Happy Halloween! A Cautionary Tale

You may have heard that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Well, the last two weeks have been filled with hellish pavers leading up to my favorite holiday—Halloween. This is a cautionary tale.

With a strong foreboding of what might lurk in the shadows of the coming weeks, I unpacked the Halloween boxes early.

I was feverish with a nasty sore throat when I blogged about Italy on October 18th. After I feebly pressed publish, I slept the rest of the day and through the night, thank God. The next day, I felt ALIVE and overdid it, of course. Who knew this was the beginning of legit laryngitis and a lingering cough that woke me up last night? I’ve lost my voice before, but it involved having a cold and straining my voice at a party. It never lasted for more than a day or two.

Not this time. It took until this weekend to recover. And the exhaustion! Was it COVID? Nope. I tested several times.

The weekend before I came down with the dreaded funk, my husband and I met friends at Avanti on Pearl Street. Boulderites congregate in the rooftop bar and restaurant since it has the most amazing views of Boulder. It was CU Parents Weekend. Need I say more? When I wove my way through the crowd to visit the ladies’ room, a man turned his head and coughed. In. My. Face.

Yep. That’s all it took.

It never occurred to me to pull out a mask hence the cautionary tale:

CAUTION! There’s a lot of nastiness out there.

A few days ago, I managed to host my neighborhood’s Halloween book club. My doctor assured me that it would be safe if I masked up. I hid in the pantry to sip sparkling water. Yes. I didn’t take any chances. I’m so glad I did. Even though it wore me out, I wanted to share my Halloween spirit.

I decorate every year, even if I don’t entertain since it’s my playtime.

By the way, I have a spider infestation.

COVID put a damper on trick-or-treaters for the last two years, but our neighborhood has aged out too. That wasn’t going to stop me from hanging lights around our circle drive, shrouding light fixtures with massive webs, and resurrecting my skeleton greeters.

Nope. My nasty cold did that for me.

But there’s still time. It’s 9:00, so I have around nine hours before the doorbell rings—

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Are you a Halloween person? Do you dress up? Give out candy?

Getting My Creepy On!

Getting into Character