Another Glimpse of the Garden Faery

More Garden Faeries

With a little stealth and caution, I was able to observe a reunion between our local garden faery and other visitors. A highlight of my gardening year!

Common Garden Faery

To my delight, I have discovered a garden faery in our neighborhood.

Initially shy and stand-offish, and hiding from humans,

as with most faeries, encouragement, attention, gifts, and a non-threatening approach have really brought out the inner Faery Star!

Although faeries can be somewhat demanding* (and confusing) in their relationships with us mere mortals, I hope to see more of this cute little faery in our garden.

*"A mischievous fairy is the source of the curse placed on the young woman"

For Those Determined to Read Vamp-Fic

For a more or less accurate and thinly-disguised account of a possible relationship with a vampire, read Robin McKinley's Sunshine.

From Publishers Weekly
Buffyesque baker Rae "Sunshine" Seddon meets Count Dracula's hunky Byronic cousin in Newbery-Award-winner McKinley's first adult-and-then-some romp through the darkling streets of a spooky post-Voodoo Wars world. Now that human cities have been decimated, the vampiric elite holds one-fifth of the world's capital, threatening to control all the earth in less than 100 years, unless human SOFs (Special Other Forces) can hold them at bay by recruiting Sunshine, daughter of legendary sorcerer Onyx Blaise. As breathlessly narrated by Sunshine herself, the Cinnamon Roll Queen of Charlie's Coffeehouse, in the inchoate idiom of Britney, J. Lo and the Spice Girls, Sunshine's coming-of-magical-age launches when she is swarmed by noiseless vampires one night and chained in a decrepit ballroom as an entr‚e for mysterious, magnetic, half-starved Constantine, a powerful vampire whose mortal enemy Bo (short for Beauregard) shackled him there to perish slowly from daylight and deprivation. Most of the charm of this long venture into magic maturation derives from McKinley's keen ear and sensitive atmospherics, deft characterizations and clever juxtapositions of reality and the supernatural that might, just might, be lurking out there in "bad spots" right around a creepy urban corner or next to a deserted lake cabin. McKinley knows very well-and makes her readers believe-that "the insides of our own minds are the scariest things there are."

From Booklist
Rae Seddon, nicknamed Sunshine, lives a quiet life working at her stepfather's bakery. One night, she goes out to the lake for some peace and quiet. Big mistake. She is set upon by vampires, who take her to an old mansion. They chain her to the wall and leave her with another vampire, who is also chained. But the vampire, Constantine, doesn't try to eat her. Instead, he implores her to tell him stories to keep them both sane. Realizing she will have to save herself, Sunshine calls on the long-forgotten powers her grandmother began to cultivate in her when she was a child. She transforms her pocketknife into a key and unchains herself--and Constantine. Surprised, he agrees to flee with her when she offers to protect him from the sun with magic. They escape back to town, but Constantine knows his enemies won't be far behind, which means that he and Sunshine will have to face them together. A luminous, entrancing novel with an enthralling pair of characters at its heart.

Aside from a few unbelievable flights-of-fancy (magical protection from sunlight, for example), the story is a fairly accurate representation of what could happen in a relationship between a person with Fey ancestry and an ambivalent vampire.

You Can Grow Up to Be President...

...maybe.

The recent election results have been exciting, no matter our politics, because of the historic nature of the President-elect's very identity. Some still object to his heritage, however, and remain unconvinced that he can be called truly American. Some call on the Supreme Court to rule him inelegible for the presidency because of it.

When will all of us accept our Fey and part-Fey nighbors as fully American citizens?

On the Implications of Names and Labels

One of my favorite local private agencies has the name the Center For Human Potential, which I like to think was an oversight, with no intentional exclusion of those of us who are only part-human or not human altogether.

I know I risk sounding peevish, humorless, and hopelessly PC, but names matter.

And I don't like faery jokes either.