Cast Iron Chaos: 2011-11-03

Working a week of 11-hour days (Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday) certainly is a way to turn off your brain and kill your incentive to do anything but go home and sleep. After having the day off on Monday, I've worked from 8:30 AM to 8:00 PM for the past two days, and I'm likely to be scheduled for these hours today and tomorrow as well. It only occurred to me this morning that if gnosis is the act of placing your consciousness into an altered state of existence, I should take advantage of the lethargy these work hours are producing and find a way to use it to my advantage. I'm starting to do so with these very words I'm writing (I hope), as I'm going to set myself to design at least two sigils today. I'm bringing my car in for work on Saturday morning and working another 4-hour shift at work Saturday afternoon, but I'll have all of Saturday evening (and night) to myself, along with all of Sunday. I'll plan to set up a rite to activate the sigils, with the hope that they take effect next weekend (i.e. my birthday).
And another sign of my current life as a recluse: yesterday I sent an invitation to Mom and Dad to come by for Thanksgiving dinner, along with my brother and Dad's family; but based upon current situations, it seems unlikely that anyone at all will be able to show up. I'm looking at the prospect of being by myself on Thanksgiving. So, I could either sit at home by myself and be depressed…or I can do something about it. My life for the past year has been all about doing something about it and trying new things, and this will be no exception. For instance, I could find a local charity and volunteer to spend Thanksgiving serving dinner to homeless folks. That actually sounds like a decent plan: I'll keep busy, help people and make them a bit more happy (something I've always enjoyed doing), and maybe meet someone as I spend the day with a different crowd of people. It's worth a try.
And Halloween wasn't a total wash-out. As part of my planned cooking for Monday night (which, as mentioned earlier, didn't happen because my town decided to postpone trick-or-treating), I'd purchased a big container of vanilla ice cream at Price Chopper. However, I didn't have room for it in my freezer. So, I figured that it would be okay to leave it out on my porch overnight; the first frost was due that night, the temperature would be below freezing, and the ice cream wouldn't melt. Except that it did. We did indeed get a frost that night, but when I checked the ice cream it had melted to the consistence of soft serve. So, what do do with a big container of melted ice cream? I looked online for recipes that use melted ice cream as an ingredient, and what did I find but a pumpkin pie recipe. So, I put together the crust in the Griswold skillet, mixed together the ingredients (including three cups of melted ice cream), and ended up with a wonderful pumpkin pie. (I used twice the amount of cinnamon and nutmeg listed in the recipe.) When I took it to work on Tuesday, they all raved about it. I'm very happy with the results.
As I was putting the pie together on Monday evening, there was a knock at my door. The little girl who lives two floors below was there in her witch costume, trick-or-treating. I didn't have any candy but I gave her some toys from the stash I'd put together. I was touched by this, as she turned out to be the only one I'd been able to see with trick-or-treating. So, on Tuesday evening I put all of the toys in a bag, went downstairs, and knocked on my neighbor's door. No one answered, so I left the bag of toys on their doorknob with the following (intentionally saccharine) note: "Thank you very much for coming upstairs to Trick or Treat last night. You've probably heard that the city postponed Trick or Treating until this Thursday. Because of this, you were the only one to come to my place for Trick or Treating, and that made it very special. And that's why I need to ask you and your family to do a favor for me. I have a bag full of little toys, like the kind that I gave you last night. I had planned to give out these toys to everyone who came for Trick or Treating. However, I am going to be working very late all week, and I won't be home on Thursday when everyone goes out Trick or Treating. I'd like to ask for your help. Could you please take these toys, and make sure they are given out on Thursday? You can get as many people to help with this as you like. This will mean a lot to me, because I planned to do this all year. Thank you very much for your help. Your neighbor…" When I checked downstairs later that evening, the bag was gone. I haven't heard anything or seen any kind of a note in reply. I only hope they got the message…and that they understood that I meant this as a friendly gesture, not as some creepy act of child stalking.