Halloween Concert and Book Signing

Yesterday was my first real concert with the Bartlett Community Band - the third annual Halloween concert at the BPACC. Most people were in costume and it was SO much fun! I went as a Starbucks Frappucino (an idea from Pinterest). I freehanded the Starbucks logo onto white posterboard, and for the straw, rolled up a green posterboard and hot-glued it to a headband. The dress was a truly last-minute find at Goodwill the night before. I'm very happy with how the costume turned out!

The band had a great time backstage before the show checking out each other's outfits. My favorite was the clarinetist who dressed up as a blind referee. :) It was also an opportunity to officially meet more people. I've only been a member since July and hardly know anyone besides the other second-row fluties.

Alanna and Jonathan, and of course my parents, were faithfully in attendance.

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The other exciting event of my weekend was attending a book signing for Thin Space, the new YA novel by my 11th-grade Honors English teacher, Jody Casella! A couple of weeks ago I got an e-mail about the upcoming event and was like, "Wait, I know that name." I followed the link to her blog and we reconnected. On Saturday I went to the signing along with a couple of my old classmates (whom I hadn't seen since high school - I didn't go to my 10- or 15-year reunions), and then we all hung out talking for most of the afternoon! It was a great time, and I'm happy and excited for her success and what might be next. Look for a review of Thin Space here soon!

On another note, I grew up in Hickory Hill. For those of you not familiar with Memphis, that area went, well, downhill very rapidly during the mid-to-late 90s... my high school years. I had no idea how much I'd missed knowing people who share that experience. My family moved after my first year of college, and the friends I've made as an adult have never driven down their childhood street and felt heartbroken at how dilapidated it is. Or watched the mall where they had their first jobs become a run-down, deserted shell. So it was good to talk to people who carry that with them too, underneath the Hickory Hill card that we occasionally pull for street cred.

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