....hello again!

Just got back from another no-cell-phone, no-internet-connection kind of getaway. Pretty nice. Perfect timing, as it turned out, to watch the annual Perseids meteor shower! New moon, big meteor shower, and NO light pollution up at a cabin in Tahoe National Forest. Can't beat that. The shower was pretty great. Didn't stay up too late, but I saw a bunch of shooting stars, including some great ones with tails.

We also saw lots and lots of bear scat around the cabin. On two different roads beside and behind the cabin, and on the trail down to the river. And, one person at the cabin actually saw the bear the day before we got up there! He was fishing at the river, and a bear came lumbering down the opposite side of the river. He yelled at it, but didn't wait around to see if the bear would run off or not. Pretty exciting. Sweetie and I did not see any bears ourselves. But still - lots of fresh scat, so we knew they (he? she?) was nearby.

And, for our final bit of excitement, we are supposed to fly back home to Maui tomorrow. And, once we were in cell phone range, we got a few messages about Hurricane Flossie. She is supposed to graze the southern end of the Big Island tomorrow afternoon. So.....we'll just see how our flight goes, won't we?? Ack. Wish us luck!

Happy Halloween folks!

If there is ever a day I miss being in my old workplace, today would be the day.  My old co-workers and I take Halloween seriously, and it makes for a fun day at work.  Cobwebs and spiders all over the place, witches and scarecrows, and waaaay too much candy on hand.

We've had witch-theme Halloween, pajama-theme Halloween, dress-up-like-the-slacker biologists-theme Halloween and (the guys’ favorite) brothel-theme Halloween.  Add to that a huge potluck as an appetizer to gobs of candy, and it’s just more fun than one office should allow.  We take a picture in front of our office after lunch.  Since I used to work in a touristy spot of town, it was pretty funny to watch the tourists tell their kids “Wave to __(insert clever costume here)___!!”   We’d wave back from the porch yelling “Yup! That’s all we do! We wave! Go away now.”

Of course, more often then not, I was on my own personal costume mission: To dress up as each of the seven Endless.  Who more inspiring for Halloween then the Sandman crew?  I have been Death (twice), Destiny, Delirium, and Dream.  Despair may be a bit tricky (perhaps with a good Sumo wrestler suit).  This is my on-going homage to Neil Gaiman, so to speak.   Plus, Death is probably my favorite character ever written, so she’s a fun one to imitate.

I am in a new house this year, so I have no idea how many trick-or-treaters we will get this year.  Hopefully a lot, as we have two huge bags of candy.  And what can you do with leftover candy, but munch for hours watching old “Twilight Zone” episodes on DVD?  How many hours, you ask? Don’t ask.

Happy Halloween everyone!