Hillywood's Halloween

Commerce is always a good reason to adopt other nation's festivities.

Halloween is not a traditional Dutch feast, but somehow, in the past couple of years it seems to have been integrated into culture. Not that anyone knows about All Souls day, as Holland is by religion, a Calvinistic country. But of course our economy can flourish a little bit more on the extra sales.

I for instance boughtsome white make-up to fix Kiara's face. Anyway, somehow my daughter knows that it is Halloween and that that is a day to dress up and have fun. It is also the second consecutive year that the day care has thrown a party. Today was actually my day as I was free from therapy. I felt so free that I forgot to go to my general practitioner where they wanted to test my lungs, seeing as I have allergies.

Somehow the importance of these tests to me seem minimal in my new reality. I felt horrible to find out that I had kept them waiting. My short-term memory is a little bit scew-wiff too I assume.

This afternoon I had lunch with Selma an old co-worker with whom I have more in common than I ever imagined and rested in the afternoon. Kiara went to Sylvester's place after school so it felt great to have that time to myself.

Instead of resting I ended up doing some chores instead, so by the time they came here to get ready to go to the party I was pretty tired. We quickly fixed the kid's make-up and made our way over to Het Mirakel (the day care).

I have to say that they did a very nice job. The food was edible and looked decorative and with two fires and twenty-odd jacko-lanterns burning in the garden, the atmosphere was pretty exciting. At least for eight-year olds it was.

I was even happier to notice that it would not be necessary to cook a meal tonight. Kiara's belly was filled to the brim by the time we left there.

It was good being able to be there for Kiara. I had contemplated on asking someone to go there with her instead of me. Apart from almost being knocked over bij some kid, I did notice that functions like these are still very hard for me. A dinner with colleagues is do-able. But an evening with a lot of kids around and a hard stool to sit on, is painstaking (literally). Anyway...I made it again.