Dia de los Muertos!

How about that wedding!? Congratulations again to the Bears . . . Noah and Cici. I, for one, had

a fabulous time, and I miss you all.

After returning to LaLa land full of the jubilation of ceremony and matrimony, all that I could think about was death. Rather, the celebration of lives lived. On November 1st and 2nd, we celebrated Dia de los Muertos, where the spirits of our dearly departed return to the earth. It's one of those holidays that's a combination of the Catholic All Saint's Day, and ancient Aztec Traditions. Los Angeles, as the most important hub of Mexican culture outside of Mexico City, has an awesome Dia de los Muertos celebration.

One of the ceremonies involved with the celebration are the creation of altars. Pictures of our dearly departed are placed on the altar along with candles, flowers, bread, water, trinkets, and sugar skulls. The thought is that you put out things that will lead the spirits to the right place-placing your dearly departed's favorite booze and sweets, incense and fragrant flowers-and then a little sustenance-rice, beans, etc. We went to two different festivals-one at the Hollywood cemetery, and one at the oldest Plaza in LA-and the altars were pretty spectacular.

In the spirit of celebration, T and I decided to make an altar of our own. We picked up some molds and some merangue powder (the secret ingredient) for making some sugar skulls, gathered some familial historic items, and created our little altar. I was sort of expecting our spirits to bring us presents, but apparently, that's not how it works. Oh well, it felt good to participate in a little ceremony . . . a little tribute to the past to live a fuller present.

There's a little taste of the fast pace of the west coast! Hope everyone is well, and I look forward to the next time we're all gathered!