Dia de los Muertos party!
I took the Thursday and Friday after Halloween off, to try to recover from the stupid virus that had been plaguing me for nearly two weeks. I felt a little better after sleeping 12 hours Wednesday night, but I still had a gnarly cough and a headful of evil. But we had a par-tay to get ready for, dammit!
The whole event had issues from the beginning. I found out at the 11th hour that Evite hadn't delivered to a few folks we'd invited, or got eaten by spam filters or something. That was a bummer. And some of our bestest buds were already committed to another party. And then there were the sugar skulls. I'd planned to experiment with sugar skull recipes all week, but, y'know, I was sick, so it just didn't happen. Every recipe I read informed me that you probably shouldn't try to make sugar skulls if there's any humidity in the air. Uh...there's ALWAYS humidity in the air here, it's freakin' Seattle! The skulls just wouldn't dry on their own, so I popped them into a warm oven (below 200 degrees) for awhile. This should have worked in theory, but I hadn't been able to find meringue powder, so I went with an older version of the recipe that used egg whites. The warm oven made the egg whites bubble out the backs of the skulls like mercury from a mad hatter's fingers. It was kinda gross. I scooped out the backs of the skulls, and let them finish drying. It seemed to work, but then the skulls didn't want to come out of the molds. I guess I got about 2/3 of them to pop loose in some kind of shape. Some crumbled, some cracked, and some were just plain mutated. OH WELL, in the end I had enough sugar skulls for the kids to decorate, that's all I wanted.
I"m thinking mebbe there's some kind of ancient Aztec curse on white trash chicks trying to make sugar skulls.
The party kicked off around 5. Some of our favorite people in the world were there. Soon there were happy kids everywhere, grownups chatting away, Angel of Death cheese on the table, and lots and lots of alcohol. I had the fixin's for margaritas, and a bottle of Redrum. My girl Holly brought some honest-go-gawd mead! DANG it was yummy.
Everybody had a blast. We had a pinata, of course, that had started out life as a rather fugly pirate skull, but I turned it into a Day of the Dead skull. It was byooteeful. Yes, I am the Martha Stewart of Death.
Things broke up about 12:30. (Our parties used to rage on until 3 or 4 in the morning back in the day, but hey, we're old now.) I admit it, I got a WEEEEEEE bit drunk. Okay I got totally goofy by the end of the evening. It was just such a relief to have the party preparations done, to see everybody having a blast, and to know I could sleep in on Sunday and I really didn't have to do ANYTHING but clean up the party mess the next day.
YAY I don't have any major events coming up until Thanksgiving! And I can breathe through my nose! I'm still coughing a little, but at least I don't sound like a plague victim anymore. Maybe all that tequila whacked the viruses dead.
Horrorfest is coming up next weekend, but that's not exactly high-stress. I get to just sit on my ass and watch horror movies. WooHoo!
Work is going to be a little busy this month, but nothing completely crazy (I hope). My goal for November is to get my health back and keep it that way, for a while at least.
Flu shot day at work tomorrow. Um, yay?
I am bummed that Halloween is over. However, since I am surrounded by a ten-foot bubble of Halloween at all times, it never really leaves me.
The whole event had issues from the beginning. I found out at the 11th hour that Evite hadn't delivered to a few folks we'd invited, or got eaten by spam filters or something. That was a bummer. And some of our bestest buds were already committed to another party. And then there were the sugar skulls. I'd planned to experiment with sugar skull recipes all week, but, y'know, I was sick, so it just didn't happen. Every recipe I read informed me that you probably shouldn't try to make sugar skulls if there's any humidity in the air. Uh...there's ALWAYS humidity in the air here, it's freakin' Seattle! The skulls just wouldn't dry on their own, so I popped them into a warm oven (below 200 degrees) for awhile. This should have worked in theory, but I hadn't been able to find meringue powder, so I went with an older version of the recipe that used egg whites. The warm oven made the egg whites bubble out the backs of the skulls like mercury from a mad hatter's fingers. It was kinda gross. I scooped out the backs of the skulls, and let them finish drying. It seemed to work, but then the skulls didn't want to come out of the molds. I guess I got about 2/3 of them to pop loose in some kind of shape. Some crumbled, some cracked, and some were just plain mutated. OH WELL, in the end I had enough sugar skulls for the kids to decorate, that's all I wanted.
I"m thinking mebbe there's some kind of ancient Aztec curse on white trash chicks trying to make sugar skulls.
The party kicked off around 5. Some of our favorite people in the world were there. Soon there were happy kids everywhere, grownups chatting away, Angel of Death cheese on the table, and lots and lots of alcohol. I had the fixin's for margaritas, and a bottle of Redrum. My girl Holly brought some honest-go-gawd mead! DANG it was yummy.
Everybody had a blast. We had a pinata, of course, that had started out life as a rather fugly pirate skull, but I turned it into a Day of the Dead skull. It was byooteeful. Yes, I am the Martha Stewart of Death.
Things broke up about 12:30. (Our parties used to rage on until 3 or 4 in the morning back in the day, but hey, we're old now.) I admit it, I got a WEEEEEEE bit drunk. Okay I got totally goofy by the end of the evening. It was just such a relief to have the party preparations done, to see everybody having a blast, and to know I could sleep in on Sunday and I really didn't have to do ANYTHING but clean up the party mess the next day.
YAY I don't have any major events coming up until Thanksgiving! And I can breathe through my nose! I'm still coughing a little, but at least I don't sound like a plague victim anymore. Maybe all that tequila whacked the viruses dead.
Horrorfest is coming up next weekend, but that's not exactly high-stress. I get to just sit on my ass and watch horror movies. WooHoo!
Work is going to be a little busy this month, but nothing completely crazy (I hope). My goal for November is to get my health back and keep it that way, for a while at least.
Flu shot day at work tomorrow. Um, yay?
I am bummed that Halloween is over. However, since I am surrounded by a ten-foot bubble of Halloween at all times, it never really leaves me.