(no subject)
ah, that melancholy first day of november...
we did end up getting trick-or-treaters for the first time in my post-adolescent life, although they came on saturday night! our apartment complex issued a letter last week urging everyone to pick 10/29 as halloween, from 7-9pm, since saturdays are easier to deal with than mondays - it sounded ridiculous to me, as it doesn't seem right to go trick-or-treating on a night other than all hallow's eve, not to mention that people might have plans for saturdays & that the only kids who'd venture out would probably just double-up on monday night - but leave it to me to be completely wrong (once again), and we received roving gangs of about 40-50 kids overall saturday night, with none on sunday or monday! what strange youths we have these days...
i was pissed originally that most of them (probably 80%) didn't wear costumes, but after reading modkitty's post this morning, i realize i never considered that these kids' parents may very well have not been able to afford costumes - and the majority of them were using wal-mart bags for their candy too - our apartment complex is certainly a bargain (that's how we ended up there, anyway) and it very well may be that the parents who live there may not have the cash or time to do stuff for their children...on the other hand, my gripes still stand about kids carrying multiple bags (for their "cousins", yeah right) or the kid who hit us up twice within a half-hour (easily identifiable, as she was wearing a huge bright pink jacket buttoned all the way up to her chin), but i still gave out the candy and wished them all a happy halloween nonetheless...
oka-san was with us during the event and loving it all - halloween is still a cult holiday there (no pun intended) and she'd seen nothing to the extent of what we had - she took a couple of pictures of trick-or-treaters for her souvenirs...S tells me that halloween in japan is mostly limited to parades (her workplace in kawasaki, nestled between tokyo and yokohama, is home to the most famous one) and to the japanese gay community (which also happens to thrive in kawasaki, now that i think about it)...another interesting thing about japanese halloween - no such thing as jack o'lanterns there, since their pumpkins are so much smaller than the ones here in america...
due to preparing dinner (a seasonal chili with the implied evil of frijoles negros & the autumnal splendor of habanero peppers), carving the pumpkin, looking after the kid, taking photos of the kid, and downloading photos of the kid i ended up not being able to watch the great pumpkin for the first halloween season in...geez...at least 10 years - but on the other hand, she woke us up at 5am this morning, an hour before my regular wakeup, and since it wasn't really worth it to go back to bed we decided that technically it could still be appropriate to watch it - after all, if november 1 begins for me normally at 6am, then 5:30am could still be considered late night oct 31, right? don't argue, i've already made up my mind that its so...
okay, halloween talk over, now the rest of the news...
- it'd be nice to think that the sweat the white house worked up last week will eventually amount to something, but i just don't believe it'll ever happen anymore - sure enough, alito's nomination appears to have trumped discussion of all other events of last week - am i officially cynical now?
- so terrastock 6 has now been formally announced, and the whole world knows that it'll be taking place in providence in april of next year - show of hands, who all is considering going? i'd love to, but i still don't know how feasible it'll be - apparently people are balking at the ticket prices ($115 for the weekend), which is bad for the terrascope but admittedly good for people like me, so that i have some time to figure out if i'll be able to make it or not...
- it was really nice to have geebs and K visit us this past weekend, our first visitors since A's arrival (and, like, our 3rd visitors to come to fayetteville since we moved down here in may 2004) - they brought not only camaraderie but shopping from whole foods (at last, we can now have falafels for dinner again or pasta with mizithra cheese) and lunch from olive bistro, still in the running for my favorite mediterranean food in the city (i love mezza too but we're virtually never in that neighborhood) - some of you people can follow up on their example, if you wish!
- oh, the CDs were sent out yesterday, so you atlantans will hopefully get yours within the next day or two and the rest of you shortly thereafter - dashoka should know that it was actually cheaper to mail a package to south korea than to the UK, oddly enough...who knows how the post office comes up with their rates...apologies to mehetabel since i said i'd throw some la monte young cds into your package and i forgot completely about it until last night - another day, i promise!
lunchtime comes, and time to head to the nearby taqueria of my choice for some dia de las muertas action, so vamos!
we did end up getting trick-or-treaters for the first time in my post-adolescent life, although they came on saturday night! our apartment complex issued a letter last week urging everyone to pick 10/29 as halloween, from 7-9pm, since saturdays are easier to deal with than mondays - it sounded ridiculous to me, as it doesn't seem right to go trick-or-treating on a night other than all hallow's eve, not to mention that people might have plans for saturdays & that the only kids who'd venture out would probably just double-up on monday night - but leave it to me to be completely wrong (once again), and we received roving gangs of about 40-50 kids overall saturday night, with none on sunday or monday! what strange youths we have these days...
i was pissed originally that most of them (probably 80%) didn't wear costumes, but after reading modkitty's post this morning, i realize i never considered that these kids' parents may very well have not been able to afford costumes - and the majority of them were using wal-mart bags for their candy too - our apartment complex is certainly a bargain (that's how we ended up there, anyway) and it very well may be that the parents who live there may not have the cash or time to do stuff for their children...on the other hand, my gripes still stand about kids carrying multiple bags (for their "cousins", yeah right) or the kid who hit us up twice within a half-hour (easily identifiable, as she was wearing a huge bright pink jacket buttoned all the way up to her chin), but i still gave out the candy and wished them all a happy halloween nonetheless...
oka-san was with us during the event and loving it all - halloween is still a cult holiday there (no pun intended) and she'd seen nothing to the extent of what we had - she took a couple of pictures of trick-or-treaters for her souvenirs...S tells me that halloween in japan is mostly limited to parades (her workplace in kawasaki, nestled between tokyo and yokohama, is home to the most famous one) and to the japanese gay community (which also happens to thrive in kawasaki, now that i think about it)...another interesting thing about japanese halloween - no such thing as jack o'lanterns there, since their pumpkins are so much smaller than the ones here in america...
due to preparing dinner (a seasonal chili with the implied evil of frijoles negros & the autumnal splendor of habanero peppers), carving the pumpkin, looking after the kid, taking photos of the kid, and downloading photos of the kid i ended up not being able to watch the great pumpkin for the first halloween season in...geez...at least 10 years - but on the other hand, she woke us up at 5am this morning, an hour before my regular wakeup, and since it wasn't really worth it to go back to bed we decided that technically it could still be appropriate to watch it - after all, if november 1 begins for me normally at 6am, then 5:30am could still be considered late night oct 31, right? don't argue, i've already made up my mind that its so...
okay, halloween talk over, now the rest of the news...
- it'd be nice to think that the sweat the white house worked up last week will eventually amount to something, but i just don't believe it'll ever happen anymore - sure enough, alito's nomination appears to have trumped discussion of all other events of last week - am i officially cynical now?
- so terrastock 6 has now been formally announced, and the whole world knows that it'll be taking place in providence in april of next year - show of hands, who all is considering going? i'd love to, but i still don't know how feasible it'll be - apparently people are balking at the ticket prices ($115 for the weekend), which is bad for the terrascope but admittedly good for people like me, so that i have some time to figure out if i'll be able to make it or not...
- it was really nice to have geebs and K visit us this past weekend, our first visitors since A's arrival (and, like, our 3rd visitors to come to fayetteville since we moved down here in may 2004) - they brought not only camaraderie but shopping from whole foods (at last, we can now have falafels for dinner again or pasta with mizithra cheese) and lunch from olive bistro, still in the running for my favorite mediterranean food in the city (i love mezza too but we're virtually never in that neighborhood) - some of you people can follow up on their example, if you wish!
- oh, the CDs were sent out yesterday, so you atlantans will hopefully get yours within the next day or two and the rest of you shortly thereafter - dashoka should know that it was actually cheaper to mail a package to south korea than to the UK, oddly enough...who knows how the post office comes up with their rates...apologies to mehetabel since i said i'd throw some la monte young cds into your package and i forgot completely about it until last night - another day, i promise!
lunchtime comes, and time to head to the nearby taqueria of my choice for some dia de las muertas action, so vamos!