(October 29 – November 4)
Sometimes you meet new people, and sometimes they’re really, truly awesome. And that’s about all I have to say on that subject for now. So let’s talk about Halloween.
As you might know Halloween used to be my wedding anniversary, and also used to be the occasion of our annual Halloversary party. That, obviously, doesn’t happen now: I’ve bequeathed Halloween party responsibilities to my friends, and now I just enjoy Halloween for what it is (i.e. the best freakin’ ‘holiday’ of the year).
The kinderbesten are both old enough now to start properly getting into Halloween as well. I made sure to pick them up some costumes the other week, so they’d be appropriately attired. They both had much fun trying them on beforehand and deciding which combination of bits and pieces they wanted to wear for the night itself.
One of my favourite bits about Halloween is driving home and seeing all the families out trick or treating—kids dressed up and having the best time, while their parents hang back just far enough not to spoil the fun. I’m sure this is something that has happened only in the last few years; I don’t remember seeing it so much before last year.
By the time I got home from work, both kinderbesten had gone out. The Elderbeast had gone to do whatever he does with his friends. The Kinderbeast, meanwhile, was so determined to go trick or treating that his great grandmother ended up taking him. It’s a great image: an 83 year old trick or treating for the first time, accompanied by a six year old in a ghost face costume. He came back sometime later, beaming with an impressive haul of candy (which I subtly thinned out in the days afterwards, because that’s the kind of mean Dad that I am).
The Elderbeast did not come home quite so promptly, and once it got to 8pm I had to get a message to one his friends to tell him it was time to come home—which he did pretty quickly. I guess this is the dawn of the teenage years. Before long staying out late with his friends will be the norm.
Oh, fun.
Watching
The viewing week, as it will continue to do for the next month or so, kicked off with Doctor Who (“Arachnids In The UK”). This week’s episode featured giant spiders, which feels like a deliberate throwback to the classic show (even though the mechanics of the plot ended up being very much modern show). As with the last few episodes, the same pattern is showing: a high focus on the characterisation, but less so on the plot. I don’t have a huge problem with this. We’re here to enjoy the journey with these characters, not just for the journey itself. The most elaborately and carefully plotted story will fall completely flat if the characters aren’t engaging, but well written characters can usually help carry you through a wafer thin plot without realising.
For me, the only major misstep of the episode was Chris Noth’s character. I enjoyed his performance, but the writers seemed to be presenting him as a potentially new and terrible Presidential successor to Donald Trump. This utterly failed for me, as I can’t really imagine anyone worse than Donald Trump in the position.
On Friday I finally started watching The Haunting Of Hill House (just the first two episodes). Great stuff. Completely different story to the novel, but with a lot of the DNA in place. It was fun picking up the various references and callbacks to the book. I’m very keen to see where this one is going.
Saturday was an ‘easy viewing’ day, with repeat showings of Jurassic Park and Star Trek (the 2009 movie—and, wow, how was that nearly ten years ago now?!?)
Reading
I’m still plodding onwards with It. I haven’t picked up a new novel to read yet; I’ve continued to dip into my Humble Bundle short story horror collections. Nothing truly outstanding yet, but hopefully I’ll have a few good ones to talk about next week.