Is It Autumn Yet?

The last couple of nights, the weather has been beautiful for sleeping with the window open. Although more hot days are forthcoming, there's also a pleasant hint of autumn in the atmosphere. The equinox, and its Neopagan celebration Mabon, may still be two weeks away, but Rosh Hoshanah is upon us, and it already feels like the season has turned.

U.S. Labor Day was this past Monday, and in the Lake Michigan region, this feels like a seasonal holiday rather than only a national calender holiday. My mom and I went on a road trip to Plymouth, Indiana, for the annual Blueberry Festival. We walked around in the sun, refreshing ourselves with blueberry shortcakes, then fish tacos cooked on the grill, washed down with a blueberry iced coffee.

Huckleberries: closely related to blueberries, but not exactly the same

One of the indigenous peoples of the southwest Michigan/northwest Indiana/eastern Illinois and Wisconsin region, the Pokagon band of the Potawatomi (one of the Algonquin peoples, Pokégnek Bodéwadmik in their own language), celebrates this time of year with a pow wow, attended by several of the regional indigenous tribes. The name of this event is the Kee-Boon-Mein-Kaa pow wow, translated as "I have quit picking huckleberries*." The end of berry-picking season has been celebrated at this time, in this place, as far back as the Pokagon can remember. 

By the way, there is also a Potawatomi band in Kansas; they were forcibly moved there by the U.S government. When I went to Kansas last year, it made me incredibly sad to see how flat, treeless and riverless Kansas was. Imagine your culture was based upon living off of forest resources, that wild berries and fish went into many of your cultural dishes, that weaving river grasses into intricate baskets was one of your favorite visual fine art forms, and then you were forcibly moved to a dry, flat land with few rivers and scarcely any trees. It makes me angry every time I think about it. 

Autumn 2013 Events:

Sept. 22 - Autumnal Equinox

Oct. 15 - release of When Did You See Her Last? by Lemony Snicket

Oct. 18 - release of Kill Your Darlings movie with Daniel Radcliffe as Allen Ginsberg

Oct. 22 - release of Allegiant by Veronica Roth

Nov. 11 - official release of Lady Gaga's ARTPOP album

Nov. 15 - release of The Book Thief movie

Nov. 22 - release of The Hunger Games: Catching Fire movie

Nov. 26 - third book in Barbara Longley's Perfect, Indiana series, A Change of Heart, releases

Nov. 27 - Hanukkah begins at sundown

"Kore" by Lisa Sotilis, Creative Commons license.

I've already written detailed posts on Mabon scheduled for the 22nd-23rd of September. Still, I was thumbing through an old journal the other day, I came across this, copied from a Unitarian Universalist church bulletin's Pagan column (unfortunately, I haven't written down the name of the columnist):

"The wheel turns to Mabon - the Fall Equinox. Mabon marks the second harvest on the Pagan calendar...

"In Greek mythology, Autumn begins as Persephone returns to the Underworld to live with Hades, her husband. The myth says that Demeter's daughter, Kore, had taken a day to pick flowers in a meadow when the Earth opened up, and Hades pulled the girl into the Underworld to become his bride. Kore's name became Persephone when she married Hades. For nine straight days, Demeter searched for Kore. Helios, the Sun God, informed her that her brother, Zeus, had given the girl to Hades. In fury, Demeter cursed the Earth so that it would yield no crops. Zeus sent her a frantic message inquiring as to why she had prevented growth on the planet. She replied that there would be no regeneration of vegetation on the Earth until her daughter, Kore, was safely returned.

"Zeus immediately dispatched Hermes into the Underworld to retrieve the girl. Hades did not want to relinquish his bride permanently. Ever the negotiator, Zeus declared that Kore-Persephone would live with her mother during one half of the year and return to her husband, Hades, during the other half. In thanks, Demeter lifted the curse on the Earth, creating Spring. Every year hence, during her time of greatest sorrow, Demeter renews the curse, as her daughter returns to Hades and the Underworld."

The curse is starting to take effect. It feels like it should be Autumn now, but all things in their due time. For now I'll enjoy the late summer.

Well, maybe with one Starbucks pumpkin spice latte...

*Gaylussacia baccata and related species, which if you are an English speaker not from North America you may call bilberries.

Amazon Vine Update + A Wonderful Vampire Dream

*

*

*

A Wonderful Vampire Dream 

I had the most wonderful dream last night. I was a carefree college student, and I was on a trip to a small city I didn't know very well, looking for a hotel to stay in. As I drove down the city's main street looking for a decent hotel, I saw a small pool of water (a large puddle or a small pond) and two men standing - leaning against a wall and a tree - a short distance away. I was vaguely afraid of them. When I looked down in the pool of water, I saw the reflection of a woman in the second-floor window of a house across an alley from the pool. I inferred that this woman was the lover of one of the two men, and this made me vaguely jealous. 

I chose a motel. Once inside my room, I don't think I was able to lock the door, or at least lock it to my satisfaction. The two men were outside my room and I manually held the white wooden double door shut to keep them out. They wanted me to let them in. Eventually, I felt compelled to let them in. I realized at least one of them was a vampire. He looked looked like Robert Pattinson (but not as Edward Cullen - there was no sparkling). 

Photo by Eva Rinaldi, 2012. Creative Commons license.

That part sounds vaguely menacing and not very wonderful, but the next part was what I really enjoyed. The vampire sat on the bed with me, and I noticed how beautiful his hands were. I told him so. After that, I wasn't afraid of the two strangers anymore.

I went into an adjoining room, where some other college students I knew were playing a card game at a big table. I sat in on the card game, and the two men also joined us. With all the conversation going on, we all got to know each other better. That was when the vampire told me he thought I, Erin, would be much happier as an immortal. I became very excited that he was going to change me.

I don't remember all of the details of what happened next, except that the vampire, his friend, and I were joyriding in the back of a convertible that someone else was driving. Whatever else we did, it was something frivolous and essentially innocent fun, and I loved the worry-free feeling of it all, as well as being excited that I was going to become a vampire. When I woke up, I just wanted to go back into the dream reality. 

I may have been thinking about Twilight a little bit before bed, thanks to seeing this on Pinterest. 

See? It's like the Twilight cover, only with Finnick Odair sugarcubes. The Hunger Games: Catching Fire was a hot thing in social media yesterday because the second official trailer is out now. 

But we still have to wait until November 22 to see the movie. 

Amazon Vine Update

Last Thursday was Amazon Vine Day 1 for the month of July 2013, and both of the free items I chose were books. They came in the mail yesterday. 

One was the latest Dead Is novel (paranormal, young adult mystery) by Marlene Perez, called Dead Is Just a Dream. Like the classic Nightmare on Elm Street horror films, it's about teenagers who die in their sleep. 

Its official release date is September 3, but you can preorder now. 

The second book is Five Days at Memorial: Life and Death in a Storm-Ravaged Hospital by Sheri Fink. This is a nonfiction book (Fink is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist as well as a physician) about Memorial Medical Center, a New Orleans hospital inside the flooded zone during Hurricane Katrina. 

Again, the book is not available until September (the 10th), but you can preorder now. 

I'm 109 pages in, and it's so sad. I just read a passage in which a doctor has told a nurse that the hospital is out of oxygen tanks and she had to let an elderly patient die, but that information was wrong - the hospital did, in fact, still have oxygen. That devastating experience the nurse had of having the old man die in her arms could have been avoided. 

This is the problem with nonfiction - reality is heartbreaking. Now do you see why I want to live in a dream? 

#WaitingOnWednesday / #OhHowPinteresting - Must-Have New Books of 2013

I'm not a usual Waiting on Wednesday blogger, but since it's still early in 2013, I wanted to get down a list of books I'm looking forward to this year. Just yesterday I found out that Dan Brown is releasing a new novel in the Robert Langdon series, to be titled Inferno, on May 14. Yay!



My mom told me if I started The Da Vinci Code I wouldn't be able to put it down, and she was right. I still love that book, Angels and Demons, and (to some extent) The Lost Symbol, and I don't care if you like them or not.

I'm also utterly addicted to J.R. Ward's Black Dagger Brotherhood series - that's my mom's fault, too. I eagerly await Lover at Last, set to come out on March 27. 



It will be bittersweet when this series ends, but I've got to read Dead Ever After by Charlaine Harris. Amazon says the release date will be May 7th. I wonder if it's too early to put my name on the library waiting list? I never buy the hardcovers in this series - the first ones went straight to the genre paperbacks shelf, and I still contend it was kind of rude (and money-grubbing) of Harris' publisher to start putting them out in the much-more-expensive hardcover first.



...and my mom also got me hooked on Sookie Stackhouse. It was my introduction to paranormal romance, actually.

P.S. How fantastic are the Japanese covers for the Sookie Stackhouse series?!



P.P.S. Doesn't this one look like it might be about Bella Swan and Rosalie Hale?



I love vintage book covers. Now, some pins that are just cool. This is Jack Kerouac in 1944. Kinda sexy (even though he appears to be in some kind of trouble). Is anybody else looking forward to the On the Road movie with Kristen Stewart?



Anybody looking forward to Catching Fire?



This, I feel, is pretty cute. Lewis Carroll's birthday is coming up (January 27th), so I think a full Alice's Adventures in Wonderland post will be called for soon.



What are you looking forward to in 2013?

Oh How Pinteresting! What I Pinned This Week

If it's Wednesday, it's time to link up with:


The week after my Jeopardy! tryout, here's what caught my eye. First, this great old green glass doorknob.



This Julien Fournie dress; the model is basically wearing The Matrix.

This Milo Manara "Red Riding Hood" pin-up.

Sam Claflin, as he might look when he plays Finnick Odair in Catching Fire.

This cutie pie, all curled up and snuggly.

This book I still have from when I was a kid.

If you're a Person of Interest fan (a.k.a. an Irrelevant), you know what to do.

Finally, a variation on a theme from a few days ago.