That's right, you heard me. You naughty thing, you.

Here's a recipe for Dia De Los Muertos I just dreamed up in my kitchen this evening, which have a little more kick than the ordinary chocolate rum balls you may be familiar with. Ay yi yi!

Ingredients:

• 1/2 bag of ginger snaps, finely crushed- i prefer the nabisco ones to the generic, they have more oomph!
• 4 tablespoons of whipped cream cheese*
• 1/4 cup Hershey's cocoa powder
• 1/4 cup confectioner's sugar (reserve some for coating)
• 1 shot of rum, preferably something dark & sweet
• 1 tsp. powdered cayenne pepper. Caliente!

Mix the dry ingredients, making sure the cayenne powder is evenly distributed.

Stir in the cream cheese until you get a thick dough with smooth consistency, then toss in the shot of rum. Maybe have a shot yourself, too, to celebrate being an awesome cook.

Adjust the amount of cocoa, sugar and ginger snaps to taste, or if the dough seems too thin.
(You want to be able to form the dough into balls - hur hur hur, balls - later on)

Chill overnight.

When dough is firm, roll into balls and then powder them with more confectioner's sugar.

Chill for a few hours then serve, or freeze until needed.

Warn people before serving : )

I took a walk over the hill today to pay a visit the long-dead relatives. The cemetery was gorgeous as usual, and the all the pampered old maples were in their full autumn glory.

It always takes me a few minutes to find what I'm looking for in that place, mostly because i usually just stumble off the path through the woods which connects my neighborhood to the back of the park, and I don't bother with a map. Don't need no stinking map, it's better to just wander and observe, and listen. The people there have been dead for so long that there is kind of a hush over the whole place (and maybe the occasional spectral snore, heh). The trees and squirrels are louder. Don't get me started on new cemeteries, what a ruckus, ugh. At any rate, it usually takes some crisscrossing and backtracking and wandering about until I can find what I'm looking for.

Funny thing about those Farquhars, though- I can never get to their little grove directly. I always end up going in a big loop and getting all turned around, no matter how many times I make note of the direction I'm going or surrounding landmarks. Today i actually thought for a brief moment that somebody might have rearranged things on me. And always when I've just about come to a point where I'm like, screw it, I'm turning back home, I look over a little knoll or just past a tree and there they are. Robert, Mary, Little Lovejoy Leonard.

So anyways, had a nice visit. First time I've said hello to great-great grandparents since Mum and I found his passport, photo, and visa for a visit to scotland from 90 years ago. Inside it says: "reason for travel: to visit relatives." The photo shows a distinguished looking old fellow with bristly hair and grey eyes. I sat and watched the squirrels hop around on my great-great auntie? jennie's headstone, made note of the lovely weather and foliage, and filled them all in on what's happened (the relatives, not the squirrels; the squirrels don't care. Of course, maybe the dead don't, either) since they all kicked the bucket.

I bet nobody else visits them anymore. Come to think of it, most of the people buried there have been dead for so long- some going on a century and a half- that there's nobody left living to really pester them anymore. Except for the squirrels, and me tramping all over hill and dale. There's my great grandparents, who I first found by accident, and have managed to only find by accident every visit since, and for them there's maybe five people left in the world who know only a very little about what their lives were like. So, i wander around the cemetery and wonder about everybody else's story, all these long-dead people who are somebody's forgotten relatives, who maybe wore funny hats or had children or fell in love or had terrible debt or lived in houses with fancy furniture. I guess it could be depressing, to think of how time has made them anonymous, their legacies reduced to a faded name on a mossy stone. Living, or at least the all the niggling details, seems much less significant when you put it into that perspective.

But then again, it's a nice thought, to go back to the earth and become a simple thing, or just be nothing at all. Or maybe part of a grand old maple tree in autumn, with squirrels scampering underneath.

nataliedee.com

Apparently, i'm not the only one who hates Starbucks.

Saturday: Matty and I were in a divey hotel lounge, gnoshing on a stale continental breakfast. The coffee was awful. There were only a couple other people in there with us, and a large, noisy group of elderly ladies all wearing violet dresses and red hats. For those of you unfamiliar with the Red Hat Society, it's basically a bunch of old broads who get together to express a little joie de vivre, drink tea in silly chapeaus, and not give a damn what anyone else thinks. Awesome, if you ask me. I'd heard about them, and I'm familiar with the poem behind it all, but I'd never met any red hatters in person before.

At any rate, as we were leaving Matty (being a gentleman) paused to say good morning, and asked them if they're all in some kind of motorcycle gang.

O the hilarity.

Later that day we were attending a wedding, hence the gnoshing on stale toast and terrible coffee in a divey hotel lounge in east bumfark, ME. So we got dressed up. There are various pictures of us being dressed up (Matty was totally hawt, damn that man cleans up nice), and various other people dressed up, and some blurry ones out the car window, etc. No pictures of red hat ladies or moose, unfortunately. For now, here is one of me looking very glamorous in a country club restroom. Classy, I tell ya.

I had myself a little rant on my dear friend's blog, and wanted to save it, so i'm sticking it here. Context: the current war, definitions of patriotism, and the importance of active & diverse forms of discourse. She's always been rather wordy, and given me lots of food for thought during the (gosh!) 12 or so years I've known her. It made being roommates our freshman year quite interesting. She & I both grew up in a well-educated area which once served as a hotbed of 18th century radical thought and revolutionary ideals- and i dunno if there was something in the water there, or maybe my father had too many history books, but at a young age I developed a deep & abiding love for early American history. This comes out occasionally in conversation.

Anyways, it's kinda different than my usual beads and rabbits kind of entry, so I guess my inner DAR hath revealed itself.  On the same point, I also value the fact that I live in a country where I'm pretty sure I can write about these kinds of things publicly and not fear retribution from tyrranical authorities. There are places, even among Xangans overseas, where you just can't. Though it's entirely possible my name might turn up on some secret government list somewhere. Yipes.

Anyways, I just didn't want to startle anyone with unexpected non-artsy discourse.

---

.....I think it's absurd to say that it's not possible to be against the war
and still support the troops. It's an illogical kneejerk reaction toassume the two things are mutually exclusive. Just because I hate the
mission, and especially the warmongering principles behind it, doesn't
mean i don't feel empathy for the experiences of the people in the
midst of battle who are trying to do their best while in harm's way. If
I'd lived during the Vietnam era I would have hated that whole
shitstorm, too, but I would have still wanted my father to do a good
job and come home safely.

But you know, we live in a scary
time where people don't think for themselves anymore, and they are
constantly fed the idea that the best mode of action is mindless
reaction. They allow themselves to be bullied and brainwashed into
believing that any other perspective is "unpatriotic". Armchair patriots
piss me off to no end. Everybody talks like they want to fight for
freedom, but they all think it means the right to 99 cent cheeseburgers
and a Walmart in every town, and not having to think for yourself.
Utter bullshit. Thought and active discourse is essential to the preservation of  universal rights & freedoms. Our founding fathers- some of the greatest dissenters
in human history- would be spinning in their graves if they knew what
lazy slobs the sons and daughters of liberty have become.