Catching up

So - It's been a really busy few weeks. I'll try to catch everyone up. The weekend before Halloween weekend was terrific. My friend Liza had a bonfire party at her house. It was great, really low key. Had a few beers sitting around a roaring fire (which I got to poke often, yay!). Talked with friends from work. Toasted the Most Stale Marshmallows Ever.

Following that I attempted to conquer the Trail of Terror (say it in the scary voice) with Renee and her husband Donal. But by the time we got there, we were confronted with a three hour wait plus they could not guarantee we'd be able to do all the haunted stuff. So we came back the following day about a half hour before it opened and managed to be about 20th in line. The haunted house was AMAZING! Super scary and really long. Renee was the brave one who agreed to go first. I took the chicken position of middle. There were these long dark passages where I clutched the back of Renee's coat and Donal clutched the back of mine. The spooks were really good at finding new places to hide. And they made sure to scare everyone. Sometimes they would wait for Renee to pass just so they could get me. After the big haunted house, we went through the smaller haunted houses that surround the big one. The small houses are themed (like Phobias and Clowns). I was in the lead for Clowns and it was super freaky. There's also a Haunted Hayride, which was much less scary. But the girls sitting in front of us screamed their heads off anyway.

The Trail of Terror trip (say that five times fast) was ostensibly for work (though really we just wanted to go). See - my museum is working on a new exhibit about the science of fear and, on Monday and Tuesday, Renee and I participated in a brainstorming workshop. So COOL. The haunted house experience added a lot to our perspective on what was scary and how fear feels. I love brainstorming.