Imposing normal. And Halloween.

This morning, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie said they might just have to postpone Halloween because it’s too unsafe in the storm-ravaged state for kids to be outdoors.

We watched the actual television news last night for the first time since the Vancouver hockey riots over a year ago. And more so than during the riots, Twitter was a better, more accurate source of information. I have family and friends in New York City, Upstate New York, Massachusetts, Vermont, Connecticut, Philadelphia, Atlantic City, Maryland and Washington, D.C. It’s been a day of phone calls and emails and tweets for a general summer-camp-like count-off. So far, everyone we’ve heard from is fine, and we’re assuming those we haven’t heard from are also fine but just without power and phones.

I hope you’re okay, and if you’re reading this I assume you are. I hope your friends and family and pets are okay.

Now that (hopefully) the worst has passed, at least in the U.S., I find myself here on the west coast trying to balance my desire to witness, via internet, my city in ruins with my need to live my life as normal.

So. At 11am Pacific/2pm Eastern, we’re going forward with the Craft Social Twitter chat about productivity; I’m the guest expert. Please join us, using the hashtag #craftsocial or on TweetChat.

And I’m forcing myself to resume my excitement about Halloween, one of my favourite days of the year. I whipped together a Waldo costume for Owen over the last couple weeks.

Thankfully, a Waldo costume only really consists of a hat, glasses, a striped shirt and jeans. He has jeans. I picked up novelty glasses from the toy store and popped out the ridiculous lenses. They’re too big for Owen, but they’ll do. I knitted him a hat, loosely following a pattern I found on Ravelry; here are the details of my project. And, at the eleventh hour (the eleventh hour was last week, for the Halloween party at preschool which, with perfect timing, was also class-picture day), I free-hand painted stripes on a white t-shirt. I got great advice via Twitter for using freezer paper as a stencil to make clean lines, but in the end I just didn’t have time for that amount of planning. So I just did it, and it came out fine.

Owen is excited to wear his Waldo costume again tomorrow, and we’ll take him trick-or-treating for the first time. Which I’m back to being excited about, now that I’ve forced myself to write this post.

If you’re having to postpone your Halloween this year because of calamity, I’m sending you a hug, and encouragement that any day can be a good day for dressing up and celebrating the welcome absurdities of life. Until you’re ready for that, know you’re not alone. You’re thought about and cared about, and you will heal.