Bridge likes bikes, banjos and being in the Pacific Northwest!: Halloween, on the East Coast

I decided, a few months ago, that I would spend my least favorite holiday with my most favorite person. Lisa lives in Baltimore Maryland now. She is attending graduate school to become a community art organizer. Her absolute favorite holiday is Halloween. We both agree that the Fall season beats the Spring seasons because of it's tastes. Anyways, I took a 12 hour long journey across this country to visit her for a few days.

Baltimore is really far away from Seattle, not only physically. I had not been in this city for more than two hours, when as I was walking down the street with Lisa and a plastic bag flew out of nowhere and hit me in the face! Lisa said "Welcome to Baltimore". This happened, by the way, right after I witnessed the road kill, pictured above. I don't know why, but the first photo I took in Baltimore was of road kill. I could anticipate that this would be extremely different than the clean la-la land of Seattle.

We went to the Lexington Market, the oldest market in Baltimore. Lisa insisted that I try Berger's cookies. Do you want to know why they are so famous? They are shortbread cookies covered with a heavy portion of frosting. Not cookie frosting though, it's more like cake or cupcake frosting you buy in a plastic container! Ridiculously good, and probably laden with calories.

After exploring what little Lisa wanted to show me, we were off to DC on the Amtrak. A one hour trip for $7, not bad.

The train station in Washington DC is grand. It reminds me of a Roman edifice with columns, marble floors and vaulted ceilings. There are also numerous statues looming above. This was our very first time to our nation's capitol. The sun was shining, illuminating the gorgeous colors of the leaves on the trees. I was amazed at what sun can do to a city. I am reassured that Lisa is not lacking any sun on the east coast.

After we got a giant unfold able, but not refold able, street map, we headed out, walking towards the museum strip. All museums in DC are free and there are so many of them, you'd really need a week to be able to take advantage of it. We made it to one, the Hirschorn. Modern art museums are funny things. We walked through it in about an hour, a few pieces were interesting. Lisa loves figuring out what the pieces are made of, I was in desperate search of Kandinsky paintings. NONE exist in this museum! We managed to photograph ourselves by this 2d design artwork, to which we said "I hate this shit"(If you couldn't tell by our disturbed expressions). It's amazing what gets purchased by museums.

This video installation below was an American Flag. It took me awhile to figure that one out. I am not a political artist.

Below is some sidewalk or crosswalk art that we did enjoy. These funny guys were also painted on the crosswalks in Philadelphia.

After stuffing ourselves with amazing Indian cuisine, I decided that since we were both in DC, not knowing when or if we'd ever be back, that we must go see the White House. We trekked across the city, grabbing some hot cocoa and Jameson along the way to arrive at this rather small fenced off governmental building. Just like seeing the Mona Lisa, there is great anticipation for quite a small wonder. Nevertheless, I needed a picture of myself in front of it.

Halloween 2008

I woke up at about 1pm on Halloween day, to find bright sunshine and a warm 75 degrees in Baltimore, perfect perfect perfect. Lisa had to work in the morning and when she got home I was sitting on her front porch looking out on the street. I had been drinking my coffee there in the sunshine, observing the block and her neighbors. In Baltimore people live in row houses that are all stuck together, which means no gangways. This is strange to me that they only have windows in the front and back. They tend to be long and narrow. I guess it saves on brick, because there is only one wall between the houses. I would have been lost on her block, if it were not for the crazy stuff Lisa has on her porch, because all of the porches and houses seem to appear the same. Watching the mailman deliver the mail was also interesting. Instead of walking up and down the stairs, he hops over the railings that divide the porches. Lisa had a kind of roadblock up, so he actually had to walk down the steps and up the next set. She is going to fix that.

We headed out to get our Halloween supplies, not leaving the house until we had made ourselves a list. Lisa and I do not operate without lists. Anytime there has been anything URGENT that we had to get done, a list gets made. Even when it doesn't seem a list is necessary, we make one.

Our first stop was the thrift store. The place EVERYONE goes to on Halloween to attempt to throw together a costume. We bought so many wonderful things, including red blankets, golden Hawaiian bed skirts, and teal tights! Oh yes, there were a plethora of teal tights, unopened packages at this thrift store. I have decided that this has been the year of teal. After that stop we had to get candy. I almost didn't find my favorite Halloween candy. Luckily at the last stop, Lisa found that autumn mix that has the miniature pumpkins mixed in with the candy corn. Those are so good.

Above is a photo of Lisa's basement after we began to rip and shred the fabric and make our costumes. All in all, these costumes took about three hours to make.
Below is me sewing the masks on our headdresses.

Below is Lisa in face paint. Scary right?

We made Lisa's dream come true, a Kabuki Nightmare.

Me in my costume next to my cow skull. I gave it to Lisa as a going away present, when I left Chicago. The awesome thing about our masks was that we could see people, but they could not see our faces. I believe that this was the BEST, MOST AWESOME Halloween costume I ever wore.

Lisa in full costume.
After we were in costume and had ran out of candy for the trick-or-treaters, we headed out to multiple parties. Lisa's favorite thing to do is to hit up as many parties as possible on Halloween night. The first one was awesome. The entire house was decorated, hanging skulls and spiderwebs and cool light. A tree was hosting the party. Below is a picture of us that some people too at a hipster warehouse party.

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

After Halloween, we woke up super early the next day to join Lisa's grad schoolmates on a field trip to Philadelphia. The trip was planned around community art. We were able to listen to a talk from Linda Day Clark, a Baltimore photographer who worked for the NY Times photographing the people and quilts of Gee's Bend, an independent community in rural Alabama. That was held at the Philadelphia museum of art. We also spent time looking at murals and helping a community with a mural they were painting.