I’m exhausted, you exhausted?

Halloween dinner for 7 (plus Grace), 3 InMenlo assignments, carving pumpkins, blogging, baking altar bread – well, we’ve had a full 36 hours. We started cooking white chili from scratch yesterday, searing and pan-grilling 4 pounds of skinless chicken breasts, soaking the navy beans overnight et al. – we even baked flax-meal bread, a flavorful, much less carb-laden alternative to cornbread. The resulting dish was nonfat, low carb and healthy enough to stop the hearts of most of us geezers used to less virtuous victuals.

But hours of standing in the kitchen, prepping, shopping, jetting to assignments etc. took their toll. We were dragging today, before granddaughter Grace arrived, dressed as a ladybug, with Uncle Patrick from New Jersey in tow. Grace, upon arrival was the antithesis of exhausted and she, who turns two next week, figured out the Halloween drill in about 3 cycles: door bell rings, ‘scary monsters’ appear on step, candy arrives, yay!. After that, a delighted little girl (pictured) ran to the door each time the bell rang, as it did perhaps 20 times for a recorded crowd of 44 ghoulish visitors. Grace is definitely into Halloween, I’m definitely into bed…