Week #16 – Treat or Treat!

Here we are…November.  And, do you know what that means?  NO MORE HALLOWEEN FUN! 
Ah, but what fun we had, yeh?

I was waffling about what my costume would be; scary and hairless, hairy and scare-less.  (I do so enjoy scaring the kiddies.)  At the last minute I came up with this:  Peter, Peter, Pumpkin Greeter.

At our house we get a couple kids every 45 minutes and most of the time it's our friends bringing over their kids. 

Thanks to our friends Tracy and Molly I actually had kids to scare.   Molly and Tracy’s neighborhood was an endless stream of kids so I got to see all the great costumes, hand out candy and even scared a few of them!  Ah, the joys of a good fright!!

So, that was Wednesday.  On Thursday I had my usual gig at Grumpy’s.  It’s always fun to play that venue and I have a nice little crowd that comes out for the shows.  Since it was All Soul's Night I felt justified in singing a few more Halloween songs [cheesy grin].  On Friday I played in LeClaire (home of the American Pickers) to a packed house.  So much so that, some friends who came out to see me couldn’t get a seat.  If they’d only waited until the end of the night because, just about 15 minutes before the end of my show the place became virtually empty except for a couple at the bar and the staff.

Between songs the guy at the bar said to me, “Play Stairway to Heaven”, so I did.  Well, not quite.  I played the opening stanza then stopped abruptly and told him jokingly, “That’s all you get for free”.  He looked at his wife and said, “Give her a hundred bucks”.  “Well, here’s a guy who knows how to request a song!” I responded…still jokingly.  Then his wife put a hundred dollar bill in my tip jar.  Needless to say, I played whatever the hell they wanted for the next 15 minutes. 

I spent Saturday pretty much laying on the couch all day.  Shows are starting to tire me out more than usual and I’m not bouncing back the next day like I used to.  But, all that’s about to change…this Friday, November 9^th, is my last scheduled chemo treatment!!  So this week I plan to do whatever it takes to make sure my numbers are where they need to be so I can get my final infusion and be done with all this rigmarole!

My chemo treat for last week was a treat in and of itself; Banoffee Pie! 
Susan and I had it when we were in Ireland and have wanted to try making it at home.  Our first time out wasn’t a total success but it was still good.   The traditional method of making the toffee is to boil an unopen can of condensed milk for 3 hours.  I didn't want to wait 3 hours... nor did I want to take the chance of having to clean up a condensed milk explosion.

Guess we’ll just have to keep trying till we get it right ;)