Halloween!!

..seems to come early around these parts. On Friday, my college roommate Charon, who lives in Alexandria, invited us to a Halloween party at her country club. Face painting for the kids, lots of kids in costume, a haunted house (that terrified poor Rachel, who begged Charon to carry her through but when Charon wouldn't, Rachel just braved it and started crying at the end, and she was right, I went through it and it was SCARY) and free dinner. Charon's 7 year old son, Cameron, dressed up as a king. Charon ordered a princess costume through the Internet, and because she has the most fantastic willowy figure she really looked like one. Her husband, Wes, had a Napoleon-ish costume with a hat that looked like it was a British cap from the 18th century.

Charon called us that morning to invite us, hinting that she had a "special" costume for me. Rachel was going to wear a costume Drew brought for her of the Disney character Ariel, but she decided it was too itchy. Which made Drew furious that he'd spent the money for it, but Rachel didn't get a chance to try it on beforehand (the costume shop was out of her size so Drew just bought a packaged dress) and so I can't really blame her for finding it itchy. I ended up spending a few hours sewing ribbon into the sleeves so it wouldn't itch so much, and then decided to sew a strip of cloth into the waist (which I will actually get to do when Drew and I aren't consumed with the little home repair projects we have to do because the owners from whom we're renting clearly did not understand how to take care of their house. Or they didn't give a damn. Regardless, our days and weekends are being eaten up by fixing stuff that they didn't get to, or did badly, and as Drew noted -- it isn't even our house!!!)

Anyway, the costume Charon had for me was that of a bar wench. It was her costume from last year and amazingly it fit. I showed a whole lot of cleavage and it was quite, um, form-fitting, but Drew pronounced me quite fetching. We decided his costume (he wore khakis, a polo shirt and sweater) made him a Silicone Valley billionaire who could actually afford to hire a bar wench.

The event was lovely but went on a little long -- poor Rachel didn't get to bed until around 11 or so -- but she had so much fun making friends and running around with Cameron and his buddies. Charon said something so nice, that there's "something special" about Rachel, "something about her," and another woman commented on how she just jumped right into the activities with the other kids. At several points during the night we literally lost track of her, she was so busy making friends.

I'll continue this tomorrow because it's late and I need to get to bed!