The Bee office received a copy of former resident Virginia Nygard’s new novel, Déjà vu Dream, last week. Ms Nygard lived in Newtown from the mid-1960s until the mid-1980s, when she relocated to Florida. If you love a romance-thriller type story, you will want to read Déjà vu Dream, which is set in Newtown, incidentally. Lots of familiar places pop up throughout the book, adding an element of fun to the book for those of us who live here. Ms Nygard has published poems and letters in newspapers and magazines and has written online book reviews for Amazon. Déjà vu Dreams is her first novel, though, and if you love it, keep your eyes peeled, as she says she is working on the sequel to the book already.

Pull your prettiest smile out of your pocket and say, “Cheese!” For the second year running, Newtown Youth & Family Services (NYFS) is hosting Family Portrait Days in conjunction with Cynthia McIntyre Photography on Saturday and Sunday, October 11 and 12, from 10 am to 5 pm, at the Pleasance in Newtown. NYFS Executive Director Beth Agen tells me that Ms McIntyre “is a professional portrait photographer donating her time and talent to create heirloom quality family outdoor portraits for this benefit.” Families can show their support for NYFS by signing up for a 20-minute portrait session on either date. Preregistration and prepayment of a $30 session fee is required. Call Cynthia McIntyre Photography at 364-1592 or email her at Info@CynthiaMcIntyre.com to sign up for this fundraising event on October 11–12, or to schedule a private family photography session at the location and date of your choice. For more info or to sign up go to www.FamilyPortraitDay.com/Newtown.html or call 364-1592. Only a limited number of sessions are available so people are encouraged to sign up soon. One hundred percent of the total collected in session fees will be donated to the local youth and family agency dedicated to helping children, individual adults, and families achieve their highest potential.

The Head O’ Meadow School’s Fall Fair this Saturday from noon until 5 pm presents me with just the thing that makes me want to teach my paws to drive, if my luck holds up. During the PTA-sponsored event, a $500 Mobil gas card will be raffled off to one lucky driver. Tickets are being sold at the main office of the school on Boggs Hill Road until the day of the fair, and during the fair until the time of the raffle. The price of the $10 ticket for a possible $500 card’s worth of gas seems like a good bargain to me.

Former Bee reporter Lisa Peterson, who covered the Helle Crafts murder case in Newtown in the late 1980s, will be featured in interviews along with former police chief Michael DeJoseph, criminologist Henry Lee, and author Arthur Herzog on A&E Biography’s Crime Stories this weekend. The “Woodchipper Killer” episode will air Friday, October 3, at 8 pm, with a rebroadcast Saturday at 12 am. Lisa has previewed the episode and gives it the thumbs up, adding, however, that the reenactment involving her at The Bee is pretty funny with the Church Hill office looking “more like the break room at a chemical plant than a newsroom.” I’ve already got my television tuned in to the A&E channel in anticipation of the Friday night show.

I was able to put my paws around my face and peer through the plate glass windows into the new Caraluzzi’s Market that is going up on Queen Street this past week, and if I had to take a wild guess, I would say it will only be a few short weeks before Newtown residents will be shopping there. It’s always exciting to have a new business in town, especially one that is family owned. I’m counting on them to stock my favorite flavors of cat food, of course.

My doggie friend Neko has four white socks permanently attached to her four long legs, but the soldiers serving in Iraq and Afghanistan are not so lucky. They need more socks to keep their feet dry and comfortable than are issued by the service, so resident Joanne Brunetti, a Soldiers’ Angels volunteer, is still collecting men’s white crew socks as part of a nationwide drive to send at least 180,000 pairs of socks overseas at Christmas time. Donations can be dropped off in the basket on Joanne’s front porch at 77 Butterfield Road, the first house off of the Hanover Road end of Butterfield, through October 29. The socks need to be mailed off to the central Soldiers’ Angels site in North Carolina by November 1, so don’t dilly-dally in getting your donation to her. If there is any corporation or business in town that is interested in helping her out with the mailing costs, she welcomes the assistance. Call Joanne at 426-7991 for more information.

I noticed this week that a few trees in Newtown have decided to jump the gun and give us a preview of the upcoming fall foliage show, particularly a lovely orange-leafed maple on the corner of Queen Street and Glover Avenue. It has really put me in the mood for some fun autumn activities like pumpkin picking, apple picking, long hikes, and drinking lots of hot apple cider. No doubt, lots of other Newtowners are feeling the same way. I hope all the fall festivities don’t make you forget to pick up The Bee next week and …. Read me again.