Well, the holiday festivities are coming along nicely. The cemetery is up; the pumpkins are carved. My friend Jeanine brought over her Brian and his Bobbie and batted clean up on the pumpkin carving. They created an awesome, fearsome lot. We only did 40 this year but it looks pretty frightening nonetheless. The draw back is that while it's cold it's not too wet so there have been lots of cars at the end of the road here, slowing down to gawk, THEN realizing turning around is going to be problematic as this is the end of the road and THEN making really badly executed u-turns. If I didn't have Mike the Bike Stud's Halloweenie 50 to tend to, I would get a chair, sit down at the curb with the Chow Nation at my side and glare as they tried to sneak back by. It occurs to me, not too gently, that much of what we do here at Bellemaison is for us, not for the viewing public. When we get to the point where we want to entertain the folks that live around here and their friends, we'll put up a booth and charge 'em. They can look around all they want then. Until that time comes, I remain more than a little self-conscious that there would be things to look at here that people would actually drive over for and a little bit cranky that they are foolish enough to do so. But it would be the first time that I was cranky with entertaining gig pending. *eyes rolling*

Went with deep navy blue taffeta for the dining room table. Had a silver jack o'lantern that I picked up in Noo York Citty when I was there in September that I put a navy blue candle in and then flanked with those purpley, magentaey, green hydrangeas that are still in the garden. Then created a cloud or mists around the whole thing with that really, fine meshy fabric, they call it tulle apparently, that makes it all like being outside on Halloween evening. It's got sparkles in it and last night, you couldn't see the fabric at all, just the twinkles and the depth of the folds and swirls of the fabric. Should work out just fine. It's a trick: they should think, am I in, or am I out?

My friend Rebecca came and cooked up a storm in the kitchen. I think that's her real calling. She is a goal-oriented, action plan girl. And she loved all that cheese I bought at Costco, already shredded.

The Chows think every bit of this is overrated. They think that Ball is still the only decent pursuit a good weekend should hold and that Halloween, come to think of it, is much too frightful to be roaming the streets. They said they are going to go to bed early and wait for all the fools in the air to dry up. Apparently there's a lot of crankiness going around Bellemaison right now.


JBelle
Bellemaison
The 'Kan EWA