11.01.19 – It is that time of the year again, November has arrived. And thus starts my favorite time of the year: Autumn and Winter.
Happy Diwali! Happy Halloween! Happy Dia de Muertos! Happy All Souls/All Saints Day!
Happy start of NaBloPoMo! Yes, I will do my best to post daily here this month!
Wahoo!
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Photo of the Pumpkin contest at the Irvine Hyatt House taken by Ms. Jen on 10.28.19.
Tues. 11.01.16 – Today is the first day of November and it has been a big few days for folks who celebrate Diwali/Deepavalli, Halloween, All Saints Day and/or Dia de Muertos.
This is my favorite time of the year, not for the holidays but for the change of the light and weather. Given that I have the opposite of SAD and that my migraines tend to be worse with too much bright sunlight, I am usually ecstatic when this darker, cooler time of year rolls around.
The sunlight is soft from now until mid-January. The light is short. And blessedly, the next six weeks will be the only time all year that I will move out of short sleeve shirts and may possibly put a light long sleeve shirt on.
I really need to move to a place with colder weather.
My one festive nod to the start of the dark season was going to the Throw Rag show on Fri. 10.18.16 at Alex’s Bar in Long Beach. The show was delightful, lots of folks showed up in costume, and I got to talk to friends I have not seen in a good, long while. The best costumes of the night were definitively the gentlemen of Throw Rag, particularly Franco’s 1960s groovy matron outfit, wig, and shoes. As for Dino’s amusing rainbow raver meets glam rocker, in the pink foreground in the above photo, well…
Happy All Saints Day! Celebrate your favorite saint, but don’t lose your head over it.
Photo of Throw Rag taken by Ms. Jen.
Today, the 1st of November, is the start of annual November National Blog Posting Month, where folks blog daily. It is also the start of NaNoWriMo (write a novel in one month!) and NaVloPoMo (video yourself & friends daily!).
Per usual, I am encouraging you, dear reader, to take up the challenge this month and flex your creativity muscles with daily practice – go blog, vlog, write, photoblog, etc!
While I like Halloween, I don’t love it, and in recent years I haven’s really gotten into it. I much prefer Groundhog’s Day over the other 3 solar cross-quarter days (May Day, Aug 1, and Halloween).
Halloween last year found me hiking around the hills above Glendalough and that evening sitting in my room amazed at all the fireworks. Halloween in Ireland includes lots of bonfires and fireworks and not so heavy on the costumes/fancy dress and/or trick or treating. It is a good old fashioned fire holiday. Goodbye summer, hello winter.
I am a fan of All Saints Day, even though I did not grow up Catholic. In college instead of throwing a Halloween party, I had an All Saint’s Day party on Nov. 1 where everyone had to come as their favorite saint. The best part is when the “Hermans” came dressed as the 80s metal band, Saint.
As I am a day late on a post about All Saints Day, I shall celebrate All Soul’s Day or Dia de los Muertos today by going to lunch at El Camino Real and then attempting wake Alex from the dead mid-afternoon… ;op