BEING FOR THE BENEFIT OF MISTER POTTER!

The magical night has finally come and gone. The Hogwarts Express has made its rounds, and everyone is safe and sound (well, not really) back in the muggle world. Meanwhile, on Friday ... there were dementors and witches, badly dressed muggles, a Snape, a Lockhart, a Hermione, a Tonks, a McGonogall, a Quidditch player, a Hogwarts arts professor (name unknown), lots of pirates (?), several gypsies, a number of traveling musicians (with guitars), and even a fat tortoise shell Crookshanks. I now have more candy, brownies, pumpkin pasties, and beer, beer, beer, than I'll ever need, so I'm going to give it all away; candy and cakes to the store, beer to anybody who wants it - which should be easy. The butterbeer didn't really work out. Somebody said, "All that work and all you made was eggnog!" People, however, seemed to have a good time.
The pirates sang randy drinking songs that offended a couple of prudes. Dan "Latte Thunder" (from Borders cafe') put the moves on a slender witch in a short skirt. Someone broke the coffee maker, but Lee (my old housemate who appeared out of nowhere! like magic -and to my great joy!) located an old coffee maker which he remebered he had hidden in a cubby hole somewhere in the house during his stay. And it WORKED! Then Lee put the moves on the slender witch in the short skirt. Brian the jazz snob (who hates it when I call him that), amazed everybody with his guitar playing (even staunch players like Jordan and Gus). I warned "Latte Thunder" to keep his mits off the slender witch in the short skirt. Then I put the moves on the slender witch in the short skirt. Apparently, Hermione's dementor date decided that all the weirdos from the bookstore were good folk, and that he wouldn't give us the Dementor's Kiss. He did not, however, put any moves on the slender witch in the short skirt. People came and people went. Severus "the pre-op transexual" Snape arrived early (in boy mode) with a beautiful date (who was a natural-born woman). However, the potions master left early telling me that (s)he was going to a Halloween party on Sunday night, full of decadence, drugs, and various kinds of sexuality. Sorry I'll miss it.

EPILOGUE:
The slender witch in the short skirt spent the night on my couch (but nothing happened!). We had lunch the next day at a Thai restaurant where it took well over an hour for our food to arrive. There was so much screaming and fighting in the kitchen area (in an angry Asian dialect) that we knew something was terribly awry. I had to call work on the slender witch's cell phone and tell them I was going to be late, because our service was so bad! Even when we wanted to pay our bill we had to go to the kitchen doorway and call inside for them to come out and give us our check. We were told, "I already gave it to you". Wrong. But no apology. Then they refused to give us more than 15% off. The slender witch wanted to pay, because I let her sleep over, but she refused to give what they were asking. So, as the indecipherable hollering continued in the kitchen, she dropped a pittance on the table and we scurried out the door. Gutsy lass!

A weird and interesting epilogue to Hogwarts, a Halloween.

I was ten minutes late to work even though lunch had started a full hour and forty five minutes before I had to be there!

So, the party was fun. Most everyone seemed to enjoy themselves. And the house was left almost perfect except for some minor clean-up and a broken coffee maker. Thanks, Denise, for helping with the set-up, and to everyone who brought anything or just showed up.

Happy Halloween, Harry.

SEQUEL?

Next year (September 22ndish) I'm thinking I'll try to have a Long Expected Party in a field somewhere and make it an authentic Middle Earth experience! (Unless someone talks me out of it.) If I start working on it now, it'll be easier to get it ready when the time comes ... Anybody own any land around here? Or we could do it at Bob Woodruff park -- no booze allowed, though. Which might be OK. Hmmm, how to make Bilbo disappear? And I wonder if I could persuade one very groovy old hippy dude to play Gandalf?