I worked our clinic’s Halloween event yesterday. The kids all had a really good time from the look of things. I hadn’t signed up expecting to work with the kids, but I ran the one game station and had a lot of fun. It was funny to watch how all the kids approached the game differently.

The real fun for me though happened by coincidence. When I got there, they had the red tailed hawk out, but shortly after, someone came out with our red mirror Screech, Harry. She came by and was talking about how she guy assigned the job somewhat last minute so had looked up a bunch of owl facts the night before.

I tried to avoid a relentless assault of owl information, but she seemed very interested in the things I was talking about and she ended up just staying next to my station. She would be answering general questions as I worked my game, but if someone had a harder question and I wasn’t busy, she’d kinda give me a look to see if I knew the answer and I’d fill in missing info.

The best part was teaching people the word plumicorns for the feathers tufts on their head. Even the adults smiled and got a real kick out of the word. I really liked seeing everyone smile and enjoy learning about Harry and owls in general.

She asked why I hadn’t gotten the owl holding job and I said I’ve mentioned knowing stuff about owls many times but only ever really got a chuckle. After the event died down and she put the owl away, she must have passed the info to the director. When I saw her she said I didn’t know you knew all that stuff and I said I talked about it a bunch, I just didn’t want to be pushy or annoying about it. So she asked if it’s something I’d want to do in the future and I said that’s the whole reason I came here to begin with!

So now I’m hoping the next event we have that I’ll be able to hold one of the raptors due the entire event. I’ve held a few owls now, but only briefly, and never any of the other raptors, so if I can get to do it for a whole event, that would be very awesome!

I did get to hold another scary Halloween creature though!

People were hanging out in the classroom between the kids and teens portion of the event so I went to check that out.

There was a young lady there and she looked to be having the time of her life playing with the tank of cockroaches! I went to check it out and she was talking about how cool they were and how they all had different personalities and she looked so happy. So I decided what the heck, and I said pass me one of those.

I don’t know if I found it as thrilling as she did, but it was much less creepy than I expected.

I was picturing it how many people seem to picture snakes, kinda slimy, sticky feeling, but after holding it and looking up close at its face, I decided it was basically just a giant ladybug, which I’ve happily held all my life. Less creepy and prickly than a praying mantis too. Definitely glad I gave it a try, and now they seem much less creepy. Not that I want any in my house or work anytime soon, but I do have a higher appreciation for them in general.