...vampire ramblings...

toilet paper bride competition

Mom embroidered a Team Edward shirt :p

In August 2008, I read the Twilight series right before Breaking Dawn was released. As many of you may know, Breaking Dawn is the fourth and final novel in the series by American author Stephenie Meyer. My friend convinced me to read them which honestly wasn’t too difficult because I have always enjoyed vampire literature and Young Adult (YA) lit. Even more than that, Barnes & Noble was hosting a midnight release party and much of the focus was on the Edward-Bella wedding. I remembered enjoying the novels just fine. I didn’t love them and I didn’t loathe them as somehow I hold this reputation among the students in my vampire lit & film course. Honestly, my take is always “if you like this, then you should really read/view this” reflecting them to some piece that was created pre-2000s or in other cases pre-1990s/ pre-1980s/ pre-1900s. You get the drift. Some of you readers may hate the series in the same way that some of you hate little chains like Hot Topic. I see them more as a gateway… “Come to the Dark Side; we have cookies!”

Anyhow, 2008 feels like it was another life ago. In many ways for me it was. I was married to another with another group of friends… none of which was healthy. For several years, I recall that the end of May held a bit of solace. That was when the Southern Vampire novels (which later became known as the Southern Vampire Mysteries) by Charlaine Harris was released. I picked up the first few at the library and after I was caught up on the series, I had to patiently wait (after always pre-ordering) for the books to be released.

2008 was marked as the summer of vampires. It included all kinds of ridiculous but fun activities including the B&N midnight release party where I hung out with a bunch of tweens and teens at a book release party. Not to mention that our toilet papered bride won!

I’ve been thinking of my 2008 summer a great deal because without making a grand statement, I’ve started catching up on some fun vampire-related reading/viewing. Last month, I wrote a review about The Coldest Girl in Coldtown (2013) by Holly Black. Earlier in the year, I read NOS4A2 by Joe Hill (loved it! Those King boys really know how to write some scary vampires… plus Christmas!) and I reread The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova. As a side note, the RVA Horror Book Club has really gotten me more focused on making more time for fun reading! Now my train time is devoted to fun reading instead of working.  I also just finished The Passage by Justin Cronin a few weeks ago. I won’t read the sequels. This was the second time that I attempted reading this. It was 912 pages and I just didn’t care for the characters nor did I really care if they survived. The virals (aka vampires) were pretty interesting though. They were frightening and uncanny but in the end, I didn’t think Cronin focused on them enough. The idea of a vampire plague and the transformation of humans to vampires were interesting. I even enjoyed having a city surrounded by lights to protect itself from the virals while knowing the batteries were slowly dying. This completely worked. But in the end, I just wanted the book to end.

On my flight to New Orleans, I started Fledgling by Octavia Butler. Although I’ve just started, I’m also pretty shrug about it. This is Butler's final novel. The story is about a young amnesiac vampire girl who is trying to recall who she is. Maybe it’s because The Passage and Fledgling both have young female protagonists??? That can’t be only it though. I’ll see Butler’s novel to the end too more because it isn’t that long (320 pages) and because it does promise me an interesting focus on otherness and slavery.  Plus, the main vampire girl is African-American which is super rare to find.

Just when I figured I was jaded about the vampire literature in general, I watched Afflicted (2013), a found-footage Canadian thriller by writing-directing duo Clif Prowse and Derek Lee. Afflicted had its world premiere in 2013 at the Toronto International Film Festival, where it won a special jury citation for Best Canadian First Feature Film. It was later released to video-on-demand in April 2014.  Lee and Prowse star in the movie as two friends who plan to travel the world. Derek is taking this trip in spite of his family’s concerns and his doctor's advice. He has “AVM”, a cerebral arteriovenous malformation that is an abnormal connection between the arteries and veins in the brain. Basically at any moment, he could die. Derek’s reason for the trip IS because of this. If he wants to see the world, he has to see it now. And who better to take this journey with him than his best friend and partner in crime, Clif. When Derek “hooks up” with a woman he meets in Paris, the Derek’s health goes from bad to worse. I really don’t want to add much more about the film because there are several surprises. Because it’s a low-budget horror film, I was actually pleased that there wasn’t the CGI special effects that often take me out of the picture.

Afflicted got me excited about vampires again… not that I really needed the excitement, I suppose but still. I’m looking forward to starting The Strain series by Guillermo Del Toro because I’m very much enjoying the television series on FX. The second season begins in July!

...a topiary trim, the ghosts of pumpkins past, and bike gardens...

It’s a gorgeous spring day with temperatures in the low 70s with little humidity at least by Virginia standards. It was the perfect day to douse myself in sunscreen and do some weeding and pruning. 

The Pom Pom, a topiary pine, was ready to be cut back. In early spring, light green growth will appear on the outside of the pom poms. For several weeks, the little tree looks like he’s going wild. If you trim the pom poms at this stage, you will bruise the foliage so you actually have to let them look a little weird for a bit. Once the leaves turn hard and leathery, the pom pom is really to be trimmed. After that, I weeded which is really just an excuse to look at everything and see what is growing. The lilies will explode very soon (gwee!) The salvia is stunning in a dark purple. This also reminds me that I had paired some of my side-yard salvia with Dianthus barbatus Heart Attacks. I love the dark purple- deep crimson red combination but my Heart Attacks have disappeared! They’ve been there for about four years so I’m not sure what happened to them. We have clay-based soil here but that never seemed to bother them before. Hmmm.

In other somewhat scary news (because I simply do not have space!!!), I decided to let one of our wedding pumpkins go back to nature last fall and well, this morning I noticed that the weedy thing that I was getting ready to pull away from the butterfly bush was a pumpkin leaf. Oops. Not sure what I’m supposed to do about this except maybe guide it around the other plants in hopes that it will survive. Wouldn’t that be neat?!? I took a picture of our wedding carved pumpkin that we also put back into nature. I think it looks pretty cool in a I’m-not-going-to-touch-that-mush kind of way.

Bike Garden at the train station

After playing in the garden, I went walking for a few hours around town and was able to see a few more of the Ashland Bike Gardens that have popped up around town. These Bike Gardens are stationary bicycles not intending to be moved. They're placed strategically throughout the downtown area of the town. I first saw one on my walk to the train station.  Ashland is a pretty artsy town for its size and it also has a huge cyclist community so I didn't realize this was a piece of art in a series. Once I saw a few more, I discovered that while these are for town folks' enjoyment they are also intended to send a larger message.

Richmond, Virginia actually won the right to host the UCI (Union Cycliste Internationale) Road World Championships, one of the preeminent cycling competitions in the world, this September.  Through the public art project and in preparation for the fall event, Ashland wants to show that it is a bike-friendly community. And while Ashland is a good 15 minutes north of the city, the event is expected to draw close to half a million spectators to Richmond for about two weeks and attract a worldwide television audience of about 300 million. Someone from that crowd is probably going to seek out the place that calls itself the Center of the Universe.

Bike Garden in front of the library

...colorful tombs in New Orleans...

Ahhh, back from vacation and there’s no place like home (clicks heels). But post-vacation melancholy has kicked in and I’m moving about like a slug today… and coughing. Seriously Virginia allergies! Oy! I felt great in New Orleans but pollen is different and I suppose I’m a little bit allergic to home. Speaking of green…

There is much to say but I cannot get my mind off the light green tomb in Lafayette Cemetery. But let me back up a bit. After a bit of research, I learned that there is a tendency in some cemeteries in Louisiana to paint the tombs in pops of colors. Not everyone likes this idea and in fact in 2011 a Terrebonne Parish (in the southern part of the state), Councilman Alvin Tillman wanted to propose an ordinance against tombs considered “too colorful” for some people’s tastes. There have been complaints about the brightly colored (pink, green, blue and yellow) tombs.  On this trip, in Lafayette Cemetery there was even a bright blue statue of the Virgin Mary on top of one of the tombs and there was also this beautiful green tomb. Other than that, the cemetery seemed consistent with its colors.

2014 trip with Save Our Cemeteries tour guide

Last year when I visited New Orleans, I saw an "oven vault" in St. Louis Cemetery No. 1 for Arthur Smith, a man who comes by and paints his family tomb blue... A flamboyant guy walked by and said "because it's his mother's favorite color" and snapped his fingers.

While family members are responsible for caring for family tombs in New Orleans, there are some who might not understand how to care for a tomb or a grave marker. In fact, Voodoo Queen Marie Laveau had her tomb *vandalized* after someone painted it with pink latex paint in December 2013. Even if this was done with good intentions, latex paint is potentially harmful to tombs because it does not allow moisture to escape. As Professor Z and I know all too well about NOLA moisture, you need breathable fabrics, cosmetics and paint!

Some pink paint is probably what led to the final straw in restricting visitors to St. Louis #1. Since March 2015, the Archdiocese of New Orleans requires that cemetery visitors must be accompanied by a licensed tour guide.  For now, this only applies to St. Louis Cemetery No. 1 but eventually it will be expanded to include other cemeteries throughout the city. This saddens me because while I love a good structured tour, I also like to take my time taking pictures and notes. Of course without such rules and in a place where vandalism is high, one must respect these decisions. After all, we want the cemeteries to be around and in somewhat good condition for future generations to enjoy. 

While this post is about New Orleans cemeteries, these concerns aren’t too far from home. Within about a mile from my home and just a couple of days before the New Orleans vacation, I took a WoodlandCemetery tour. Woodland was founded in 1862 as a burial site for Confederate dead and guide mentioned that there are people who upon locating newly marked graves of Confederate soldiers while dig up the graves for artifacts. What in the world, people!

Basically, I have much to blog about regarding the Woodland Cemetery tour and the New Orleans cemeteries not to mention the trip in general.