Monday, August 28, 2017

... watermelon Jack-o-lantern for Goth It Yourself August Theme Food & Beverage...

http://gothityourself.blogspot.com/p/craft-along-with-giy.html"






Lana Del Rey’s “Summertime Sadness” is on my On the Patio mix playlist and it’s playing in the background. I rarely listen to music on the patio because I’m frequently too distracted by nature; I’m also a girl who appreciates the silence but this afternoon I’m day-drinking, mourning the end of my summer vacation, and remembering watermelon juice. What was supposed to be a simply GIY (Goth It Yourself) post has had me go down a dark memory.

The post is supposed to be about the GIY August theme of Food and Beverage. If you’re not familiar with Bane’s blog, the idea is for bloggers to come together to focus on a craft project for the monthly theme. Around August 29, she posts her completed project and we post our own.

My focus was somewhat improvised since I realized earlier today that I have been a bit behind in reading blog posts. While catching up, I actually first saw Sarrah’s post on Giggles in the Darkness about her “meat head.” As a non-meat-eater, I really could not focus very long on her post without slightly dry-heaving over the pictures.  Sorry :-/ It’s me, not you! I went over to Bane’s original post and with university classes beginning soon decided that today would be the perfect time to get a post together. I had a small watermelon in the refrigerator that needed to be chopped. I buy personal watermelons whenever possible because my fella is disgusted by them in the same way that I would be disgusted by him devouring Sarrah’s meat head creation! Ha!  I’ve been slightly down as summer slips away from us. Don’t get me wrong because I love fall!!! But, I really do love summer.

I decided that creating a Jack-o-lantern out of the watermelon could possibly lift my spirits. As I went through the step-by-step process, I tried to document what I was doing along the way.

Let’s be honest, when a girl’s forearms are juiced up with watermelon, she is going to take a bite here and there!

While I was scooping away at the melon with a tablespoon measuring utensil since for some reason I could not find the actual melon scooper in the utensil drawer pit and figured this was good-enough, I realized that I had an excess amount of watermelon juice. I started collecting it in a container, which then turned into an unwanted stroll down memory lane.

Flashback to 2000, I was teaching outside of Boston, Massachusetts and on the commuter train into the city received the phone call that no daughter wants to hear. Mom shared that Dad was in the hospital and that they were running tests. She assured me that everything was fine. By the next day, everything was not fine. I was told to come home basically because he was not going to survive after being diagnosed with pancreatitis. The next three months he was in intensive care. It was the first time I saw my father cry, aside from the time my childhood friend died. 

This time was different. He didn’t hide his physical pain. He wanted to die because everything felt awful and wrong. I left Massachusetts to come home so that I could help my mother with the household. She quit her job since she was close to retiring in order to go to the hospital daily. The doctor said he was going to die. I screamed at the doctor; I’m not really a screamer but the lack of bedside manners really got to me. Regardless, my father is still very much alive. He struggled in the ICU for three months and then another three months in the regular unit of the hospital. During most of that time, he could not eat or function normally. In late summer of that year, he was put on a liquid diet, anything clear. My father craved watermelon. The doctor agreed that if I brought juice he could have it. I remember going to one of the salad bars and attempting to drain the juice into a plastic salad container. One of the employees saw me and asked what I was doing. Instead, she went into the back of the grocery store to drain the juice from the recently sliced watermelon. When my father got the watermelon juice, it was the first time that I had seen him smile in over four months. So today, it’s hard not to reflect on that memory… even though he lived and slowly recovered. Having watermelon has always been a family memory that I share with my father.

Today, with the leftover juice and wanting to focus on both the food and the BEVERAGE aspect of the theme, I mixed the watermelon juice into a vodka cocktail and added a skull ice cube. I’ll be honest, it’s not the best cocktail mixer but I am happy that I didn’t waste any of the watermelon.

The Jack-o-lantern watermelon rind will sit outside for only a few days to be enjoyed my humans, birds, and insects. After that, it will go in the compost. It’s been so hot in Virginia the last month or so that my fella and I have been mindful of keeping the birdbath full of fresh water. We’ve also played fruits in the garden so that they birds, bees, and wasps (yep, they count too) can easily find moisture.


Wednesday, August 23, 2017

...Darkling Tag-- You're IT!...



I was tagged by The Curious Professor Z which means that I fill out this little questionnaire and tag three Gothy Darklings. I will tag Jade at Daughter of a Jaded Era, App’y at App’y Talk, and Connie at Hartwood Roses.
Getting to know me! Getting to know all about me ….
 

THE DARKLING TAG!
  • What is your favourite candle scent? Yankee Candle’s Home for the Holidays (It’s actually a cinnamon Christmas scent and I love cinnamon everything!)
  • Do you have a favourite book? Probably Dracula by Bram Stoker
  • Are you a tea or coffee person? Coffee
  • What is your favourite perfume/cologne? Dior’s Hypnotic Poison. I just bought Kat Von D’s Sinner; I like it a lot but it doesn’t have much staying power on me.
  • Do you have a celebrity crush? Julian Sands
  • If you could change your name to a stereotypical 90s/2000s gothy name, what would it be? AuKToBR will always be my favorite goth name. That was my first love. I wrote a Zine, Strange People Anonymous by Spooky & Boo. I was Boo back in the late 80s.
  • What are your top three tips for surviving hot weather while black clad? Natural fibers, a parasol with UV protection, and open-toe shoes. If my feet are hot, I’m not nice.
  • What song always makes you happy (doesn’t have to be a goth band?)  “Passenger” by Siouxsie and the Banshees. I’ll stop in place to dance.
  • Are you active in the arts (eg. Play an instrument, paint, write, etc)? I played flute and piccolo but that was many moons ago. I write but not so much for pleasure as much as for research so I suppose that doesn’t count.  I do make a mean shadow-box. I’m more of a craftiest than an artist.  
  • What is your number one non-gothy hobby? I suppose gardening in that I delight in all plants and flowers, not just the dark ones.
Thought Provokers:
  • If you could be a supernatural creature, what would it be and why? I just sent my fella a text asking if a necromancer is considered a supernatural “creature”. He’s a DM; he’ll know. Follow-up: My fella said no that they’re sorcerers so I’m going with troll because they hide under bridges and jump out to scare people. This afternoon that strikes me as very funny.
  • What horror monster-bases super power would you have? Ummm, bring back the dead because that’s what necromancers do.
  • Do you feel confident or comfortable interacting with other Goths or gothy people (online or irl)? Why or why not? It defends; are they nice or are they assholes?
  • Is there something you wish there was more of in your subculture? I wish there were more of us like-minded peeps in the same region. We don’t have to be in the same city but it would be nice if we didn’t have to travel so far to be around one another.
  • Care to share an embarrassing story related to your “darkliness”? I don’t embarrass easily so it’s
  • How are you at DIY? I’m good with pretty much everything that requires serious measurements because I’m also sort of lazy and I eyeball things. I’m VERY good and eyeballing, which only makes me lazier because then I never measure.
Confessional (aka True or False):
  • I love watching cheese romance films. I love Black/ African-American Romantic comedies. They’re actually funny whereas ones with predominately white actors are not… to me.  
  • I ALWAYS remember to wash off my makeup at night. Absolutely!
  • I sleep with plushies. Yep, I have a stuffed bat pillow named Batty that does a dance at 4:30am each morning to entertain my fella.
  • I wear non-black pyjamas most nights. I usually wear t-shirts and boxers with cemetery scenes or skulls so no, I’m nearly always in black. I do have some pink bat pajamas that I love.
  • I think Andrew Eldrich is overrated. I would be lying if I said Yes.
  • I don’t like vampires. *laughs hysterically* If that’s asked, you don’t know me at all.
  • I don’t like clubs. I miss going to clubs. We have a local one but I’m just 15 years older than everyone and my bedtime is usually when the place opens so…
  • I don’t enjoy graveyards. I run a cemetery group.
  • Blood makes me queasy. If it’s mine, yes.
  • I’d sooner faint than pet a spider. I suppose one means large spiders. I have this vision of me attempting to pet tiny spiders and end up squishing them because they’re so tiny.
  • I don’t like haunted houses. Not true.
  • I’ve never read Dracula. I read it annually and teach it.
  • I think “Bela Lugosi’s Dead” is a long and boring song. I love that song.
So there you have it, some fun for today!