Okay so I have to tolerate the fake blood, grave stones, skeletons, and kitchy orange and black decorations but I draw the line at the begging for candy from perfect strangers. I guess I find no meaning in this holiday. So this year for Halloween as I do each year to avoid the hoards of ghouls and globins at my door, I head out to a fine dining establishment. This year as my father and Hippo are away, I took my mother to Lai Tah Ween at the Metropolitan Hotel. What a pleasant surprise...shark fin soup with real crabmeat (delicious!), sea cucumber clams on a bed of mushrooms, fresh bamboo shoots, carrots and sugar snaps and then shredded roast chicken seasoned with rock salt served with jellyfish.
The grimmest of this year was also marked by the sudden and tragic passing of two individuals: my dear Hippo's mother and my brother-in-law's father both in the past week and both had their funerals on the same day on difference sides of the Atlantic. Meanwhile, across the Pacific, my father celebrated his 68th birthday on the exact same day. Aware of these losses, I am sure that he views life as precious. A realization made more acute when death seems to strike so unexpectedly.
