Vicarious Vampire Wars

RantWoman had a little bit been starting to fret about her buddies the WeedWhackin Wenches. It seemed like months and months had gone by without a new blog post. RantWoman was starting to fret about whether they had fallen off the edge of the universe or been carried off by a mutant squash plant or just gotten permanently pinned to their furniture by their kittens, now well-grown teenager cats.

RantWoman's solution to this querulousness is to, ta-da, call up and invite herself to dinner. RantWoman even still has another hunk of salmon in her freezer. When RantWoman mentioned the salmon and the fact that it had been in the freezer since our last salmon feed, WingNut was MUCH too polite to tell RantWoman that could add up to a lot of freezer time. However, she did point out that it was going to be a gazillion degrees outside and RantWoman was going to be arriving by bus and that maybe the other bus passengers would have a more olfactorily satisfactory trip if RantWoman just left the salmon at home.

Rantwoman was easily persuaded, especially since her same week had included another vile olfactory experience, the sort of experience that involved calming a neighbor covered in vile stench, calling cops and talking to prosecutors and a bunch of details RantWoman HOPES she spared the Wenches.

Anyway, off RantWoman set on her bus rides. RantWoman was not thinking with all of her brain cells about the first routing option that presented itself at RantWoman's closest stop and things wound up taking longer than RantWoman attended. RantWoman was delighted, upon her arrival, to realize that the Wenches' gardens and perennials and herbs and rhubarb were all thriving. Eggplants and tomatoes are slow but coming on. The perennials are a delight even to unconscious RantWoman. In short, all seemed healthy and well within understandable bounds on the garden front and by the standards of this year's one underwatered chive plant at RantWoman's, outright garden exuberance.

After the customary garden tour and exclamations over things like a baby melon and a volunteer squash plant, we repaired indoors to dine. Garden tomatoes, Garlic naan, olive tapanade, goat cheese for appetizers, late summer garden greenery salad with grilled lamb and tzikiki sauce, and of course gabbing and gabbing and gabbing.

There would be women of a certain age conversations about our aging parents and ups and downs of long car rides with co-workers. It's primary season and we found ourselves remarking on Mr. GoodSpaceGuy Nelson's continued unbroken string of electoral non-successes. RantWoman, admittedly is the sort of cantankerous voter who, in SOME circumstances, might pick a candidate just because of an entertaining name. This year was not such a circumstance, especially after we read his candidate's statement. RantWoman is not sure whether to recommend he keep trying or not.

RantWoman was not quite sure how to come out and ask why the Wenches seemed to have fallen out of the blogging universe. Fortunately, RantWoman did not have to ask because Curmudgeon bubbled forth without being asked: Curmudgeon is in danger of having her heart stolen by...VAMPIRE WARS!

Understand, RantWoman only reluctantly and very gingerly treads in Facebook in the first place. In the second place, if RantWoman could summon even faint enthusiasm for video games, there is a lot of localization work to be done in a language pair RantWoman works in, and RantWoman cannot even summon interest in video games when delivery of substantial sums of cash could transpire. In the third place, RantWoman is the sort of earnest practical sort who would only play video games if they involved a lot of solar-powered, green construction, renewable, high biodiversity, low carbon footprint, organically grown granola and flaxseed experiences.

RantWoman MIGHT be able to maintain focus on clans and alliances, especially if they were all shellacked over with community-building and universal health care and... But RantWoman just cannot hold in her brain the sort of focus on blood and wealth and weapons and accumulation that, from Curmudgeon's description seem positively required for Vanpire Wars.

How, you ask, does Curmudgeon know so much about Vampire Wars? It appears Curmudgeon has been playing A LOT of Vampire Wars. She has been playing for herself. She has been playing for Wing Nut AND she has been playing for someone named Mugwort! RantWoman got such an earful, she could ALMOST qualify to play Vampire Wars herself, if she could stand Facebook. RantWoman is really glad the garden is thriving and that all that has gotten swallowed up by Vampire Wars time is entries on the blog.

By then, it was time for dessert. The Wenches were apologetic about the homemade blueberry ice cream. Wing Nut had deviated from the recipe in a couple ways so the product was delicious but the texture was grainy and crumbly. RantWoman who of course never ever deviates from recipes and never ever has anything less than perfect results when she does experiment was honored actually to be included in the results, delicious and idiosyncratically textured as they were.