Spooky!

I just made my to-do list of projects that have to be completed in the next week and a half, and I think I just spooked myself. I won't need to visit a haunted house this year to get my Halloween scare on.

Speaking of Halloween, it looks like I'm going to be forced to somewhat clean/reorganize my office because I need some Halloween decorations that are under/behind the stacks of boxes that resulted from my last ill-fated office cleaning attempt. Back when I had an office job, we made a big deal out of birthdays, and one year my co-workers threw me a Buffy the Vampire Slayer birthday party. Although my birthday is in August, apparently that's already Halloween in the retail world, so they stocked up on plastic gravestones, plastic weapons and other spooky decor. My church is having a Halloween festival for neighborhood kids Sunday night, and they need my Buffy decor. The stake is mine, though, just in case a vampire shows up. (Hmm, I wonder if anyone would get it if I dressed as Faith -- I'm too brunette and curvy for Buffy, but I do own pleather pants.)

Meanwhile, tonight is the Taste of Oak Lawn event, a charity fundraiser where a lot of the restaurants in the general downtown/uptown/Oak Lawn area of Dallas (and some from more outlying areas) gather at the Melrose Hotel to offer a tasting smorgasbord. There's also a silent auction (two copies of Enchanted, Inc. will be up for auction, personally autographed at the end of the evening). The reason I look forward all year to this event is something called the Chocolate Glob. The restaurant that offers it (Parigi on Oak Lawn) describes it as a molten brownie, and I guess that's the best I can come up with other than, "Mmmmm .... gooey chocolate ... mmmmmm." It's so rich that I don't dare order it at the restaurant unless I can share with at least two other people, but the tasting sample is just the right size. I more than work off the calories, since I essentially work as a gofer at this event and am running around all night (when I'm not eating). If you're in the Dallas area and want to check it out for yourself, you can get details at http://www.tasteofoaklawn.com/. And now I have to go bake my chocolate chip cookies, another silent auction item.

But first, we've got another Out of the Blogosphere entry. This week it's another story from the Bewitched, Bothered and Bevampyred anthology, which raises money for the International Red Cross. Gena Showalter contributed the story "The Witches of Brokenoggin and the Dead Who Love Them," in which the well-endowed Tawdry triplets accidentally raise the dead while dealing with an overzealous peeping John. For more info, visit http://www.genashowalter.com.