Christmas in July

Halloween is a big deal in North America. We take it quite seriously. Unless your thoughts around the holiday mirror my father's, who makes a great gesture of closing all of the blinds and turning off all the lights, then you like myself, probably go to a great deal of effort in honour of October the 31st. Needless to say things are a little different in the tiny Caribbean island of Antigua. I wasn't exactly stoked. However in that great way that our ship manages to provide for all of our wanton needs, there were actually crew halloween costumes neatly labelled in a box on board the Absinthe, just waiting to be worn. Amy and Jane set about selecting surprise scary costumes for every member of the crew. And I, in my sometimes impetuous manner made sure to mention how this could not possibly compare to a halloween in Victoria. What could these two English girls who celebrated Halloween with traditional horror costumes possibly know about my impossibly high standards for a Halloween costume? For I was never satisfied to simply be a policeman or a cat and instead insisted on a costume that was creative, yet recognizable and also ridiculously good-looking. And did they know that I actually had three distinct costumes for last years festivities??? Eyes were rolled and then we set about work for the day in usual fashion.

Later on, as I was vacuuming a particular trouble spot around a corner, disaster struck. As I reached the full extension of my power cord I heard the familiar whirring sound signifying a liberated electrical prong. I quickly stood up to rectify the situation and SMACK, I went left eye first into the corner of a cabinet and PLOP onto the hardwood floor. I then crawled onto a bench in the crew mess to have a little wobbly only to be urged on when I removed my hand from my face and found it to be smeared with the good red stuff. This was followed by a lovely paternal-like bonding moment when Paul, the captain fetched me an ice pack. On the plus side, now that I was sure to have a raging black eye I was fully committed to being a gauzy beat-up zombie.


Makeup enhanced boo boo


some of the gang


Brad was really into his dress


Costume change!