Last night we celebrated All Hallowe's Eve by dressing in costumes, burning candles, hanging garlic and eating ghoulish foods. I dressed up as the ghost of Joan d'Arc. Andy shaved his head and became Mr Clean. Katy was one of Dr Seusse's beloved, Star Bellied Sneetches and Steve was a combination of characters: Bub Rub, the infamous U-tube, "Whistle Tips" icon and "The Delicious" ( a film short man who found escape from the corporate lifestyle he was leading by dressing up in a red jump suit and by pinching his fingers together as you would to make a bird shadow on the wall, went about saying, "neee na neee nee nee nee").After we satiated ourselves on amputated finger cookies ( I didn't have enough egg whites available to make the wasp's nests cookies) and maggot pizza (orzo pasta) I read, "The Cask of Amontillado" by Edgar Allen Poe, to the crew as they sipped coffee in the candlelight.
It really was a fun night, though no body knocked on our door offering up mid-evil carols in exchange for treats from our lone mansion on stilts, full of toilet- paper- tube- bats and garbage bag streamers and Bach's organ music and an apothecary jar with some green oozing mass suspended in it, labeled, Dark Matter; specimen #6. Now safely we have passed into the day of All Saints. The sun is shining mutely through spin drift clouds causing the world to be but a pink moth. We bow our heads and say prayers for those beloved souls no longer here on earth with us.
This last week and a half we have been very busy preparing for the new crew who will arrive , weather permitting, this Wednesday. However, few minor snafus have already occurred. One of the science technicians, trying to depart Logan Int. Airport in Boston, received a bad airplane; due to mechanical troubles she did not make it to Copenhagen with the others but is stranded in Massachusetts, a rather creepy place to weather Halloween. The second science technician vomited her whole away across the Atlantic (this was not a Halloween "trick") and was taken to the emergency room in an ambulance directly after landing in Denmark. She was accompanied by our supervisor and is doing fine now. Food poisoning, they said. The fourth person scheduled to arrive with the group, has staid on in Wisconsin with her ailing Father, and will probably not be leaving the States at all now, understandably. Meanwhile the other four members, of the original crew of eight, have all arrived safely in Greenland. They are staying at the KISS building in Kangerlussuaq, patiently awaiting the next Airbus from Copenhagen, which will arrive on Monday, with the stricken and afflicted. Meanwhile, Murphy's law has been in practice here during this past week; having groomed the ski way and shoveled out all of the door entrances, a storm blew through camp which has abated, but has not yet dissipated. Winds of over 60 MPH tore sheets of metal flashing off of the Big House roof and so thoroughly buried the Green House that we are now entering and exiting though the roof hatch, as the roof is now level with the snow. The weather forecast is predicting another gale today, with winds subsiding by tomorrow. This will leave us with just enough time to groom the ski way once again and dig ourselves out enough from the storm so as to not scare the incoming crew away (resting their travel weary eyes upon a snow scape, seemingly devoid of any "camp"may simply be too intimidating to warrant their wanting to remain).
Amen.
