Last night, Neil and I joined a few friends for a walk in the Parade of Lost Souls. The Parade Of Lost Souls is

a celebration of the cycle of life & death, of our facing fears in order to live life to its fullest. It is a time and a place to share losses at one of the many shrines and celebrate life and to enrich our community.

We met up to apply our make-up, pull on our ill-fitting costumes and enjoy a few beverages and laughs before heading out the door to join the other living dead. Being that Halloween is a week away, our costumes were quite the attraction as we boarded the bus and then skytrain. Many were backing away and some even shrieking as we stepped onto the skytrain. I heard one group of youngsters whisper “Is that a guy or a girl?”, “I don’t know, look for boobs”. There is a lot of fun in anonymity; no one recognizes your face or even your gender, so there’s less accountability for any absurd, out-of-character behaviour.
Once at our stop, we hopped off the train to look for more peeps that we were meeting up with. There were two girls that had a really difficult time make their way down to the skytrain station. They were stopped every several feet as on-lookers flocked to take their photo. Their costumes were quite the attraction, as you can see below. Their gowns were big poofy gowns that reached down to their shins, sitting atop their white heels (straight out of prom-night). The boxes were accessorized with a tiara and labeled with Barbie and Mattel logos. They were our point of reference if ever we were separated.

Ballroom Barbie

Hi-Tech Ballroom Barbie

The rest of the crew were skeletons. We each had our own take on skeletal spookiness and adjusted our make-up accordingly. Here are a few shots of each. Unfortunately, I missed one of the skeletons and I didn’t get a group shot, but I’m going to try to find one on-line as we had several taken of us.

Cracked Skeleton

Sexy Skeleton

Shocked Dead Skeletons

Sinister Skeleton

Just-Chillin’ Skeleton

Bank Robber Skeleton

Yoga Skeletons

Upside-down Skeleton

Spider Skeletons

Dancing Skeletons

I found the group shot on flickr!

Special guests were German Milk Maiden, Roughed-up Hockey Player and Pretty Lady.

German Milk Maiden

Pucker Hockey Player meets German Milk Lady

Pretty Lady