Halloween, tourists and dreams

I never used to care but in the past five years Halloween has become one of my favorite nights out of the year. Spending the year coming up with crazy costume ideas, trying to figure out what to wear without resorting to anything that has the word “sexy” in front of it and then spending the night out with friends checking out everyone else’s creativity (or lack thereof)…I’m definitely missing it tonight. I’m also bummed to miss seeing Logan dressed up in his costume. I don’t usually go trick or treating with him but I still get to see the costume and hear the stories. It still cracks me up that when he was three or four he bailed on trick or treating because he wanted to stay home and hand out candy himself because he thought “the kids would enjoy it.” The pictures Lori posted from the pumpkin farm were enough to make me hop a plane and come home. I had a dream last night, come to think of it, that I was home for the weekend just to go out for Halloween. I hope you guys are having great fall weather there for it. That was always my favorite part – a crisp sunny day with the last smells of autumn in the air competing against the cold of the winter that is soon to follow...I guess the reports I’ve heard from home are that you’ve gotten gypped on the fall weather though so I can’t be too upset about missing it. I hope it warms up a bit for you as we head to Thanksgiving!

Yesterday there were more funeral bells and so I took up a post in St. Francis Square. It turned out the funeral wasn’t in Victoria but there may be a few here next week. According to Mario (the shop owner/teacher) someone died on the ferry the other day so I’m going to check into that. I ran into him in Independence Square yesterday when he was wandering between his shop down the street and the stand he has in the Square where Grace, his mother, works. He said it was a really slow day so he was going to close early. I have noticed less tourist traffic as the time has progressed here but depending on the day and time if there are enough tour groups and buses in town it can still seem as if they take over the place. It’s amusing watching them as they descend on the city, constrained by the timing of the tour, hustling through Victoria and trying to consume as much of it as possible. Snapping pictures as if they are trapping bugs under a glass – gotcha! It’s so weird in contrast to the slow pace of the island. There’s never a rush or hurry and time is best spent leisurely enjoying the views and the sounds – preferably over a cappuccino. I was witness to this the last time I was in Drewja and saw a bus tour unload to check out the Azure Window. It took a full 5-10 minutes for the whole bus to disembark because it was so full and yet some of the tourists had hopped back on within another 10. I’ve been to the window four times now and each time the magnitude of the natural beauty of the place has been captivating. And I’m not talking 10 minutes captivating. It reminded me of a paper I did in undergrad about tourists as cannibals…maybe I should dust that bad boy off and expand it a little.

I’m going to start my November cemetery tour tomorrow. Three weeks until I head to Belgium and there’s a lot to do. I did laundry again last night and took pictures of the production since so many people have voiced interest (and disbelief) though now that I look at them they look exactly as you’d expect…tubs of wet clothes and a big drying rack. Guess that’s not too exciting so I’ll spare you. I am still having very weird and/or vivid dreams every night...here’s one I had earlier this week…

I had a dream that my family was all in our house, though it wasn’t either of the two houses we’ve lived in. Lori and I were sitting on a couch watching TV in some sort of upstairs family room when suddenly the house was swept up in a tornado and thrown out. When the house landed, Lori and I were still sitting in the couch, clinging to it and each other for our lives. The couch slammed to the ground, falling first through the second story floor and then it fell over backward so we were facing up. The roof then fell on top of us and we used our arms and feet to brace ourselves from the section of roof. Apparently it was a good thing the roof fell on us because it turned out that all of this debris and sand fell on top of the roof and the only thing keeping us from being swallowed in it and sort of buried alive was that we had this roof shield above us. Hmmm…

Another less vivid but no less weird dream involved a guy from Cinnabon hitting on me and asking me for my address – not my phone number. So I guess my dream self is skipping phone calls and going with straight up stalkers. Though I don’t think I’m desperate for a date, I will say I could be pretty desperate for something from Cinnabon. I remember when I worked at the Drake Bookstore and Hokomoto would drive to the only mall in town that had one to bring it in and surprise me. Oh god a mochalatta chill would be heaven right now. Areyl – I’m adding that to my list of “things I miss.” Of course…that’s in addition to missing all of you. Unless Kurtenbach is reading this and then it’s in addition to missing most of you. ;) Have a great Halloween everyone.