...or, "how Friday night came to last an extra day...." As the sun was coming up the morning after Halloween, the first snowfall of the season was just starting. Since this year the party was scheduled for the weekend afterwards (a lot of other stuff going on this time of year sometimes, which can make it complicated to avoid conflicting with the various conventions and balls and the like), I worried a little whether I'd have another year when the weather would interfere with the turnout. This time the party was scheduled for Friday, which is usually not quite as convenient as Saturday, especially for anyone with both a job and an elaborate costume--but the Halloween party is generally a good one no matter what and even a little snow on a late Friday night isn't such a bad thing when you're with friends. (The falling snow didn't show up so well in this picture, but it's there and it looked nice when it was happening.)

The Friday of the party arrived and brought clear skies, though later in the evening, when we used up the last of the liquid nitrogen making ice cream, some of the inside of the house did get to see some pretty dense fog....

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I tried to have a bright and welcoming smile for all the guests....

Some of the entries in the "scariest food contest" were more anatomically accurate than others....

Karen, dressed as "Early Madonna" won the award for "Sexiest Female Costume" (even after performing "Lucky Star" for the audience).

These two French guys (Rob and Thor) claimed they were going to be rude, but they weren't. Or maybe we just didn't understand what they were *really* saying....

I'm not sure I fully understood the full depth and subtlety expressed in Deena's "Pink Republican Fairy" garb, but she explained that she was so pink, she could make us all turn republican with a wave of her wand. I don't think we'll know if it worked until the next election, but it won "best costume." (...my wand was bigger, though....)

You can check out some of Deena's hypertext writing at Eastgate Systems . Don't blame me if it also causes you to switch political affiliations....

With Darlene and I both on stage at the same time, we had a quorum of Nyx directors and could do anything we wanted...bwahahaha...!

...we didn't actually do anything that shaped the future course of Nyx history, but Darlene did bring copies of the article in this month's Boulder Business Report about the Nyx outreach program and the computers we're distributing, so that should count for something. She also brought the pumpkins in the front and some scary food. Darlene's web stuff can be found at http://www.nyx.net/~dcypser .

Sometime between three and four AM as this year's Halloween party was winding down, the snow rolled in; the light from all the windows and the Christmas lights strung through the trees in the courtyard lit up each individual flake as they fell softly down and covered everything in a blanket of white.

A few of the guests decided to spend the night and by the morning when they'd awakened I'd cooked up a hot breakfast and started a fire in the big stone fireplace, which seemed a fine way to greet a cold and snowy morning after a night filled with friends and costumes and food and fun.

When the last of the party guests had headed home a little before noon on Saturday, little did I know that the party, far from being over, was about to start all over again, since not everybody had marked Friday instead of Saturday in their calendars....

But one of them called from a nearby grocery store before showing up, which gave me enough warning to be ready.

...it wasn't just a surprise for me--it was also part of a surprise birthday party for one of the guests. I hadn't met him before, but at least I knew the women who'd dressed up as fairies--though perhaps wearing more leather than one usually associates with such woodland folk--blindfolded him, and dragged him out here where, between those three, the rest of the guests who'd thought the party was scheduled for Saturday, and myself, it came to pass that I had a Halloween party on Saturday this year after all....