So I’ve done what is probably the most consequential Hallowalimuertos activity–I went and cast my vote for the 2024 elections! I dressed up in my sparkly sequined outfit, and the reflections of the sunshine danced across my dashboard as I drove to the polls. I turned on my timer when I parked in the parking lot, and it took me exactly 15 minutes and 19 seconds to park, walk to the polling place, check in, vote, submit my ballot, thank all the poll workers for their service, and return to my car.

There has been a record number of early voters in North Carolina this year, so if you are worried about having to wait in a long line to vote….well, I would say you probably won’t have that issue, at least in a well-funded and well-organized town like Cary. There is still a lot of damage from the hurricane in the mountains, but they are allowing voters from those areas to vote in any polling place, not just in their regular precinct. And if you have health or mobility issues, they have curbside voting so that you can vote in your car.

So whatever excuses you have for not voting, think it over again. This is most direct participatory experience of our democracy, and you won’t have the chance to do it again for another four years.

Now that I have that handled, I’m having difficulty focusing on work. I’m feeling good about things, but I have a hard time concentrating on on what I SHOULD be doing because I’m wondering about the election, even though it is way too soon to get any election results. I keep reading things but realize things aren’t really sinking in because my mind is preoccupied with the election at some lower level. One of my favorite websites is running a discussion board about what we feel good about, and I keep adding my comments and reading and liking other people’s comments and seeing who has liked my comments…

One person said it was her late grandmother’s birthday this weekend and that she really felt like she connected with her grandmother’s spirit. It made me think about my own late mother and how excited she would have been about Kamala Harris’s candidacy, especially because she also came from California. That gave me an idea.

One of the posts I meant to do, but never had time for, were some of my favorite videos from different people related to the campaigns. One of my absolute favorites was this video by Democratic Vice President candidate Tim Walz’s wife, Gwen Walz. Apparently one of her favorite things to do is to bake cookies, especially her great-grandmother’s ginger snaps. I LOVE that Gwen Walz just sticks a hand mixer in her suitcase when she travels, since you never know when you may be faced with a baking emergency!

While my mother was a good cook, she didn’t have much of a sweet tooth, and so she didn’t do a lot of baking. But the one cookie I remember her making was Molasses Crinkles, which look pretty similar to Gwen Walz’s ginger snaps. So I thought that tonight I would make our family’s traditional molasses cookies in honor of my late parents.

For the full nostagia experience, I pulled out my old 1965 edition of Betty Crocker’s NEW Boys and Girls Cookbook, which was my main source of recipes when I was in middle and high school.
(PS–isn’t that ’60’s sexism at work? Of course BOYS had to come before GIRLS in the cookbook title and it is the BOY that is the center of attention, even though we all know it was actually the GIRLS who did most of the cooking from the book. Those were the days when the GIRLS all took Home Ec while the BOYS all did Shop. I don’t miss those days…)

I’m sure my mother got this for me, and it’s one of the few things I still have from my childhood. So it seems like a good way to spend time this evening besides obsessing over the news and madly texting my friends over the various ups and downs of the reports. I’m sorry my parents didn’t get to live to see a female person of color as the Democratic candidate for President, but know they would love knowing that is the case. I have some pictures of them on the altar, so maybe I’ll put some of our fresh-baked long-time family favorite cookies by them tonight, our last altar night, and see if they get the message that way.

It seems like kind of a nice way to close out Hallowalimuertos, doesn’t it?