I’m trying to plan this weekend’s adventures. The fall color is still around, but it’s really windy today, so I’m not going to try to head into the mountains, where it will be even windier. I ran some errands this morning and explored the huge used bookstore that I think might contain extradimensional portals. The guy running the place was walking around, asking customers if they heard something weird and saying he thought the place might be haunted. I don’t know if it was a Halloween bit or if it was just the perfect weird used bookstore. The rest of the day will be a workday at home. I live on a short dead-end street with only one kid living on it, and she’s way too shy to knock on a stranger’s door, so there won’t be any trick-or-treaters. My neighbors say we don’t get any here. There was some talk of a party on the block, but I haven’t heard anything lately. It may be an impromptu “drinks on the porch” session, if anything.

For Saturday, I saw something on Facebook about an open house at a sawmill. They mostly sell bits of lumber for woodworking, but for the open house they’re doing lathe demonstrations and have some small items they’ve made, like cutting boards and Christmas decorations. That might make for a fun outing. They’re near but not in the mountains, so it would be a scenic drive getting there, and they’re close to some other things I might want to visit.

Sunday evening is my first “concert” with the choir I’m in now. It’s actually an Evensong service, but it’s mostly music, with the choir singing a lot of the liturgy. I’m Methodist but am going to an Episcopal church because all the Methodist churches (and there are a ton of them, about five I could walk to) are tiny and don’t have choirs or much in the way of activities. The Episcopal church has been around since the 1740s, has an amazing choir, a spectacular organ (and the organ building company is local, so some of the people who built it are in the choir), and a lot of activities in the community, as well as being in a building on the National Register of Historic Places, with the stained glass from the Tiffany workshop from the 1800s, so I ended up going there. It’s not too different from what I’m used to, but Evensong isn’t something I’ve done before. The only Evensong service I’ve been to was at Westminster Abbey. The music is beautiful, but challenging, especially because this choir needed altos more than it needs sopranos, and since my range goes that low and I can read music, I’m singing alto. It’s taking some getting used to and requires a lot of focus. I definitely can’t go on autopilot.

I’ve been treating October as a light working month. I’ve been brainstorming the replotting of a book I drafted years ago. When I reread it, I really liked it, but the plot needed work. I’ve finally figured out what to do to fix it, so next week I’ll dive back into serious writing.