Over the years, I’ve attended many Friendsgivings since I’d lived apart from my family for many years where I didn’t travel back home for Thanksgiving. Sometimes, those events were also called “Orphans’ Thanksgiving,” in which case, the adults who attended weren’t traveling to be with their relatives for the holiday.

In all those years, I’d never attended a religious-sponsored celebration. Mom claimed that she’d never even heard of it before.

Since this event was sponsored by a church, it began with an all-male choir singing a selection, a scripture reading, a welcome message and prayer, followed by a few games.

Everyone was given a ticket. For each game, several participants’ tickets were called to play a game. I knew my ticket wouldn’t be called. I’ve scientifically proven that my ticket would hardly ever be pulled in such event. That conclusion was established years ago when I attended a Bat Ecology Workshop. There were 14 prizes and 15 participants. Guess who didn’t get a prize?

Mom’s ticket was called for the first game. She and five others had to wear a blindfold, put a plate on their head, and trace their non dominant hand to make a turkey. Just so happened that Mom’s dominant arm had been feeling weak, so she asked to be replaced. Of course, she attempted to volunteer me. First Lady, who hosted the event, didn’t pick up on Mom’s effort and simply pulled another ticket.

They played a few more games before dinner. Since Mom’s the church mother, i.e. the oldest female member, our table was called first. I INHALED my plate. I’d taken a Barre class in the morning and the beast was starving. That’s the best condition to be in for catered food.

The next Thanksgiving dinner will be held at one of my sister’s in-laws’ house. Unlike last year, both Mom and Dad will be able to attend since we have more infrastructure in place such as an electric wheelchair and a wheelchair accessible van. Those are going to be my reasons for being thankful for the celebration this year. Neither one was able to attend last year, so the holiday was somewhat muted.

When I was a child, the best part of Thanksgiving was all the special food we ate during the holiday. Now, what I’m really looking forward to is spending time with extended family–most of them.

For this year’s Halloween season, I graced several scenes with my best Harley Quinn impression, complete with glitter lips.

My sister convinced me to buy the bat.

First of all, I usually wouldn’t have spent that much on a prop. But she was threatening to buy it for me if I didn’t.

Normally, I would’ve let someone else put their money where their ideas were, but I wanted her to spend her money on something more useful.

She probably didn’t, but at least my conscious was clear.

I got my money’s worth by taking lots of pictures for my first dress up opportunity on the first Saturday in October.

In my book, it’s never too early in the month of October to dress up for Halloween.

Besides, as much money as I dropped for both the costume, accessories and makeup, including glitter, I wanted to grace as many scenes as possible with my rendition of Harley Quinn.

Another reason I was originally on the fence about buying the bat was that I didn’t want to carry around a potential weapon.

Even as light-skinned as I am and during Halloween season, I was (am) paranoid about being a person of color carrying what might be perceived as a weapon.

That’s what today’s times has done to me, regarding my favorite holiday.

Nonetheless, I’m very grateful that I’ve surrounded myself with other women who also nurture their creative inner child.

For my second dress up opportunity, I THOUGHT I was going to a Halloween dance, sponsored by a dance studio and that the cost of admission included a dance class, which, again, I thought would be a salsa lesson although several different dance genres had been advertised by the Meetup organizers.

Since I’d never been to this venue before, I left the bat at home. Too bad I didn’t leave my expectations at home as well.

Turns out that neither of the two Meetup event organizers showed up. The only other Meetup person who did show up, hadn’t originally signed up, but messaged to inquire if the event was still happening. Fortunately, I’d just rolled up and told him that it was still going on, so he bought a vampire costume and came out.

Another disappointment: no dance class. I quietly fumed about that, along with event organizers being MIA, so I didn’t catch on to the fact that the event was sponsored by a local ballroom dance group and not the studio.

As a matter of fact, the group themselves were very welcoming and friendly, which greatly helped turn around my attitude. After the third invitation to join another table rather than sitting by myself, I relocated to a lively table.

One of the guys immediately offered me a “Pumpkin Explosion,” or something like that. I chewed that small orange ball about three times until the alcohol content overwhelmed my mouth. When I asked him which alcohol he’d used, he proudly told me “moonshine” that he’d made himself.

Throughout the evening, I was asked to dance a few times, but never once during the one salsa nor any of the chachas that was on the printed playlist, which conveniently showed the order and genre of songs on the two CDs that played during the evening.

I back-led a chacha for the only other Meetup person who showed up, but I was out of practice. I thought I’d redeem myself when the one samba song that was listed near the end of the second CD. Fortunately, one of the members of the ballroom group helped to manage that expectation. She informed me that that song was for a line dance. A small part of me died inside, but I did the line dance and then left.

I would’ve worn my Harley Quinn costume for a third time the following week, but the weather threatened to be cold, so I chose to wear something warmer since I thought we’d be outside. By the time my sister found out that the Trunk and Treat event would be modified and moved inside, I’d already dressed as “Glitter Pumpkin” (thanks to my glitter lips) to her “Spicy Pumpkin,” and together, we were the Pumpkin Sisters.

Since Halloween fell on a Thursday, all of the places where I took exercise classes had some form of either “Spirit Week” or a Halloween event, at least to encourage us to wear a themed costume leading up to Halloween.

For one such event, I discovered that I had a gap in my wardrobe. Not too surprising since I’d dissed the fashion industry over 30 years ago. All I had to do was dress up in my favorite sports team attire. I’m not a sports fan, and I no longer had a T-shirt from one of the two institutions of higher learning I’d graduated from. The closest thing I had was a religious shirt my sister had given me. I repped Team Jesus.

I normally don’t take a pole fitness class on Tuesdays, but I rearranged my schedule for nearly the entire week.

I was merely going to wear my onesie until I received a text from the instructor, showing the night’s theme.

Since my newfound makeup skill was glitter lipstick, I made up my lips, put on my lashes, and wore fishnets.

Out of all of that, the fishnets were the most impractical since they made gripping the pole with my legs more challenging.

Fortunately, this was a pole-floor choreography class.

I didn’t have to do any climbing up the pole, but I swung a little too much on my right arm.

Although it didn’t bother me during class, I knew I’d pay for it later. The next day was “Glitter and Glow.” Since it had it right there in the name; I glittered up my lips again.

So this is what happens when I sign up for an exercise class at the end of the day on Halloween: no other people show up.

I was happy to get one last chance to be Harley along with my bat.

As soon as I walked in, the woman at the front desk said she’d been waiting all day for someone with a Harley costume.

Not only was she my photographer, but she also ended up taking the class with me as well.

The only other woman who’d signed up for the class hadn’t shown up.

I’m not sure if the front desk woman had intended to take the class or not, but I was glad she was there for moral support.

We had an abridged class, which suited me just fine, considering that they indulged my pre-class photoshoot.

Even so, that class worked the hell out of me.

The magic of those classes is how such a small range of motion and static poses do a tremendous amount of work. Wonder how long it’ll take me to actually transform into a Harley Quinn body?