We won’t see a full moon on Friday the 13th until 2049 so enjoy tonight and howl if you want to.

I thought about the full moon this week as I watched the Southern California sky (Orange County to be exact) at night. My daughter just moved down there. Tuesday. We moved her down on Tuesday. No, we did not cheat or pay anyone to get her into one of the top universities in the country. She worked her ass off (thank you very much.)

Let me climb on my soap box for a few minutes. Cheating to get into a college, to get a job, or to advance your child into sports does not service to your child. You are not doing them a favor. In fact you’re more than likely setting your child up for failure. Let them fail by themselves. If a kid fails on their own merit they’ll bounce back stronger than ever and learn from it. If they fail from cheating, especially from their parent’s cheating they will learn nothing. If they succeed from cheating they will learn nothing.

So, not that is out of the way let’s get back to Friday the 13th and the full moon.

I grew up being sort of suspicious of Werewolves. They were always sort of flashy and trashy, or were completely void of any social graces. Times have changed. Yes, there are still the trashy and flashy ones and those who are extremely awkward, but I have a few Werewolf friends. And yes, Vampires and Werewolves usually don’t run in the same circles, but we can, and we do, and sometimes I do. My son has also had a Werewolf for a roommate during his undergraduate days.

So what’s all this about FRIDAY THE 13Th?

Many people believe the negative origin of “Friday the 13th” comes from the demise of the Knights Templar on Friday the 13th. Some say the roots are more ancient, perhaps connected to the Last Supper or maybe even earlier events.

I’m not superstitious and generally have little or no patience with superstitions.

Or as my friend Adam, who is a Werewolf, would say, “SHIT, when Friday the 13th is on a full moon all of the crazies come out of the woodwork.”

I’ll make sure to stay away from the woodwork, and Werewolves.

What about the 11th? 9/11 was worse than what happened to the Templars/ What about the 23rd or the 17th. Halloween is on the 31st. Like the 13th they’re prime numbers.

But if the prime number theory was true, which it isn’t then 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19, 23, 29, 31, 37, 41, 43, 47, 53, 59, 61, 67, 71, 73, 79, 83, 89, 97, 101, 103, 107, 109, 113, 127, 131, 137, 139, 149, 151, 157, 163, 167, 173, 179, 181, 191, 193, 197, 199 and so on… it would be too confusing and silly. Sometimes you just have a bad day.

But mathematics and Templars aside… I have some helpful hints to survive Friday the 13th.

By the time you read this Friday the 13th will almost be over. I have Eleora with me today, so I’m making this quick (like 15 minutes to write this quick.) She is older than the Templars but doesn’t have an opinion on the subject. She just said they were an odd lot of fellows and was suspicious of any group of men who swore to be celibate as part of their club.

A Vampire’s Guide to Friday the 13th

1. Love a cat. If you need a cat consider adopting a black cat.
2. Summer is here and people are disgusting. They are hot and sweaty and yucky. Carry a packet of chilled wipes, or a chilled wet wash cloth in a zip lock bag. When you need a bite to eat you’ll have something to wipe off that hot sweaty neck.
3. Celebrate with a cold goblet of chilled Poet’s Blood on ice with a sprig of rosemary and a dash of good Whiskey.
4. Cool off in a nice dark movie theater. I recommend the “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?” 143
5. Adopt someone and be their Vampire. Everyone needs a Vampire to help them through life’s scary moments. You can benefit from their blood, and they can benefit from your protection. It is a win/win all around.
6. Watch a Vincent Price movie and turn the air conditioner up full blast.
7. Look for the Templar treasure. But don’t bother looking on Oak Island. We all know nothing is there.
8. Spend time with an Ancient Vampire. They enjoy your company and would love spend some time with you. They might even have some insights on modern superstitions and why people are weird.

Triskaidekaphobia: the fear of the number thirteen.

Have fun. Relax. Stay cool. And as always avoid bad blood.

~ Juliette aka Vampire Maman

Full moon at the end of my street. 

I’ve also added another short Werewolf tale RIGHT HERE. Read it if you want to. This was first posted in 2014.

Strange Strangers on a Full Moon Night

Mars was exceptionally bright in the sky last night. The moon was less than full but still exceptionally bright.

This morning I dropped the kids off to school. Garret’s car is in the shop so mom gets to drive. Anyway, I drop them off behind some temporary classrooms (that have been there for 45 years) because Clara doesn’t want to have to walk by the large group of “Stoners” who hang out every morning at the logical drop off point. So this morning she tells me she over heard one of the Stoners saying “That woman stops and turns around every morning. Weird. I guess she doesn’t want to stay here.” They had no idea I was dropping off kids. Sigh.

So the moon, teens, clueless thoughts… what does that all lead to? It made me think of a distant memory of when my brothers Val, Aaron and I were teens.

Go back to 1873. We lived in a city that had regulairly flooded, burned down, flooded again and survived illness and lawlessness and all sorts of disasters (Sacramento of course.) It was enough to make anyone want to leave, but instead people thrived and it grew. Railroads made kings. Agriculture was starting to boom. It was a city with growing art and culture and the new capitol building was almost finished. But to us it was home and our concerns were not those of adults or even most people. We were teens, comfortable in our own skin, a little less Victorian than most our age, a little more independent than most. My brothers and I lived in a tight knit community of Vampires, part of the Modern Vampire Movement. But you already know that.

One night, under a full moon, my brothers Aaron (age 17), Valentine (age 14) and I (age 13) were taking a stroll along the Sacramento River. We were always out looking for vagrants and activity from any riverboats. We were on the prowl, three well heeled Vampire kids who could use our innocence and charm to get in and out of any situation before our prey ever knew we were there.

With our stomachs full and our dark little souls throughly amused we walked home through a grove of trees on the edge of the riverbank. There we came upon a camp. Two figures were hunched over half a dozen large fish, I believe stripers or maybe steelhead. They grunted and tore at the fish. At first glance we thought they were coyotes or large dogs, but then we realized they were something else.

“Werewolves,” whispered Aaron holding his hand out to signal us to stay still.

We watched in fascination, with a bit of disgust, as the two turned back into their human form – a young man and a young woman. They were about our age and completely naked. He was skinny, unlike my muscular brothers. His skin was pale under the moonlight like the bellies of the fish he’d just devoured. She was also thin with ribs sticking out and knobby joints. Her grayish unhealthy looking skin was covered with red welts. Long dark hair hung below her waist. But what surprised us most was the hairless tail that hung down about 6 inches on the end of her spine.

I elbowed Aaron and he gave me a quick look that said “don’t move.”

“She has a tail,” Val whispered a little too loud. Aaron put his hand over his younger brother’s mouth.

The Werewolves put on their clothes, plain and worn compared to our fashionable togs. We had a home and parents. These two were obviously strays just trying to survive their miserable condition.

Val and I wanted to approach the Werewolves but Aaron was against it. He said we should just let them be and they’d be dead more sooner than later. There was a prominent pack of well-heeled Werewolves in town but we had little to do with them and it was obvious that these strays were not part of their pack.

Occasionally my parents would deal with the Werewolves, but always held them at a distance and with considerable contempt. One thing that stood out about the well to do Werewolves was their fondness for velvet. No kidding. Those Werewolves loved their velvet.

This isn’t going to be a moral story where we went back and helped the young Werewolves. We went back and they were gone. None of our friends had ever seen them. We told our parents about them. In turn they mentioned the strays to the pack leader in town and he had never heard of the young Werewolves.

It was just one of those weird things. Ships that pass in the night.

I asked my friend Adam, who is a Werewolf, about the pair when I stopped by his studio this morning (he is a photographer by trade.) He’d never heard of them. The tail on the girl turned out to be something extremely rare, just like a tail on anyone who is remotely human like.

“Why didn’t you help them?” Of course he had to ask.

“I don’t know. We were just kids. We thought they were dangerous. Beside that, maybe they didn’t need or want help. My parents asked around. Nobody knew anything, or if they did they weren’t telling us about it. I’m talking both Werewolves and Vampires. Nobody knew anything.”

I knew there would be nothing online about them but I after I left Adam I checked anyway. There was nothing.

This story has no moral or reason behind it. Just a story of something that happened a long time ago that I’ll tell my kids about and maybe they can find a moral in it.

It might be a mystery forever. But I have a knack for finding people and things so you never know. You never know about anything, not really.

~ Juliette aka Vampire Maman