It is a wonderful group of fabulous, eclectic people who love to read and who love children's literature.
We started it back in December with "Hansel & Gretel" (think Gingerbread/Christmas :)
Well, we tried to meet twice but were discouraged by blizzards on both the nights that we scheduled it. Only Nick managed to meet Harry and I that month.
SO....
January was "The Snow Queen" (to have her stop cursing our get togethers with blizzards) and "Little Red Riding Hood" (actually a grown up tale as far as we were concerned....
February was the tales of the Russian folktale witch "Baba Yaga".(She's like "Uber-Mommy" ...she can reward you ....or kill you...)
March was the Irish Giant legend of "Finn McCool" (in honor of St. Paddy's Month)
April, we devoted our meeting to learning about Beatrix Potter with all her sassy bunnies, silly ducks and chickens (for Easter/Eostre)
May found us talking about Fairies for Beltane/May Day!
The Fairy wings inspired us to proceed in June to learn about DRAGONS....
Tonight's theme was Vampires and it was fabulous!
Remember this is a GROWN UP party! NO KIDS allowed :)
We drink, we swear, we are bawdy, we ponder, we muse....
We also bring lots of goodies to the table. Literally. We try to match our food offerings to the theme too...just for fun!
Tonight's theme brought:
Bloody Mary's, Red Sangria, Pickled Garlic, Beef Stew in a tomato base, Garlic Bread, and Apple Brown Betty (renamed by Merlyn to be "Apple Crack" which someone commented last week at the 4th of July party that it was "To DIE for" :)
Here's a pic of my table centerpiece for the evening:
WHAT FUN!! What great stories!
We learned that:
A vampire has to be INVITED into your home.
The invitation can be recinded at any time, how'ere, it's like being addicted to something bad...you just never can stop the charismatic charm of a vampire...
Some things that kill vampires: Silver bullets, wooden stakes, silver swords, Sunshine...
There are also "Psychic Vampires" out there...and we ALL had stories of those....
We also learned that some diseases "mimic" vampire tell tale signs: people suffering from Diabetes (weakness/thirst/easy bruising) and Poryphria (weakness/seizures/hallucinations/skin problems/sensitivity to light, etc) King George the III had Poryphria and he was also thought to be a vampire...
We also learned that the "signs" of being a vampire upon a corpse was scientifically proven to be just the normal signs of decomposition (most of the stories of bloated, engorged corpses were BEFORE embalming).
Some caskets even "rose" back to the surface...mostly from the gases released from the decomposing corpse!
And this piece of info: Headstones and crosses put on gravestones were NOT originally there to be "markers" or "remembrances" for our past loved ones. They were "weights" to keep them there and the crosses were to "deter" them from rising!
Much fun, laughter, stories, grand conversations and eating delicious food!
Next Month's THEME?
Well, we found that Vampire lore is really tangled up with WEREWOLVES....
so we'll be HOWLING next month!
Aaoooooowoooooo!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment