Hallowe'en distractions

Things are slowly getting back to normal around here, though I've yet to refile all the 'urgent' paperwork I took out of the file cabinet to evacuate and reclaim my dirty-clothes-basket (that it's living in), and we had small Hallowe'en party last night so there is a lot of furniture rearranged and all that mess. But I've had a number of pleasant distractions this week that I wanted to share.

First there was pumpkin carving at a friend's house. Here is our end result — mine is a bit hard to see, as it happens; it's the one with the little house and tree and moon. The stars and leaves were just a bit on the small side. I refrigerated the pumpkin between the carving and the 31st, and between the 31st and the weekend, and by the end of it, the flesh had shrunk enough that it was much better silhouetted.


Then there was the fun of trick-or-treaters. "Only" about 60-70 this year, and a few double-dippers (well, I do give out three mini chocolate bars per person, so I told them I knew they were double-visiting but I was going to let them get away with it because I could relate to the desire for extra candy).

Next, there was the office Hallowe'en potluck — well, just our end of the office really. We seem to have a lot of fun-loving souls in the bunch and there was some hilarious holiday-themed food. I was particularly proud of how incredibly disgusting my contribution, the delicious roasted beet risotto came out.

I've never made risotto before and it was a lot of work, but it was really yummy. Which is a good thing, because I made a double recipe (from Epicurious.com, btw), which meant we ate it for lunch and dinner for a week. Heh.

I went to Los Angeles for a couple of days to attend a memorial at UCLA for my cousin Gene Frumkin and hang out with my cousin Suanne.

Finally we had a little Hallowe'en party, and I made Bloody Mary aspic in a brain jello mold. This was tasty and went well with the spread of fancy cheeses, but no one could take too much of it. So there is a lot left over. Hrm. Doesn't it look like it belongs in the Gallery of Regrettable Food?



Knitting! Oh yeah, there's been knitting too. I made some progress on the Geordie Stripe Cardigan from Natural Knits for Babies and Moms:

And I went to the doctor Thursday morning, before I left for L.A., to find out why my throat has felt like it's got strings hanging down it for a month, now. They didn't know, but put me on antibiotics in case it was a lurking infection. I don't know that it's helping particularly but now I'm completely exhausted from the antibiotics :-P I really could use a bit more energy to get through a schedule like the one mentioned above... ;-)