halloweekend

I ran a 5k with the dogs yesterday morning. Dany's eighth birthday is tomorrow and the first time we ran it was the first time the event was held, which happened to coincide with her first birthday in 2015. It's been a birthday tradition to participate in some way every year since on the last Saturday in October. Yesterday we finished in about 45 minutes, one of our shorter times. We napped then I went to the library to borrow music for my birthday. We walked a little more then I rode my bike to a Halloween party that doubled as a Phillies watch party. Less triumphant than their game one win we left in the eighth inning after three rounds and a pretzel. The moon's waxing crescent was bright and visible on the way there and back.

This morning I attended service at the Unitarian Universalist church for the first time. The reverend there officiated a memorial for Leo after he passed then I exhausted every reason not to attend over the intervening three years, which currently makes me more of a solstice and samhain type though I do intend to return next week. The sermon discussed the history of the holiday including the lighting of candles for the dead and an old Celtic tradition of extinguishing the house fire to relight it from a communal bonfire built for the occasion. We commemorated those we've lost then sang while those in costume danced around the sanctuary. I chatted with the reverend then walked with another man around the parking lot trunk or treating and meeting some of the congregation.

I walked with the dogs this afternoon stopping to lie in the park watching kids play basketball then made it home for the second half of the Eagles game. I fell asleep in my chair just after their win was called and woke up to read the penultimate chapter of Dubliners, Grace, before making a tomato stew with onions, potatoes, carrots, mushrooms, acorns, sage and thyme. While the stew simmered down I built a small fire in the Dutch oven, which I used to light a candle that I placed under the peach tree.