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October 29, 2005

Preliminaries and prospects

Today,


  1. BP selected this year's cookie cutters: butterfly, bat, fish, pumpkin, candy corn (which doubles as a tombstone), skull, leaf, cat, hand, ghost, moon, cow, and owl.
  2. BP baked 800 sugar cookies.
  3. I baked a loaf of amaranth bread.
  4. I got lentil soup and squash out of the freezer.
  5. I prepared and froze 7 pie crusts.
  6. I rolled up the rugs in the dining room and covered the dining table with heavy-duty plastic.
  7. I strewed the dining table with cookie decors.
  8. I brought in the last of the firewood and prepared the fireplace.
  9. I made 2 trips to the grocery store (in addition to the 2 made earlier this week); altogether I've purchased items such as 300 sandwich bags, 5 pounds of butter, 10 pounds of sugar, 9 pounds of confectioner's sugar, 10 dozen eggs, 4 cans of evaporated milk, and 20 pounds of flour.

Tomorrow,

  1. BP will make a couple of gallons of cookie frosting.
  2. BP will prepare the back room for pumpkin-carving. This will involve his doing something with the hot peppers and soup beans that have been drying there since the September harvest.
  3. I'll cut up a couple gallons of veggies.
  4. I'll bake a loaf of pumpernickel bread.
  5. I'll bake 7 pumpkin pies.
  6. I'll put out breads, cheese, fruit, dip, pie, and chips on the library table.
  7. I'll put M&Ms, cinnamon imperials, candy corn, and other goodies in little bowls on the dining table.
  8. 20-50 people will drop by to frost cookies and carve jack o'lanterns. This will include the Colgate women's basketball team for their 9th consecutive year (they began helping out when I was in Texas and BP couldn't do the whole job solo; from that was born this big annual party); colleagues of BP who have been bringing their children here for 8 years; miscellaneous SU grad students (some with their own small fry) ready for something besides exams and dissertations; and a handful of students from BP's first-year seminar.
  9. The cats will hide out upstairs, hoping to survive the furor. Ruthie will make a couple of excursions downstairs in hopes of petting but will decide the hubub is just too much, Bub.
  10. As soon as the basketball team gets here, we'll feed them. Otherwise, no cookies would survive the day--or if they did, they'd have no decors on them. A basketball team right after evening practice is a force one must reckon with.
  11. The stereo will play all day, but once the basketball team gets underway, nobody will be able to hear the music.
Monday,
  1. BP will put 2 cookies each in 300 zip-top sandwich bags that are labeled with our name and address.
  2. Approximately 200 kids will come trick-or-treating here. Those that haven't been here before will have the name and address to show their folks. Most, though, will already know what they're getting. One or two will yell to the waiting car, "I found it, Mom! This is the Cookie House!" Once a very tiny little girl whose mom was waiting at the bottom of the stairs looked up at me solemnly and said, "Thank you, Cookie Lady." Several parents will tell us that they used to come trick-or-treating here themselves. So of course we give the parents their own bags of cookies.
  3. BC and his girlfriend will stop by around 7 p.m., once the party at the firehouse is underway and trick-or-treating has subsided. BC used to trick-or-treat here; now he and B come to load up on leftovers and to fill us in on their year's activities.
Tuesday,
  1. Our friends and students will get what the trick-or-treaters and BC & B haven't relieved us of.
This is who we are, and this is where we live.

Posted by senioritis at October 29, 2005 07:19 PM

Comments

I'm so sad that I can't help decorate. Cheers to you for being so much fun.

Posted by: aerobil at October 30, 2005 12:50 AM

What does one do, pray tell, with 800 cookies? I'd eat them, but I have no self control when it comes to cookies.

Posted by: Lasley at October 30, 2005 04:05 AM

Ooops. I didn't see the part about the basketball team coming over. But still, how do they eat 800 cookies?

Posted by: Lasley at October 30, 2005 04:07 AM

Heck, I’m so sad I can’t be there too. It sounds like one helluva time!

Posted by: Krista at October 30, 2005 08:07 AM

Can you send some leftovers to the great state of Illinois? Puh-leez?

Posted by: aerobil at October 30, 2005 09:52 AM

Absolutely. Do you want cookies, pie, or both?

Posted by: senioritis at October 30, 2005 10:06 AM

ALL. YUM. PLEASE.

Posted by: aerobil at October 30, 2005 11:13 AM

let's make a care-package for mikey & put cards & m&ms & other fun things in. whatever will survive the distance... :)

Posted by: tyra at October 31, 2005 07:40 PM