It’s been a while

View from Mt. St. Benedict, Trinidad

My oh my, it has been a while since I last posted, hasn’t it?

The summer quite got away from me. Well, not that I was in a daze or anything, but the kids had violin camp, and then soccer camp, and I was working on one freelance project, in-between which I took the kids to Trinidad, hung out for a week with family, came back to New Jersey, did a bunch of necessary repairs (mostly painting) on the house, finished up another freelance project, spent some alone time with my husband, started another freelance project, returned to Trinidad to pick up the kids, and flew through (around? over?) hurricane Earl to get back home.

Now we’re back and it feels like the summer lasted half a year.

BUT!

Now that I’m back on the blog and it’s SEPTEMBER and all, I feel a little like I’m getting back to normal. So, I just wanted to tell you all that. And say that after Labor Day, I’ll be back to my regularly scheduled programming, with a few tweaks. It is fall after all, time for new stuff, right?

All Hallow’s Eve

Growing up in Trinidad we didn’t celebrate halloween. We did celebrate All Saint’s Day (Nov. 1) and All Souls Day (Nov. 2). One was for Catholics and one was for Anglicans, but since my family is made up of both, I never remember which one goes with which religion. The belief is that the dearly departed come back for a brief visit on this night.

For the living, it’s an opportunity to remember those who have passed on, and families go to cemeteries to clean up grave sites and put down flowers and light candles and such. It was a ton of fun for me and my cousins because we’d run from grave to grave collecting the drippings off the candles to make wax balls, and whoever had the biggest ball at the end, won.

I was damn good at that game, and didn’t mind getting burned by super hot wax to get maximum drippings for my ball.

At the end of the night, after the grownups had chatted and drank their rum, and poured some over the graves, and cleaned up the sites and put down their flowers, and the kids had giant wax balls the size of grown men’s fists, we’d all head back home. Dirty wax balls, memories of loved ones past, tipsy (or drunk) grownups and exhausted kids all piled in the car having had an odd and somewhat mystical reunion with generations of family, present, and ghostly.

To my relatives and friends past: enjoy your night out.

I miss you all.