Potions Waiting To Be Concocted

The entire night during my last Day of the Dead party, I could smell burning hair, my own. I'd gotten too close to a Holy Death candle while waiting for people to show up and had to put myself out. A friend of mine and I decided to put this shindig on and everyone was late, think Martha Plimpton in 200 Cigarettes, and we decided that if nobody did show up, we'd have a lot of Doritos and guacamole on our hands, not to mention all the food for the dead people I'd made (the only time I cook -- flan for my mother, pistachio pudding for Hank, and circus peanuts for daddy), and many potions waiting to be concocted. By the time I started to think that maybe buying the tarantula pinata had been an unnecessary, frivolous expense, people began to flood in, more than I had expected and they all wanted their tarot cards read. Because I had on a dress that was more costume than outfit, people thought I could tell them their futures.

I don't have any gifts as a psychic or even a hostess, except that I can make a good drink, and I'm kind of an optimist at even the worst of times, maybe only the worst of times. With my burnt hair and dress designed like snakeskin, I laid out the cards many a time, gave the happiest reads I could, given whatever had been dealt. John Lee Hooker played on the stereo -- It serves you right to suffer, serves you right to be alone . . . The night wore on, the night to honor the dead. Their candles burned. Nobody touched their food. Nothing got disturbed or broken, not even the tarantula pinata waiting to spill its contents to someone willing to hit it hard enough, in just the right way.

Michelle's Spell of the Day
“When you are already in Detroit, you don't have to take a bus to get there.” Ram Dass

Cocktail Hour
Drinking short story collection suggestion: Sam the Cat Matthew Klam

Benedictions and Maledictions
Happy Friday!