Octoberian Costume Birthday Party

Fearing that I will miss the birthday party for the month of October while I was walking the Camino, they waited until most of us are present. We celebrated it in style: costume birthday party just in time for Halloween.

It was all start cast: Mini Mouse, Ginger of Gillian’s Island, Captain James of Star Trek, Ghost Buster, The Venetians, Race Car Driver, Pirate, Nemo, Nurse (a real one), Lulu the gypsy fortune-teller, M&M, Pikachu, Priest (a real one) and much more.

Minie, Capt. James & Ginger

The leading person who turned 60 years old is my brother who looks like David Suzuki.

Lulu, the gypsy fortune-teller is a very memorable character in our family life. She was my mother’s friend. How she suddenly appeared in our life remains a mystery.

Suzuki and Lulu

Mother has a way of helping out people.

I remember how Mother helped Lulu take a bath. Lulu was apparently so dirty that the water turned brown. She doesn’t speak our language and we only spoke English to her. She came in and out of our apartment, bee-lined to the kitchen, helped herself out on any food to eat and made herself at home even Mother was not around. Lulu called my mom Mother as well. Mother is Mother to everybody and everyone.

Having had her fill, she takes out her Tarot card and starts reading them. Talking to herself mostly and suddenly, she will say, Mother is here. Huh? No she’s not, I said. Next thing, Mother walks in the door. How did she do that is beyond me.

Lulu gives Mother a reading whether she likes it or not. Mother doesn’t mind. I don’t know if Mother believes in fortune-telling or palm reading because it is quite contrary to our belief system.

One day, Lulu read in the card that we are going far away to another land. Mother did not believe on that either. And it did happen. How did she do that?

Back to the party. The Filipino tradition, if it’s our birthday, we are responsible for throwing in the party, bring our cake and eat it, too. We do not wait for anybody to throw us a surprise party. We do not wait for anybody. We let the whole world knows that it’s our birthday and we invite as many people as we can to help us celebrate. Celebrate we did.

As for my costume, I wore my hiking gear; boots, poles, backpack, hat, waterproof jacket and pants, iPad in a red leader pouch, a camera, gloves, sunglasses, water bottle, etc. Gosh, cannot believe I carried these for 15 days. Eventually, I had to divest myself since it was boiling inside the house with all these characters and cooking going at the same time.

The Pilgrim

The cake is always gigantic. There was no blowing of the candles because most of us are sick of colds and we definitely want to keep the germs to ourselves.