“No pleasure endures unseasoned by variety,” Publilius Syrus once said. Jason and I concur. During the last few months, we have participated in a range of eclectic activities from dancing at balls to acting like bulls. Here are just a few of those pastimes, from the elegant to asinine.

For starters, we danced in tricornes and corsets at the Cannon Ball & Proper Pirate Soiree. Then, we organized a “crepes and escapes” party utilizing a mobile escape trailer, inviting around twenty of our friends. Three teams representing different circles of our comrades participated in this rivalry. Expecting the nice fall temperatures to remain, we rented a park pavilion for everyone to consume crepes and chill in. They chilled. The temperatures stayed nice, but the wind did not. Bitter gusts sent most attendees running for cover in their cars while not in the escape trailer. Jason and I joined the smallest team, My Relatives. Although we finished with seven minutes to spare at 37 minutes and 46 seconds, we also finished last. A team of Jason’s coworkers completed its escape in just under 30 minutes, and the winners of the challenge were our dancing friends who finished in 23 minutes. Well done crafty steppers!

With a handful of chums, we participated in a silly scavenger hunt during which we not only discovered unnoticed bits of our surroundings but also became noticed bits of our surroundings through outlandish acts. We received 11^th place out of almost 100 competing teams by completed nearly 100 submissions, many of them ridiculous, in just over two hours.

We took a large portion of our nieces and nephews to Evermore with us again as a Halloween gift. Some of them became Blackheart Hunters; others became friends with the skeletons. I became jumpy. As Evermore is ever exciting, we went back two more times with friends during the Lore season and then again during Aurora. We got to be the first riders on the Evermore Express, Evermore’s new train.

Although our time in October is always limited, we took a couple hours to visit Cornbelly’s one evening where we got moderately lost in a wizarding maze. Don’t worry, there was no sketchy portkey involved.

Our friends, Cam and Fran, treated us to some racing at The Grid, one of the longest and most technical multi-level racing tracks in this section of the country. With 60,000 square feet and electric vehicles capable of going up to 60 MPH, it’s swanky. Our group raced three times. I finished faster the second time and then slower than frozen tar on the slopes of Everest the third time. Why so slow? The reckless revealed themselves the second round, and I wanted to steer clear of them. I prefer to surround myself with only the idiots I can control, i.e. myself. Thanks Cam and Fran!

As we all know, fall isn’t fall without at least a few balls. Yes, I did just make that up, but I’m sure it’s going to catch on. While we didn’t get a chance to be drawn by a horse-drawn carriage or play whist at the Regency Retreat, we did dine and dance there. This was the inaugural occurrence of this event, and we look forward to attending it again next year. Finally, we went to the Dickens’ Ball where big skirts twirled, and we were all as merry as schoolboys.

While that’s not an exhaustive list of our unconnected goings-on over the last quarter, it’s long enough. We were on the grid, in the corn, and on the dance floor, but we were never bored.