Día de los Muertos, the Mexican holiday of remembrance of loved ones who have died, began on November 1st.
We had been thinking of trying to make this holiday a tradition of our own.
Remembering those we have lost is important. It can remind you of the importance of connections and of where you came from.
A Seattle tamale storefront was selling a celebration bag - who wouldn't want tamales? - so we placed our order.
Katie decided that she wanted to try her hand at baking up some traditional treats.
Her first was calabaza en tacha - candied pumpkin.
It required some special sugar called piloncilo....
......and cinnamon sticks......
.................
......and pumpkin.
(Orange slices were also in there, but are not pictured)
She also made some everything-free sugar cookies.
This is Katie's finished calavera.
Mikey got to work on his.
Ralph just wandered around panting.
I can only wonder what he thought of all the smells.
We had our tamales for dinner.
Yum.
Yes. They were big. One pound each!
Katie's candied pumpkin was sweet and tangy.
Unfortunately, the gluten free, dairy free, egg free sugar cookies didn't quite work out.
We're thinking there must have been an ingredient that she missed.
For us gluten eaters, we had some pan de muerto, a type of sweet bread.
(Not homemade - came with the tamale store kit)
Here was our "little ofrenda that could".
Stress was high those first few days of November.
Election day was the 3rd.
The nation would decide if it wanted another four more years of Trump.
Our family certainly did not.
Because of the increase in mail-in voting as a result of the virus, the counting of ballots lasted until Saturday the 7th with the race finally being called by media outlets for Joe Biden.
And even though it was called, at least half the country didn't believe the results thinking that fraud was afoot. This included our sitting president, who did not concede the race.
It was a very sobering and sad realization that a good percentage of those who cast votes thought that another four years of Trump was a good idea.
These accusations of election fraud would continue for the rest of the month peppered with crazy conspiracy theories as to how it happened.
This, in conjunction with quickly rising COVID cases and deaths, made for a very depressing time.
COVID cases were so elevated that many areas were having to go back into a sort-of lock down status and all were advised to continue with the normal protocols (6ft distancing, wash hands, wear a mask) and not to travel to visit family or hang out with others outside your household for indoor Thanksgiving celebrations.
Back on the local front.....
Quarter 2 classes began at the middle school.
Mikey shifted from art and leadership to physical education and programming.
His PE fitness log required him to mark down at least two 30 minutes sessions of some sort of exercise twice a week and take at least four photos of his activities per month.
This is him on a walk.
Ralph was still tapering his steroid meds.
He was losing weight, still drinking/peeing a bunch and was weak.
He was starting to lose so much weight that you could see his skull bones.
On Friday, November 6th, after being banished to the garage for a week due to COVID concerns (and also because we all forgot about it), the great Halloween candy sort happened.
As you can see, Katie's "Can't Have" pile was WAY bigger than her "Can Have" pile.
The kids had the option to trade in their candy for $$ or to trade it in for a safe substitute.
No matter what they chose, we all ended up eating way too much candy that evening.
Even with all of his troubles, Ralph was still the cutest dog ever.
There's a show on Netflix called "Nailed It" where people try to recreate fancy baked goods and horribly fail at it.
Katie has watched a bunch of them.
The show created this fantastic opportunity for people to try their hands at participating in "Nailed It" from their homes.
You would sign up, they sent you a baking kit with all but the perishable ingredients and gave you a Zoom link to join a broadcast on which can participate with others around the country while you all decorate your masterpieces.
(There was the option to request a gluten free version)
This challenge was to create a spaceship cake.
Looks easy, doesn't it?
The day before the event, Katie got to work baking her cake.
It was a disaster.
Cake just isn't the same without eggs to bind it together no matter what egg substitute you use.
The morning before the event, I remade Katie's cake using eggs and had a MUCH better result.
The sad part was that because we used eggs, Katie wouldn't be able to eat her final creation.
That didn't matter to her.
She just wanted to decorate it.
At least that's what she said. I'm sure it bugged her.
At the designated time, she tuned in for the event.
The event was well run, cute and fun.
Families from all over the U.S. were decorating their cakes all at the same time.
They had an hour to finish.
Um.
Hmmmm.
The structure of the spaceship was not quite ready for prime time.
Good thing it would be covered in fondant.
Ralph was very happy to clean up any crumbs.
He cleaned a six foot wide area around Katie's feet.
With his tongue.
Katie decided that maybe this cake thing was a two person job and asked for another set of hands.
So, I put the camera down and helped her out.
We were able to roll out the fondant super thin and placed it on the cake.
BWA-HAHAHAHAHAHA!
Doing something like this yourself makes you really feel for the people on the show who have to not only decorate their creations in a time limit but bake them as well!
We didn't finish in time.
Katie had to put the rocket booster candies and candles as well as the paint details on after the event.
It looked better from the side. Sort of.
After dinner, we lit it up.
Here's a look at the inside of the cake.
It was actually pretty tasty.
Even with fondant on it.
The fondant was so thin that you really couldn't tell it was there at all.
Another PE fitness log walk.
This time with Ralph.
He needed to work on building back some muscle.
At this point in the month, Ralph began to look like a 12 year old dog.
His skull was very prominent and his back legs had no muscle to them at all.
He was very skinny and his backbone was prominent.
He couldn't lift himself up on his own, but could walk around after a boost up.
Sigh.
When would he start to recover was anyone's guess.
A perfectly balanced fork.
Photo by Katie.
Grandma sent cookies!
Yum.
Mikey and Huzbend worked to polish them off.
I had a few too.
The weekend before Thanksgiving, Mikey had to prep for his colonoscopy that was happening that Monday.
He powered through the two day clean-out being understandable unhappy with what he had to eat and drink. As well as having to go to the bathroom a million times.
Both kiddos were tested for coronavirus that weekend.
Negative for both. The procedures would go ahead.
That Monday, both kiddos spent the majority of the day at Seattle Children's.
Katie had a follow-up endoscopy and Mikey had an endoscopy with an added colonoscopy.
Huzbend and I split up the parenting duties so each kid had an adult with them the whole time.
Here is Mikey pre-procedure.
The wait was long and he was starving having not had any solid food for over 24 hours and nothing, not even water, at all since 5 am or so that day.
Both procedures went smoothly.
Katie was up first. She did well and went home with Huzbend.
Mikey had to wait a bit and his procedure was a bit longer.
He was very loopy when he came back to the recovery room.
Huzbend came back to take us home when Mikey was ready to go.
Because of the anesthesia, the kids got to ride in wheelchairs out the car.
Mikey had the requisite barf bag with him.
Just in case.
On initial exam, both kids looked good.
No major issues were noticed on the visual inspections.
We would have to wait to see what the biopsies showed.
The Wednesday before Turkey Day, I took Ralph back into the vet to have his eye checked out.
It was goopy and seemed infected.
I was right. It was.
He had conjunctivitis and got some meds to help out.
The doctor, upon seeing that he still seemed to be deteriorating, decided to do a blood draw for some labs.
Time to prep the turkey!
This time, Huzbend had an observer.
She requested that the organs be saved for scientific exploration.
Even with all the crap going on in the world, the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade still happened.
It made my heart happy.
Yes, it was different.
There was no parade from Central Park to Herald Square.
The action happened JUST in Herald Square with many segments pre-recorded.
It was still entertaining and a good way to waste three hours on Thanksgiving morning.
"I do say! When shall we be partaking in Thanksgiving dinner?"
This.
I was not prepared for this.
I was emotionally blindsided by this.
Yes. The Radio City Rockettes.
They are always at the parade.
But, this year, they did their toy soldier routine.
I remember this routine from the Christmas Spectacular show that plays at Radio City every year.
As kids, our family would take a bus trip to the city to see this show with my grandparents.
We spent the day wandering the cold city streets, looking at decorations and wandering through the now closed FAO Schwartz.
Then came time for the show in the late afternoon.
The Rockettes did this same routine EVERY TIME WE SAW IT.
After the show, the bus would drop us off at a steak place for dinner.
It brought back a flood of memories.
Happy memories, yes, but still tinged with a bit of sadness that my grandparents are gone.
Sometimes, if you're stressed by other things, the silliest, slightest thing will set you off.
This did. In a big way.
Santa, as usual, wrapped everything up nicely.
Turkey meets bacon and ornery husband.
"Um? Is it time to eat yet? Hello?"
Katie got out her harvested turkey organs and began to dissect them.
She was very curious to learn what was what.
(We had to look it up on the internets)
"I am happiest when I am holding a turkey liver."
Mmmmmm.
Candied yams.
Only Katie and I eat them.
DONE!
After about 5+ hours of cooking, it was time to eat!
Time to eat for Ralph too.
To his great disappointment, there was no turkey for him. Just kibble.
My *first* plate of the evening.
I'm not quite exactly sure what Mikey actually ate by looking at his plate.
I would guess rolls and stuffing?
Katie and I enjoyed our yams.
Mikey ate marshmallows off the top.
The aftermath.
Lots of dishes to do.
Dessert time!
Mikey picked coconut cream pie as our main.
We also had everything-free apple crumble pie AND everything free chocolate cheeZecake.
(It's cheeZe, because it was dairy free).
We got a call from the vet hospital that Friday.
Ralph's blood work had come back.
He was having major issues with his liver and was anemic.
They were concerned that there might be something else going on.
We scheduled him to have an ultrasound in December to evaluate.
That weekend, we got out of the house for the first time in a while.
Of course, we went frisbee golfing.
Katie chose to wrangle Ralph instead of throwing frisbees.
Mikey did well although his stomach hurt a lot from the twisting and turning.
He did so well, in fact, that I think he might've beaten me!
It was good to get out of the house as a family. It had been a while. Ralph did okay walking around. He only stumbled once or twice. He had a great time sniffing all the new smells.
