Daddy Is A TV Star

We had a 4-member filming crew with 2 cameras in the house for the whole day yesterday. They came to interview Lui for an episode in a series which is going to be aired on Bravo! TV. I realize the importance of this program goes beyond the air way. It will help others to understand him better, collectors and other media members alike. It's a record of his current state of mind. To be bombarded by questions like this first of all served to clarify his thoughts. The hints he got from Mr B were very well elaborated. Basically, what he stands out is the combination of his techniques and his sensitivity. What he got from his experience in the east and west, in the history and in the present time only serve as raw materials he could utilize to express his observation. Humor or parody is the key word here. The commentaries about the imageries in all formats, digital or otherwise, were quite bold. Whatever you get your inspirations from, only what's shown on the canvas counts at the end of the day.

Lui was completely exhausted in the evening and went down to sleep around 9:30pm.

Lost & Not Found

Quite Sunday afternoon yesterday -- three of us were sitting on the kitchen table doing nothing. Then we decided to go to Home Depot to get some supplies. We got a tube of wood filler for our recent project and two 9V batteries for Sienna's remote-control school bus.

Exiting the store, we grabbed the Second Cup coffee and Sienna got her biscotti treat. Lui carried Sienna out of the shopping cart and we started walking over to the parking lot. Just at that moment, Sienna started shouting, "stuff, the stuff." What stuff? I thought she was talking about the stuff falling off the Christmas tree decoration at the store front. She kept screaming… Suddenly Lui realized it was the stuff we bought at the store. We left the bag in the cart.

We walked back right away to retrieve the bag. It was too late. The bag was already gone. We figured somebody must have taken it knowingly. If that was the case, we won’t be able to locate it anyways. So we went back to the store and bought what we bought one more time.

Sienna was so proud of herself because she was the one who reminded us. There is nothing unusual about us being so forgettable. It's kind of unusual for Sienna to be so aware of the environment. At such a tender age, she has already been a cue card person in our life!

Can't Fake, Can't Sing?

Ok, I told my friends that I was going to take singing lessons. And this was what I got from one of them:

"SINGING LESSONS! MIN, YOU MYSTERIOUS WOMAN YOU!"

The mysterious woman started yesterday for the first time. Mr L is a renowned opera singer from China. He explained to me and my friend Julie some basics about singing. It's a skill set to utilize and manipulate your voice as an instrument. After some solid training, you can sing as you can make a few parts of your body to resonant with your voice.

I have long been identified to have a very good natural voice that can climb up the high notes like a charm. Not matter how appealing it could be, it is not singing in its strict sense, as I learnt most definitely today. Mr L says I do have strong vocal muscles. But I need to learn how to "fake" my voice when it goes up. Right now, I can only use my real voice. Let's see what it turns out to be. I have doubts. The worst comes I will not be able to sing with my real or fake voice. What do I get to loss. And that will not be a great loss for the music world either.

God, We Created God

We had Mr B in the house tonight along with his wife and their photographer/artist couple friend. Mr B is the second generation of a renowned literature family in the country. His father was once nominated for Nobel Prize for Literature. There is a bridge in the city that is named after him…

Like a photographer or an artist who uses imaginaries to create a new world, Mr B does the job using his words. Words are always beautifully and precisely put together by him to describe any situation, even when he chats, casually. Over the dinner table, we started talking about computer. Mr B thinks computer has its own set of rules like the rules in Mars which are so alien to him. That’s right, I agreed. But you can find the equivalence of each Mars’ rules on earth, I reminded him assured him. And I explained how. Mr B said nobody has explained computer in such a simple and basic way to him like I did – not exactly his words. "I am learning 26 things tonight,"– exactly his words. I remember years back when I went back to school, Mr B predicted that they would not be able to understand what I would be talking about coming out of there. He was not exactly right on that one.

He said that we human being created God and we turned around and worshiped him as if he was not our creation. I understood what he meant: so much can be said about computer too. He asked me how it works out with me being such an emotionally intense person and having to follow the logic of computer. It helps tremendously for me to become an emotionally more balanced person. "Computer is your monastery then," – exactly words of Mr B.

That friend of theirs Mr N turns out to be such a big-shot photographer, who shot pictures of our Prime Minister and the newly-appointed Governor in General. He listened to my rambling attentively the whole time. I had to apologize to him for talking too much, "I guess you only talk by taking pictures, huh?" He nodded with a smile. His wife is an artist. So is C, Mr B’s companion, an extremely talented kollwitz-like artist. And of course my very own husband… Being surrounded by all these artsy people, I probably don’t need to create art. And I don’t have the talent to anyways. I can share their creative worlds in close vicinity like they share the food I prepared for them – shrimp cocktail, sea bass, garlic asparagus and calamari & chive fried rice over bottles of wine, of course.

Whatever we create with the best intention is meant to be shared for the betterment and enjoyment of us all. Whatever we create should not have the power to overpower us, God included.

Discrimination of Distinctive Smells

I get on the train every morning in the peak of the rush hour and middle of the subway line. Therefore, I don’t expect a seat for that 20-minute ride -- except Friday. For some reason, Friday is usually much less crowded. Somehow, 1/3 of the commuters manage to call in sick or something. Like today, a seat was right there for me when I got on.

As soon as I sat down though, I started to regret as I was overwhelmed by an aroma of curry. I still haven’t overcome its power the whole morning. It’s politically incorrect for me to complain about the impact of the smell. It’s only polite for everybody to do something about one’s distinctive smell since we live in the world's most multi-ethnical community.

I ask everyone in this community to please remind me, warn me and humiliate me if my Chinese cooking smell or smell of any kind from me offends you. Believe me. I am doing everything I can to avoid your possible agony when I am around. A high-powered range hood is a good starter. And I don’t stop there. I go all the way out to fight smells.

Tolerance is primary in a melting pot. But smells shouldn’t be included on the list of being tolerated. The smells not to be tolerated should include curry, garlic, B.O., fragrance, regardless if it’s expensive or inexpensive.

To me, an ideal society is an odorless society. In a less ideal society, I must tolerate the intolerable.

The Snow Must Go On And I Don't Mind

We had the first ground-covering snow this morning. There was about 2 inches deep that I had to step on getting out of the house.

For at least two reasons, I have a bit less resistance towards the winter this time. First of all, the new furnace is making the house very nice, cozy and quite. Secondly, I just found out the daycare center near my office will take Sienna for a few days when her school is closed. This means we will do the train routine that she loves in the winter. Imagine the green train running in the snow covered world. She will be so excited. At least something good is in stock in the snow for us.

Bed Time Ritual

I tuck her in and give her a hug and a kiss. I exit her bedroom. Then I am supposed to come back to her and repeat it once or twice. Better still, I have to say something to the effect, “Oh, I forgot to give my baby a good night hug…” Sienna is the director of the whole scene for her bed time ritual.

9pm is the time she goes down exactly with the long hand hitting the digit 12. She will talk to herself for a while in bed but not allowed to come out except going pee. Till around 8am the next morning, that’s all the hours she gets for sleep. She is completely done with her nap now. I wish she would sleep more although she does seem to have enough.

The Money Industry

I work for an investment company, the money industry, so to speak. But I know next to nothing about it. This might change soon as I am determined to set my mind on it a little bit. Thanks to L, who is trying to show a thing or two about personal finance. I took her to lunch today. She works at the purchase department in the company. She handles the checks the clients send in to purchase their funds with our company.

There are certain ways you can observe the performance of these funds and determine what we can invest with our RRSP (retirement pension) and RESP (educational funds for Sienna). As for the time being, I put everything in money market funds, which are almost no difference than the bank deposit. I need to do it better with the money since I work for the industry.

Missed Cell Phone Calls

My friend Julie is one of the few people who have my cell phone number. When she calls and fails 9 out of 10 to reach me, she is mad. "Why do you have a cell phone if you don't take calls with it?" Good question. I have a house phone in the house; I have an office phone in the office. I cannot use a cell phone in between them on the subway. But over the weekend when I am out, I do use my cell phone to forward calls made to the house phone. During the week days, I would check the time on the cell phone as I never wear a watch. Also I use the cell phone for me or Sienna to play the games on it. Sienna plays so much better than me now...

Last night, I called Julie on her cell phone. She picked it up, apparently, as I could hear her talking to me on the other end, something like "I was laughing my head off..." I asked her, something like, "did you get my email?" She didn't answer my question, as if she didn't hear me. She just kept talking, to me, apparently... Finally, she screamed, "Oh, my god, do you know what happened?" I went, "what?" As it turned out, she did pick up my call on her cell phone, but she kept talking to me from her house phone all these times!

Santa Claus' Parade

For the 101st time in this town, Santa Claus is coming to town in a parade. We were originally going to meet Olivia's family for this annual event. But somehow they stopped somewhere mid town where they found a parking space. So I took Sienna all the way to my office located at the downtown core right on the Santa's passing route. I had doubt that Sienna would be interested in watching the whole show. It turned out she didn't move an inch once she was settled on a ledge behind the big glass window at the second floor lounge overlooking the street. It was the best spot in town. For the past 4-5 years since I started to pay attention to the parade, we had never had such a beautiful sunshine day for the parade.

As far as I am concerned. Not much of a difference as I spent the whole hour and half sipping coffee and staring into the air. The husband came to pick us up at the subway and we went out of town to have dinner with friends.

Empty-Nest: A Sneak Preview

Sienna was gone between 1 to 3pm for the Chinese program. Afterwards, she went to play at Olivia's place. Around 4:30pm, I was about to pick her up. Then I got a call from Olivia's mom saying that the girls got invited to play at Jamie's house. We kind of waited and waited till we could pick her up at 8pm before we went to meet friends.

So between 1-8pm, she was basically on her own with her friends. Or, we were on our own. We were both busy. I went for grocery shopping. Hubby had been working on a house project. Still, for the stretch of 7 hours when we usual have her but didn't today, it felt strange and empty. The idea of having an empty-nest already looming -- about 14 years in advance. Then we might need the 14 years to get ready. Exactly whose independence are we fostering here?

Knowing Our Land

Today, we were talking about someone who we know was moving to British Columbia. Sienna heard it and went, "British Columbia? But we are in Ontario!" As it turned out, apart from a thing or two about the 9 planets in our solar system, Sienna also knows that this country has 10 provinces and 3 territories. And she cites each and every one of them. We know Newfoundland. No. According to her, it is "Newfoundland and Labrador" to be exact. Is Prince Edward Island an island? No use fooling around with her, it's one of the provinces, she said! What about Winnipeg? "It sounds funny. It's not a province." For whatever she learnt, I bet she could have scored 100%. However, I couldn't figure out why she insisted on pronouncing "Quebec" something like "cubic".

What use of knowing all these? Not much -- just really cute for a 4 1/2 year old.

Gums Without Bubbles

Sienna started chewing gums about a month ago. I am watchful about what Sienna picks to put in her mouth. Some kids of her age have replaced milk with pops. She doesn’t know how coke tastes like. Others cannot eat anything without ketchup. She would spit out the red source if she gets it in her mouth by accident. Chewing gums is not something as bad as these. In fact, I see some good points there. First of all, there isn’t as much sugar in a piece of gum than in a candy. And it takes forever to chew a gum. This way she won’t bug me for one thing after another. I heard kids growing up would swallow many pieces of gums. But Sienna is very good with things in her mouth. She can pick fish bones and tiny grape pits.

The gum she chews is the Trident’s Splash, just unveiled in September. It’s got a pellet of strawberry and lime flavored liquid / jelly in the center. The initial chewing is much like candy. I especially like the fact that it claims to be sugar-free and to create no cavity. She got her first piece from big sister Rachel. Now she is into it. Sometimes after dinner, I can give her a piece of gum instead of candy or chocolate. That’s not a bad trade. She is working on how to blow bubbles.

Early Take-off for Treats

I almost never get to pick up Sienna on a regular day during the week. So I took off from work an hour early today just to do that. It came as such a surprise for her. I took her to get a treat at a convenience store. She picked a candy spray.

It was windy and cold. But she neither wanted to be picked up by Daddy nor wanted to take a cab home. For her, taking Mommy's bus home is also part of the treat…

As soon as we got off the bus though, she found out her candy spray was missing. She might have left it behind on the bus on the ride home. Because it was early, I drove her in the car to go back to the store for another candy spray. From there, we ended up going to Ikea. Sienna had the kid's meal - meat balls, broccolis and carrots, plus a side dish of two pieces of garlic bread and some smoked salmon from my place. She also had chocolate milk, another treat.

I bought a new curtain set for the study room and a pair of table lamps like this, that match so well with the lightings on the ceiling. The room is getting closer to completion when the curtain is up. Sienna asked, "Mommy, can you come pick me up again tomorrow?" To be able to pick her up itself is a treat for me. I wish I could do this everyday, my baby.

Bella, Ballerina

I bought a doll making package from a holiday toy sales that took place at the main hall of our office building. Sienna and I spent the evening bringing Bella, a ballerina doll whom we so named, to live. She was so patient with the whole thing, and particularly good at peeling off the double tape. This gets me thinking about the fun we can have making more dolls together in the future.

Cows Are On Strike?

I came into the office this morning with a cup of coffee from Tim Horton. I was taking my first precious sip of the day and realized that there was no cream in it. I asked for "double cream" and there was not a drop of cream. Instead, it was milk or water.

I've learnt to take cream with my coffee. According to some study, cream is more of fat and milk is more of sugar. In my mind then sugar is far more dangerous than fat. Fat remains fat. Sugar turns into fat eventually. Sugar is like an enemy in disguise and therefore it's a far worse enemy. I had to take my sugar-laden coffee for the first time since I warmed up to this coffee shop.

In the afternoon, I went to make my afternoon tea in the kitchen. I usually have it with cream too, and of course, with no sugar. The cream carton in the small fridge was missing. I needed to make it up to myself the missed cream in the morning. So I went to the big fridge. What? There wasn't any either. My colleague said to me, "Oh, you missed it. Someone made a fuss over the lack of cream already." The cows must be going on a strike or somethng in our supply area. We people probably don't pay enough for the "cream" of their milk. Or is it me picking up something to fuss over so that I could laugh at myself at the end of the day?

Highlight In A Day's Routine

The Chinese program has again been changed to Sunday. It clashed with Theadora's birthday party at mid day. I didn't want to battle all the way downtown unless Sienna really insisted on going. Somehow she decided to go for her Chinese thing. I called Thea's mom to say "sorry." She said, "I am sorry too." That made me feel even more sorry. Well, at least I got a nice present wrapped up to give her on a later day...

While Sienna was at the program, we went to pick up the repaired iBook. Then we took Sienna for grocery shopping. Finally, we had Catherine’s family over for dinner. That summed up our Sunday routine.

The highlight of the day though was in the morning. Sienna asked me, “Mommy, do I need to go to the school tomorrow?” I said “yes.” She went, “I have to do my home work now.” That made me so very happy. I did forget that part about homework. How comforting to know that she, being a 4 and half years old, knows her responsibility and is so self-driven.

Just Another Blessed Day

First thing in the morning, Hubby uttered out in front of Sienna "Happy Birthday!" Her face was beaming up with smiles. "I want to tell everybody it's my Mommy's birthday." Right away, she started working on a water bottle to make me a present. I meant to pass this day quietly and that was how I told my family. But Sienna insisted, "No. I want it to be loud and louder."

I carried out a plan that came up only after breakfast. I wanted to push ahead with putting together the study room, a sanctuary for myself. We had two major tasks accomplished today - I got a beautiful Kimball’s comfy office chair at an unbelievable price. We considered that a birthday present for me and then I had one sofa bed moved and delivered from a friend's house. I called the first ad I saw on the newspaper and paid $60 for the prompt delievery job. Amazingly, both the chair and the couch pick up the colors of the wall and the ceiling. I am going to find a lamp and replace the curtain...

Sienna went to play with Olivia. We spent a good couple of hours at the Home Depot planning and shopping for another project in the house. Then in the evening, we went for a feast of sashimi and sake with friends -- no candles and no cake. I got a beautiful card from my little friend Rachel. It says on the front "Hey, Auntie! There is only one word for an aunt like you..." It opens up with a splashing pattern of hearts, "Super! Have a great birthday!" The best part of the day was a photo session close to mid night by my hubby, our tradition kept for all these years.

Again, I am not a birthday person. As the way I understand the real meanings of one’s birthday at my age, everyday should be celebrated like one’s birthday. Then the birthday doesn’t lose it’s meanings if you spend it just like any other day.

Friday Lunch

My colleagues D and S took me to Golden Thai for lunch today. Somehow they remembered it was my big day - one of these days. I had a lunch special: Butterfly Shrimps, Spicy Calamari and some pork. On top of them, I also ate a spring roll, noodles and rice. It was a full plate. We even shared half liter of Chilean red wine. What an escape from our comfort prison to share food, wine and gossip!

Our office has an interesting circle of people at different levels who actually grew up together since when they were at Sienna's age. They have their special and personal ways of dealing things within the corporate environment. That was part of our conversation. And on my note to thank these two colleagues, I acknowledged my gratitude and joked, "it's a pity that we didn't grow up together. But we are blessed to grow old together."

Thursday Food Fun

We had Julie and her son over for supper. Spare ribs, deep-fried sole fillets and spinach. Strawberry was the desert. Sienna was so excited to see M, who is 16-year-old and 6' 2". I wonder what she sees in M, an adult or a boy. M just scored for his team at the hockey game today. Everybody had a great time. M thinks her mom was just acted and talked just like Sienna when she was 4 year old.

I figured it would be 5 people, big and small. So I decided that we were eating in the kitchen. Apparently, it did appear to be a bigger deal for Julie when we ate at the dinner table in the dinning room. She wrote this sweet note to thank us:

"I hope you realized just how much M and I are so very grateful to you and your fun family. We loved all your effort in food, cleverness and conversations. And oh, that little Sienna... her excitement of seeing M made his heart warm and his soul dance. He loved her attention and obvious affection. How wonderfully pure, sensitive and angelic for a 4 year old."

Story of the Day

It’s a real-life story of a 76-year-old man. I heard it today from a friend of mine who heard it from the man himself yesterday.

To make a long story short. The man got married in his 20s, had two kids and divorced afterwards. He married another woman and had another two very young kids in his 50s. Not long after that, he was confined to a wheel chair due to his MS... Miracle happened last year. He started walking again with a cane! Around the very same time, he was hospitalized for over a month because of food poisoning case. He got out alive and to his surprise, his second wife had taken out all the cash from their join account and filed for divorce. He reported to the police suspecting his wife was trying to poison him...

I asked myself, what is more tragic in this man's life? Suffering from MS or from the alleged betrayal of his wife? I thought the latter. He is a rare winner over a fatal disease. He created a miracle for himself by walking again after so many years. It's hard to imagine how he could recover from such a fatal blow from his most trustworthy person, especially at this stage of his life.

Diseases like MS are impossible to prevent. And loved ones can grow astranged. But I think as we mature, it's possible to some degree to build certain immunity in our mentality to cope with hurt from the possible misplaced trust. If you have a certain built-in inner strength, it's possible to create miracles for yourself, both physically and emotionally. I pray for this old man to gather his might for another miracle in his life.

the Police Mom

Time after time, the effort of being the “police mom” started to pay off. At 9 o’clock sharp when the long hand on the clock points to 12, the short hand points to 9, Sienna knows well her time is up. The rules are simple. If she makes more demands, even the reasonable ones, she would get exactly what she doesn’t want. I will close the door on her – we always have her bedroom door open and the light on the hall way is always on through out the night. I started to get her ready around 8 o’clock. Bath, reading and chatting. If she delays her pace to go into the routine, then she is not going to get enough reading before going to sleep... These policing methods are easy to explain, but not easy to carry out. When a child is small like this, it’s all up to us to mould her. It takes perseverance, consistency and determination on our part to eventually pass on these characteristic traits to her.

I'm from a Broken Mould

Today, my colleagues and I were discussing how to talk to our boss into getting us some LCD monitors. I said, "Look, we don't need the flat-screens to boost our productivity, which is high all the time, as we all know. We need them to protect our declining eyesight and to raise our cooperate pride..." Everybody was laughing. One of my colleagues said, "When God made you, the mould must have been broken..." I said, "he was in such a real funny mood. So he decided to break a mould for a change..." More laughs.

Things like that explain why I don't mind coming to work everyday.

Egg N' Roll Etc.

I got a little cooking toy for myself. It’s a deep fryer exactly like this one. For twice over the weekend, I made egg rolls from scratch, 50 of them all together. On Saturday I took them to Olivia’s house. On Sunday, I took them to my cousin’s going away party. They all loved them. We are already known among our circle of friends for our egg roll making skills. We call them egg n’ roll. And every time we rock the party with them.

The deep fryer makes it so much easier because the rolls get fried evenly. And I don’t need to have a mask or gloves to protect myself from the hot oil spill.

Today I came home and felt like eating something different. I defrosted some sole fillets, marinated them and coated with some wheat flour. In a few minutes, we had a fish meal! I don’t plan to cook deep frying food all the time for obvious health reason. But it certainly opened up a brand new dimension of food choices.

Desparately Catching Up

For two nights in row, I went to bed around 2am, desperately trying to catch up with all the first season's episodes of Desperate Housewives. It's all worth the effort. I am done with all the 23 of them and ready to move on with the second season. Being a mother of a young daughter, I cannot watch programs on TV like a regular viewer. But I don’t want to miss any goodies. The good thing about my viewing habit is that I usually won’t miss any. People will start talking when a good show comes on, then I start to catch up and make my own judgment.

Usually I don’t have patience for emotional twists and turns and narration of domestic feuds. Soap opera is not my type of tea. This one is more on the comedy and black humor side. Morality is only the reference but not the standard. Also love those beautiful ladies in top shape and fabulous clothes.

Saturday Unfolded

Sienna is getting some kind of habit. Every Saturday, she wants to play at Olivia's house after the Chinsee program. Since the program was re-scheduled to tomorrow this week, she started to mention about going first thing in the morning. Here is my dilema. If I stay there, Olivia's parents would have to attend me as a visitor. If I stay away, then I would make them baby sit Sienna for no reason. So I tried not to encourage the habit.

Today, I somehow pursuaded Sienna to stay at her old nanny's house where she could play with the twins and the boy. I went to get some Feng Shui supplies at a Chinese Mall and met friend for lunch. The promise was to have dinner together with Olivia's family over their house.

The dinner was a lot of fun for kids and adults. One of the topics was about why Toronto is the best place to call home. Olivia's family have lived in England and Switzerland for 4 years combined. They lived in each of Canada's capital and the Silicon Valley for 3 years. Only when they came to Toronto, they felt instantly at home. We also have other friends who have properties around the world, but they still call Toronto their home. I guess that explains why we have been sticking around for all these years in this great city with no complaint about the hibernation half of time.

Lunch After China

Lunch time is no longer as desirable as it used to be after I came back from China. There, Julie and I were going OOOOH AAAAAHHH on every meal we ate. Back in Toronto, everything tastes tasteless. Especially unbearable is the Chinese food that is usually my first choice before. What happens to the place that is claimed to be the international food city? Then this seems to be the only thing we can take advantage of. Let's go international. Julie would come to join me for lunch. We've covered Thai, Indian and Japanese. We even tried to warm up to a Chinese restaurant on Yonge Street -- with disappoints beyong words. And today, we went for Mediterranean, a huge whole wheat wrap with bunch of meat and veggie inside. Not hearty, but spicy and different. That sure made up some of my food nostalgia.

I'm Confused

We are carrying on with the book bag program. Everyday the teacher askes Sienna to take home a book to read at the bed time. She is doing amazingly well with it. I have a complaint about this series of books. This is what some parts read in today’s book "Meg":

"It is sad. It sat on a log. It ran up to a dog. The dog ran." Isn’t it confusing to put "sad" and "sat" together? And on top of it, the "log" and the "dog". As you read on, you know IT is in fact a hen called Meg. "Meg is rid of the mud. Meg is a wet hen. Dad set Meg in the hen pen." The hen is in the hen pen? Could it get more confusing? I don’t know much about teaching a 4-year-old kid. And not that Sienna is obviously confused. But speaking about common sense, is this the right time to play this game of confusion?

Somebody must enlighten me. I am confused.

It's Garbage Day Today

Our area became the last part of the metropolitan to join the green bin program. The residents would take more responsibilities in sorting our garbage. Bottles and plastic containers are one pile for recycling. Yard waste is another. Now, each household has a green bin for the organic waste. Only whatever doesn't fall into those types is garbage.

The city has handed out manuals and set up a website, which I read careful and act accordingly about what goes where. The green bin will further reduce the amount of the garbage the city dumps back to the nature. The organic waste will be processed and sent back to nature to re-join the cycle of life. To participate in such an effort makes me feel proud to be part of the civilized society. It was such a shame when I first came to Canada, I didn’t even know there was a division of recycling materials and garbage. Now I am willing to go door to door teaching people like me years ago.

Halloween Night Pictures

Sweet Sienna and Olivia, aka, Cinderella and Snow White, exiting with candies.

The front lawn of J's house.

Another look at the front lawn of J's house.

Somebody took over the driver's seat.

Scary creature everywhere.

Holly smoke!

So Much Sweet, So Scary

First thing I found on my office desk this morning was a Twizzlers, a Strawberry Flavoured Candy. My colleage G left little something sweet for everybody before we came in. How sweet was he! But not the candies. I will not attempt or be tempted to taste the candy, before it turns into a fossil, anyways.

The major part of the work for me on Halloween day is to bar the candies bars and everything sweet as far away as possible. Unfortunately, we only gave out three items from the pail full of candies and goodies we got for the night. Only one masked boy on his roller blade came to our door before 7pm. That was it! The neighbourhood is too quiet to be hunted by trick-treaters. We decided to shut down our decoration lights and go to Olivia's neighbourhood across the street after our visit to Abby's. Still no luck. Houses around here sit so wide apart from each other. And not enough young kids live around.

We decided to go to J's house. His dad has spent past 3 days doing major decorations. He has turned the front lawn and garage into a Hall of Horror. The Kids had such a blast. The trip to J's house had saved our night even though their neighourhood was again not scary enough for the night. The most scary thing is the candies that lay around the house from the scary night.