Hello friends! Here is (a bit tardy I suppose) my pumpkin from Halloween-time. My new challenge was a Day of the Dead skull, and I’m quite pleased with how it came out. We had a perfect amount of candy for the trick-or-treat-ers in our neighborhood. We had perfect seasonal beverages and entertainment–largely consisting of sharing YouTube videos with each other in between doorbell ringing. And that largely consisted of Kid History. Thanks Margi, I’ve been sharing these with people, all to great laughter.
I’d like to share something somber with you, I hope you don’t mind the left turn. A little over a year ago, there was a senseless accident in Salem that left two teenagers dead, and one of them had been my student for a year. His was the first funeral I attended, my first experience with public grief. I went to his cemetery last month and my jaw dropped at how beautiful his space is. Flowers growing, not just fresh cut and fleeting. Tokens and notes and not a single blade of grass taken root. The most beautiful memorial I’ve ever seen, with Francisco’s face carved in marble. In God’s Hands.
So for the first time, I had someone to think of during Dia de los Muertos. I took my pumpkin to the cemetery… maybe a left-footed gesture but it was more than nothing. It was too late to go in, so I left it with 2 candles in the night rain at the gate. It doesn’t need to be just for him anyway. It’s also for any of you who have been thinking of passed loved ones.
I fear going too far into Serious Land for a blog as Unserious as mine. I will finish up today with a hello from Fuzza the Explorer. There have been boxes everywhere in our house (in the name of organization) and she has popped in to every one. Open or closed, empty or full.
So if you hear a rummaging in a box you’ve forgotten about, one suspect you can interrogate is Matilda, everyone’s fluffy little weirdo.
Coffee and Curiosity 
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