Saturday,
October 27, 2001

Let the wild rumpus commence!

Weelah! Okay, a couple of weeks ago we were having our regular FutureClassics meeting, when Bill mentioned my housewarming party and ragged Derek about not attending (as it was, Derek was standing up at the wedding of his best friend, so he had a very good reason about not showing up. Bastard). Somehow the topic got around to Derek needing to get out more so that he could meet attractive unattached young women, when I said, "Well, then, you should have come to my party -- you could have met Erin. She's really cute!"

Bill chimes in with, "Yeah, man, she was a cutie! You would've liked her!"

Derek's head swivels to face me. "So when's your next party?" he deadpans.

And that is how I wound up hosting a Halloween party tonight. And for all my other friends in Texas, don't get offended -- it was designed to be small, impromptu and basically a chance for my yenta qualities to manifest themselves by throwing these two into the same room and seeing what happened. Of course, it turned out that Erin couldn't come due to a prior engagement, so the main reason for the party fell by the wayside -- but as long as there were mini corn dogs and lots of beer, we might as well go ahead with it anyway, right?

My one stipulation was that costumes would be encouraged. Not mandatory -- I know better by now than to force certain people into anything other than their own togs -- but any attempt, no matter how feeble, to dress up would be appreciated.

And the FutureClassics came through with their usual panache. Derek arrived in the priest costume shown above at left -- he said he wanted to get a monk costume "since that would really be more appropriate and all," but apparently they were really cheesy and lame. Besides, I have no idea how he would have looked with a tonsure.

Jerry came as a data pirate, shown at right, and his wife, daughter Angel and Angel's friend Pumpkin came as undefined but excitingly dark and mysterious chicks (Angel claims that she's a vampire, and brought her new ball python Baby as part of her costume, but I still think she was really being a goth chick). Jerry's youngest came as a cat, and Bill's daughter Sara came as a witch and son Andrew came as Indiana Jones (a lad after my own heart), while his other son Cody elected to come as an off-duty soccer player. But "cutest costume of all" has to go to young David Holcomb, who was adorable on my living room carpet as a tiger cub before being whisked off to the main bedroom for a nice nap in his portable playpen.

Momma Lisa came as a Leopard Lady (and prompted some definite "rrowls!" from passersby when we had to go back to the store for more pop) and Daddy Nick came as. . well, we're not sure what Nick was, but it was definitely a subtle and multi-layered costume worthy of deconstruction by the most dedicated of philosophy students.

Why, yes, that IS my tongue sticking into my cheek.

And moi? I was requested to wear my Musketeer uniform, so I did (sans padded fencing doublet -- Boombah knows it was warm enough as is), with my low boots and spurs, baldric, epeé, and one of Lyndon's pirate shirts that I bought for him at Christmas. (By the way, honey, I think I'm in love with it, so don't be surprised if it kinda disappears from your side of the closet, 'kay?) Of course, I then proceeded to dribble Dr. Pepper and Absolute Citron all over my ruff and mandellion while we were doing Lemon Drops, so certain elements of the uniform will be heading to the cleaners tomorrow -- Allah forbid I show up for the demo at Armadillocon smelling of vodka.

On the way back from the store, we ran across Travis, the teenaged son of my next-door-neighbor, so of course I invited him up to the party. He dashed home to jump into a general "fiend" costume and spent the evening on-line with my computer and talking to Angel and Pumpkin while the other two teen-aged boys were in the living room playing Scattergories or eating. The amusing thing was, Jerry brought Angel and Pumpkin along partially because he knew Bill was bringing his sons -- so much for THAT matchmaking.

Bill and Denise came in mufti (and Bill, you were quite dashing in blue, so stop moaning about looking fat), but they also brought tons of chips and a dynamite queso so as far as I was concerned they were in costume as soccer parents. In fact, lots of people brought great food -- Lisa produced some nummy cookies, and Jerry and Becky brought Becky's fabulous salsa, chips and Hershey's Kisses cookies. What with all the finger food, guacamole and cookies I had at hand, we had quite an impressive spread of munchies.

The party itself was both a lot of fun and nicely relaxing -- it was basically a bunch of writers in the same room, so we gabbed away the evening, played Scattergories and Sorry (poor Jerry -- his daughter Jessie kept knocking his pieces back to the home circle with merciless glee), noshed on all the yummies, I allowed Sara and Jessie to look at my epeés and pose with them (but NOT fight with them, mind you -- I'm easygoing, buit I'm not about to let kids poke each others' eyes out in my apartment with my swords), did Lemon Drops (much akin to the ritual around tequila shots -- you fill a shot glass with ice-cold Absolut Citron, dip a wedge of lemon in sugar, down the shot and bite down on the lemon. Yummmmm), Lisa and I danced to the Romantics' "What I Like About You," oohed and aahed over Angel's snake, and I think I frightened poor Derek by asking him in a sultry voice what he was wearing under his cassock (well, you DID bolt out of here rather quickly, guy). All in all, a successful party.

And the next one is at your house, right, Bill?

Bill? Oh, dear -- don't run away, Bill, we'll just have to hunt you down. . .