Today is such a good day. First off, it FEELS like fall - and boy howdy do I love fall. Secondly - I stayed awake until 1:30am so I could go running in the park with my boyfriend and the dog, and we completed week 4 of the Couch to 5k program, which meant we did our longest run yet. It hurt, and I felt so good afterwards. I love running in the park that late at night/early in the morning. Frequently there are sprinklers on, so everything smells wet and good - it's a largeish park in the middle of a city, with a nature center in the middle of it and some open land where they maybe one day might build a senior center, and a few little hills with horse trails behind the equestrian center on the other side of the disc golf course. Every night we go running, we get followed by 3 coyotes. The first time we discovered them, we were up in the hills running on little dirt paths with mustard growing all around us, and the smallest of the 3 coyotes followed us for about 30 minutes before engaging Rommel (the dog.) Our dog is a huge german shephard - as big as the largest of the 3 coyotes. He's also a big sweet pushover, and doesn't really fight back with anything. He played with this coyote for a long time while we watched, then a second one came to play. A third (the largest) skulked around, and then made some aggressive motions, so we took the dog and kept running. They coyotes followed us back to our car but didn't engage.

Every night since then when we go running, they've come out to greet us - except the last couple of times there have only been 2 and they have been more and more aggressive. Adam runs holding a large stick now, if he finds one, and it sure adds to my exercise adrenaline to be followed by those animals. Last night we knew they were around, but they snuck up from behind and one of them rushed Rommel from really close - Adam yelled and ran at the coyotes, and Rommel ran away from the coyote (actually, he probably was running away from Adam's angry yell) and ran into me and knocked me over. (He's a *really* big dog!)

It was towards the end of our run, so we went back up through the sandy part and up the hill to the jeep, and didn't see the coyotes up close again that night. Adam's dad is a coyote expert (if you google Louis Dedeaux, you will find a documentary called Coyoteland. That's him) so we were talking about all of this - Adam's final consesus was that if he had another dog with Rommel, he'd let them fight just to see what happens. As it is, it's not worth the vet bill. Yeesh.

So anyways, I got home around 2:30am, took a shower, and then couldn't sleep. So I am here at work on very few hours of sleep, but feeling surprisingly perky. Although all of the colors are just a leeeetle too bright, I am happy, I feel good, I am about to go to the gym with my boyfriend and then I am going to the YA halloween carnival, then take my test, then go downtown with Becky for dinner then go to my dad's! Let halloween commence!

for PETRA - halloween prep

This is the walkway where people will park and walk to the building. We are looking towards the parking lot, away from where we will have the party. I'd love this area to be decorated also - I have a ton of orange/black streamers and cobwebs.

The walkway curves.........

and leads into this open area. This is where I think we will have space to do the cakewalk. Although it is brick, I don't want to use chalk or anything (we are in a business complex) - but tape with numbers would be okay. Make sure there is lots of room between them - some folks will have walkers/wheel chairs, and make the numbers fairly large for folks with vision issues. We will need to light this area - if you could bring whatever extension cords you have, that would help.

This is the grass area next to where the cake walk can be. (see that little corner next to the tree trunk?) I thought this would be ideal for a graveyard or for that giant ghost becky was talking about. This is right next to the door of the big room.

This will be the main entrance. I think we should probably have the sign-in table outside, because it will be awfully crowded with food/music/people inside. I have a sign-in sheet for the sign in table, and can provide name tags if you want (you guys decide if you think that's needed or not) - I also have some halloween stamps we can put on them. I have a form called a Progress Note, that some of our clients will need to intial, I will provide a sign-in sheet in addition to that. We will probably want some decorations/table cloth for that table also - plus chairs for whoever is sitting there. :)

Okay - we are now looking from the inside out through the doors we just went through. On the left is part of the "kitchen" counter. There is one of the 2 big coolers we can use. We also have two giant drink-coolers.

This is the kitchen area - as you can see under the table in the back, I have about 10 huge bags of chips (potato and tortilla) - the counters might want some table cloth/decorations, and there is also a fridge/freezer on the right. There is nothing separating the kitchen from the big room except those tables you see right there.

On the right is the kitchen area and entrance to the room. I am standing about 2/3 of the way back to give you an idea of the length of the room. Down at the end you can see from this photo, you can see a big white screen - that will be taken down, and there is a big screen tv behind it which I have hooked the karaoke machine up to. I have about 10 karaoke cds, becky has about 10 more, and it'd be neat if everyone brought more - but please make sure they are labeled. If I have extra karaoke cds at the end of the night, I am keeping them!! :)

This is another photo of almost the same shot, just going to the left a little. See the chairs? See the tables? The tables are actually really heavy, so when you guys first get here friday we'll do the moving and figuring out where we want them. It'd be nice, if the weather is good and we have enough light, to put them outside for people to sit and eat and talk at - just to give more space. Also - note the streamers? Those are just leftover from a smaller halloween party that was held here yesterday. We can take them down, leave them there, add to them, whatever.

This is the back of the room. Note the windows. So that's pretty much it. Almost exactly behind where I was standing to take this photo is a small hallway with the bathrooms, and another doorway leading out to the parking lot and another entrance. I'd like us to block that off somehow so people don't go in/out of there at the beginning - just so our sign in table is more effective.

Other random things I am thinking of - I have forms for people to vote on their top three favorite halloween costumes, I have halloween stamps and stamp pads if we want to do something with those, I have about 7 cardboard tombstones that need RIP painted, but they're here, I have some plastic bones, two plastic pumpkin buckets...

We officially have 67 clients and 19 staff signed up. I gaurantee you that more will appear than we expect - let's make sure to get their names down even if they are not on the list. I will have a cash box also - there will be people paying 15 or 18 dollars at the door. I will give the sign in folks a list of who they need to collect from also.

Please let me know if you have any other questions or ideas. I am so excited about this - and I am sorry I didn't think about doing this photo thing sooner!

rsorooshian@proindependence.org is my work email, and my work # is 714-549-3464 ex. 239

--Roya