Keybearing Queen of the whole Cosmos.