Halloween

Dear Annie,

Vocabulary and SATs.  A subject I promise to address next post.  At the moment I'm full of the spirit of the season.  First:

Happy Birthday!  I hope you've been celebrated all day long.

It always seemed special to me to have your birthday so close to Halloween.

Our Halloween tradition at the store involves the entire staff dressing in costume.  As the Book Lady, I always try to be a book character.  I've been Miss Clavell from Madeleine, Amelia Bedelia, the zookeeper's wife from Good Night Gorilla, the Guinness Book of World Records, and Professor McGonagall from Harry Potter.  So, in the constant search for Women of a Certain Age in children's literature, I've decided this year to be the eponymous
Miss Rumphius, world traveler and sower of lupine seeds, striving to make the world more beautiful.  The book is  written and illustrated by Barbara Cooney; it's a lovely lyrical celebration of living an engaged life.  Here's Miss Rumphius distributing lupine seeds:

Fortuitously, I still have the Hobbit cape I made for Lizzie's birthday party 15 years ago -- pictured here.  Tomorrow it will belong to Miss Rumphius -- amazing similarity, don't you think?  That and lots of hair devices for building topknots, and I'll be a dead ringer.  Picture to come next time, if it's not too embarrassing.

Happy birthday and Halloween to you.

Love,

Deborah