and now for something completely different

I'm sure this won't come as a surprise to the rest of you, but I just read about it in the paper yesterday (heavily paraphrased):

Six students at BFUHS have earned the designation of AP scholar by the College Board in recognition of their exceptional achievement on the college-level AP exams.

[Brief description of what the AP program is]

At BFUHS one student qualified for the AP Scholar with Distinction award - Laurel!

Three qualified for AP Scholar with Honors: Jessica, Myles, and Leah!

Two qualified for AP Scholar: Jenna and Michael!

Well, one party is out of the way. I spent an enormous amount of time getting ready for the library Halloween party yesterday, all the while, in the back of my head is the thought: no one is going to come....the publicity wasn't that great....it's on a new night...nobody goes to Halloween parties anymore....

At 4:00 I locked the library door and the volunteers and I got to work getting the room ready for the party. Meanwhile thinking: what do I tell them when in an hour we've had more volunteers than guests.....

While I realize that it's normal to have the "what if no one comes" response to that parties that one throws, it's still not a comfortable feeling.

However, the party time came and people started pouring in...I stopped counting after 225. Bloody hell it was packed in there! Like last year people would do the activities, have a bit of food, and then leave - and that was good, because as soon as someone left someone else was waiting to come inside. I had planned a bunch of large group games (a la musical chairs, pass the pumpkin, pin the tail on the cat) that didn't happen - couldn't happen because the room was so full of people. I count on people signing up to bring food, and sure, lots of people did sign up, but there just wasn't enough food for everyone (one very kind person went and bought some pizzas and brought them over to the party). The stories also didn't happen - too many people, too much noise, so I just turned the music up. I did get a great Halloween party CD for this one - it had the favorite Halloween monster songs (Monster Mash, Time Warp, etc.) sandwiched between upbeat, sort-of-in-the-same-theme disco songs. It was perfect - nothing like watching these little kids start boogying to "brick house" - and it was lively so the atmosphere was up.

Still, what a relief to have that one done and out of the way. And it was kind of nice to not be answering questions or helping out with books - and people that wanted books could still take them upstairs and check them out, but I was freed up from being concerned for an evening. I've always been an information junkie, and I'm compelled to answer any question put my way - the process of finding the answer is actually quite a lot of fun for me. But, still, it was really nice to have so many patrons that I usually help in that way just hanging out and having a good time.

AND THE COSTUMES!!! Some years we've had nothing but princesses and vampires, but this year the costumes were all over the place! One of my favorites was this little boy in a duck costume, it was sooo cute!!! The costume was just too big, and pinned in to fit, so he couldn't really walk and actually had to waddle in it. There were lots of Fantastic 4 costumes, and sure enough several witches and vampires (one young with had adorable hot pink platform sandals with a little spider perched over the toe). There were the standard Disney Princesses, but the costumes for them were so much better this year - from an adorable tinker bell, to a simply fabulous Ariel. to a grand Snow White and a traditional Mulan (why haven't boys ever figured out to dress as "Prince Charming".....). And there some cute cows, frogs, fairies, and some kids even came dressed as "middle school students", one mom said "I dressed up as an angry mom - how's that for scary?"

Now, I have the party tonight. I need to practice my story a lot more. Luckily my whole day has opened up. See, the ceiling upstairs in the library is being painted and, not wanting to be around paint fumes, the upstairs closed and no one is coming in, and well, if the upstairs is closed, the downstairs has to be as well. But, there WILL be D&D tonight (lest panic ensue), except for the kids coming with me to do the Halloween party. So, since I don't have to work, there is no good excuse for me not to practice my story over and over and over and over and over and.....yeah, that's why I'm blogging now.

What I'm reading: I'm still reading Son of a Witch and loving it! But, another book caught my attention and so I read that one really quickly and it's EXCELLENT! Great fun - How I Paid for College: A Novel of Sex, Theft, Friendship, and Musical Theater. This is not a teen book - but rather an adult novel for that age that has just grown out of teen books - or adults like me that would be about the same age as the protagonist (although he's about 5-6 years older then me - it's set in 1984) that experienced arrested development around 25. It's also very clearly for a gay audience, and omgs it's got it's "naughty bits" in it, but around all of that it's a really funny, rather sweet, coming of age novel (kind of like Sweet Valley High with a lot more homoerotica), about having the courage to see who you really are.