2011-11-01

Well, this Halloween sucked in general (even though I did achieve a moment akin to gnosis). I'd been planning for months to have a special Trick-or-Treat for the kids, and I'd also wanted to visit Salem in advance of Halloween in order to see the place in a new (magical) perspective. Neither of these happened, thanks to the October snowstorm.

• My original plan had been to go to Salem on Saturday, spend Sunday preparing for Halloween, bake my dishes on Monday, and dress up on Monday evening to give out cake and toys. The forecast for that Saturday had been downgraded, first from rain in the afternoon to a downpour, to a full-fledged snowstorm. In October. So I changed my schedule: Saturday I would do food shopping, and prepare a sigil and rite, and go to Salem on Sunday. The weather during the last half of last week was freezing – the 30s and 40s are hardly freezing to a New Englander, but there was just something about the cold that froze me to the bone. So on Saturday I was out clothes shopping, and I found a good thick sweater to keep me warm. It rained during the day on Saturday, but as I was heading home it changed to snow – a blowing snow that was starting to stick by the time I got home. So I didn't have a chance to do my food shopping (which wasn't essential, as my kitchen has a lot of food; just not a lot of fresh food at the moment). I took a couple of videos of the storm on Saturday evening: New England Snowstorm 5:00 PM and New England Snowstorm 6:00 PM. Then I spent the rest of the evening wasting time chatting on Stickam (why not?), and cooking a big pot of chicken with rice.
• Video taken at 8:00 AM on Sunday morning: New England Snowstorm, the next day. Each time the power blinked out, my UPS power supply at my PC made a beeping alarm that woke me up, and a couple of minutes afterwards I would hear fire department sirens. This happened about four times, before finally at 3:30 AM the power went out and stayed out. And the next morning, the power was out all over town, with no street lights or heat or anything. I called my parents, who live on the border of Rhode Island, and they said they'd only received a dusting of snow, and everything was fine there. However, given how the power to my building had been out for two days after the hurricane this summer, I decided it would be a good idea to get some charcoal for grilling later today, and I drove to Home Depot. They were open! They only had emergency lights on, but they had a credit card reader going and I was able to get some charcoal and a coal bucket. On my way home, I picked up a guy hitchhiking whose truck had run out of power, and we headed east to find a working gas station to pick up a gallon can of gas. As soon as we crossed over the town border, we saw the power was on there; it was only out in my town. This made me decide to head to Salem anyway, as I figured that they should not have been affected by the storm in this manner. However, no more than a few seconds after I pulled out of the driveway to head to Salem, my phone rang. Work was calling, asking me to come in and take emergency calls for four hours. So much for going to Salem…I headed in to work, and by the time I got out of work the power had been restored to about half of my town, including my own building. So, my plan of grilling for the neighbors outdoors with coals had been scuttled. At that point I was feeling despondent – yes, I was glad the power was back, but I felt as though my plans for the weekend weren't working out. So I went to a local bar I've been to a couple of times now, and to celebrate Halloween I had probably the strongest drink I've ever had – Jim Beam 90-proof whiskey, a.k.a. "The Devil's Cut." (Appropriate for Halloween, I thought.) Even when mixed with Coke, this stuff gave me a buzz that lasted for the rest of the evening. I was smart enough not to drink anything else besides that, fortunately, and each time I go to that bar I make sure to walk instead of drive.
• And so Halloween dawned, without my having the chance to go to Salem. But it was still the day I'd planned for! Because my preparations had been delayed by the storm, I went out that morning to look for the preparations I'd needed. My plan was simple: dressed in my devil's makeup (horns, pointed ears, and my long black coat), I'd set up my metal table on the sidewalk, place two dutch ovens full of homemade sweets there (chocolate cobbler and pumpkin bread), along with ice cream and warm sauce to pour on top. However, the snow had covered up the spot I'd chosen to set up. I wasn't sure where to go now; so I went to the local credit union bank on Pleasant Street, at an intersection where I knew a lot of kids would be going by. I spoke to the branch manager and asked for permission to set up my table in their parking lot, after they were closed. And I was informed that, due to the storm, my town had postponed Halloween trick-or-treating until this coming Thursday. That was that. I found out that the mall was still doing trick-or-treating and encouraging parents to take their kids to the mall (), but other than that I was out of luck. I'm working overtime for all the rest of this week, so there will be no chance to do anything this Thursday. I now have a put full of toys to get rid of. I think I'll probably give them to my downstairs neighbor, who has two young daughters. They can certainly give them out on Thursday.
• On the other hand, something did happen on Halloween…something that gave me such ecstasy that I could only consider it to be gnosis! And the details of that, alas, are to be kept private.