We had a Halloween party on Saturday. Since we'd asked our guests to come in costume, it occurred to us on Saturday morning that we really ought to be figuring out what we were going to wear too. Luckily we both are usually pretty good at being creative under pressure. It also helps that we (or at least I) tend to do this every year and have to pull off a costume extremely last minute. Off to the store we went to get a pair of grey sweats for me and some stage makeup for Richard. A frantic call to my parents procured a water gun for the final piece of my outfit. By the time our first guests arrived, we were dressed and ready. Richard looked like a frozen corpse. I, dressed all in grey and armed with a water gun, was attired as a storm cloud. Perhaps not quite as clever a costume as the year I dressed all in black and plastered an entire package of little gold stars all over my body (including face and hair) and went as Night, but still, it was pretty good for short notice.

We're missing Halloween this year, unfortunately. We're off to our first week of 'real' work, training all the lovely mollusk handlers of Santa Clara county who, I'm sure, are more excited about this than they can say (did the sarcasm in that last statement come through clearly enough?). For this week I'll be just an observer, passing out handouts and possibly helping with the computer. Richard, however, actually gets to do the training. I think it's safe to say that for that reason, I'm looking forward to this trip a lot more than he is.