Halloween is NOT lame...

Been reading 'round the blog-sphere (my little corner of it, anyway) that Halloween is lame. That's lame.

There are some things about Halloween that have deteriorated over the years that may be behind that notion, though.

Like when the scariest monsters turned out to be the strangers with candy.

Or when our collective imaginations became so jaded and atrophied by endless exposure to bad movies that we forgot the fun of designing and making our own costumes. Those were always the best.

And when the calculated horror in those movies that drew entirely upon those imaginations was replaced by mere gore -- which to me is much more nauseating than frightening. Not what I'm going for.

It takes a lot more time (and, frankly, intelligence) to draw us in, disarm us, then scare us to death with the bump in the night. Not seeing what's out there is far more scary than seeing. At least for those of us blessed with a vivid imagination.

I always enjoy Jorge Garcia's blog (Dispatches from the Island). He is a true Halloween afficionado, and for all the right reasons. He decorates, dresses up and carves the coolest pumpkins ever...and shares it all with his readers. I love his character (Hurley) on Lost -- one of the more complex characters in the plot IMHO, but I love reading the real guy's posts even more -- especially 'round Halloween.

So I will follow Jorge's blog, enjoy the Travel channel's tours of scary places, watch a well-crafted horror movie or two (Silence of the Lambs scared me a heckuva lot more than any Saw movie ever could -- The Shining is another), wish I had a costume party to go to (or a kid to dress up), and enjoy my candy corn for one more week.

What do you think of Halloween, dear reader? (And I know that there's just the one of you -- maybe two on a good day).

Day is done

There's something poetic about a sunset. May be something poetic about sunrise, too. I don't see enough of them to know. But everyone...and I mean everyone...stopped their activity to watch. I like the pause reflected in this picture. Seems as though they realize it's time to pack up and go for the day, but don't really want to leave.

I took this on our way from Saturday evening mass at St Augustines on Waikiki to dinner at Seafood Village (opakapa in black bean/ginger sauce and sizzling shrimp satay), the night before my 15th Komen Race for the Cure.

We have started using the race as an excuse to play tourist for a weekend on Waikiki. We do this largely for the same reason that I do the race each year -- because we CAN. For me, it is a celebration of life. For us, it's a celebration of our life in paradise.