Halloween/Beltane

In that limbo before a party. Most people I know are going to some sort of Hal­loween do tonight, but for me it’s an Autumn fest­ival, designed for when things are dying as Winter begins. So, yes it’s Halloween/All Hal­low’s Eve in the North­ern Hemi­sphere right now, but for us in the south­ern hemi­sphere, it’s Beltane. There have been long debates over the neo-pagan Beltane thing, whether it should be halfway between Eostre and Litha or whether it should be a moon fest­ival so there are four moon fests and four sun fests. I think I’ve been recon­vinced by the sun fest crowd…

It’s one year exactly since my cat Loki died. Trust my famil­iar to die on a Sabbat. Anyhow, went look­ing for a replace­ment kitten today and North Fitzroy Vet has put me on the wait­ing list for the black girl kitten they have in their cat adop­tion centre. She’s about 5 weeks old now and if no one else wants her, she’ll be mine in about a month. If you hear of any other black girl kit­tens, let me know.

I’m set­tling back in… in some ways, it’s too easy. I almost can’t remem­ber being away, it’s like I have these stor­ies but they’re not memor­ies of mine. I’m fas­cin­ated by memory and how it works. Mine is shocking. 

Yes­ter­day was kind of catch-up-with-every­one day. Break­fast coffee with deep­skin, lunch with apo­cra­ph­ilia and then dinner with thorfinn (mmm, congee. mmm, chilli salt beancurd). 

From there I went on to drinks at the Kelvin with dr_zero, frou_frou, the_christian, nuwishas_tail, and Cath­er­ine who got back from Europe about a week ago as well. That was great. The Kelvin was noisy, so after a few drinks we went across the road to Bar Nancy. I just want to say that amar­etto sours are deli­cious and thank you the_christian for intro­du­cing me to them. How­ever, as it is *not* see-through and is even pink and frothy, you *are* break­ing your own rules and drink­ing a girly drink. Your retort that I should­n’t gender politi­cise drink­ing is irrel­ev­ant when I’m using your cat­egor­ies, buster.

The con­ver­sa­tion at Bar Nancy was superb, ran­ging from jail sen­tences for mar­tial artists to the anguish of the UN’s impotence.

It does­n’t feel like Beltane. Beltane is sup­posed to be all springy and green and warm. There are beribboned poles to dance around. I’m sup­posed to be feel­ing sexy and sprightly and in the mood.

Ah well.

If you’re read­ing this and you live in Mel­bourne, get your butt on over here. Bring mead. Bring a cable to con­nect my laptop to the telly so I can show off my pix of Europe. Bring a black kitten.

Oh, and happy birth­day hawk_eye for tomorrow!