Category Archives: Daily Life

Crawl Space (and Thoughts on Halloween, Parenting, and Vampires)

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Crawl Space

I took off my sweater and handed it to my brother Aaron. There was no way I was going to crawl on my stomach under the crawl space of a house with it on.

“So tell me again why you can’t get the bodies out from under the building first?” I had to ask.

“They’re not quite dead yet and they might attack Austin. He’s human, a Regular Human,” my brother told me. Austin by the way is a Regular Human and sometimes Vampire Hunter and usually just a guy who does a great job restoring old buildings that seem to be filled with scary shit like ghosts and old musty Vampires.

And of course Aaron was wearing a $5,000 suit of course he couldn’t crawl under the house.

“You might know them”, added Austin, meaning the creatures under the house.

I almost gave him a fang filled snarl but I just gave him a weak normal girl smile.

Wearing garden gloves I crawled on my  hands and knees over bare dirt.Even in the dark I could see assorted bugs and cobwebs. Rat droppings were scattered around. Why the crap would any Vampire want to sleep under floor boards?

About 20 feet into it I saw the boxes. OK they were coffins.

I thought back of when I was a kid and always the one to crawl under houses and into tight spaces. It wasn’t because I was small. It was because I pretend to be fearless and now it is because I don’t take any bull shit from Shadow Creepers and dusty old Vampires who can’t deal with the modern normal world. We’re not having a Nosferatu and Dracula Hoedown kids, this is the 21st Century.

The lids were on the boxes. I managed to kneel on my knees without banging my head on something and pushed one off. Inside was a male in a pinstripe suit. His face was waxy looking and pale. I noticed sunken cheeks and lips that seemed a little thin. He hadn’t fed in a while. The box next to him contained a female. Skin stretched over her face, a hint of teeth including fangs showed beneath parted lips. Oh come on, all Vampire girls know not to sleep with their fangs exposed. She wore some sort of black dress thing. The scent of rotted roses and cigar smoke came from her box. In the third box…nothing jumped out. It was another male. I recognized the face. His eyes open a bit, yellow green rolls to stare at me. I see recognition in his face; a fact that was once handsome and could be again, but he was so strange, so weirdly in the shadows and cold, not like Vampires I associate with, but like a dead fish.

Then my butt vibrates. My phone. I pull it out. Garrett, my darling son is calling from college. I’m a mom. I must answer.

“Hey mom, what do you call two ducks and a cow?”

“What?”

“Quackers and Milk.”

“Good one. What do you call an Englishman, two ducks and a cow?”

“Graham Quackers and Milk. Love you mom.”

I hear a groan from one of the box. I slap it hard with my hand and hiss at it. The noise stops.

I keep my eyes on the yellow green orbs that watch me as I talk to my son. He rattles on about classes and girls he knows and sings me a song he wrote. He says he goes to the beach almost every day and is going to go surfing on Sunday. He says it is the perfect college for Vampires. He is so excited about school. My heart melts a little.

Then he asks me what I’m up to.

“I’m under a building with three boxes full Shadow Creeping Vampires. You know me, everyday is Halloween.”

“How’d you end up there?”

“Helping your Uncle Aaron and a friend. Long story, but the short version is that I was the only one wearing jeans and I’m smaller than they are so I got elected.”

Old Green Eyes started to sit up. “I gotta go Garrett. I’ll call you back later today.”

“Love you mom.”

“Love you too sweetie pie.” I looked at my old friend. OK he wasn’t a friend. I’d met him before, a long long time ago. “What are you doing here?” I said trying to keep myself from sneering at him.”You look like a fucking Zombie. What is wrong with you people? Have you lost all self respect?”

“Juliette,” he whispered my name in a dry voice, like old coffee grinds and gravel.

“Jasper. That last time I saw you was…1923, New Orleans. What are you doing here?”

He started to tell me something in French that I couldn’t quite make out when I stopped him. “Listen, you have three choices. The first is that you agree to live like Modern Vampires and stop this nonsense of lurking around like you’ve just come out of some creep show. The second is that I leave you to the Vampire Hunters. The third is that you let one of my friends, and I use that term loosely, take you to San Francisco where you can be with others of your kind. But you can’t stay here. We have enough problems in Sacramento without your kind.”

“My kind?” He opened his eyes wide and showed his fangs.

“That is exactly what I mean, you giving me the evil eye and trying to scare me with your ugly mug. You used to be handsome and well, you were never charming but you used to be, well, not THIS.”

I crawled back into the sunlight which was no cup of tea, believe me. I might spend time during the day but the sunshine, especially after the darkness under a house, always comes as a shock. I pulled out my sunglasses put them on then took a deep breath and brushed off my pants. Filling Aaron and Austin in on the situation I told them that I’d let them decide what to do with Jasper and his friends.

I had to go home and take a shower and scrub my skin off with steel wool, or at least that is how I was feeling. The image of his eyes stuck in my brain like Poe’s Tell Tale Heart story.

“It is impossible to say how first the idea entered my brain; but once conceived, it haunted me day and night. Object there was none. Passion there was none. I loved the old man. He had never wronged me. He had never given me insult. For his gold I had no desire. I think it was his eye! yes, it was this! He had the eye of a vulture –a pale blue eye, with a film over it. Whenever it fell upon me, my blood ran cold; and so by degrees – very gradually –I made up my mind to take the life of the old man, and thus rid myself of the eye forever.”
― Edgar Allan Poe, The Tell-Tale Heart and Other Writings

His eyes will haunt me for sure. Maybe I’ll check on him in a few months time, out of morbid curiosity. That is, if the Vampire Hunters or other creatures don’t get them first. There are Shadow Creepers who seem so vile, but then there are other Vampires who I don’t even dare name or ever seek out for any reason.

Like I’ve said, Halloween is never far from my reality.

I called Garrett back. He listened to my story. I didn’t make it into some cautionary tale or anything like that. We just talked. He told me that I was the most awesome mom ever.

So anyway, that is what I did today.

~ Juliette aka Vampire Maman

Burning Question #26: Pumpkin Spice

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This just might be the most controversial Burning Question to date. 

Fall is almost here. ALMOST. It is cooling off in my neck of the woods but I know September will bring out one last evil HOT SPELL despite the fact that the trees in my neighborhood are starting to turn yellow and red. I live in California so unless you live in the mountains there is a snowball’s chance in Hell we’ll have a nice crisp Autumn in September.

Along with leaves fall means HALLOWEEN, sweaters, more fur on the pets, busy little birds, and PUMPKIN SPICE.

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I almost always put cinnamon in my coffee, year around. Sometimes I add a bit of nutmeg. This week I’m adding some sugar free coconut flavor. When the weather cools down I just get lazy and buy a small container of Pumpkin Pie Spice. YES that is PUMPKIN SPICE. Some people add actual pumpkin puree to their coffee but that gets you into the gross-stuff-at-the-bottom-of-the-cup territory. And who has time for that?

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But there are those who don’t like Pumpkin Spice anything. They don’t understand. They despise the excitement and fluttery joy brought on my this mix of spices and caffeine. Seriously, is there too much Pumpkin Spice BS out there? Not just coffee but everything from muffins to air freshners to cat food.

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So where do you stand on this important issue? It is still 90 degrees Fahrenheit outside. Do you really want anything like pumpkin or are you still working on summer strawberry flavors and trying to keep cool? Or do you believe that if Pumpkin Spice is here that FALL will surely follow.

Burning Question #26: Is it ever too early for PUMPKIN SPICE?

 

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So I leave you with thoughts of nice drinks and thoughts of lovely weather and maybe that elusive, what is that called, that thing when water falls out of the sky. Oh right. Rain. It is called rain. I haven’t seen any of that since April. But I can get a Pumpkin Spice Latte.

See you next Saturday for the next Burning Question.

~ Juliette aka Vampire Maman

 

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Thought so…

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I was my mail box and overheard two men walking by.

Guy 1: Look at all those chickens.

About a second passes.

Guy 2: Did I hear you say chickens?

Guy 1: Oh. I meant turkeys.

Guy 2: Thought so.

Laughing.

 

~ Juliette aka Vampire Maman

 

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Additional Reminders

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I was sitting here and a pop up message popped up on my screen.

You haven’t written anything yet.

Thanks, but I don’t need any additional reminders.

Seriously, I don’t need any reminders right now, or ever.

I hate compute pop-ups. It just makes me feel hate. It is worse than the hate I feel when I see commercials with inappropriate music. You know like when Microsoft used “Start Me Up” and some clueless marketing asshole decided to show a small smiling girl using a computer right before the lyrics “You make a dead man cum.”

Aside from stories about raccoons scaling tall buildings (yes that is a real story) I’m trying to stay away from news stories concerning politics. I don’t need any reminders about any of that. I have yellow jackets to deal with.

You’d think it would be easy being a Vampire. You know, you just lurk around, sneak into rooms and drink blood, occasionally scare someone, and watch out for Vampire Hunters, but it isn’t like that. Jeez, not at all. Wouldn’t that be a horrible existence? Sort of like being a Zombie or more like a politician. You know, all dead and rotten on the inside with no feelings except the desire to feed and create a brood of sniveling bootlickers. And I’m talking both sides of the barbed wire fences they put up to keep their camps in line.

The yellow jacket sting burns and has put me in a temporary bad mood. Can you tell?

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Several other things have also put me on edge but … but it will be a good day. My wonderful 84 pound shadow of a dog is with me. Despite the asshole yellow jackets my yard is beautiful (I’ll post photos later.) I feel creative. OK not this second because I’m venting, but I’m feeling creative. My kids are driving to the coast for the day and I’m happy for them. My husband was in a good mood. Nobody was eaten by coyotes last night (at least not anyone I know.)

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My dog Alice

So what is bugging you today? Feel free to vent. Or better yet, feel free to share something good that is going on. We could all use some of that.

Sometimes it is good to have a reminder, but nobody wants to be bugged by yellow jackets or by their own computer.

~ Juliette aka Vampire Maman

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Short Story Sunday: Blow Up

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It wasn’t just one of those days. It was THE day. At least it seemed that way, for a few minutes, then Tara realized that it was a rare week that went by without a disaster.

Take this morning for example. She’d been driving home and heard the sound of an explosion, then sirens, and then saw a huge black cloud coming from the sky. She assumed that it was a fire in a field or an old warehouse occupied by homeless tweekers. She stopped to get gas, then by the grocery store to pick up cat food.

She turned into her street and saw that it was her garage.

“Dingus,” she whispered. Her dog raised his head from the back seat of her car. “Amber,” she said out loud. “Oh no. Amber.”

The detached garage was gone. Firefighters were working on keeping the rest of the house from burning down. Tara parked and ran down the street towards her house. Dingus ran after her.

Her neighbor Sue was standing outside with a beer in her hand. She approached Tara and stopped her from getting too close to the fire. “I have Amber. Your kitty is safe sweetie.”

“What about the guys in the garage?” Tara looked at the fire with tears coming down her cheek.

“I’m going to assume they’re gone. Holy shit, to come all this way and blow themselves up in a garage fire,” said Sue. “I told them just the other day to lay low and not fool with stuff. They never listened. That is on of the great faults of history. Nobody listens to the natives. They have to think they know better. They have to think their technology is always better.”

The women watched as the fire was put out, then Tara approached one of the fire fighters. She held her big Lab mix Dingus close and told him not to jump.

“Hey, Dingus,” he said as he pulled off a glove and put his and on the dog’s head. “I’m so sorry Tara. This is so weird. We thought there was someone in your garage. Maybe… I don’t know. It was weird, like someone running around in the flames. Then we didn’t see them. Was there anyone who might have been in your garage?”

“No, Joe. The only thing I had in there was Dale’s old Mustang, a few tools, and gardening stuff. My Costco stash was in there too, you know toilet paper, paper towels, charcoal. But I kept the lighter fluid in the house. I had a couple of gas cans for the power tools but they were empty.”

They talked some more about the weird explosion and fire. The a handsome officer from the Sheriff Department asked some general questions. He said someone would be out to investigate. Tara called her insurance company, then called her mom and her boss.

After all of the emergency crews had gone, and the yellow tape was around my garage, Sue and Tara poked around a bit.

The women couldn’t find any trace of anything. That included Tara’s deceased brother Dale’s 1965 Mustang convertible. It was a sweet ride – white with a red interior. Dale had loved that car. So had Tara.

Sue looked down at the burnt out garage then at Tara. “Do you think they took the car?”

“Looks that way,” said Tara.

Later that night Sue’s husband and kids came home from a school field trip. They speculated on what might have happened. They decided not to tell the fire department or Sheriff about their own theories.

Despite the smoke smell Tara decided to stay in her house that night. Joe came over later and spent the night. They shared a bottle of wine, made love, and Tara didn’t tell him anything about her garage.

Far away on the moon Titan, circling the planet Saturn, Dolf and Wheeze drove into the underground city in Dale’s 1965 Mustang. They thought their parents were going to kill them for crashing their ship in Tess’s back yard. They’d even get more shit for blowing up her garage. They’d put a chip in Amber’s neck to make sure they’d know what was happening on Earth. Amber seemed to know everything. She was their best long-term connection. But for now they just wanted to settle in from the long trip and cruise with their friends. Life was good, especially for Titan teens.

 

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Thank you for reading yet another story quickly written over Sunday morning coffee.

Yes, this story is in honor of Art Bell who passed away on the 13th (yes Friday the 13th.) I spent many a long lonely drive listening to Coast to Coast, and all of the weird callers who talked about aliens, shadow people, black eyed children, ghosts, and other interesting and amazing things. 

~ Juliette aka Vampire Maman

 

 

 

 

From whom all blessings flow (and 200 Jack Asses)

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Easter weekend has come and gone. I had a house full of people. It was lovely with flowers everywhere, wine, and good company. The best.

Now it is Thursday and the house is a mess from my work, and the college aged child gathering gear for a class camping trip. Excuse me, I’m the one gathering gear for the class camping trip.

I’m also writing. Not this blog obviously as you can see by the lack of regular posts. Just semi-regular. So now I guess I should bitch about the leaf blowers in my neighborhood. There are seven houses on my street. The three which surround mine hire men to come and run leaf blowers for about twenty hours every week.

Last weekend I’d started writing the account of how Vampires came out to California in 1849 – 1850. I know, that sound pretty stupid for those who are new to this blog. We’re Vampires but not the kind you see in old Hammer films all dripping with blood and shit like at. This is no Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee fan club.

Anyway, this is the beginning of the true historic account:

“In two weeks time we will be leaving for California. We won’t be coming back, at least not anytime within the next fifty years.” He chuckled at his own joke. “We will be going by ship, crossing Panama, then taking a ship up the Pacific coast to California. Our ride will be first class, so will yours if you choose to join us. All of your expenses will be paid, plus you will receive a large bonus. For those of you who choose not to stay behind we will had new positions for you. It is up to you to decide. We hope that you will join us but we understand if you choose to stay behind. Go to church, enjoy your day, and pray upon it or whatever you wish to do to help you decide.”

Then he stood next to his wife and they sang with sweet, beautiful, angelic voices.

Praise God, from whom all blessings flow;
Praise Him, all creatures here below;
Praise Him above, ye heav’nly host;
Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost!

Amen.

Their staff listened knowing their employers and protectors rarely, or never set foot in a church of any kind.

Then the woman laughed and said, “Go. Have the morning to yourself then let us know what you wish to do.”

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The flyer featured above was not from their ship but take a good look at it.

200 Jack Asses!

Seriously, would you want to be on a ship for thirty five days with 200 Jack Asses?

The leaf blowers continue to make noise. Lucky for me it is going to rain for the next few days so maybe I’ll get a break. On a good note my dog is at my feet keeping me safe and in good company. No ghosts are on my deck. I wish there were ghosts out today. I’d send them out to scare the leaf blowers.

Enough of that. I’m going to spend the next few hour on a contemporary tale with lots of twists and turns. But I will continue the tale of how Tellias, Eleora, my parents, and other came out to California, and of their non-Vampire friends who also came along. Just for kicks and grins.

Later.

~ Juliette aka Vampire Maman

 

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