6) Ghastly Greetings; My Rambling Halloween Tale

This is my rambling Halloween tale, where I prattle on about my complicated relationship with chocolates... and about kids being scared of me cause they think I'm a scary Halloween character... and maybe I am cause who knows what I look like nowadays; I have a feud with my mirror... I also ramble on quite a bit about Tyler Hoechlin, Game of Thrones, and passionately defend Derek Hale and his growling ways... Not really sure why I talk about them in a Halloween post... Something to do with wolves... werewolves... abs... yeahhhhh I don't really know... I ramble on and go off topic quite a lot in this post... Sugar high... Also, I may be a little weird... #whenUeat2muchChocolate

  

 "Every day is Halloween, isn't it? 

For some of us"

~ Tim Burton

Halloween is not really a big deal here in my Asian country... 

We don't have any Halloween parties... or "Trick or Treat"... or dressing up in costumes... I mean we do have parties where people dress up... but we call it fancy dress parties...

A few years ago, my company's annual dinner's theme was a Halloween like party... We had princes, princesses and witches... 

I wasn't trying to be anything... I just wore a long dress... Which I thought would be enough...

But apparently no... Because my sister, makes the trip back home so she could “get me ready” for the dinner which translates to "forcing me to wear make-up"... 

So being scared of my younger sister... I reluctantly sat... occasionally pouting... as my sister put all kinds of things on my face... and made me wear jewellery and stuff... 

While my younger brother also came down to support me, whistling and telling me that I looked good... 

He lied... I looked like an orc... An orc with make-up...  

And when I went to the annual dinner, 

in my sister's attempt to turn me into a princess,

and my brother's attempt to convince me that I looked like a princess,

my colleagues thought I was aiming for "clown in a dress"... 

 

 My reaction too when no one thought I looked good...

Hmmm... Maybe I should have gone as an orc instead... 

Oh well, when orcs try to play dress-up... 

I guess I don't just look like ONE scary monster... but like multiple scary monsters all rolled into one...  

I'm like an ogre on a see-the-dentist day... 

Like my entire family... Parents.. Siblings... are great.... I'm like the weed among a family of roses... The one with faulty genes... The rotten potato...

A zombie... And not the cute warm bodies kind... but the ugly Harry Potter Troll kind... especially when I'm hungry... or exhausted...

Sometimes I wonder if I had a sorting hat for life... would I even make it into Hufflepuff... I ain't no Neville, whose courage earned him a spot in Gryffindor...

When you attempt to look like Anna from Frozen... but end up being Annabelle instead... 

Ok Ok.... Sorry....  Don't mean to hate on orcs... or my looks... Or Annabelle...

I actually don't mind my looks but grateful to be blessed with a family, who have always been there for me... 

During the good times and the bad, I can always count on them...

Ok my Toretto moment over.... 

Back to Halloween...

So no Halloween parties or Trick or Treat, but we do have our fair share of spooky tales... 

Recently I read this story... of a few towns here in Malaysia, being terrorized by knocks on the door... in the dead of the night... 

Really loud knocks... yet nothing visible showing up on the CCTV.... 

Creepy much! Just typing about it here is already making my hairs stand on end... 

Sorry Casper, I don't think the thing-that-knocks wants to be your friend...

 

We don't have friendly neighbourhood ghosts like Casper... but we do have unique scary creatures like the toyol and orang minyak... 

Literal translation is oil man – naked man, covered in oil, who practices some kind of black magic and goes after virgins for strength, power or something... 

I don't really know the whys... I heard that they go after virgins and I fainted... 

Which is why when there's a case of orang minyak in the kampung (rural town), the young, unmarried women of the household won't be allowed out alone especially at night...

Sometimes I wonder if these old wives' tales were to encourage women in the days of old... a time when a woman being single was considered a crime... to get married quickly...

I'm sorry, old wives... 

Man of oil, or not... I ain't getting married... 

 

Although my colleague does insist these are not just myths... 

That she once experienced being terrorized by an orang minyak in her village town... 

That they would find footsteps of black oil appearing but no visible figure... and it took a band of 20, 30 men to finally catch the orang minyak... after weeks of hunting him down... 

 

Everyone was engrossed in her tale of the daring capture... but all I could think of was the Winchesters... For me, this is how the hunting of that orang minyak went: a punch or two... the Impala... a bit of magic from Jack and Cas... wisecracks from Dean... and an exasperated eye-roll from Sam... and the minyak man no more... gone for good... Winchester-fyed...  

 

Other than the orang minyak, we also have Pontianak (our equivalent of vampires)...

Pocongs (our equivalent of zombies)... I think... Man.. I don't know... My spooky knowledge is kinda low...

Recently I found out about the penangal... It's a nocturnal creature.... a vampire-like entity.... that takes the form of a floating disembodied woman's head...

Excuse me the Western World, you can try to sleepy hollow me with your headless horseman... But ours, is way more thrilling... 

Yours was just a man and a horse... 

Ours is not just the floating head... but its organs and entrails trailing from its neck... 

"Do your feel scared yet? Well, do ya, punk?"... 

Be afraid... Be very afraid... 

When seen from afar... (and I have seen those videos that I wish I didn’t because now I get scared by any light)... it usually twinkles... and not like the little star in the sky... that is cute and puts kids to sleep because they are wondering “who you are”, O' Twinkle Star... 

This twinkle is like a ball of flame... (and no... not great balls of fire... there's no Jerry Lewis involved)... and is similar to the will-o'-the-wisp phenomenon....

It is believed that this creature is actually a living woman by day... and with the use of black magic for various reasons, whether beauty, money or fame... detaches her head and organs from her body... and her entrails trail behind her as she flies through the air searching for blood.... 

They normally feed on rats... or for those more dubious, the blood of pregnant women and infants... 

If being beautiful means removing your head and feeding on rodents... I would happily remain ugly...

Maybe one day I'll write about the supernatural tales from our Malaysian shores... 

 

He seems excited...

Another aspect of Halloween that I would have loved are the sweet treats... Especially chocolate... 

Cause I'm like the crazy person who thinks chocolates and I are in a committed relationship... 

The "I don't care who you are... where you're from... what you did... as long as you love me" kind of love...

 

Hopefully not the Derek Shepherd and Meredith Grey heartbreaking kind of love... that they thought giving us a beach scene would make up for robbing us of MerDer forever... 

Like shame on you, Grey's Anatomy... How do you expect a person to go on without the love of their life...  

P.S. Update: I guess Nick is pretty cool too... 

 

Sorry Derek... 

 

I do like the happy ending kind of love... The Rick Astley kind of love... where they live on together forever and never to part in fiction land... 

Like Roarke and Eve Dallas (from the JD Robb book series)

 Like Tristan and Yvaine.

 Like Westley and Buttercup (although I was slightly disappointed that she was about to marry someone else)... 

 Like Damon and Elena (I didn't watch the final few seasons of this series... so not sure if they ended up together... but although I thought Stefan was great... My sister and I were always Team Damon)...

 Like Superman and Lois.

 Like Clark Kent and his glasses.

Cause Tyler Hoechlin wearing glasses is like... chocolate-covered cherries... Delicious!  

Cause come on... How can anything covered in chocolate be anything but delicious. 

Not that I'm thinking of Tyler Hoechlin covered in chocolate.

It's not like I'm a freak or anything.

 

Ok Sorry, Tyler... Eating too much chocolate tends to do this to me... 

When you're drunk on too much chocolate but don't have an ex-boyfriend to drunk-dial... you tend to write a lot of embarrassing things like this... in your blog... about your celebrity crush... which should make it weird... but... but... 

Ok... I can't think of a but... 

And since I DID eat a lot of chocolate, there would probably be more of these embarrassing declarations... so hang in there?

 

Oh man... Tyler doesn't seem excited about my giddy ramblings, does he?

Oh well... A girl will try to be less rambly...

     

Man... I'm so corny...

 

Yeah... That too...  

 

So anyway, pretty sure "Trick or Treat" won't work for me, because those candy bars and chocolates are going to magically hop into my mouth

(because that's where they belong... in my mouth)... 

and take a magical ride down my throat, before the kids come tricking and treating.

Like the other day—I was looking in the fridge for the bar of Cadbury chocolate... I thought I was smart enough to hide from myself...

(I hid it under the box of grapes as subterfuge... and maybe to encourage me to choose the grapes instead of the chocolate because I also love grapes... 

Source : Jiemin Yang

Ok.. maybe my mouth is constantly lonely and needs to have things in it... 

It's like my mouth needs a workout too)... 

so that I could prevent the temptation of being enticed by those sexy mounds of pure bliss... Cause I'm serious about this losing weight thing.

But I tell you, chocolates have a thing for me, cause I could swear I heard it whispering my name seductively from the fridge. Something along the lines of, "Come my lady, come-come my lady / You're my butterfly, sugar baby". 

I tried telling the chocolates, that I don't find that song sexy or seductive... cause pretty sure that song has some impolite innuendos.... that I maybe may not understand because I'm like a prude... 

But anyway, song aside, the chocolate bar smiled at me. And winked. And showed me its abs.   

So I caved... My attempt at subterfuge unsuccessful...

Like... It's chocolates... and abs... And I'm weak... 

Also weird...