Category: Holidays

“We the People,” “We the American People,” should be an inclusive phrase, but far too often is synonymous with “White People,” but it shouldn’t be an exclusive phrase, according to The Constitution of the United States. Some American People don’t acknowledge or fail to realize that The Constitution is both a historical and living document. It is not written upon stone, but rather hemp. Words written upon stone tablets are set in place. Hemp, however, is a plant product. As anyone with a green thumb can tell you, when you nurture your plants, they will grow and thrive, just like our Constitution, just like our country. The very reason our Constitution has amendments is so it can be changed through thoughtful process as we nurture our country for its continued growth and success.

Founded upon the notion of freedom yet, historically bound by the ties of discrimination by our founding fathers, who were not gods, but merely a reflection of the prejudices of their time. Over time, we’ve held truths to be self-evident that all people, inclusively, are created equal and deserve equal protection under the law.

What have the women and men of the armed forces fought for if not our constitutional rights? When we face injustice, We the American People, inclusively, have a right to protest peacefully, but for People of Color, the dominant narrative doesn’t want us to protest at all. There’s never a good time for us to protest.  It’s always too soon or somehow, ironically, unpatriotic. The American People, exclusively, only want People of Color to protest on our own time, and where no one can see nor hear us.

Even when we’re not protesting, but in the course of doing some everyday activity, People of Color may find ourselves immersed in an impromptu protest when suddenly accosted by a White person who sees the color of their skin as a badge of authority and permission to interrogate a Person of Color whose skin they see as probable cause. I’ll know that the dominant narrative is becoming a little less racist when the media starts questioning why a stranger thinks they have the authority to accost and interrogate any Person of Color who happens to cross their path.

I used to marvel how young people could hold such racist ideas as I would associate with an older person. Then I realized that was just me being an ageist. I also used to have this bias that “cultural inheritance” was this positive thing and that only uncultured people were racist, but that was me using a narrow definition of “culture.” The truth is, Grandma’s secret recipe for apple pie is passed down to the younger generations along with her racism.

One family tradition could be covering up racism like hastily tossing a beautiful thick throw rug over dog shit just before the guests arrive, then pretending that it no longer exists because it’s no longer seen, but the family knows it’s there because they pivot to avoid stepping in it. If a guest or friend, unaware of the family tradition, detects the stench of racism, they family is offended, embarrassed.

Why look at how clean this beautiful throw rug is! How dare you say it stinks. You must be smelling something else.

If the unaware accidently steps in racism, the family denies the experience. Why that’s just the way this throw rug is made. Ya’ll must make your throw rugs differently where you’re from, but why don’t you just stand over here if it’ll make you feel more comfortable?

So, we’re sidestepping shit, covering up shit, politely not talking about shit and surprise, surprise it doesn’t go away. The stench lingers because fresh shit’s applied every day. Growing and nurturing the products of racism with roots so deep, they extend back down to when one’s ancestors were immigrants to this land themselves. Or slaves.

All those multi-colored huddled masses wave after wave, seeking a better life in the land of opportunity. Hungry for a seat at the table, but they don’t come empty handed. They bring the flavors of their grandmother’s secret recipes to the pot luck. Remember back in the day when we used to kid ourselves that We the American People were one big melting pot? As any good cook will tell you, you can’t throw EVERYTHING into the pot and expect it to taste good. Some ingredients will clash.

What you can do is offer a variety of dishes on a buffet, then have a taste of different things. After all, isn’t variety the spice of life? But for every Epicurean, there’s always a meat and potato person who just loathes spicy food.

The question is: which one is more patriotic? The very manner in which you answer that question reveals how you view what it means to be We the American People. For example, on the surface, you may find it ridiculous to argue whether real chili has beans, but while in Texas, I’d advise you to say it doesn’t, which is in agreement with the Texas House Concurrent Resolution No. 18, 65^thLegislature, Regular Session in 1977. If you want to go a step further, call it chili con carne, even if that’s the only Spanish you speak because for the ancestral Mexican women who created this dish, the border crossed them, not the other way around.

And yet…some people would become hotter than chili con carne at the mere suggestion that this is a Mexican dish rather than a Texan dish after all everyone knows Texas chili has no beans, which was resolved in legislature. And while we’re at it, let’s throw in a pinch of cultural appropriation and a dash of historical omissions, stir slowly from the bottom as it simmers with unacknowledged racism, sexism and any other –ism the PC detectives uncover because isn’t that the American way? We’re not going to acknowledge anything bad unless the pot boils over, or its contents gives us the shits or the shit hits the fan because that’s also the American way.

We the People, We the American People. Grateful for our freedom and to those who have sworn to defend our Constitution and fight enemies foreign and domestic. The very least We the American People can do to honor our veterans is contribute to and nurture a society worthy of their sacrifice.

In observance of the holiday, I texted some people, “Happy MLK Day” and even advised one white friend to hug a back person, to which he replied, “haha,” but I was serious.  I believe in the power of small actions leading to bigger things.

As a matter of fact, when I rolled up into the bikram yoga studio, the first thing I did as I signed in was bid the yoga teacher at the reception desk, “Happy MLK Day!”  He thought for a second and acknowledged, “Oh, yeah. That’s today.” Without missing a beat, I asked him, “Have you hugged a black person today?”  He burst out laughing and said he hadn’t.  I told him to come from behind the desk to do so.  In due time, I hugged everyone in the reception area.

I’m normally not that early for class, but fortunately, on this holiday, I was.  The female yogis from the previous class were still in the locker room when I entered.  I announced to the room, most of whom I knew either by face or name, “Happy MLK Day! If you haven’t hugged a black person today, then you can hug me, so you can say you did something in observation of the day.”

They all seemed amused by the idea.  I put down my things and hugged every woman there, no matter her state of undress.  One woman even asked for my name since I didn’t care who was known or a stranger to me.  All I really cared about was if the impending recipient welcomed the hug prior to embracing her.

I didn’t take a tally, but I’d guess I managed to hug around 20 people through that one trip to the yoga studio before and after class.  Who knows the ramifications of such a random act of kindness, but some mothers proudly boasted of teaching their kids about MLK in observance of the holiday.

What this day has come to mean to me is how I can walk through the front door of places where I shop.  I use the women’s facilities that exclude the adjective “colored.” I’m not hassled when I register to vote and I conveniently save time voting early where there’s no line. I graduated from a predominantly white university. The list goes on.

And yet, the struggle continues.  If anyone thought racism ended when Obama became president, I hope they can now acknowledge it’s back. One surefire way racism, or any “-ism” for that matter, becomes institutionalized is through taxpayer-funded laws.

What I know to be true, both from reading historical-based books, and my own personal experience is that no matter which category of people are targeted to be discriminated against, we blacks always make the short list of hate.  We may not be at the very top of the list, but we’re on the list, nonetheless.  That’s why I’m always vigilant whenever asshole politicians start down some illogical path to legislate against someone who either isn’t breaking the law or, using illogical means to deal with illegal activity to persecute people of color.

After all, if the government truly wanted to crackdown on people who used illegal drugs, shouldn’t a whole slew of cocaine-snorting, prostitute-fucking hedge fund managers and bankers be serving time with extraordinarily long mandatory minimums?

The way I see it, if some version of a bathroom bill ever successfully barred transgender people from using a public restroom then expanding that bill to include blacks wouldn’t be too far down the line.  Not as incredulous as it may sound at first blush, given the fact that transgender people have been using public restrooms for quite a while now. If banning one group of people from public restrooms makes paranoid conservatives feel safe, then surely banning blacks will make them feel even safer.  Like the days of Jim Crow.

Speaking of the paranoid conservative good ol’ days, the time’s about ripe again for some racist organization to seriously suggest shipping blacks back to Africa. If ever the logistical nightmare and funding were ever figured out to deport the estimated 11 million undocumented Americans, you can best bet African Americans would be next.  Hell, they’d save money putting us on the same planes since most of us have no more cultural ties to any African country than we do to a Latino country.

[Sidebar: Thanks to my father serving in the Air Force, my family was living in Okinawa, Japan when I was born; so I may have some legal ground, if ever my rights as an American were ever dissolved, to be sent to Japan. I’ve never looked into it since I’m optimistic that my rights as a citizen of the US will remain intact, but as a fiction writer and poet, I exercise my imagination.]

A hundred years ago, the hated religions among paranoid Americans were Catholicism and Judaism, so this Muslim ban that keeps rearing its ugly head like a B-movie villain that’s damn-near impossible to kill doesn’t surprise me.  And yet, it didn’t take too long, in racist political time to make Africans and diaspora Africans living in “shithole” countries an honorary religion. Because, as I’ve previously stated, blacks, in this case, from other countries, always make the short list of American conservative paranoid’s people to hate.

It’s easier to hate people you don’t know.  The more sequestered from the targeted group, the easier it is to demonize them, hype their evil characteristics to the point that any far- fetched theory sounds plausible.  My latest favorite is the politician who said that blacks cannot handle the effects of marijuana.  Hell, that almost sounds benign compared to the pseudoscientific “facts” about how blacks are genetically inferior, which leads to our diminished intellectual capacity.  And how about the pseudo-religious conclusion that blacks don’t have souls, which justified enslaving us prior to 1865 even though slavery was forbidden in the slave masters’ Bible?

Yet, when someone experiences counterexamples to what they believe to be true, it’s a little harder to be so pious with one’s hate.  Even if the seed of doubt isn’t verbalized, it’s still been planted. Some will second guess that the targeted group aren’t ALL that bad.  Doubt shines like a ray of hope.  The sliver of truth piercing through the combined thick fog of ignorance and fear may be confusing initially, but if the seed of doubt is ever cultivated then fear and ignorance recede.

The “others” transform into human beings for whom empathy is given.  I’m not sure the best way to cultivate those empathy seeds, but an occasional hug cannot hurt.

For the first time ever, ringing in the new year at a yoga class sounded like a good idea. Actually, I went out dancing on the eve of New Year’s Eve, which was fun until the next morning. If I were inclined to make new year’s resolutions, it may be to stop dancing salsa with younger men. They are a little too energetic for my left knee.

A festive table greeted those of us who braved through the miraculous snowdrift. Had I known it would snow, I may have stayed home to watch it all unfold on TV. This was the second time snow had fallen in Austin in the eight years that I’ve lived here with the first time being a few weeks ago. Both times, I was caught by surprise out in it.

I’d confirmed that we’d toast with sparkling apple cider and not champagne prior to class, but during class, I heard the yoga teacher ask her husband, “How’s the Korean barbecue going?” and for some stupid reason, I believed we were going to have that with the cider. Just goes to show how gullible I can be doing yoga that late at night.

Most of the bright lights were outside the hot room in the reception area. The disco ball and mirrored walls reflected the disco lights and a speaker belted out a set list. The yoga teacher didn’t turn down the music as she guided us through class; so I missed some of her signals to go into a posture or change it. As a matter of fact, I was glad I had the habit of setting up in the front of the room or else I would not have been able to see myself in the mirror.

The class ended minutes before midnight and we toasted while in the yoga room. People cleared out rather quickly, which meant I could hop in the shower without having to wait in line. As I stood in the women’s locker room with a towel wrapped around my nakedness and applied deodorant, I heard a small crowd in the lobby yell, “Happy New Year!” Welp, that was just as good as any way to ring in a new year, I guess.

Fortunately, the snow had melted and the roads were clear. I only snapped this picture of a light dusting of snow on one of my neighbor’s car once I arrived home–before I got out of my car. I missed the opportunity to take a single picture of the first snowfall a few weeks ago, thinking it would stick around for a bit. So far, none of it has.

This had been the first Christmas to New Year’s vacation I’ve enjoyed in a long time. Not only did I ring in the New Year at a Bikram yoga studio, but I’m also participating in the yoga challenge by attending a class 6 days a week. That’s truly helping the ever-present rollercoaster ride of being an independent health insurance agent!

Admittedly, I approached this past Christmas with a Scroogy attitude. The real gift was reconnecting with my family; so when the actual day arrived, it seemed less spectacular. One of my nephews was wrapped up in a blanket in the living room as if Santa had left him along with the other gifts.

One of my nieces and I immediately changed into our Christmas festive attire.  Whereas her Santa Dino sweater and Grinch leggings were manufactured, I’d sewn a stuffed animal, which I named “Bah Humbug,” onto the front of my sweater. Although I thought of it as a simple way to be Christmassy, I didn’t realize how having Bah Humbug sewn onto my sweater would amuse other people as much as it did. Everyone initially thought I was carrying a stuffed animal until I stood up.

Apparently my costuming idea was so impressive, my 17-year old nephew asked me to stand up and say a few words, so he could post it to his Instagram.  Now, there’s a vote for being unintentionally cool!

Yet, he’d showed up all of us on Christmas Eve by dressing up in his Winter Wonderland suit for church. The pastor was so distracted that he asked my nephew to stand up for the congregation just in case they hadn’t seen him. The pastor complimented how confident my nephew was, supported the idea he’d be a millionaire by age 25 and then delivered the sermon.

As in the past few years, we started off Christmas morning eating breakfast.  With the youngest child being 17, there was no over-the-top early morning anxiousness. Everyone had a chance to fully wake up, change out of their bed clothes, eat and then open gifts.

These three assumed their usual positions on the floor in front of the tree.One of my sisters miraculously hadn’t gone to bed on Christmas Eve since she had an impossible number of things she wanted to accomplish before our Christmas celebration. I appropriately gifted her Obama-decorated-as-saints candles.

I didn’t think this nephew would stick around after receiving the burlesque dictionary I’d gifted him, but he stuck around until the gift-opening had ended.

For the other nephew, I gifted him a small journal made from recycled panda poo since he always read and jotted down information in perpetual research mode. I told him there were no ideas too crappy to write down in a panda poo journal! Of course, he had to sniff it.

Later, I helped him assemble a preowned practice drum kit that he and his sisters had bought for their mom.  Truly a discovery learning process for us two Virgos since the box had no instructions nor diagram.  He found a picture of an assembled practice drum kit for us to follow.  There were a few missing pieces, but we assembled what we could and even had his mom to drum a little.

This had been the perfect visit in so many ways. There was only one awkward argument, which didn’t involve me, but I witnessed. I didn’t do a lick of work, unlike last Christmas, where my shitty job at the time didn’t give me many paid vacation days and I had to work half the time my parents were there. Plus, I’d established the tradition of sleeping in my nephew’s room, so I could close the door, blocking out much of the sound and light of the true night owls in the family who wanted to stay up later. We visited one family of cousins and another family showed up as well. And of course, I cannot forget about all the delicious food.

From the day I arrived, At least one person cooked something.  I helped one of my nieces, who is a vegan, make peanut butter cookies. We started the process after midnight.  Once the last batch had been laid out, I showered and went to bed, but my little niece kept going and made both chocolate chip and thumb print cookies, not going to bed until 4:30 AM.

My brother-in-law made three types of sweet potato pies: regular, vegan and sausage. Then he followed that up with many of the dishes, both regular and vegan, that we ate for Christmas Eve: mac and cheese, stuffing, string bean casserole and others. My sister made pecan pies. Mom made a cheesecake and potato salad. Dad made hash browns. My other sister brought a red velvet cake.

This was in addition to all the various fruit, nuts and processed snacks they normally buy in bulk. So, much food that I ate dessert after every meal. I limited myself to only one glass of wine a day, but still had eggnog nearly every day and a taste of moonshine at one point.

I did some yoga stretches every night, jogged on the treadmill once, and always agreed to go shopping just to get some walking in. I never have the new year’s resolution to lose weight–other than the temporary pounds I’ve gained with my holiday eating, coupled with my holiday reduction of exercise.

All in all, the nearest perfect Christmas visit as could be expected.

Who would have thought that nearly a year ago at the holiday party sponsored by the company we all worked for, where we all shared the same round table, would turn out to be prophetic? During the course of 2017, we all grew tired of having our talent squandered, and being under paid and over managed. By the end of September, we all worked for the same company as independent health insurance agents.

I’ve told everyone who’d listen that I started living my “happily ever after” when I had control of my schedule and earned enough money to pay my expenses, pay down my debt, while still working fewer than 40 hours a week.  I’d previously thought that the first thing I’d buy myself once I got out of debt would be a more comfortable office chair. When that great day arrives, I’ll buy a new phone instead.

What I discovered was that I didn’t need a more comfortable chair, I needed a more comfortable job! Now that my work doesn’t require me to sit on my ass 40 hours a week, I spend far more time living life than earning a living. That in and of itself is more than enough reason to celebrate.

Nonetheless, I enjoyed getting together with coworkers, dressing up, and having very lively conversations, which cleared all of the other tables around us, as we ate delicious Colombian food after doing a shot of aguadiente (fire water).  I sipped mine since I rarely do shots.  I want to enjoy my alcohol.

We have supported one another through this health insurance agent journey for over a year now. The other ladies bought gifts. I chose to make everyone cards. Tears welled up in two of my coworkers’ eyes. How sad it is that we have so many means of communication and yet, we hardly ever tell one another the qualities we admire in each other. Or truly thank someone for good advice they gave us or the impact they made when they took the time to help us.  Even the small gestures that turned out to have a significant, life-altering result. I’m just happy I took the opportunity to tell them all the positive things that I see in them and how they have helped me become a better agent and person.

We plan to get together once a month since we no longer have regularly scheduled meetings. I love not only the shared experience we have, but the informal professional development we provide for one another. It’s terrific to have a support group to count on, which we use to improve. One thing’s for sure, we’re all visualizing ourselves making six figures for 2018. The best part about that is that we will hold one another accountable throughout the year.

One of my sisters wrote and directed a Christmas play, complete with carolers, a praise dancer, and a simple heart-felt narrative to be performed at her church. If it were a movie, it would air on the Hallmark channel, her favorite channel to watch back-to-back saccharine sweet Christmas movies, prompting me to tease her about the need to follow up with porn just to balance things out.

It’s no coincidence that she’s also the sister who, year after year, hosts our family’s Christmas celebration. With her husband, their three kids, my other sister and her son, my parents and me, we’re quite a full house.

I live alone, so sharing a space for several days with nine other people and two bathrooms, becomes intense. Optimistically, I like to think of it as an opportunity to put my yogic breathing to practical use.

In most social situations, I gravitate toward people with whom I share common interests and lessen my time with people who I don’t, but DNA and in-laws are in a special category since you don’t get to choose. You never know who’s going to be born or married into your family. So, there’s that unrealistic expectation that we should all just get along.

I’d finally reached another milestone of my adulthood when I permitted myself to admit that certain relatives and I would never be friends, but since we’re human beings with relatives in common who care about us, we should be cordial for the sake of peace.

So, my sister’s Christmas play was called, “What Christmas Means to Me.” I was the editor and I discussed with her the organizational logistics of how to run rehearsals and structure the play since she acknowledged my ability to organize things as one of my super powers. I call it just being a Virgo.

Her creative effort inspired me to write about what Christmas means to me, the Scrooge Edition.

There have been moments in Christmas pasts where the verbal jabs have bounced around the room like the inside of a pinball machine. That’s when I remember my mantra: “I will NOT curse anyone out for Christmas.” So far, I’ve held true to my belief. Even during the most intense times when I feel that I’m surrounded by religious hypocrites, who all attend church regularly, most have been baptized, and make explicit Christmas lists of all the material things they want in observance of the birth of Jesus.  Even those who don’t literally write down their Christmas list, still bring their exacting expectation of what they should get for Christmas.

Holding my tongue, especially during the big reveal where we all gather to open our gifts on Christmas morning, I inevitably witness someone ungrateful about what he or she has received. One complaint that hurt was when the recipient of a sentimental cookbook I’d gifted, which had four of our recipes in it, was not well received because this relative now used online recipes, but didn’t realize that for that particular gift, that cookbook represented the most expensive gift I’d given anyone that year because I’d been chronically underemployed. Upon hearing the compliant, I thought, “Wow, that cookbook cost half of my weekly grocery budget.” The sad part, in the big scheme of things, it wasn’t even expensive.

Granted, this relative didn’t need yet another cookbook. As a matter of fact, none of my relatives for whom I regularly buy gifts, need another anything for which to encroach upon the limited floor space in their respective houses. For some, as I’ve said before, I’d love to buy “ambition or motivation or logic or common sense or sanity,” but alas, those things are never for sale.

Regardless of the size of my Christmas budget, I’m always mindful of buying for nine people. As much as I’d love to say that I spend equitably for everyone, I do a layered set of calculations to spend within my preset budget.

First, I take the total budget and divide it by nine, which tells me how much I can spend on each person. Then, I enter a free Christmas bazaar, because some have an entrance fee and overpriced things. So, I go to the free ones, and I browse. As I see something that catches my eye because it’s within my price range, I think about who I can gift it to.

Then the next layer of calculations kick in. Is the person I’m about to buy this for really worth the full portion of the money I budgeted? Did he or she commit, what I consider a major sin of actually complaining about something I gifted them last year, which is an automatic deduction from their amount to be spent on a gift for this year.

Then I toy with the fact that if I spent just a little less on this person’s gift, I could spend that extra dollar or two on a nicer gift for one of my parents. Then I have to evaluate whether the gift appears too cheap and how could I doctor it up with something in my artist’s chest of crafting material, which then leads me to reevaluate my entire budget.

If I stick to the cheaper end and just doctor everything, that’ll save more money and move some materials out of my closets, which is a dynamic I like. After all, I buy myself used things and clothes and fix them up, except for underwear and swimwear.

By the time I finally emerge from the bazaar with gifts in tow, I’m exhausted. As fun as doing mathematical-logic thought puzzles are, weighing the dollar amount of gifts against the worthiness of the recipient truly takes a lot of energy. I also have to actively suppress going against the prevailing logic of buying something not truly needed with money I’d rather do something else with for a person who probably won’t appreciate my efforts.

Bah-humbug!

Yet the Scroogiest Scrooge thing I fantasize about doing is this: one Christmas, I’d love to pass out large, crisp, white envelopes. Inside would be an ol’ school polaroid picture. Each recipient would receive a different picture of me with some material good and at the bottom of the polaroid, where the convenient white paper frame is, I’d write a caption such as, “These are the memory foam leather slippers I bought myself. The receipt is taped to the back of this picture and you may reimburse me at your soonest convenience.  Merry Christmas, Teresa.”

You may think that sounds bad and perhaps it does to the uninitiated, but I know that the only surefire way to get what I want for Christmas and every other day, is to buy it myself. For every gift someone else gives me, I graciously say “thank you,” whether I like it or not. After all, everything can either be used as intended, regifted or made into a future costume. Waste not, want not.

The most heartfelt loving thing I do every year is make handmade Christmas cards. I write a personal letter inside each card where I try at least three times to say something that will cause the recipient to laugh. I usually complete this task around the Thanksgiving weekend while everyone else is killing themselves with Black Friday and Cyber Monday shopping. I finish up my Christmas cards, which some years, for certain friends, don’t even have a Christmassy theme on the front, especially for my Jewish friend.

Those cards represent something I do very well, which is use inexpensive things to create a product more valuable than the materials. Most of the card decorations are cutout pictures from junk mail. The cards themselves were invitations for a school that no longer exists, so I now get to repurpose them. Plus, I love loving people from afar because I can fit it into my schedule and organize the entire production.

What Christmas means to me, beyond the commercialism, the consumerism, the unrealistic expectations of reactions and emotions, is the joy that comes from eating, drinking, storytelling, joke telling, and laughing with my family.

If only I could convince them to change our focus away from exchanging store-bought gifts…

On Thanksgiving Day, I attempted to make pao de queijo (Brazilian cheese bread). The first thing that threw me for a loop was the tapioca flour.  My regular grocery store had about a dozen different flours, none were tapioca. I made a special trip to a high- end grocery store to get it. Next, I didn’t quite have enough olive oil and used vegetable oil to make up for the gap. Then, I added the milk to the oil and brought them to a boil. Afterwards, I removed the wok from the burner and stirred in the chopped garlic and flour. That tapioca flour was a different animal altogether. I think the recipe referred to the texture as “sticky,” whereas as I would call it “rubbery,” but perhaps the texture was off since I’d never made it before.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, I then stirred in two beaten eggs and the finely grated parmesan cheese. At that point, I put the wok on the counter and used two wooden spoons to integrate the eggs and cheese. Reminded me more of a science experiment than a cooking technique. One thing that eventually became true, as predicted by the recipe, was the cottage cheese appearance.

As best I could, I dropped one wooden spoonful of dough onto an ungreased cookie sheet. The batch didn’t look like much going in, but once they came out…I of course, did a quality control check and ate one. Absolutely delicious even though it was my first time.

Perhaps the biggest compliment came from an adorable child who was almost 2. He kept eating so many pao de queijo, to the surprise of his parents. Admittedly, Thanksgiving would have seemed weird without the bird. The host prepared a special, initially secret, flavor injection. Then, he took it outside where the turkey fryer awaited. As he carefully lowered the turkey, I reminisced about the early dangerous days of the first generation of turkey fryers that got so hot, it burned down people’s wooden decks. The newer generations are a bit risky, but nothing like their ancestors.

The turkey was as moist and delicious as it was beautiful. I loved how we all brought side dishes and desserts that went beautifully for this gathering of adult orphans.

Halloween has been my favorite holiday since I was a child and continues into adulthood. Initially, I was in it for both the candy and costuming. Now, as the producer of my own monthly spoken word and storytelling show, I dress up for the show every month. A third of my closet is composed of costumes. At any given time, clothes that I’ve not worn in a while may very well be repurposed for the cause–or rather the theme of whichever show is on the horizon.

Since I’m an independent agent and Halloween is on the eve of Affordable Care Act (ACA) open enrollment, I granted myself the day off. Although I hadn’t planned on attending any celebration, I still couldn’t pass up the opportunity to dress up. The trick this year was to wear a costume that could withstand the 105-degree heat of a Bikram yoga studio.

Out of all my costumes, my Medusa cobra heads made out of felt were the most practical, considering I wanted to wear a costume in a hot yoga class. Yet, I had a chiropractic appointment before yoga; so wearing my galabeya to flesh out my Medusa look would have just been plain weird. I compromised and wore a flowing shirt along with brown jeans.

As soon as I sat down in the waiting area, a guy looked at me and said, “You look familiar.” Without missing a beat, I replied, “Of course I do. I’m Medusa.” Another woman in the waiting area burst out laughing. Turns out the guy had been a regular at the same yoga studio.

I arrived at yoga class a little late, which always makes me want to sneak in, but with a hair full of snakes, it was not an easy task. There were positions which made me very aware of my braided snakes. Throughout the entire 90-minute practice, I’m pleased to say that I only lost one snake.  A 90% success rate!

Once I returned home, I read an email from my apartment leasing office about a Halloween celebration. Given the fact that Halloween landed on a Tuesday and the first day of open enrollment was the next day, this low-key celebration was better than nothing and worth putting on one of my galabeyas and some green lipstick and pixie eyelashes for the cause.

About 30 minutes prior to me getting ready, the bottom fell out. I had second thoughts about even making the short walk to the leasing office for free libations. Traditionally, Austin floods around Halloween time; so I didn’t know if the rain would continue throughout the evening. Fortunately, it eased up while I did the bare minimum to get into character. Drizzling, the weather held up and didn’t challenge my cheap umbrella too much.

I loved that the punch matched my lipstick. There were two varieties of punch: “The Regular Stuff” and “The Good Stuff.” Of course I choose the latter, which was laced with Whipped Cream flavored vodka. Never tried that it before, but it definitely got my vote.

I ate half a cold-cut sub and too many chips with onion dip. As if those chips hadn’t sank my regular diet enough, I had a mini chocolate cupcake followed by a jello shot. Note to self: any jello shots with candy suspended in it isn’t going to be good! Adding to the confusion, the doggie jello shots were just beside the ones for humans.  We were apparently supposed to “know” that those suspended things in bottom of the doggie cups were pieces of dog food!  Yours truly got clarification before even attempting any scary-looking shot.

As usual, I happily ate and drank while making awkward conversation with my fellow residents and the leasing office staff. One woman, who I’m not sure if she works there or not due to the relatively high turn over rate, launched into a story about her first date with a guy who turned out to be a chain smoker. I was taken aback by her story since I’d merely approached food spread and she’d begun her story with no segue. I did the socially acceptable thing of asking her questions and making comments and even invited her to sit with me after I’d finished fixing my plate, but she drifted off to talking with someone else.

Another guy complimented my costume and added that that was the first time he’d seen me in makeup since I normally am not wearing any.  I immediately thought “stalker,” but then he stated that he’d not worked out in the fitness room for nearly a month. I let the fact go that I didn’t put on makeup to work out, yet I teased him about rushing to his grave since he’d stopped working out, stopped eating healthily and started back smoking.

Lastly a German guy tried his best to engage us into a deep conversation about the significance behind the observation of Halloween. The only interesting cultural gem I could offer was about how bands of drunken men would go around in England demanding more booze and if not receiving any, would pull a prank on whichever inn or tavern that refused.

Now, I mostly view our celebration as just one big party where I doubt few people attach much significance to any of the original meaning. TV shows like American Horror Story, tends to circle back to the original meaning where the worlds of the living and dead can connect freer than any other time of the year. Yet the basis of the observation was signifying the end of the harvest season when most plants died, which people associated with human death and dressed in costumes to ward off ghosts.

Only time will tell if the modern reinterpretation of Halloween is a benefit or hinderance to our culture.