#swearing on pepita worked

[yakumtsaki]

voting's closed, thank u all for voting! heir to be announced in a bit once i do the photoshoot huhu

[dinnerwithrefi]

11.1 - First Guest In A While

Dinner: bowl of protein-enriched strawberry yogurt w/banana slices and pepitas

It's weird having dinner with somebody across the table with me again for a change. Yet, against all odds, there we were, working our way through what I can only describe as a paltry attempt at breakfast at midnight, like when I went out to Denny's with the entire cast after my old high school productions. Only, well, the quality of the food was somehow worse than Denny's, given that the yogurt expired in two days and the bananas had to be cut with a surgeon's precision to make suitably edible. I would've gotten groceries, but I didn't exactly expect you to show up this morning and this was one of the only things I could scrounge from the food bank yesterday.

It was weird, you know, running into somebody to take up the extra room in my apartment while I'm hunting for legal employment. Even weirder when you consider how similar we ended up being upon first meeting at that hybrid coffee shop and brewery downtown. A bit of a music geek with an interest in the unknown and a penchant for not taking his meds? And you're not judging me for adding a little flask splash to my red eye? If only you were more into theology than the occult, I swear we'd be kin. Then again, it would be a bit hard to mistake you for me. You're way darker than me, after all, and I don't quite have the confidence to pull off short sleeves like that yet, nor the lack of taste to maintain any hair length beyond my fingertips. Thankfully, though, we got on well enough, and with you needing a place to stay while gearing up for the spring semester, it was a blessed comfort to know someone would be able to cover half the rent with a seasonal job while I maintained mine with writing odd jobs.

Still, I hadn't exactly expected you to show up with all your shit yesterday morning. You said you could move in pretty quickly, but I expected at least a few buffer days. Guess I should've expected someone like you coming with just the living essentials in your situation, but foresight's never really been my forte, even after twenty-eight years on this planet. Even with having to climb three flights of stairs, I was happy to have knocked it all out in an hour. What I couldn't be happy with, though, was the absolutely barren state of my kitchen. I'm still embarrassed at having to serve you that, but dinner went well enough.

Conversation went smoothly enough between us, I'd say. It was weird seeing somebody still wrestling with the new Halsey project a week after it came out, but I suppose I can understand it. It was an incredibly difficult listen, after all, listening to a person essentially pen an album that very well could be their last project before death and have it be received the way it has. Pouring out your pain from the experiences of death, internal and external, the tumults of an abusive relationship, the struggle of focusing on becoming the best version of yourself that you can in such an uncertain amount of time in the hopes of leaving a good footprint in the infinite sands of time, however shallow it might be - Pitchfork and Fantano can blow it out their asses by coming at this project with the angle that it's from a place of self-centeredness or personal indulgence.

That doesn't automatically make it a good album, though. A lot of the recordings are a bit scuffed around the edges, which can lend itself to some charm, but a swan song doesn't necessarily have to sound like it's lying in an angled bed, hard of breath with glassy eyes lolled to sterile walls around them. That might just be myself talking there, though, given that the promotion for this album was so promising and, despite seeming pointless to others, caught my eye with what influences might be given homage with this record. Bowie, Britney, Bjork - a lot of wildly different hats for this "Great Impersonator" to wear, but that level of moxie felt justified after Halsey's previous albums covering so many different genres, from Tumblr pop to disco to piano ballads to industrial adjacent sounds, all covered within a decade's worth of fame and what it's sowed and reaped in the same amount of time the two of us have been alive. It's absolutely crazy to think about. Still, perhaps my hopes were just too high for what we got, even if it wasn't anything lower than, like, a five out of ten to me.

Yet that's not what you were hung up on. "Honestly," you said to me between spoonfuls, unknowingly spitting a small piece of strawberry onto the placemat, "I just hate how much of myself I hear in it." I wanted to say something more, but I felt like you wouldn't elaborate further if I had asked you to. You'd probably say that I wouldn't possibly get it.

Maybe I wouldn't. After all, I totally wasn't struggling with it either at this point, especially after revisiting it since our conversation yesterday. I couldn't possibly interpret the title as Halsey not talking solely about themself. I certainly didn't look into the story behind the album and how they were diagnosed with lupus, one of the greatest imitators in modern medicine. I can only see this "Great Impersonator" as purely human, purely entertainment, a mask changer whose chameleonic wiles are so honed at this point in their life that, perhaps, they don't know who they are right now, but they want to make one last good damn effort at being the best version of themself before they end up in an early grave. I don't see the disease it might actually be, hidden just out of view, a rabid animal prowling in the grass waiting to infect those who dare to get close enough, whether good or ill intent, making me feel so on edge because even the hand that heals could be the hand that harms again, and that's not the kind of person I want to be, but it's just how I've ended up from all the wolves biting me. I couldn't possibly get it. I've only known you for one day, Refi, and that's certainly not enough time for me to make assumptions like that.

Somehow I hope that I conveyed all that with the disinterested sounding hum of agreement I gave before we turned to what to get while grocery shopping together tomorrow.

I hope we can have dinner like this again tomorrow.

[bcdrawsandwrites]

Neither Can You Rating: T Genre: Hurt/Comfort, Angst, Family Characters: Héctor, Ernesto, Imelda, Coco, Julio, Pepita, Dante, Miguel, Óscar, Felipe, Victoria, Rosita… possibly others. Warnings: Violence, broken bones Description: “Do you care about your familia… more than your music?” Héctor didn’t have to think twice to answer yes. But the grin on Ernesto’s face sent a chill down his spine as the man continued, “Are you willing to put that to the test?” View all chapters here! FFN Link | AO3 Link | dA Link

Chapter 17: Instinct Summary: In which Victoria unintentionally helps someone.

Pepita felt a crackling through her fur and feathers, irritating them even as she flew through the air. This was not new. She’d been feeling it all morning, knowing that something was going to go wrong. She had slept little, keeping watch over the house all night long, making sure no one dared approach it. While her instincts were sharp, they were not always specific, and she was not entirely sure what to watch out for, especially since she did not have the scents of the bad man’s pack fresh in her memory.

But even though the general anxiety was not new, the feeling she had was—something was wrong. She did not know what, exactly, but it had something to do with Imelda’s litter, and she was not going to let it slide. Tipping her wings, Pepita turned down toward a different tower from the one her territory was in.

“Pepita!” Imelda cried over the wind, her heels digging into Pepita’s sides. “We’re heading home! We can search for Dante later.”

You will not find him here, gatita, Pepita thought with a quick glance over her shoulder, but turned her wings back toward the house, fighting to ignore the crackle of anxiety. It was true that Imelda’s mate needed to rest in the relative safety of their territory, and perhaps by checking there first, she could more easily pinpoint what was amiss.

She would have to hurry, though. Something was wrong, and she did not want to wait for that something to come to her.

In spite of how incredibly vast the Land of the Dead was, news traveled exceptionally fast.

Unfortunately, “fast” did not always mean “accurate.”

“Sí, señora, I heard it was as big as a horse!” one vendor said over the sizzling of the food he was cooking.

“It broke down the door and took down four men! Who let that thing run loose?” muttered a wood carver as she chipped away at a hand-carved alebrije figure in the shape of a bat.

“So my friend said that—this is true, she works in the apartment!—that the alebrije could change in size, and that’s how it got in,” one merchant said as he cleaned his shop window. “I swear! She’s not a liar.”

Victoria lifted up her glasses to pinch the bridge of her nose, shutting her eyes against the headache forming at the front of her skull. This wasn’t going exactly how she’d expected it to, as she’d headed into the marketplace to hunt down more information on the supposed alebrije attack. She’d already had one false lead so far, and that was enough of a pain having to find the apartment and ask around there, only to find it was the wrong place. And this account, in spite of the inaccuracy, was the best lead she had so far, unfortunately. “Sí, that’s quite interesting. Which apartment is that, anyway?” she asked, looking back at the vendor again.

“Oh, it’s ah, out in the tower west—no, southwest?—of this one, it’s uh...” The vendor moved to scratch his head, only to wind up scrubbing his washcloth over his wig and getting soap in his hair. With a frustrated grunt, he tossed the cloth back into its bucket and leaned into the shop. “¡Abuelita! Where’s the apartment Martha works in, again?”

The woman inside the shop shouted the address back at her grandson, who turned around and repeated it back to Victoria. In turn, Victoria pulled a notepad and pen out of her apron (usually reserved for quickly jotting down orders) and wrote the address down, hoping that perhaps this would be the right one this time.

“If you see Martha there, tell her I said hola!”

“Of course.”

One relatively short gondola ride and a quick trolley stop later, Victoria arrived at the apartment matching the address she’d been given. It wasn’t a particularly impressive-looking one (it was tall, but then, so was any given building in the Land of the Dead), but maybe...

Adjusting her glasses, Victoria decided to walk around the perimeter of the building first, gazing up at the windows. There was nothing she could see at the front of the building, nor around the side (though it was harder to look in the alley). But when she reached the back, she paused, noting that one of the higher up windows near the top was not properly reflecting the sky, as though it were broken.

Feeling a thrill in her chest, Victoria hurried back to the front of the building. This had to be it—she was finally getting somewhere. She couldn’t make herself too obvious, though, and stepped into the lobby, trying to read the atmosphere. To her surprise, there didn’t appear to be any police around (either they’d finished their investigation already, or they hadn’t investigated at all), but there was an intense conversation at the front desk.

“...and when I first moved here, I was told no alebrijes.” The skeleton, an older man with a stooped back, roughly tapped his finger against the counter twice for emphasis. “That was the rule! No alebrijes! That’s why I moved here! And you’re telling me some dumb perro got in here and wreaked havoc?!”

The young man at the desk, who must have been about nineteen when he died, looked understandably terrified. “I-I’m sorry, señor, this isn’t something that normally happens—”

“Normally?!”

“I-I mean, it almost never happens! We really don’t allow alebrijes here, and we’re not sure how the one got in—”

“Well you’d better find out! I am allergic, do you understand? You put me on the top floor of this stupid place to keep me as far away from those things as possible, and I find out there’s some—some animal breaking into here, just two floors below me, and—?!”

Ah, good, this was working out well. With the man at the desk distracted, Victoria hurried out of the lobby and down the hall to the stairwell. She wasn’t keen on potentially getting stuck in an elevator—they hadn’t exactly reached a point of being reliable in the Land of the Dead—and taking the stairs would give her time to think.

This might not be the safest idea, part of her realized, but she buried that fear as quickly as she could. She didn’t know just whom Dante had attacked (if anyone at all)—it could have been a harmless bystander, or it could have been Ernesto de la Cruz himself, for all she knew. If it was the latter, or anyone associated with him, she could possibly be putting herself in danger... especially given what that man had done to Héctor.

She felt a sick twist where her gut used to be, but shook it off. She was not Héctor—she was a remembered skeleton, not nearly-forgotten as he had been, and she bore no injuries to her bones. On Dia de Muertos she’d handled herself perfectly fine against Ernesto’s lackeys, who hadn’t been expecting her to be as strong as she was.

And she could be strong when she needed to be. She’d defended her little sister against bullies more than a few times when she was alive, until Elena was old enough to fight for herself. It didn’t take long for even the men of Santa Cecilia to realize it wasn’t wise to cross her. She’d defended herself then, and she could do it again now, if need be.

Victoria would always fight if she had to protect her family.

And, stupid as the alebrije was, Dante was technically family. What hurt him hurt the rest of them too, especially Miguel. And if her Papá was right, and this did have to do with Héctor, well... She was going to make sure this was where it stopped. Héctor had gone thr—

She shook herself. The trouble Héctor had gotten into was hard enough on everyone, and she wasn’t keen on seeing things get worse. Not to mention, whomever Dante attacked (if that was indeed what happened) couldn’t be guiltless.

It’s about the family, not about him.

Mija, you’re allowed to be worried for Papá Héctor.

I don’t care about him.

With a start, Victoria realized she’d run out of stairs to mount, being faced with a door to the roof. Huffing out a sigh, she turned around, counting two floors down from the top, and opened the door to the hallways. With no small amount of frustration she realized she hadn’t noted where the broken window was, exactly, other than that it was near the top of the building, so she had no idea which suite it was in. This was getting to be a ridiculous endeavor, but she’d come too far to back out now.

No one was in the halls at the moment, so she stood by each door, listening intently. In one room she heard a television; in another, obnoxious music; in yet another, a loud argument. Hearing another door open elsewhere, she casually leaned against the wall, pulling a pocket watch out of her apron as though checking the time. A skeleton glanced at her as he passed, but otherwise left her alone. As soon as he turned a corner, Victoria put the watch away and resumed her mission.

Just as things seemed hopeless, she heard a sound that made her stiffen: harsh wind whistling through an open window.

Or, perhaps, a broken one.

If it was the wrong door, she’d simply ask the occupant which one was the correct one. Swallowing back any nervousness, she raised her hand, and knocked.

There was no immediate response, but as Victoria waited, she eventually heard footsteps heading toward the door, followed by metallic jingling and clicking. The door pulled open slightly, prevented from opening any further by a chain lock, and an unfamiliar skeleton peered out at her. He was about her height, but bulkier, wearing a short brown wig and a dull jacket. “Can I help you?” he asked, sounding distinctly annoyed.

“Sí,” she answered, trying to subtly peer past the skeleton, but his wide frame blocked any view of the room beyond. However, the sound of wind whistling behind him was more apparent now. “I’m here to ask you some questions about the alebrije attack, if that’s all right.”

The man looked her up and down before shutting the door. With a few more metallic clicks, it was opened.

“Glad someone’s checking in on this,” the man grumbled as he stepped back, allowing her to enter. “The police have been useless. Haven’t caught the perro.”

Victoria stepped in, but stayed just inside the doorway. It would be unwise to walk all the way in, in case things went south.

The apartment was, to put it simply, a mess. Paper and garbage littered the carpet, their source being an upturned trashcan in the corner. The couch, which bore a number of slash marks on it, had been tipped backward, one door was covered in scratches, and over in the adjoining kitchen, dog kibble was scattered across the floor. And of course, as she’d guessed earlier, the window had been smashed open, and there were rolls of duct tape and dense pieces of cardboard sitting nearby. There were also a couple other doors, probably to the bedroom and bathroom.

“You’re the domestic worker, right?” the man said, heading toward the window and gesturing at the supplies sitting by it. “I don’t want my window covered in cardboard forever, here.”

“Sí,” Victoria lied with a calm nod. “I need a bit more information, though, first, so we can make sure this doesn’t happen again.”

“Well, come on, then,” he said, beckoning her inside.

Tensing, Victoria weighed her options before stepping further into the apartment and shutting the door behind her. If she kept close to it and he didn’t lock it, she should be all right. “It’s certainly a lot of damage,” she said, eying the slash marks in the couch. “Especially for a mid-sized dog.”

He frowned, clenching his fists. “Sí. I was attacked,” the man said stiffly. “The dog barged into the room and assaulted me.”

“How did he get in?” she asked, trying to see if she could determine any other details. One thing she noticed was that, aside from some scattered objects, the apartment seemed... rather empty, as though someone had been in a hurry to leave. Yet the resident was still here, wasn’t he?

“Heard something at the door, thought it was an amigo of mine. I wasn’t exactly expecting a rabid alebrije to burst in.” He was looking at the couch now, and he stooped by the far side of it, grasping it to push it upright.

“Rabid,” Victoria repeated.

“Well, why else would it attack?” the man grunted as he strained to lift the couch. “Are you going to help or not?”

Frowning, Victoria took a quick glance back at the door before stepping up to the other side of the couch, aiding the man in lifting it.

With a bit of effort they managed to set it back upright, and the man rolled his shoulders. Then his brow furrowed, and he stooped down again, looking at something on the other side of the couch that Victoria couldn’t see. “You know, that’s funny,” he murmured.

Curious, Victoria stepped around the couch to see what he was staring at. “What is it?”

“Oh,” he began, and heaved a sigh. “Just that we never told anyone how big the perro was, or what its gender was.”

Ice shot through Victoria’s marrow as he looked up at her, cocking a brow bone.

“And the thing is... the domestic worker left just before you came in, Señora Rivera.”

The man shot to his feet and moved to grab her, but Victoria was faster, whipping a pair of scissors out of her pocket and jabbing them roughly between the man’s carpals. She turned around only to balk at the sight of two other men, one of which had just latched the door. Both of them wore familiar-looking suits and sunglasses, and she grit her teeth at the realization.

“It was you!” she snarled, glaring at them as she fought to keep her terror from showing. Internally she cursed herself for falling into such an obvious trap, but it wasn’t supposed to go this badly. Her eyes flicked from the door to the men as she briefly considered whether or not she could get the chain lock unlatched quickly enough. Hearing a dull thud behind her—the scissors hitting the carpet—she bolted forward, charging directly at one of the guards.

The man reached to grab her, only to cry out as she stamped her heel into the top of his foot. As he staggered back, Victoria reached for the lock, grasping the chain and frantically tugging it. But the simple action was harder than she’d expected with the panic and adrenaline surging through her, but she just had to—

The world spun, everything becoming dizzy and blurry. She blinked once, then again, before realizing that she’d lost her glasses. Her instinct was to hunt for them, but she fought against it, moving to give the chain another tug.

Strong hands seized her arms, and Victoria automatically reached back with her foot to stomp on her attacker’s shoes. This one kept them well out of reach, however, as he yanked her back away from the door. The other two men were immediately at either side of her, and horror nearly choked her as she realized she had no way to get herself out of this. Unless—

Her body stiffened before she willed it to fall apart, her bones coming loose from the startled man’s grasp. She wasn’t used to this at all—her tios were always the ones who practiced taking themselves apart—but she willed herself back together as quickly as she could.

It wasn’t nearly as quickly as she would have liked. As she felt herself reconnecting, there were already hands on her legs, her arms, her back. By the time she thought to scream, she felt one of the hands move to her throat, while two others swiftly tied a gag around her mouth.

“Gracias, Señora Rivera,” the first man snarled just behind her.

Before she could turn to face him, a thick bag was shoved roughly over her head.

“You’ve made our job a lot easier.”

Dante awoke with a frantic howl.

[BAD!] he yelped, scrambling to his feet. [BAD—ow, ow, ow!] He lifted his foreleg, licking at the cuts that still marred it, and then sniffed around frantically. He was in a small space between a couple buildings, and he did not have wings. No, no, that was bad! He was on the wrong side! Bad things were going on on the other side! He didn’t know what, but they were very, very bad, and he needed to do something right now.

Fighting to ignore the pain in his body, he barrelled out of the alley and down the street. [PEPITA-GATAAAA!] he howled, though he had no idea where she was. [¡AYUDA! Bad things! The tall bone man! The tall bone lady! ¡Nuestra familia! BAD! IN TROUBLE!]

Many humans were staring at him as he scrambled out of the streets and into the graveyard, but he ignored them all, focusing on the edge of the wall that was fading to reveal a vast expanse of water, and a distant city with enormous towers.

[PEPITA-GATAAAA!]

[pengychan]

[Coco] Alebrijes

Title: Alebrijes Summary: Some people have an alebrije, some have more than one, and some get none. Much like life, death is not fair. [Oneshot] Characters: Ernesto de la Cruz, Imelda Rivera, Héctor Rivera, Miguel Rivera, Dante, Pepita, Chihuahualebrijes. Rating: G Status: Complete

A/N: This started out as an excuse to make Ernesto cry over dead dogs and somehow developed into this. I might have mentioned before that I have just about no control over my own writing.

***

Pepita had first showed up only a few weeks after Héctor had left.

Back then, Imelda hadn’t been worried. She wasn’t glad to see her husband go, of course, but she knew it was something he and Ernesto had wanted to do since they were children - and that, if successful, would benefit their little family a great deal.

“Only a few months at most,” he’d said, holding her hands. In the next room over, she could hear Coco giggling ceaselessly as her brothers played their old-and-tried trick of pretending to be each other. All was right in the world, and she’d believed him. Why wouldn’t she?

“Don’t let Ernesto get you in too much trouble,” she’d said in the end. Héctor had laughed, kissed her, promised her that they’d stay out of serious trouble, that he’d write every day.

The letters had come; not every day - it had to be hard to write and post out letters that often while constantly on the move, something that made it impossible for her to write back - but at least two or three times a week, both for her and Coco.

She was reading one of those letters, and blushing just slightly because Héctor was being very clear in how and how much she missed her at night - “Maybe it’s for the best that Ernesto snores away all night: if I could sleep well I would dream of you, and God knows what conditions I’d wake up in” - when a meowing sound had startled her.

Imelda had looked up to see a gray and white alley cat sitting at the window, looking at her with calm yellow eyes. She had seen her around before, wandering - the terror of mice, chickens, other cats, and even dogs. She remembered watching her chased that annoying mutt old Rafael kept across the plaza one day, and laughing heartily at the scene.

As far as she knew, the cat was entirely feral and never approached anyone before, and now there she was: sitting at her window, halfway in, a front paw raised in an awkward position. Imelda raised an eyebrow, and the cat meowed again, holding the paw a little higher - a white paw stained with dried blood, and something was lodged in-between the pads; a thorn, most likely, or a piece of iron.

Imelda could recognize a dignified request for help when she saw one, coming from a creature who disliked owing anything to anybody. She could relate to that.

“... I will see what I can do. Scratch me, and you’re on your own. Are we clear?”

They were, obviously, because Pepita - Imelda wouldn’t remember, later, when she’d come up with the name after a quick glance confirmed it was a female - didn’t so much hiss at her when she went to look at her paw, and barely flinched when the thorn was pulled out. She licked her paw briefly, and then nuzzled against her arm, purring loudly, before jumping out of the window and out of sight before Imelda could even stroke her head.

That could have been it, a funny story to tell on how the Terror Cat of Santa Cecilia had turned into a kitten for her, but the next day Pepita was lazing by the well in her yard, a dead mouse in her mouth. Not a pleasant sight, but dead mice were better than living ones; if Pepita was going to earn her keep by getting rid of them and the diseases they carried, then Imelda might consider leaving out some meat scraps for her from time to time. Maybe once or twice a week. Or maybe every day.

In the end, it is every day.

“Gata! Gata!”

Coco laughs, trotting after Pepita in the yard, and the cat lets her approach almost enough to touch her before darting off again, causing her to giggle and start running again. It makes her brothers pale, but Imelda is unbothered; she knows she won’t harm Coco, with complete and uncertain certainty, like she knows that Héctor will be back soon.

Any day now. Any day.

But another letter comes, then another, telling her that Ernesto decided to extend the tour, only a few more weeks.

Another week.

Two more weeks. Maybe three, but no more.

Soon, mi amor, I’ll be back soon.

Soon is too nebulous. Soon isn’t soon enough. Imelda grows angry, money runs thin, and she begins thinking of a way to provide for Coco until Héctor comes back. He will be back, and she will rage at him; he’ll be sorry he ever left and perhaps things between them will never be the same again.

Perhaps this is the end of their life as husband and wife; perhaps they will live in that house as strangers, but he will return, and be a father to Coco. She still cannot contemplate a scenario in which he does not. She cannot imagine her little girl growing up without him.

Any day now, she tells herself, as she stays up at night to learn how to make shoes, growing more and more frustrated with every failed attempt. Any day, she thinks as she keeps letting her child share her bed, telling her over and over that her papá will be home soon, reading to her all of the letters he keeps writing to her, loving words that cannot fill the gap.

Until a day comes when the letters stop coming.

Until a day comes when she knows Héctor is not, after all, coming back.

No post has come for weeks, Coco asks again where papá’s letter is - she no longer asks where he is, she asks for his letters, good God, mere months are years to a child, what were they thinking, why did she let him go? - and Imelda snaps, tears up their family picture, sends Coco off to her room in a flood of tears, and locks herself in her own.

She will regret that outburst for a very, very long time. But she’s only human, not yet twenty-three, with a fledgling business she can barely make work and a child to raise and her husband is never coming home.

She will never know how Pepita gained access to her bedroom, but suddenly she’s on the bed with her, the feral cat who’d sit at the window and refuse to get one step further into the house even when bribed with the juiciest of scraps. She rests down next to her, purring, nuzzling her chin, and Imelda’s silent tears turn into sobs that tear all air out of her lungs.

Pepita doesn’t scratch, doesn’t lash out, hardly even moves when grabbed. She stays still, lets Imelda weep in her fur and then, suddenly, she begins grooming her hair with a tongue like sandpaper. It makes Imelda laugh through the tears, and she pulls back.

“I can’t help but feel I’ve been adopted,” she says, her voice a bit hoarse, and reaches to scratch the cat’s head. She leans into her hand, purring up a storm. Imelda smiles again.

What is she even doing? Crying isn’t going to solve a thing. Coco gets to cry, yes - she is a child and her papá is never come back, all of his loving words weren’t worth the paper they were written on - but what excuse does she have?  Her daughter relies on her. Her brothers look up to her, and she cannot let them down to feel sorry for herself. And over what? Over some músico who decided his music, and playing it for the world, was more important than either of them - more important than watching his own flesh and blood grow up?

No. No, that will not do. He’s made his choice, and now she’s ready to make hers. No more useless waiting, no more crying over herself, no more music. She has a task ahead of her, a child to raise, a business to make work. If she has to do this on her own, so be it.

Imelda rises with the sun the next morning, apologizes to Coco for her outburst, and goes back to work.

At the door of the workshop, a pair of yellow eyes keep watching her every move.

***

The first one just jumps in his arms, literally, during a brief stay in Ciudad Juárez.

Ernesto isn’t yet well-known when it happens. Actually, he isn’t well-known at all. Five months after he’s-- seized his moment -- done what he had to do he’s still travelling Mexico, looking for his big break. It’s taking more time than he hoped, and he’s now nearing a year on the road. Sometimes he’s had to chase away the thought that his moment will never come despite all that he’s sacrificed-- all of it even him oh God was it for nothing how could it be for nothing -- to get to that point.

That wasn’t his worst night, but it was also far from the best; a small crowd and nothing more. If Héctor were here, he’d try to cheer him up and he’d succeed, eventually; he’d tell him tomorrow will bring them better luck. But now… now he can no longer do that.

He wouldn’t have either way. He was about to leave me behind.

That’s right, he thinks - he’d have lost him either way. He lost him before he even slipped poison in his drink, but now he has his songs, and he thought that was all he’d need. The world would embrace him, then, and be his family, one that would never turn its back to him.

Except that it isn’t happening. Except that the world isn’t so much glancing in his direction.

Ernesto forces himself to chase away the thought, sitting on a sidewalk and drinking the last of his beer before he heads back to his motel for the night. Is this all that he can get? Nothing more than what he had already, but friendless and with nights full of nightmares?

Thus far you shall come, but no farther; and here shall your proud waves stop.

Ernesto frowns, staring down at the bottle, wondering where that came from; must have been some leftover memory from an Sunday mass long ago. An odd thing to remember now, but once he’s finished his beer he’ll forget it again, and maybe his sleep will be dreamless. The thought of closing his eyes to find himself in the dark alleys of Mexico City, carrying--

“Yip! Yip!”

“Come back, you devil! This is the last time-- come back here, chucho maldito! I’ll cook you this time, I swear to God--”

There is shouting, and a crash and cursing coming from the next street over. Ernesto turns to look, blinking, to see something running out of it. For a moment, under the streetlights, he thinks it’s an especially large rat - but then the animal yaps and charges straight at him and he can tell, one moment before it jumps in his arms and knocks the bottle on the ground, that it’s a small dog; a chihuahua with tan fur, some gray starting to show on its muzzle.  

“Oye, I had yet to finish that,” Ernesto grumbles, but he’s already starting to grin and the battle is lost the moment the dog places two tiny paws on his chest and tries to lick his face, tail wagging. He’s always liked dogs, so he chuckles and scratches its head. “What are yo--”

“You! Is that devil your dog?”

“Huh?” Ernesto turns away from the stray to see a man standing a few feet from him, panting, his face bright red. He’s wearing an apron stained with grease, and he’s holding something that might be the sad remains of a chicken wing in his left hand. In the right one, slightly more worryingly, he’s holding a knife. Ernesto holds up his arms, alarmed.

“Wha-- no! I had never-- no, stay down-- seen this dog in my-- stop it!” he mutters, trying to get the chihuahua to stop trying to lick his face. “Never seen it in my life!” he snaps, and stands, forcing the dog to jump off his lap. It immediately stands on its hind legs to lean against his leg, looking up at him adoringly, tail wagging.

Looking back later on, Ernesto won’t be able to really blame the man for not believing him.

“Do you have any idea for how long it’s been bothering my clients?”

“Look, I only got here two days ag--”

“How much food it’s stolen from right under their noses?”

“That’s a shame, but this isn’t my do--”

“You will pay it all back, down to the last peso!” the man snarls, taking a threatening step forward. Ernesto looks at the guy, who’s short but broad, and at the knife in his hand. Within moments, he has a plan of action: he grabs the guitar case, grabs the dog, and runs.

Losing the man in the winding streets is a matter of only a minute; losing the dog, on the other hand, proves to be nearly impossible, because it keeps following him. Not that Ernesto tries especially hard: in the end, he sneaks him - a quick check confirms it’s male - in the motel. The small dog wanders around for a few moments, sniffing at his suitcase, before he tries to jump on the bed. He just falls back, too tiny to reach it, and Ernesto rolls his eyes before picking him up and putting him down on the mattress.

The dog immediately rolls on his back, tail wagging, looking up at him expectantly. “A devil, sure,” Ernesto chuckles, and reached to rub his belly. “Very well, Diablo,” he says. The name fits; he remembers old Rafael, back in Santa Cecilia, had a dog called that. It was supposed to keep him and Héctor away from his fruit grove, but Ernesto had befriended him quickly. “You get to stay for the night, but we part ways in the morning.”

They do not part ways in the morning; Ernesto sort of knew how that would turn out the instant he gave him a name. After a night of peaceful sleep, the tiny dog curled up on his chest, Ernesto boards a train to Chihuahua - the irony is not lost to him - with Diablo in one of the pockets of his coat. And then the train after that, and the one after that.

There are no more nightmares. He allows himself no more doubts. He travels Mexico, he plays and sings and begins to attract larger crowds. He meets people who count on the musical scene and, well, on a couple of occasions those meetings are not strictly the professional kind, but it matters not. He’s willing to do whatever it takes, no matter how distasteful, to play in important venues, where he can catch the eye of even bigger crowds and producers. And finally, finally, success comes.

When it does, Ernesto hires someone specifically to look after Diablo’s every need while he travels with him; he stuck with him when-- Héctor did not -- things were bad, he should be rewarded now that everything he’s done - everything he’s had to do, all of it - paid off.

It is a life of luxury for a little stray dog, but it’s short-lived: Diablo dies only a couple of years after Ernesto has known his first true taste of success. He should have seen it coming; Diablo wasn’t a young dog when he took him in, and over time he’s grown more lethargic, less likely to jump up and steal a bite. But Ernesto doesn’t want to see it, and so he doesn’t - until Diablo takes a nap in the backstage of a photoshoot, and never wakes up.

The photoshoot ends there, and his manager hurriedly cancels all of his performances for the following couple of weeks when it becomes clear that the bawling wreck refusing to let go of his dead dog is in no condition to talk coherently, let alone to sing. He’s not wrong: for several days, Ernesto refuses to come out of his hotel room at all. He refuses to see anyone.

He knows he’ll be able to read the same thought on every faces he sees - it was just a dog - but of course they have no idea. It isn’t just about a dog; it’s about being left behind. Again.

Ernesto gives Diablo’s ashes a place of honor in his new residence, and swears he will never have another dog again.

***

“What is this?”

“A pup. Clearly.”

“What is it doing--”

“She lives here now. It’s a girl. Congratulations.”

Ernesto stares down at the ball of white fur that’s peering up at him from the basket, tail wagging and tongue lolling. A long-haired chihuahua, small enough to sit in the palm of his hand. His hands twitch and he almost reaches down, then he scowls and crosses his arms.

“I don’t need a dog,” he says. Having one dying on him was enough. Never again.

“Nesto--”

“I don’t want a dog. Take her back.”

His manager rolls his eyes, and puts down the basket. The dog immediately stumbles out of it and jumps up at Ernesto, who steps back like he’s being attacked by a coyote.

“She’s purebred,” Armando is saying, like Ernesto hasn’t protested at all. “The paper her pedigree is written on weights more than she does and her kennel name is ridiculously long. The breeder just calls her Clara.”

Clara. It’s a cute name. He might just keep it-- no, wait. No. Not a chance. He’s not going to have another dog. Someone else will decide what to call her. “That’s nice,” he mutters, lifting a foot to keep the pup from chewing his shoe. “And why have you taken her here?”

“She’s here so you stop moping and get back on track,” Armando mutters, and frowns. “You’ve cancelled enough performances. You’re famous, but not quite famous enough yet that you can just drop off the face of Earth for weeks. You need to keep going as long as momentum is on your side. You can’t afford to stop - neither of us can - and you know it.”

He does, of course; there is nothing he can argue against that, and Armando knows it. Seeing he’s not retorting, his manager smiles a bit and picks up the pup to shove her in his arms. She immediately tries to climb up his shoulder, and attempts to push her nose into his ear, causing Ernesto to yelp.

“Oh, you’re friends already. I’ll leave you to bond. You’ll be in my office on Monday morning.”

“No, wait--”

“Her pedigree papers are on the table at the entrance. Have fun.”

“I don’t want her.”

“Then leave her in a pound or in the street. I won't take her back.”

“Wha-- I can’t--!”

“Monday, nine on the dot,”  his manager calls out over his shoulder, and pretends not to hear the insults Ernesto is throwing at him. The door closes behind him, and Ernesto snorts, holding the puppy at arm’s length. She looks back at him with black eyes, tail wagging.

“I’m not keeping you,” Ernesto informs her. “Give it a couple of days, and I’ll find someone to take you in,” he adds, and puts her on the sofa. Like Diablo years ago, she flops on her back to get a belly rub - but with more elegance, one paw extended, as the dainty little diva she is.

The couple of days turn into a week, then two weeks, then months and years. Five years, until something happens. Clarita is unable to keep her food down, and loses weight; there is blood in her urine, and she yelps in pain each time. Something wrong with her kidneys, and the only solution they can give him is putting her to sleep. It’s humane, they say.

Ernesto refuses, rants and raves and rages. He seeks more vets, demands that they fix his dog right now, he’ll pay them their weight in gold if he has to, but none of them can help. Soon enough she’s almost skeletal, her yelps turn into screams, and Ernesto caves in.

It shatters him and, again, he swears off ever getting another dog.

***

“Oye, oye, it’s all right. Nothing to be afraid of. I’m here to help, sí?”

The alebrije - it looks a lot like a coyote, but with a couple of extra tails and wings - barely turns to look at him, sitting in the same spot where it’s been for the past couple of days, where old Prospero faded away. It entirely ignores the food Héctor is holding out, and just rests its head on its front paws. Sighing, Héctor lets his gaze wander across Shantytown.

He doesn’t live there - yet, a tiny voice in the back of his head says, you don’t live here yet, but you cannot cross over and everyone says that’s the first step to being forgotten - but he’s befriended people who do, and he drops by from time to time to share a drink, or some good food. Sometimes, he returns to find fewer familiar faces than before.

When that happens there are friends left behind, and they drink together to the memory - their memory, not powerful enough to save anyone from fading - of the forgotten. They share stories about them no one in the Land of the Living can share anymore, and then they move on because it is the only thing that can be done, just deal with it and move forward.

But sometimes, the forgotten don’t only leave behind their few possessions. Sometimes, they leave behind an alebrije - a spirit guide with no one left to guide anywhere. And each time, Héctor tries to befriend them because they look so sad, so lonely, and so does he. Maybe they could grow to like him, and stick with him, and they would both feel less alone.

He could use a spirit guide. Better yet with wings, so that he can fly past those damn checks, across the bridge and to his family - to his little girl, who’s probably not so little anymore now. Yes, everything would be so much easier if he had a spirit guide like so many others do… but it seems that fate likes kicking him when he’s down, and no alebrije ever chose him.

There was one time when he thought one had, but it turned out to be a rogue - there are a few like that, wild and almost rabid-like, something no one has any explanation for - and that wasn’t much fun. Ever since, he’s been wary of those who approach him, and rightly so.

How alebrijes come to be and how they choose their charge is unclear, but there are many who swear that their alebrijes came to them in life, as beloved pets; they bonded in life, they argue, and so are bonded in death. Héctor sort of wishes he’d had a pet in life - he’d promised Coco a kitten, once - but he didn’t get enough time to have one and bond with it.

He didn’t get enough time to do… a lot of things.

“Come on, amigo. I know it hurts, but I can help. We can help each other,” Héctor tries again, and holds out the remains of his dinner. 

The alebrije shifts and stands, and Héctor has a moment to get his hopes up before the creature spreads its wings and, without even looking at him, just flies off into the night sky. Héctor doesn’t look up to watch it disappear: he just sighs, lets the scraps of food drop into the water, and lets out a long sigh.

No one really knows what happens to alebrijes once their chosen one fades, either. Some stick with remaining family members, but when no one else is left, they just… leave, and are never seen again. Héctor watches the fish - some alebrijes, some bones only - nibbling away at the food he’s dropped. 

Serves him right, really; the poor beast had just lost its chosen, did he really think a bit of food would be enough to bribe it? That it would let him replace Prospero just like that? Of course it never works: whatever their nature is, however they pick their chosen, alebrijes are loyal, and people cannot be replaced so easily.

Or maybe some can. Maybe I was replaced. Maybe that is why I cannot cross over.

It is a poisonous thought, and he refuses to mull over it. With a shake of his head, Héctor stands and walks away, telling himself that this year is the year he crosses that bridge. He can do it on his own; he doesn’t need a spirit guide to show him the way.

He knows exactly where he’s meant to go.

***

He meets Lobo while shooting a movie the following year.

A scene required a dog capable of doing a few simple tricks - lie down, give the paw, stand on its hind legs and jump at command - and a local guy shows up with a black chihuahua who fits the bill. His obedience, they find out quickly, vastly depends on what’s on offer: he will obey commands only as long as food is involved, as a reward.

Except when it’s Ernesto to give the order: with him, he’s eager to please for nothing more than a scratch behind the ears. He follows him across the set, and Ernesto knows he’s got to have him before they’re done shooting for the day. He approaches the owner, offers him money, and doubles the offer at his refusal.

The man walks out with more money than he probably ever got to handle all at once, and Ernesto has a new dog - a small bandit that quickly becomes the bane of every member of the cast and crew by trying to chase horses, peeing on any unattended costume, nipping everyone’s ankles, chewing up cables and tripping up a couple of cameramen.

If he doesn’t think Ernesto is paying enough attention to him, he’ll climb on the lap of the closest person and glance back at him to, he imagines, check if he’s jealous. He has free reign of the set and  it’s the funniest thing Ernesto recalls witnessing since… well, in a long time. He draws everyone up the wall, and a member of the crew tries to kick him away once, thinking no one is watching; he misses, and is kicked out himself the next minute.

Out of all of them, Lobo is the one who stays with him the longest: seven years. Then one day he wanders off the mansion, through a small gap in the gate, and there is a day of frantic search before he trots back in at dusk, belly full and a half-chewed chorizo in his mouth.

Ernesto is too relieved to see him return to wonder too hard where he may have been, where he’s been scavenging for food. Until that night when, suddenly, Lobo jumps off his bed, takes a few staggering steps towards the water bowl, and starts vomiting blood.

“He must have eaten rat poison,” the vet says, and through the stunned grief - Lobo passed in Ernesto’s arms before the vet could even get there, it was so sudden - something is stirring, something he’s buried so deep it sometimes feels like only a dream he had once. For a moment he’s back in Mexico city, when there was a thud on the ground, a staggering sense of finality and then a bitter sort of relief because the deed was done.

There is no relief now. This didn’t have to happen. This shouldn’t have happened.

Ernesto has Lobo cremated, just like the other two. He promises he’s the last dog he buries and, this time, he keeps his word: he is the last he buries - but not the last one he takes in.

***

Zita catches his eye from the window of a pet shop in Oaxaca; there is a small crowd walking by, but that silvery-gray pup seems to be staring right at him, and he’s unable to walk away. He gets in, pays her full price, gives an autograph and walks away with Zita sitting in his hand, gnawing happily at his fingers. He needs those fingers to play, but he doesn’t mind.

She’s not a food thief like Diablo, nor the diva Clara was or the rebel Lobo turned out to be. She’s just enthusiastic about everything and, if clearly not the smartest, by far the yappiest out of all of them. The bouncy pup grows into a bouncy adult, impossible not to love, always a hit with his guests.

Zita is the one who outlives him.

Once the chaos has subsided slightly, the bell has been removed and body recovered, someone finally remembers that Ernesto’s beloved dog was left in his hotel room, and goes to check on her - only to find an empty suite. The door is locked and so is the window, but there is no trace of the dog anywhere. She’s just… gone.

They assume she was stolen, even though there is no sign of anybody entering or leaving the room, and quickly forget about her.

***

It is on a Sunday that Imelda finds Pepita at her favorite spot in the yard, motionless.

From a distance, she’d thought she was sleeping. Imelda never known how old she may be, but even if she’d been very young when she’d first spotted her, now she must be ancient; twenty-one, at the very least. It’s a very old age for any cat to live to, and over the years she’s slowed and lost her teeth, although her presence still keeps mice and rats away.

Even if it weren’t, Imelda wouldn’t mind: she’s earned her keep all those years and she is, after all, her cat. So she puts some stewed meat in a small dish, tender enough for Pepita to eat without teeth, and heads out to give her lunch. She never eats a single bite, and the dish will be left on the ground for hours, attracting ants, until a sniffling Rosita will retrieve it.

Imelda doesn’t take too long to say goodbye; the motionless weight in her arms is not her cat anymore. She strokes Pepita’s fur a few times before she lets Coco - who is now a woman, married and expecting her first child - to do the same, and then wraps her in a clean cloth.

Julio is instructed to dig a hole in Pepita’s favorite spot, and he does so quickly, without a word of protest despite the heat of the day; Imelda is grateful for it. They bury her in silence, wrapped in linen and with fresh flowers - Coco’s idea, that - and that is it.

Not seeing her around is harder than Imelda had thought it would be; of course she’d known she would very likely outlive her cat. Yet she can’t seem to get used to the absence, to the sense that something important is missing; the first true loss since that musician left them. But she gets used to it; she reinvented her entire life once, and she can adjust to this, too. Pepita is gone, and that is a fact no amount of moping will change.

Yet she notices that, even months and years later, there’s no mice or rats to be seen anywhere near their home.

***

One very quick way to get on Ernesto de la Cruz’s nerves, his staff find out after his arrival in the Land of the Dead, is saying anything about his alebrijes that is not glowing praise.

It doesn’t matter if Diablo stole their sandwich, if Clara refused to get off their lap until they spent at least a hour rubbing her belly, if Lobo left teeth marks on their ankles or if Zita spent forty minutes barking at a stain on the wallpaper - no complaints are allowed. And some innocent remarks are off limits, too: there are tales of a secretary who was fired on the first day for daring to suggest the four alebrijes all look the same.

That is secretly what they all think - the slight differences in their coats’ patterns are not enough to tell them apart without careful inspection and deliberation - but somehow, el señor de la Cruz can tell them apart at a glance, so there’s got to be something. Maybe it’s one of those odd things about the bond between alebrijes and their chosen; no one knows how that really works, so they just shrug it off and make sure to always treat the alebrijes right.

Working for Ernesto de la Cruz is a honor and a privilege, and pampering his dogs is a small price to pay.

***

The first thing Imelda thinks when that creature lands in front of her with a roar is that, if it wants a piece of her, there will be hell to pay. She is not afraid, and how can she be? She cannot die again. Probably. Either way, she won’t go down easily.

Then her second thought, as she reaches for her boot, is that she knows those eyes.

Her hand stills, and she stares back at the huge creature for several moments, unmoving. She doesn’t move, either, but leans forward just barely when Imelda lifts a hand. There is a nudge against her palm, and those familiar yellow eyes blink slowly. Imelda  blinks back, and finally - for the first time since she’s awakened there - she smiles.

“Hola, Pepita,” she says. Her smile widens at the deep, familiar purr. “It’s been a while.”

***

“Aw, look! Dante!”

“Is it that street dog again? Abuelita says she doesn’t want him in the yard, and… is he okay? Is he having a seizure?”

“Nah, he’s fine! He just wants to play. He likes me!”

“He also likes trash.”

Miguel makes a face towards Rosa’s general direction, and she returns it by wrinkling her nose and squinting her eyes behind her glasses. Miguel sticks out his tongue. Rosa rolls her eyes back. Miguel gives a honk, and Rosa laughs first before conceding victory with a sigh.

“Fine. I’ll cover for you. Just don’t give me fleas if you catch them.”

Miguel almost points out that Dante has no hair for fleas to live in, but then he just shrugs and runs out. Dante greets him in a frenzy of wagging tail, flailing limbs and lolling tongue.

“Come on, Dante! Race you to the plaza!” Miguel cries out, zooming past him, and the dog immediately follows. It’s like he understands him, daft as he is, and Miguel sort of wonders if he used to belong to someone before. But according to everyone he’s talked to Dante just showed up in Santa Cecilia one day; Miguel doubts he’ll ever know anything more.

Not that it matters, anyway. No one else has ever claimed him and for some reason Dante seems to have chosen him, so that settles the matter. He’s his dog now.

And, within a week, he will turn out to be so much more than just that.

***

“Are you sure this is a good idea?”

“Of course. She’s also your alebrije now.”

“... Is she?”

“She looks after our entire family. She always did, even when we didn’t know it,” Imelda says, taking Héctor’s hand to press it against Pepita’s muzzle. “And you’re part of it now.”

“Oh,” Héctor says, and for a moment his gaze is very distant, like he’s lost in thought. Then Pepita purrs and he grins, scratching her muzzle and causing her to close her eyes in bliss. “I never had a spirit guide before. I think I can get used to this.”

“Can you get used to flying, too?”

Hécto’s grin widens. “A romantic flight?”

Imelda makes a point to roll her eyes, but her lips are curling upwards. “If you can hang on.”

“I’ll do my best,” he says.

As it turns out he can hang on - most of the time, anyway. When he loses his grip, Pepita dives down to catch him without Imelda needing to even ask.

Héctor clings to Imelda and, despite the obvious fright, he’s grinning.

“I think she likes me," he says, almost giddily, and lets out a grito when Pepita brings them further up with a powerful beat of her wings, above the tallest buildings, and towards the waning moon.

***

A long way below, in the emptied-out Shantytown - why keep living there with a nice mansion so recently left vacant? - Ernesto de la Cruz is sleeping on a dusty mattress inside the shack he’s hiding in, and empty bottle on the floor by him, a threadbare coat to serve as a blanket.

His sleep isn’t an easy one; he shivers, he scowls, mumbles and turns around, but not for long. His alebrijes are rarely more than a few steps away; fortunes may change, but that never will. They may be all he has left, but he can be certain they will stay until the very end.

They move onto the mattress and curl up against him, nudge and lick skeletal fingers, offering what comfort they can until their chosen turns on his side, reaches out to hold Clara to his chest, and curls up around her. He stops mumbling and stills, the scowl fading, finally unbothered by whatever plagues his nights.

Then, and only then, do they settle down to sleep as well... but always with one eye open.

They may not be the best spirit guides, never quite knew what they were supposed to guide him to, but they will figure it out. Until then, they will keep him safe. Their chosen always said they were good dogs.

It’s time to prove they’re good alebrijes, too.

[slusheeduck]

Scenario that's been bugging me: Hector actually getting into an accident on the road. Not a serious one, mostly scrapes, but his wrist/arm is in a cast for a while.

Imelda was used to Rivera coming in late. It’d happened almost every day since he’d been hired, and was no surprise by the end of the year. (If he were any less good at his job, he would have been fired ages ago because of it.) What she wasn’t used to was him having an audience when he arrived.

She’d been doing her morning rounds when she found four of the other teachers greeting him as he arrived. She frowned as she heard the snippets of conversation.

“Does it hurt too badly?”

“Not now, no.  Ay, when it happened, though…”

“I saw your friend’s post! What a way to spend a weekend…”

“He posted about it? Que pesado, he’s just bitter that we have to cancel our next few performances…”

Imelda huffed as she stepped forward. “I’m fairly certain you all have classes you should be…” She trailed off as she caught sight of Rivera, eyes immediately latching onto the sling hanging from his neck, a white cast just peeking out from beneath it. She couldn’t break her gaze, even as he shifted.

“Ah! Lo siento, Directora, my friend drove me today and he–”

“Your arm.”

“What?”

“What did you do to your arm?” she asked quickly, finally looking up to his face as she set a hand on her hip. He glanced down at the cast, as if seeing it for the first time. His eyes flicked up to her, then back down to his arm, then back to her as he straightened and gave her a hesitant smile.

“A motorcycle accident, if you can believe it.”

“What?”

“Mm-hm. A car cut me off and I swerved too hard to avoid it. Flipped right over the handlebars into a busy street. Nearly got hit by another car, too.” Imelda gasped before she could stop herself, and he looked up at her again before shrugging. “Could’ve been a lot worse, though. I’m lucky.”

Imelda swallowed. “You…you certainly are.” How awful. To think that Hec–Rivera could have died…She shook her head and straightened up. “I’ll let this tardy slide. But please go to your classroom, Senor Rivera.”

“Of course, Directora.” He gave her one of his stupidly-wide grins before making his way down the hall. She shook her head. He was still late, still a mess, still going to give her a headache by the end of the day…

But imagine if he was gone.

~

The thought gnawed at her all day. She managed to keep herself contained, of course, because she had a job to do and aimed to do it well. But the ten minute drive back home gave her ten minutes too many to think about Rivera being hurt. She’d never thought it possible. 

And, more importantly, what about that beautiful motorcycle of his? Was it completely wrecked? She’d looked at it longingly every day; the thought of it being gone was just as devastating. She drove around the complex once she got in the gate, looking anxiously at the row of motorbikes that sat outside. She let out a long sigh of relief as she saws his, in all its purple and green glory, sitting in its place. It looked…surprisingly all right–but then, Hector Rivera had said that he’d just swerved and been thrown off. So it was entirely possible the bike just had a few scratches.

Mind at ease, she parked and made her way up to the fifth floor. The bike was fine, Rivera was fine–things at work could progress as usual. So now she could just curl up with Pepita and…

As she reached the fifth floor, she glanced at the door down the hall. 

No, things were fine.

But…

Well, what if he needed help? His useless roommate wouldn’t help him, and he could miss work if anything too terrible happened. 

This is purely for business, she rationalized as she strode up to his door and knocked. She waited for a moment, then stood up straight as the door opened. “Senor Rivera, I–oh.” Her face fell as she was instead greeted by said useless roommate. What was his name again? Armando, Emilio…?

It didn’t matter, she decided as he put on a smile he clearly thought was very charming. He leaned in the doorway.

“I see our neighbor’s dropped by for a visit. You must be here for Hector.” He gave her a wink; she rolled her eyes. 

“I’m here on business. I just wanted to make sure that Senor Rivera’s doing all right after his accident, and…”

“Accident? What accident?”

The roommate blinked. Imelda blinked back, then set her hands on her hips. 

“The motorcycle accident. He said…” She was cut off as he broke into a loud laugh, slapping a hand against the doorway.

“He said it was an accident?! Dios mio, that’s hilarious!”

“What are you…”

“I mean, I guess it’s not wrong. But what really happened is–”

“IMELDA!!” As if he appeared out of thin air, Rivera shoved his way in front of his roommate, a big, forced smile on his face. “What a wonderful surprise! You know, Ernesto was just going and it’s just as well you’re here because I really want to discuss next year’s–”

Ernesto pushed Rivera aside, a smug smile on his face. “What really happened,’ he said over Rivera’s protests, “was that he tripped over his kickstand and fell on his wrist.”

“Ernesto!”

 “He hadn’t even gotten on the bike yet!!” Ernesto let out another loud laugh, shaking his head as he wiped away a tear. “Ay, he didn’t say a word during the whole drive to the hospital. He was just…”

“Okay, gracias, amigo, let me talk to my boss alone.” With no small amount of effort, Rivera forced his way out and slammed the door shut behind him. Imelda stared at him, unable to even begin processing what had just happened.

“So…so, ah, when I said I flipped over my handlebars into traffic? That…was a lie, and I apologize for doing that! But…” He froze as Imelda held up one finger.

“Why on earth would you make up such an outlandish story for such a stupid injury?” she asked sharply, setting her jaw as she looked up at him. The nerve he had, making her worry about his well-being. Her glare seemed to be working, given the way he drew his shoulders in before shrugging.

“Well…I didn’t want you to think I was…”

“A disaster?”

Rivera winced, but nodded. He looked up at her with wide eyes. “But…look, I know this is a tall order, but please don’t tell anyone what really happened, Directora. I-I don’t think I could live down the entire school laughing at me for the rest of the year.”

Imelda rolled her eyes as she crossed her arms, debating. She glanced up at him, biting her lip as he looked at her with big, pleading brown eyes. Finally she threw up her hands.

“Fine. But you’d better be on time for the rest of the year. Claro?”

“Si, claro!” He practically collapsed against the door, giving her another one of those stupidly wide grins. “Imelda, I swear, you are an absolute saint. Really, if I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were a goddess made flesh. You–”

“Basta.” Imelda rolled her eyes, then pointed hard at him. “Remember our deal, okay? I’ll see you, bright and early, tomorrow.”

“Of course, Directora!”

Imelda nodded, then turned on her heel and walked back to her own apartment. She stopped, just for a moment, and glanced over her shoulder to look back at Rivera. He was still leaning against the door, with a stupid look on his face to match the stupid cast on his arm. She darted inside before she could think too much about why she wanted to see that look more often.

~

Since there was only three weeks left in the school year, Rivera managed to keep his promise. And, because of that, Imelda did, too. She played along with his game when the other teachers asked about his arm, and she overheard several students talking about the “crazy motorcycle crash’ Profe Hector had managed to get out of with just a broken arm. 

But…just because she didn’t say anything about his “accident” didn’t mean she couldn’t give him a hard time, though. 

“Ah, Senor Rivera,” she said as she poked her head into his classroom and eyed the cast (now covered in student signatures). “I see you’ve still got that cast on. You must have really done a number on that arm with your motorcycle accident.”

As he looked up, he put on the stiffest smile she’d ever seen from him. “It’s healing just fine, Directora. Thank you for your concern.”

“Of course. I just hate knowing that one of my employees was in such a serious crash.”

It was a good thing she was a professional. If she weren’t, there’d be no way to hold back her laugh as she heard the conversation from the classroom as she walked away.

“Profe Hector, why are you lying on the floor?”

“Is it because of your motorcycle accident?!”

“Yes.”

[upperstories]

Headcanon for Imelda's first day in The Land of the Dead?

-Everything is Too Bright, Too Loud, And Too Confusing. Thank god she’s good at filling out paperwork, or else traversing through the Department of Family Reunions would’ve driven her mad. -Finding Land to set up an estate on is not difficult, but traversing through the metropolis of The Land of the Dead is a headache. Thank god she’s already dead, or else those gondolas would have killed her!-Reuniting with Pepita is the highlight of her day, healing her in a way that possibly even reconciling with Héctor could not fix. To think, her sweet little nugget was her spirit guide and protector, all along! And such an intimidating one at that! She takes to riding on Pepita’s back to fly over the city, and the ride almost makes her feel young again. -She does not recognize Héctor when she first sees him, clothes a mess, and he is too emotional to speak. When he runs to embrace her, she at first thinks he’s some crazy beggar about to assault her, and smacks him so hard that his skull goes flying. Upon hearing his grito and finally realizing who he really is, she smacks him a dozen more times, raises hell in the plaza and swears up and down at him, how humiliated he made her feel and all the drama he e did to her family, and she demands he never set foot near her ever again. It takes a terrifying snarl and from Pepita and tears in Imelda’s eyes to finally scare Héctor away. -It takes a while for her to recover from the horrible reunion. As always, she manages to pull herself together by working on her shoes.

[trenttrendspotter]

The Hot Spot in Naturals

The Hot Products section at the recent Natural Products Expo East in Baltimore was one of the buzziest spots to be in the naturals industry from September 11-14, 2019.  

“Every fall the exhibit halls at the Natural Products Expo East are bursting with products that are increasing consumer awareness about the importance of organic and supporting trends within plant-based, hemp and agricultural innovation,” said Lacey Gautier, Group Show Director.    

The attention wasn’t all on the new brands. This industry is full of legacy brands continuing to innovate how we eat, supplement, groom and live.  

Here are some of the highlights we spotted:  

The best new frozen snack: The proud winner of Expo East’s 2019 Nexty Award, Crazy Richards, continues to innovate and remain far from ordinary peanut butter. Their Wholly Rollies, which won for Best New Frozen Product, are a simple treat that delivers 10g of protein in every bite so it makes an excellent nutritious alternative to your everyday desserts and sweet snacks.  

Protein anywhere on anything: What’s better than protein? Protein you can take on the go. What’s better than protein on the go? Protein on the go that can go on anything. That was the thinking behind Vegetarian Traveler and their Protein Toppers, which allow you to add an entire 16 grams of plant-based protein to any meal or snack with just a spoonful of their soy, garbanzo, and pepita bean medleys.

Water your way to a healthy gut: Making sure you get enough fiber in your diet can be difficult, and supplemental beverages are growing in popularity. Probiotic beverages are all the rage, but a lot of people don’t know about prebiotics. Hellowater is the first of its kind, a drink that supports prebiotic health and the first fiber-infused water of its kind. Now you can boost your fiber intake and your hydration in one sip!  

Feel no pain: If you’re plagued with joint or muscle pain, you can be desperate to find a surefire fix that won’t break the bank. Now you can get the same balm that Gwyneth Paltrow reports has helped her knee pain. The CBD-infused pain relief creams and balms from Muscle Mx provide both a heating and cooling therapy and are said to be great for pre- and post-activity muscle strain and pain.  

A hybrid super berry to ward off sniffles: Cold and flu season will be here before you know it! The latest line of ElderCran products from Norm’s Farms is a great way to bulk up your immunity with the most natural method. Combining the farm’s famous black elderberries and antioxidant rich cranberries, Norm’s Farms’ new ElderCran supplements and tinctures are the first of its kind to make such a variety of super immunity boosters.

Eating Cleveland’s best: When people are looking for a snack or meal packed with probiotics they don’t often consider sauerkraut as an option. Not a lot of people realize that sauerkraut is full of not only probiotics but nutrients we might be lacking from our diets as well. Luckily, Cleveland Kraut makes a variety of flavors of kraut to be enjoyed with any meal no matter what’s on the menu and works great as a side or as a topping.

Ready to eat banana-based ice cream: If you though Halo Top was the end all be all of healthy ice cream options, then you haven’t heard of Frönen. Created with those who suffer from celiac disease and dairy sensitivities in mind, the ingredients of Frönen’s ice cream are stripped down to the sweetest essentials: honey, coconut cream, and banana with cocoa powder, strawberries, and maple syrup for taste.  

Getting to the core of the nut: The Nature Nut beauty line take all-natural hair care to the next level. With five core nuts from Israel, Nature Nut products are rich in Vitamins A and E to help ensure you’re getting the best for your hair in every wash.  

Worry-free cookies: The makers of the famous Bite Me Inc. cookies introduces the Bite Free line—its safe for people with allergies and doesn’t compromise on taste and flavor. It continues to delight our palate!

Year-round sun protection: Skin protection and nourishment are the name of the game for Babo Botanicals, which produces a wide selection of skin and hair care options for whatever might need a little extra TLC. They’ve long been lauded for their baby and childcare products. Probably their most important product, their year-round sun protection for kids is delicate enough for your baby’s skin but strong enough to deliver outstanding SPF protection no matter the weather.    

Feeding children’s minds: It can be hard to get kids to eat healthy food that nourishes their bodies and their brains. But more and more brands are emerging that make healthy eating for kids easy and delicious. For example, Braniac’s line of DHA-infused yogurt is yummy and portable and best of all, it’s brain food for kids.  

When avocado and chocolate meet: This product is for the Nutella fiends out there! Prepare to be converted to D’Avocado—a chocolate spread made entirely of avocado and cocoa powder. These simple ingredients make for a delicious plant-based smear that’s good for you too!

A different species of mushroom jerky: Like I said, plant-based proteins are all the rage and alternative jerkies are no exception. The NY Mushroom Co. is making a jerky in a league of its own. This brand, founded with an eco- and animal-friendly mission in mind, uses locally grown shiitake mushrooms and hand-crafted flavorings to deliver a snack you can feel good about eating.  

Beyond bread and cauliflower crust: Move over cauliflower! Soon egg white wraps will be the new normal. Egglife, similar to brands like Crepini, uses alternative ingredients like egg whites to make their wraps bread-free for eaters who need to respect diet restrictions but don’t want to skimp on flavor.  

Aloe sprinkled yogurt:– Aloe has long been considered a great digestive aid. Now it’s right in your yogurt. The Japanese yogurt brand Alove has introduced a line of aloe vera yogurt, jumping on the latest green alternative food trend that you can drink or enjoy like a traditional yogurt snack in a variety of refreshing flavors.

Pesto power: The founders of Le Grand were way ahead of the plant-based trend when they started this artisanal food company that swears by “the power of plants”. All of their products are certified vegan and their pesto—which comes already blended in a stylish and eco-friendly silver pouch—is a sure-fire way to top an already tasty dish with a powerful green addition.

Taking tofu to town: With all the new plant-based proteins on the market, this legacy brand continues to innovate. Tofu Town products offer delicious vegetarian and vegan food options with an emphasis on green eating and living. The sheer variety of their products from organics spreads (Veggie Street) to veggie sausages, burgers, and cold cuts (Veggie Life) to vegan butter (Blumenschmalz) makes sure you’ll never get bored at meal time.  

Fruit juice of the Philippines: Ever heard of Calamansi? It’s a lemon-like fruit that grows deep in the heart of the Philippines. Often referred to as a Golden Lime, this little fruit packs a punch of Vitamin C, is a natural anti-inflammatory, and has been used in cold/cough remedies for generations. Mansi uses Calamansi in their newest drink, offering American audiences their first taste of the powerful and fragrant therapeutic super fruit.

It takes two to make a baby: Like the name suggests, Pink Stork is a great source of supplements and teas for pregnant women, new moms and for women looking for help with fertility. But what’s cool about them is that they also offer fertility supplements for men!  

Next gen feminine care: The food industry isn’t the only place offering greener alternatives. Made for women by women, the Honey Pot offers a complete line of herbal feminine cleansers and wipes. Their coolest product is their “herbal” pads and pantiliners made out of pesticide-free cotton and infused with essential oils which can help with cramps and discomfort.  We were also quite impressed with NannoCare which uses infrared technology to help with menstrual discomfort. During certified third party testing, women who used the NannoPad experienced less pain (at 95% confidence) and fewer days of menstrual pain and showed significant reduction of painkillers being used for menstrual cramping.

A different kind of chip not seen before in naturals: You’ve probably seen Vegan Rob’s before—their colorful packaging is hard to miss! And the flavor of these vegan snacks is equally explosive. In fact, Vegan Rob’s were the first to make a healthier Pringle style chip!  

The latest plant based alternative milk: When most people think of foods rich in antioxidants they think of fruits or vegetables, but recent research has shown that flaxseeds are actually hugely rich in antioxidants. While it can be difficult to incorporate flax seed into your diet, the Manitoba Milling Co. makes it easier than ever to get a fix of flax with their delicious Flax Milk and ready made muffin and pancake mixes.  

The 2020 Natural Products Expo East will move to The Philadelphia Convention Center Sept. 23-26.

As Seen in Whole Foods Magazine

[passportrequired]

Barcelona: Food, Day Trips & Boating Naked With Priests

A native man sang in a foreign tongue / I still ache to know the song he sung / Barcelona. – George Ezra

The streets of Barcelona – mainly the ones that barely show up on Google Maps – know me and have led me to some of the most outrageous people, some of the most choice cava, and some of my most reckless travel moments. There was a midnight in Barcelona where I biked up Tibidabo with a sex worker and poet, and an afternoon where I ended up naked borratxo on a boat in the middle of the Mediterranean, looking at what I swear had to be the beginnings of Africa with a guy who said he was a priest and a computer coder who slept beneath me in the hostel. There’s definitely more in the city for me to discover, and as soon as I touch foot to Catalonian earth again, I’ll go a bit deeper.

These Catalonian streets have led me to create these lists to get your trip started.

FOOD:

1. La Alcoba Azul: Carrer de Sant Domenec Del Call, 14 The Caipirinhas are the second best I’ve had in the world – the first being mine – and after eating every pork-less thing on the menu, it’s important I tell you there are no bad decisions. Eat inside the restaurant if you want, but outside is much better.

2. Can Margarit: Carrer de la Concòrdia, 21 Damn shame what I did to that rabbit. This recommendation came from Bella, my Spanish seatmate on the quick flight from Lisbon. She promised I’d love it, based on how I went on and on about the foods I loved most in the city we’d just left. We met outside the Poble Sec metro station and walked over, hands tight on our pockets, praying no one pickpocketed the money we’d need to eat.

3. Picnic: Carrer del Comerç, 1 Traveling with a vegan is, in some cities, one of my least favorite things to do when the hunger comes. It always means we gotta look a little harder for bites. All other times, they’re fine. Especially when it comes to sharing food – they don’t touch mine. Poor Lavonda! But she was a good sport, and “I’ll find something on nay menu” became her mantra. Picnic had everything for everyone and brunch food is never ever ever a bad idea. Best thing I had: pancakes with crème fraiche and fried green tomatoes.

4. La Pepita: Carrer de Còrsega, 343 “There’s always a line. Trust lines,” the drunk priest said. I trusted the drunk priest, shot him a WhatsApp message to see if he’d join, but when he didn’t answer, I assumed he was hugging a less-than-fancy Barcelona toilet. I walked from my hostel in Passeig de Gracia and joined the line. A party of three was at the front, so I told a few jokes and it quickly became a party of four, sitting inside, eating The Golden Pepita, Marinated Salmon, Roasted Octopus, and Roasted Artichoke with Blue Cheese. Feeling swollen as hell, we walked next door to…

5. Xurreria Trebol: Carrer de Còrsega, 341 I’ll keep this one short: I’ve eaten churros in a million places. This place will have me buying tickets just to sniff the air it produces.

6. El Rabipaleo Carrer del Torrent d’En Vidalet, 22 After a long day on the road, playing in random fields guarded by barbed wires and steep hills, and eating random small snacks to stay alive, we wanted something full of flavor in a place full of noise and the life we heard Barcelona is known for. We found it here in this Venezuelan watering hole. Between me, my two travelers, and the two kinda-hitchhikers we picked up, we ordered the entire menu, then ordered more. I suggest you do the same.

7. A Home-cooked Meal: Find a Local: If your energy, attitude, and behavior are dope, make friends who live in the city, or even outside of the city. Make sure they hold tight to their Catalonian roots and beg them to cook you a meal. Whatever it is their mama used to make. Just make sure you buy the ingredients.

One of the most beautiful things about Barcelona is its proximity to other equally beautiful cities and countrysides. Trains and busses will get you there, but if you’re brave, dope, lucky, and believe people are good, you can find a group of travelers with a car who are also headed in any direction.

QUICK DAY TRIPS:

Girona: (1:14 minutes) The architecture that dates back millions (exaggeration) of years, the gardens, the narrow roadways, the picturesque housing along the river, and a slow bustle that’s welcomed after days in Barcelona are all reasons to make this trip happen. Check out the following: Eiffel Bridge; The Jewish Quarter; Girona Cathedral; Placa Independencia;

Sitges: (40 min) One of my favorite places in Catalonia. The beach, the nightlife, the food, the mountains, the views, everything. Be sure to check out: Old Town; Garraf Natural Park; Passeig Maritim. And because you’re like me and believe in having a drink in every new city, stop by Casa Bacardi and learn the history of Barcadi while sipping a mojito – or whatever you drink.

Figueres: (1:44 minutes) To be honest, I didn’t find much to do here except eat fartons, drink warm chocolates, frolic in fields just below mountains, and have my mind blown by the absolutely must-see Teatre-Museu Gala Salvador Dalí, the museum of Dali’s work designed by Dali himself. Do yourself this favor.

Costa Brava: (Stay til sunset) Catalonia’s coastal region stretches from Blanes to the border of France. This drive is perfect in warm months, stopping every so often, long enough to at least dip a toe in. Take in the breeze, passing through Alt Emporda, Baix Emporda, and Selva. Thank me later.

And when you’re full and your eyes have seen as much as they can possibly take in one day, I hope you fall in love with someone who teaches you to Flamenco in the middle of the Gothic Quarter around 2am while you’re both drunk on the cava, wondering where to find small fried fish.

WHERE I’VE SLEPT & WOULD SLEEP AGAIN:

I don’t feel the need to go into detail about how great these places are individually. In each of them, I’ve made new friends, made travel partners I vibe well with, drank plenty of beer and tequila, and solidified my belief that most people are good. Each of these places were located in extremely safe areas and each were in walking distance to everything I wanted to see (I also love to walk, so everything is walking distance to me). I recommend each of these places, but only if your energy and vibe are as dope as the true travelers I know.

Safestay Passeig de Gracia Passeig de Gràcia, 33

The Hipstel Parallel Carrer Salva, 36

St. Christopher’s Barcelona Carrer de Bergara, 3

Generator Carrer de Corsega, 373

Couchsurfing.com It’s no secret that I love traveling on a tight budget, meeting new people and sharing plates and stories with them. And Couchsurfing has been the perfect way to do just that. Couchsurfing is a community of travelers who welcome other travelers into their space because that is what we need to do to open up the world!

Enjoy Barcelona. Let me know if this list helped you at all.

Barcelona: Food, Day Trips & Boating Naked With Priests was originally published on Passport Required

[industry5566-blog]

six Scrumptious Roasted Pumpkin Seed Recipes

This Halloween, learn how to bake pumpkin seeds in the oven for a unique post-pumpkin-carving treat. The NHS recommends eating pumpkin seeds and not just as a healthier snack.  watermelon seeds large size in a single layer on baking sheet. In this recent study, pumpkin seeds were roasted in a microwave oven for varying lengths of time, and limited modifications in the pumpkin seeds fat had been determined to occur beneath 20 minutes. Alternatively, you can drizzle honey on the warm roasted seeds when they are done baking. The seeds may well be chewy appropriate when they come out of the oven, but will crisp up nicely following cooling. The seasonings we use in the subsequent step also adhere much better to dry seeds. On top of pepitas getting low in carbs and a great source of plant protein, research suggests that consuming pumpkin seeds could aid shield against sort 2 diabetes or minimize its complications in other ways, such as improving insulin regulation and safeguarding organs against the consequences of diabetes. Getting an exceptional supply of magnesium, pumpkin seeds may possibly assist regulate blood pressure as portion of a healthier diet plan, but much more research is necessary on the function magnesium plays in this area. In addition to the nutrients highlighted in our ratings chart, right here is an in-depth nutritional profile for Pumpkin seeds. Grind pumpkin seeds with fresh garlic, parsley and cilantro leaves. Much faster and dry but not roasted. Pumpkins are a sprout and sprouts have been connected with foodborne illnesses such as E. Coli. 2. Separate the seeds from the insides of the pumpkin, removing all of the fibers, slime and flesh so you happen to be only left with seeds. In Mexico, the seeds are usually toasted and flavored withsalt, lime, or chili peppers, and eaten as snacks. This process will assist to crisp up the seeds throughout roasting. It works properly to roast the seeds plain for about 10 minutes ahead of adding any seasonings, permitting them to begin to crisp up with out burning the added ingredients. Wash your seeds in a colander and spread them out evenly on paper towel to dry overnight. Pumpkin seeds contain omega-three and omega-6 fatty acids, antioxidants, and fiber. Separate the pumpkin seeds from the stringy insides. It is effortless sufficient to salt the outdoors of the shells, but if you want the salt to permeate to the seeds the strategy I discovered from my mother years ago does the trick. Evenly spread the seasoned pumpkin seeds on the sheet pan. In my encounter, the bigger the pumpkin the much more seeds it will yield. Day-to-day intake of pumpkin seeds can also hold you protected from widespread cold and flu. The phytosterols campesterol, stigmasterol, and campestanol have also been identified in pumpkin seeds in some studies. According to the book Healing Foods by DK Publishing Residence, pumpkin seeds are a excellent supply of B vitamins, magnesium, iron and protein. Just before you can indulge in the scrumptious seeds, you require to pick the excellent pumpkin. In such a case, pumpkin seeds can be an outstanding option. Let the pumpkin seeds cool all the way down just before eating. Summary Pumpkin seeds are full of antioxidants that may possibly assist safeguard against illness and decrease inflammation. The bottom line: pumpkin seeds' vitamin E content could bring us a lot more well being benefits that we would ordinarily expect due to the diverse forms of vitamin E located in this meals. These pumpkin seeds you may possibly purchase to nibble, use in cooking or mix into granola possibly come from China, the world's biggest producer of pumpkins. Microwave pumpkin seeds for about 2 minutes and stir. Bring the salted water and pumpkin seeds to a boil. Pumpkin seeds are greenish in colour, and can be eaten raw or cooked both in sweet and savoury dishes. Pumpkin seeds are a very good supply of healthful oils, magnesium , and other nutrients that boost the well being of the heart, bones, and other functions. This will support the pumpkin seeds crisp up in the oven. Add salt and toss till coated. I in no way have & my seeds turn out nicely roasted & crunchy. As opposed to the tough white seeds from a carving pumpkin, most pumpkin seeds purchased at the supermarket do not have a shell.

Stony Brook has been working with Martin Farms in Brockport, N.Y., a squash and pumpkin grower, to boost its cultivation of oilseed pumpkins and to use the specialized equipment imported from Austria to harvest the seeds. Tiny pumpkin seeds might toast in about five minutes or so, massive pumpkin seeds could take up to 20 minutes. The seeds have high levels of important fatty acids that assist sustain healthful blood vessels and reduce unhealthy cholesterol in the blood. Also, the seeds are an exceptional source of amino acid tryptophan and glutamate. Other micronutrients located in pumpkin seeds also assists to enhance the texture of the hair and make it sturdy. They are broadly utilized in Mexican cooking and are a well-known roasted snack there. There is technically a difference among the pumpkin seeds you pull out of your pumpkins ahead of carving Jack-lanterns each and every Halloween, and pepitas, which are smaller sized and greener in colour. Some individuals do a swift boil in salt water before roasting for further crispiness, but we never constantly have time for that so our recipe takes the seeds straight to the oven. Some individuals use pumpkin seeds in baking, as an ingredient for sweet or savory bread and cakes. Tiny pumpkin seeds could toast in about five minutes or so, even though large pumpkin seeds may take up to 20 minutes. Pumpkin seeds are packed with magnesium, which is an essential mineral needed for the formation of bone. Pumpkin seeds have been identified to contain sterols. Spread pumpkin seeds onto the prepared baking sheet, producing confident they are in one even layer. They are mainly clean at this point, which is fine simply because they have one much more chance to clean up. Add the mainly clean seeds to a pot of boiling salted water. Some folks swear by boiling or soaking the seeds in salt water to make them extra crispy soon after baking. Pumpkin seeds are the only seeds that are alkaline-forming, generating them an superb addition to overly acidic diets. Pepitas (a.k.a. pumpkin seeds with out shells) are the ultimate garnish. We provide certified organic pumpkin seeds for pie pumpkins, jack ' lantern pumpkins and specialty pumpkins. If you want to jazz up your pumpkin seeds, sprinkle with spices such as smoked paprika, cumin, or chile powder prior to they go into the oven. Complete, roasted pumpkin seeds in their shells contain about five.2 grams of fiber per serving, while shelled seeds include just 1.8 grams. Test Kitchen tip: Never worry if you have some pumpkin pulp clinging to the seeds. Plants that have a close connection to the soil are typically specific sources of mineral nutrients, and pumpkin (and their seeds) are no exception. Our professionals located that stirring the seeds from time to time promotes even browning. Ingredients: Gluten-free rolled oats, pumpkin puree, cashew butter, honey, maple syrup, dark chocolate chips, pumpkin seeds, chia seeds, pumpkin spice. In addition, experimental studies recommend that specific phytochemical compounds in pumpkin seed oil may have a role in the prevention of diabetic nephropathy (diabetic kidney illness). Diverse pumpkins, distinct seeds: Pumpkins are not the only winter squash with seeds. And you can handle the amount of salt by how much you add to the water and how long you boil the seeds. However, roasting or baking pumpkin seeds can make the shells far more bearable to chew and lessen the adverse effects. These seeds are a frequent ingredient in Mexican cuisine and can also be eaten as a snack raw or roasted. two Boil pumpkin seeds in salted water for ten min: Measure the pumpkin seeds in a cup measure. Pumpkins are indigenous to the Americas but quickly became common all through the globe as a snack meals. Tossed with antioxidant wealthy spices and herbs, pumpkin seeds pack a whole-food punch, keeping us each healthy and happy. I advocate about 1 Tbs of coconut oil per cup of seeds. Roasted pumpkin seeds are a great supply of potassium, and higher in protein — in addition to being super delicious. 1 such snack that you can constantly look up to is pumpkin seed.

[biofunmy]

36 Hours in Indianapolis – The New York Times

Naptown. India-No-Place. My hometown had a lot of nicknames when I was growing up there in the ’80s and ’90s, few of them charitable. Even more generous ones, like “Crossroads of America,” seemed to say that Indianapolis was a place one merely passed through. But things have changed since then. These days, I’m playing catch-up each time I return home, overwhelmed by the new restaurants, galleries, venues and boutiques bringing youth and energy to its streets. A new public transportation system called the Red Line, opened in September, connects the mid-size city’s most vital cultural areas, making it easier and safer than ever to bounce from one hip dive or farm-to-table restaurant to the next. And for all the new places to eat, browse or catch a show, Indy stays true to its Midwestern roots: short on pretension, heavy on pork and still, for the most part, incomprehensibly cheap.

Friday

1) 3 p.m. Museums of all kinds

The Indiana Central Canal was dug in the 1830s as a way to transport goods, but was never completed. Today, the downtown portion is flanked with museums and parks as it makes its way toward the White River. Start at the Eiteljorg Museum just a few blocks west of Monument Circle. Dedicated to the American West, it is brimming with a world-class Native American art and artifacts collection, including works by contemporary artists like the painter Kay WalkingStick and the multimedia artist Joe Feddersen. For sports fans, a pleasant stroll along the canal, past the Indiana State Museum, leads to the N.C.A.A. Hall of Champions, which showcases talent in all 24 N.C.A.A. sports. And this month, the Kurt Vonnegut Museum and Library, dedicated to the city’s favorite literary son, is scheduled to reopen in its new location on Indiana Avenue, just a few blocks north of the Eiteljorg. Included in the collection are his drawings and an array of rejection letters, including one from The Atlantic Monthly that said his account of the Allied bombing of Dresden, Germany, during World War II wasn’t “compelling enough” to publish.

2) 6 p.m. Moonshine and shrimp cocktail

Opened in 2013, the Alexander hotel was developed as a joint venture with the Indianapolis Museum of Art. Art-themed hotels weren’t new, but the collaboration set it apart, as did the collection. Its crown jewel, however, may be the bar, Plat 99, designed by the Cuban-born artist Jorge Pardo, hung with 99 colorful, hand-molded acrylic lamps. The menu includes pick-me-ups like a latte made with doughnut milk for $6 (that’s milk in which doughnuts have been soaked) and a cocktail made with two kinds of local moonshine for $12. From there, grab a bar seat at nearby St. Elmo Steak House, which most locals agree is the city’s best steakhouse, dating to 1902. Stay for a dry-aged rib-eye, or just do what I did: Pop by for a dirty martini and its rightfully famous shrimp cocktail ($15.95). The sauce is made daily and not for the faint of heart: It’s at least three-quarters horseradish, edible with a fork.

3) 8 p.m. Dinner …

Just southeast is the hottest area in town, Fountain Square and the adjacent Fletcher Place neighborhood, where many restaurants have opened in the past decade, some of them quite good. Bluebeard, a James Beard Award semifinalist, is one of the best in town, with an ever-changing menu of locally sourced New American cuisine. Small plates might include chicken liver pate with pepperoncinis and candied pepitas ($14), while a regional staple like the pork chop comes with European accents like grilled focaccia, gremolata and smoked Coppa ($46). Looking for something more low-key? Iaria’s has been dishing out traditional Italian food in a family-style setting a few blocks away since 1933. Fill up on a huge plate of traditional spaghetti and meatballs for about $14, or fettuccine with spicy clam sauce for $21.

4) 10 p.m. … And a show

After dinner, head to one of the many music and entertainment venues clustered in Fountain Square. Hi-Fi and Radio Radio are intimate spaces for local and smaller national musical acts — mostly indie, folk, rock and hip-hop. Pioneer is the place for experimental, jazz, hip-hop, electronic music and late-night themed dance parties. The White Rabbit Cabaret hosts small musical acts, comedy, storytelling nights and rowdy burlesque shows. Nightcap? Stop by the deco-styled Brass Ring Lounge to mingle with the beautiful and tattooed.

Saturday

5) 10 a.m. Midwest heavy

A few years ago, Bon Appétit published a lengthy article in which the writer wondered “whether this city can hit all those Brooklyn notes and still feel distinctively like Indianapolis.” The answer was mostly “yes,” thanks in part to Milktooth, in Fletcher Place. Its strength lies partly in its razor-sharp focus: A self-confidently downscale, daytime-only joint, it goes all-in on heavy, classic fare in ways that feel new. The Dutch baby pancake comes with ham or shiitake mushrooms and Swiss cheese, cranberry mostarda and grapes ($14). The grilled cheese is made with cranberry walnut bread and black truffle honey, topped with a duck egg ($17).

6) 11 a.m. Vintage everything

I always hit the vintage stores back home because unlike in New York, that perfectly faded ’70s concert tee hasn’t been marked up to 10 times what it’s worth. Burn off that sourdough brioche doughnut from Milktooth by walking down Virginia Avenue to Vintage Vogue and its neighbor Zodiac Vintage, which specializes in vintage designer clothing, band T-shirts and American work wear. On the same block is Square Cat Vinyl, which has old records, but also a lot of new ones, along with a bar that serves coffee and beer. The neighborhood owes its vintage soul largely to the restored Fountain Square Theater building, first opened in 1928, which hosts swing dance nights and has two duckpin bowling alleys. (The 1930s-style alley on the fourth-floor, Action Duckpin Bowl, costs $40 an hour per lane.) For the uninitiated, the sport involves balls that can be palmed (no holes), like a cross between regular bowling and Skee-Ball. Like those sports, it can also involve beer.

7) 1 p.m. A deeply Hoosier sandwich

The closest thing Indiana has to a state food is the pork tenderloin sandwich: a tenderloin medallion, pounded until it is as broad and flat as an Indiana cornfield, then breaded and deep-fried. In its most authentic form, it’s a comedic sandwich: The meat can run 8 to 12 inches wide but is often served on a regular-size bun, meaning you can’t actually eat it with your hands. Hoosiers have strong and varied opinions about who does it best, but the tenderloin at Aristocrat, just south of the Broad Ripple neighborhood (in the area commonly referred to as South Broad Ripple), a wood-paneled pub and restaurant established in 1933, always ranks among the city’s best ($11.55). Aristocrat also offers a grilled, non-breaded (sacrilegious) version for (slightly) more health-conscious customers.

8) 3 p.m. Art and gardens

Head west to the elaborate grounds of the former Eli Lilly estate, home to the Indianapolis Museum of Art. The whole complex was inexplicably rebranded Newfields, but the art and botanic gardens are as world-class as ever (personal favorites include the extensive Asian art section and works by J.M.W. Turner and James Turrell), and the seasonal beer garden is delightful in warmer months. Across the canal is a 100-acre nature and sculpture park; like Storm King Art Center in upstate New York, it is especially lovely when the leaves are turning each fall. (The park is free; all-access admission to the museum and gardens is $18.)

9) 6 p.m. Broad Ripple ramble

Broad Ripple has had many identities over the decades — these days, it’s where the clubbing and sports-bar crowd parties on weekends — but the neighborhood never completely lost its bohemian roots, as evidenced by its many vintage stores, cafes, brew pubs and locally owned restaurants — my favorite being Public Greens, a cafeteria with a healthy, locally sourced menu (when I went, it included a strawberry salad with kohlrabi for $6 and a blackened trout bowl with quinoa, veggies and ranch dressing for $16) that donates 100 percent of its profits to charity. While you’re in Broad Ripple, stop by the Monon Coffee Co. for coffee or one of many teas — pu-erh ginger, sencha fukujya, blue jasmine with pea flower. (Full disclosure: I used to sling lattes there.) The area is also home to my two favorite Indianapolis record stores, both of which host in-store concerts: Indy CD & Vinyl, on the main strip, and Luna Music, just south on College Avenue. The Monon Trail, a wooded walking and biking trail paved over an old railway line, is just a few blocks out of the way and the nicest way to wander south before sundown.

10) 9 p.m. Beer, burgers, Benny Goodman

Across the street from Luna, make time for drinks at the Red Key Tavern, a quiet haunt for local artists and literary types since 1933. The secret to its conversation-friendly vibe is the rules, including no loud swearing and no standing at the bar. It doesn’t hurt that the drinks are unpretentious and cheap (a Manhattan with a maraschino cherry is $5.25; bottles of Miller Hi-Life are $3.25), the antique jukebox is loaded with Big Band 45s, and the cheeseburger ($5.50) is regularly voted best in town. (The kitchen closes at 10 p.m.)

Sunday

11) 10 a.m. Brunch insanity

“You can kind of, like, do stuff in Indianapolis, and it’s cheap enough where you can get away with whatever.” So sayeth Chef Chris Benedyk, of the appropriately named Love Handle on Massachusetts Avenue, the heart of the local gay scene and another bustling strip for restaurants, bars and boutique shopping. At Love Handle, that means getting away with putting things in your breakfast that confuse the brain but somehow make sense to the mouth. The fluid menu may offer fried oysters with your grits ($9). Waffles may come with braised beef tongue and a duck egg ($13). And if biscuits and gravy weren’t rich enough per usual, here they might include butternut squash and pork belly ($15.25).

12) Noon. Local goods

On the same block, stroll over to Homespun: Modern Handmade, which sells work by more than 400 artists and artisans, about half from Indiana. A few doors down, Boomerang Boutique also spotlights local designers, emphasizing diversity and women’s clothing and accessories. But it’s afternoon now, so head over to the tasting room at Sun King Brewery to sample the roughly 25 beers on tap. An in-house lunch counter run by Goose the Market, an upscale local deli that smokes and cures its own meats, has you covered if you get hungry again.

Lodging

Many hotels have art, but the art at the 209-room Alexander — made by local, national and international artists — is installed museum-style, with identifying wall texts. The downtown location puts you right in the city’s heart and close to Fountain Square, and the bar, designed by the MacArthur “genius grant” winner Jorge Pardo, is one of Indy’s most fashionable spots come nightfall (333 South Delaware Street; thealexander.com; doubles from $159).

A block from trendy Massachusetts Avenue, the six-room Nestle Inn offers a cozy bed-and-breakfast-style experience in a 19th-century building. The inn emphasizes its modernity: self check-in, private bathrooms and, instead of serving breakfast on-site, the inn provides breakfast vouchers for partnering Massachusetts Avenue restaurants. It also offers chef-led cooking classes Friday through Sunday. (637 North East Street; nestleindy.com, doubles from $159.)

Once you leave the clubs and sports bars of Broad Ripple Avenue, the surrounding neighborhoods are full of eclectic cottages, ranch homes and bungalows on quiet streets lined with old trees. The swath just east of College Avenue, roughly between 56th and 49th Streets, is great for Airbnbs, with entire bungalows starting around $60. Wooded jogging trails and dozens of bars and restaurants are within walking distance.

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