My friend got married yesterday and we missed the wedding because of work but we made it to the reception. Because its mid-September and the reception was in a nature center (awesome!) there was a little bit of a fall theme. Not overbearingly, but the tables all had these tiny pumpkins.
So they’re cleaning up at the end of it and we’re still hanging out because we haven’t seen these people in forever and we can talk until three in the morning when we get together. All of a sudden, the Maid of Honor hands us a tiny pumpkin.
“Take one.”
“Um… okay?”
“Take another.”
“….?”
“It is my duty as Maid of Honor to make sure that the guests leave with an uncomfortable number of tiny pumpkins.”
So it turns out that she’d gotten a bunch of them for a Halloween party last year and after the party was over her mom threw them into the compost heap thinking that would be the end of it. But what she didn’t seem to realize was that if you put pumpkins in a compost heap- it grows more pumpkins. It grows pumpkins exponentially. Serious mathematical anomaly pumpkins.
So this year she has even more tiny pumpkins and she figured it would be a good idea to have them as decor for the reception. BUT- she would still have to throw them out at the end of the day and no matter where you throw them you are doomed to have a ridiculous amount of tiny pumpkins growing SOMEWHERE at your fault.
So everyone left with at least two tiny pumpkins and that’s how we made friends with the Maid of Honor.
So I forgot about it and then the next morning I woke up and found these two tiny pumpkins in my purse and had a puzzling moment of ‘what?’
We were invited to the Maid of Honor’s house the other day so we could:
take some of the flowers off her hands
help with some post-wedding stuff
watch the presidential debate
play Clue for like three hours
drink a lot of booze.
And there are just… tiny pumpkins EVERYWHERE.
They were in the bathroom.
At the end of the night, I counted 26 tiny pumpkins, and that was just what I could see.
It happened again.
Three pumpkins ended up in my purse this time.
One of them has a face.
I need to stop drinking with this woman.
this is getting out of hand.
Okay so I finally had a day off and decided that the best way to handle the pumpkin situation was to eat them and muffins sounded fucking fantastic. But I found out really fast that most recipes call for a ‘can’ of pureed pumpkin and I don’t have a scale to go by. So I figured that I had six pumpkins, it would probably amount to something like one can, right?
Well… no.
It ended up being something like two and a half cans-ish. And that’s a really rough estimate. Turns out there’s a lot more meat on those things than you think there’d be. So I figured I could do something like double it and then make a half batch.
But then I ran out of sugar. I mis-measured the baking soda. I only had whole cloves, so I had to grind them down and had to estimate how much I needed. I couldn’t find the liquid measure.
I’m mixing up this giant bowl of pumpkin batter goo thinking shit shit shit this is going to be a mess. There’s no way anyone is going to be able to eat these things. And there’s no muffin cups. But I already made it this far and I’m stubborn as hell so in the oven they go.
I… kind of… forgot about them? Woops!
Place starts smelling like Yankee Candle and I’m like SHIT. Get over to the oven and…
they’re…
….somehow perfect?
Maybe a little dry, but they’re fucking delicious. Fucking magic pumpkins. Truly I am a witch.
So the moral of the story is that if life gives you tiny pumpkins, make them into muffins and give them right back.
Also roast the seeds because hell yeah.
Happy Halloween, everyone!
We’ve found her in real life guys
An actul fictional character in real life
she even baked with them
This is not the only evidence posed to me that I might, in fact, be a fictional character.
ah, a wonderful question and so fitting given my current obsession, which colours my days dark and my dreams scarlet red.
let’s abandon all and any popular and modern ideas of vampires, even if they might be dramatic enough to tempt us.
there are three beings that ought to be mentioned: strzyga (or strzygoń, strzyż in the masculine form – but while strzyga’s name comes from Latin and Greek, the male form is purely Slavic, both linguistically and culturally) then upiór/upyr, and then wąpierz/wampir.
depending on the region, as it sweetly is with Slavic lore and myths, you’d either hear they’re the same thing – the names upyr and wampyr seem to really dictate it might be just a slight difference in naming the same creature – and in other places you’d hear that no, good gods, these are three different creatures, all with their own characteristics, preffered ways of tormenting mortals, and ways of killing them (again. at last. finally.)
in some places they know only one, or two.
the differences are sometimes that a strzyga you can be while you’re still alive, while a vampire you become after you die, and upiory are less physical and more like spirits… but very often these differences don’t exist. depends. oh woe.
another crucial thing is remembering that we Slavs all have the same roots and the same fears, but they manifest differently, and there will always be differences between how we see some demons and creatures here in Silesia or Czechia, or Ukraine, or somewhere near the Baltic sea, or far down south where Balkans spread and rule. for me here upiór might be one thing, and strzyga another, and then someone in Russia or Slovakia might hear the same thing and correct me, outraged.
and we’d both be right, such is the glory of Slavic beliefs and folklore.
so, instead of differences – you have to forgive me – I’d rather focus on similarities, as again, they might be all the same or separate things altogether. who knows…
for me, personally, the border between strzygi, upiory and wampiry is thin, wonderfully thin.
the first thing would be signs of being one of those while you’re still alive – this is especially prevalent in strzyga lore, given the belief that you can be a strzyga while still alive and only after death the “evil” part of your soul (or the evil second soul…) reigns and wreaks havoc among the living. however, many of these signs would mean you can be a vampire. again, same thing for some, separate for others.
children born with teeth or who grow two rows of teeth; strange marks or scars on body; too much hair, being born with full hair or growing it later, bushy eyebrows, hairy hands; strange eyes; big head (yes); malformed body parts or being physically disabled (hunch back, malformed fingers, one leg shorter etc etc) or being born with your heart in the right side of your body (accompanying the belief that strzygi have two hearts/two souls)
your chances of being – or becoming – a strzyga/wąpierz/upyr were greater if you were a witch or practiced magic (so this also means shepherds, as they would always dabble in folk medicine and charms), if you died tragically or suddenly (terrible illness, suicide, childbirth), if you died without being baptised (thanks Christians for adding to the criteria), if you were murdered, if you went mad, etc etc… but people who died peacefully, of old age, in their beds, surrounded by loving family, also could become those terrifying things, so don’t worry, there’s hope for everyone.
now, signs after death: pink skin, red lips (as from drinking blood), open eyes, different position than how the body was laid to rest initially, somehow escaping the seemingly inescapable wonders of rot and putrefaction, scratched/broken/split coffin, as well as finding pieces of strange things in the deceased mouth (so hungry they devour whatever! usually what is meant by that are pieces of fabric that the body was covered with that somehow found their way into the oral cavity)
and then, of course, what they surely have in common is being malicious and tormenting the mortals, being violent and having a strong affinity for blood (although, surprisingly, that is not always the case, nor was it always the most defining and characteristic thing) and the ability to shapeshift – usually into moths/bats/crows, but also dogs, cats, owls… and cows, apparently. cute.
and a stake through the heart to kill them! oak, aspen, hawthorn – or something made from iron, even.
although, as folklore sweetly reminds, the stake, most popular and reliable method that we all know of… rarely works, really. some strzygi and wampiry are simply too spooky and too strong to be discouraged by a stick.
so burn the body, preferably.
if anyone has their own things to add, please do – and again, we’re all right in those beliefs, no matter how different or even contradictory they are.
Tyrannosaurus was not the most dangerous animal in the park. Having imprinted on its handler since infancy, the creature maintained a docile temperament all the way to adulthood, and indeed seemed to prefer feeding from its designated trough to pursuing prey. Its interactions with staff and guests showed at most a mild curiosity, and the only real terror the beast inspired was when it snuck up on trainers to sniff their hats.
The raptors were not the most dangerous animals in the park. Hollywood had greatly exaggerated their size, first of all, and while they had a mischievous streak (one individual in particular was fond of stealin zookeepers’ wallets), they were far from the hyper-intelligent murder lizards everyone expected. Their intelligence was less of the predatory sort and more the comical intelligence of a corvid, devoted mostly to play and caring for their fellow flock members.
The mosasaur was not the most dangerous animal in the park. Though it held no loyalty to the zookeepers, it had taken to training well enough, and would dutifully move to a specific section of the tank when signaled, giving the keepers space to carry out any business they needed to accomplish in its tank without fear of harm.
No, by far the most dangerous animal in the park was the Struthiomimus. Everyone expected it to be easy – what were these animals in pop culture beyond being fodder for the carnivores? Surely the bird-mimics couldn’t be much of a hassle. Sadly, they weren’t just any bird mimics.
No, in temperament, the Struthiomimus mimicked a swan.
Highly territorial and vicious to the bone, more keepers had suffering brutal beatings by the struthis than had been hurt by the rest of the park’s fauna combined. And when they learned to chew through the fences…
Well, let’s just say the Tyrannosaurus never experienced a more terrifying day in her life.
Mooncustafer 