Halloween morning here on the hill, just outside the Northeast Kingdom in northern Vermont:
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Last night's poker game: after picking up three or four respectable pots, I gave it all away and then some in three or four unnervingly massive pots. For a low-ante, allegedly low-bidding game, there were a few points when serious piles of cash accumulated in the center of the table.
During the pre-game pizzafest, the hostess received a northern lights alert via a phone call from a friend driving on the Interstate. All present poured out of the house, pulling on footgear, craning necks upward. Where we discovered a majestic extravaganza, centered at the top of the sky's dome and extending from there down toward the horizon in all directions with broad, slowly-shifting streaks of understated reds, blues, greens. Completely eclipsing the two or three other modest displays of northern lights I'd seen in past years. A few folks appeared from other houses, standing in the street with us, one or two talking into cordless phones, passing along the alert.
Before the game -- darkness gathering, the moon hanging bright and clear in the western sky above bare trees -- I stepped out the kitchen door into cold evening air to take a look at the scene away from the lights of the house. Moving from the stoop toward the barn, I heard sounds off to my right, a combination of hoofs on ground and alarmed huffing breaths. Three white-tailed deer bounded off across the gravel road into the hilltop's tree cover, nothing visible in the dusk's dim light except splashes of white, tails briefly giving away their owners' location before disappearing in the falling night.
Today: Halloween. In past years, no trick-or-treaters have braved the early darkness and long gravel road that leads up from the valley to the few houses spread around the hill here. Far as I know, anyway -- my attendance has been a bit spotty during previous Halloween evenings. I expect to be here tonight, though, a bowl of empty calories waits by the door. Any kids who make the journey to my back stoop will be showered with Kit-Kat bars.
rws 8:42 AM [+]