Halloween memories on Maui

Been in this house in Hale Piilani on the north side of Kihei, Maui for 24 years.  The first year, the community BUSSED their kids in since we were only level subdivision with 297 homes, guaranteed to be a safe and successful trick or treat outing!   There were so so so many kids it was like moving through an ant pile.   Definitely dangerous to drive!  I ran out of candy in the first hour!  Two years later we had our first child, born October 1, so he was exactly 1 month old on Halloween night.   My husband worked at the hotel nights, so I was the one climbing up and down the stairs with a 10 pound child.   Later, when my kids were older, it became a race between "us and them", specifically trying to get my dressed up kids out the door before the rest of the neighborhood descended on our house as early as 5pm. Since my husband was always working (it seemed, except every 5th year or so) it was like being a single mom, so I'd go with the other moms and our strollers and wagons.  When they got older, we could sit at the end of each other's driveways (with our cocktails!) and they could band together and safely roam the neighborhood.  Now, most of our children are grown, and although there are new families and even 2nd generations, it's not as crazy as it was all those years ago.

Kitchen Disaster #2

Since the turkey incident, my esteemed Mother-in-Law didn't have much faith in my cooking abilities.  Then, when she next visited her loving son and his worthless-in-the-kitchen wife, she wanted to make her famous lentil soup.   A little background: I had moved into this 2 room house occupied by my then future husband, and inherited the lousy gas oven, and whatever else was in the kitchen, including a jar of dried lentils.   So, I tell Mother-in-law that we don't need to buy any, we already have some, let's just get the necessary vegetables that you need.  She soaks the lentils overnight, she starts the soup the next day AND THEY NEVER GET SOFT!   Evidently the lentils were so old they were useless.  Weathering her disdainful looks, I toss off that scientists had recently uncovered lentils in Egyptian sarcophagi and they cooked up just fine!  Unfortunately that remark did not win me any favor with her at all.

Kitchen Disaster #1

When I was first married, we used to take turns cooking Thanksgiving between my house on Maui, my mother-in-law's in Honolulu, or my sister-in-law's in Kauai.  The first time they came to my house, they arrived from the airport at about 11am and wanted to eat immediately. (Both of them were extremely thin with voracious appetites and ridiculous metabolisms.) I had intended the turkey to be ready closer to 2pm.  So we commenced to eat crudites and drink copius amounts of rum & coke (me), beer (hubby) and whiskey (mother-in-law) and get properly sloshed.  Meanwhile, I kept checking the turkey in the gas oven and it wasn't cooking as fast as I thought it should.  Finally, about 4pm, and basically drunk as skunks, it was determined that the oven had failed and I had been trying to cook the turkey for about 8 hours on pilot light!  Fortunately, we had a microwave oven that had been a wedding gift, and my husband being quite talented with a carving knife, cut the turkey up and we cooked it in the microwave.  Or at least I think we did, what I remember, that is.