Saturday, August 28, 2010

I Didn’t See That Coming

Sometimes things just take you by surprise. Yesterday, for example. It started off as one of our ordinary adventure days. We got up early, loaded the kayaks, and headed for the lake. It was relatively quiet when we got there… there was a birdwatcher we accidentally disturbed and a few fishermen. The lake was even lower than last time, but we pushed our way through the mud and the duckweed and started to paddle somewhat leisurely. About 15 minutes into our adventure, out in the middle of the lake, my daughter and I started teasing my husband that we were too tired to paddle around. We would let him cruise the lake and we would just float. My daughter just started towards my husband when the unthinkable happened. She bumped his kayak. In slow motion, I watched him dump into the lake. In a flash, my daughter overcompensated and followed my husband. I didn’t see that coming.

They both popped up, surprised and a little stunned. They were okay but turning the kayaks over was impossible. So began the swim to shore. Both are excellent swimmers so I wasn’t concerned. Then I realized how far it was. Okay. A little concerned. My daughter left her kayak for the fishermen to tow (bless them!) and she held on to my tow line.(Did I mention I am not a good swimmer and the thought of getting dumped myself weighed heavy in my thoughts?) As we neared the shore, the weed and scum and mud thickened. Gross.

I took off my shoes before I got out of the kayak. Stepping on shore, I immediately sank to my ankles in mud. Really gross. My husband headed back out for the remaining kayak while my daughter and I headed toward the dock. Two more steps and we were calf-deep in foul-smelling mud. Two more steps and it was nearly knee-deep and the fishermen were calling, “You’ll have to go through the woods!”

Well, I couldn’t scrape enough of the  mud off to put my shoes on without ruining them, so we tackled the woods in socks. After jumping a gully, squishing through mucky soil, being scraped and scratched and temporarily trapped, we found the dock. The kayaks were full of water and mud and took a while to drain. Then it was home to scrub the boats and our clothes and ourselves. Like I said, some things just take you by surprise…

The same thing happened last night when I watched episodes #288 and #289 of Dark Shadows. Julia Hoffman has been working undercover at Collinwood. Although she is really a doctor secretly treating Maggie Evans, she is pretending to be a historian researching the Collins family.  Barnabas wants no part of her inquisitiveness. He is right to be concerned.

Julia makes a trip to Barnabas’ home in the daytime and discovers him in his coffin. What do you do with that information? Drive a stake into his heart? Cover him with holy water? Shoot him? Go home and pretend nothing happened? Sure. That one.

Barnabas later comes to Collinwood to apologize and agrees somewhat grudgingly to meet with Dr. Hoffman at his home the next evening. Shortly thereafter, Julia readies herself for bed. She makes quite a show of opening the curtains and the window and turning down the covers. Later, in  her darkened room, we see Barnabas silently appear next to her bed.

Then, out of the darkness, we hear Julia.

“Barnabas Collins. I’ve been waiting for you. I’ve been waiting for a very  long time.”

I didn’t see that coming.

Thursday, August 19, 2010

Secrets, Secrets

“Secrets, secrets are no fun. Secrets, secrets hurt someone.”  -The Office

My daughter loves that quote. We were watching an episode of The Office last night when she started to laugh and said, “Here it comes!”

Someone should have told Elizabeth Stoddard about secrets. Jason McGuire blackmailed her into an engagement all because he knew her secret- she had accidentally killed her husband and allowed Jason to bury him in the basement. Big secret. Keep it to yourself for 18 years and you are bound to hurt people when you finally come clean.

At her wedding ceremony, Liz refuses to say “I do”. Instead, she admits her secret, the truth stopping Carolyn from shooting Jason in cold blood. The family is understandably stunned. Jason denies anything ever happened and insists Liz is having a breakdown. When she calls the sheriff, Jason runs from the house, closely followed by Burke and Roger, both brandishing guns.

The sheriff arrives and Burke returns without Jason. Together they dig in the basement, uneasy in their roles of finding Paul Stoddard’s body. Shaken, they open the trunk they find only to discover it empty. When Jason is returned to the house, he admits that Paul Stoddard was only stunned when Elizabeth hit him and together, Paul and Jason quickly schemed to trick Elizabeth out of her money. Jason “buried the body” and blackmailed Elizabeth while Paul made his escape. Elizabeth refuses to press charges in order to save the family from disgrace. Jason asks for one day to get his affairs in order, sneaking off to see Willie at Barnabas’ home- not his best plan.

Although one secret is out in the open, another still looms…

Maggie Evans was able to figure out Sarah’s rhyme and escape from Barnabas’ home. Sam found her on the beach and took her to the hospital, where Maggie awakes, believing she is a little girl. In order to save her from whoever kidnapped her, Sam and Joe agree with the doctor’s plan to send her away and tell everyone she has died from shock. So far, their plan is working. Everyone believes Maggie has died. Everyone including Barnabas Collins, who is planning to create a new Josette---from Victoria Winters.

“Secrets, secrets…”

Saturday, August 14, 2010

Secret Shame

I haven’t been to a proper tea since my husband took me to a private one several years ago for my birthday. It was delightful, right down to the crown I got to wear!

Yesterday I attended another tea party. This one was held by friends who wanted to get an eclectic group of women together to share tea and conversation. Seated around a beautifully arranged table complete with silver and china and flowers, the seven of us started with savory tea sandwiches (my favorite being the goat cheese with fresh basil, roasted red pepper, and onion on cocktail rye) followed by scones with jam and cream and blueberries and raspberries with whipped cream served in chilled wine glasses. The last course was lemon tarts, cheesecake squares, mini-cupcakes, and a variety of cookie bars. All of this was served with delicious teas and stimulating conversation.

At one point, these college-educated, worldly women admitted to their secret shame: reality television. Toddlers in beauty pageants, home makeovers, housewives behaving badly, cooks yelling at each other---all the shows I have never seen and never will see. My quietness couldn’t help but be noticed as I am usually anxious to toss in my two cents.

My host whispered, “You don’t watch any of these shows, do you?”

“Um…no.”

But no one thought to ask me if I have a secret shame. I would have had to admit to being obsessed by 1,199 episodes of Dark Shadows. I am currently watching episode #260. Dark Shadows may not be babies in tiaras, but it is shameful in it’s own right.

Maggie is still being held by Barnabas who hopes to convince her that she is Josette. Maggie, dressed in Josette’s wedding gown, listening to Josette’s music box and being kept in Josette’s bedroom, was confused for a long time. That spell has finally been broken and Maggie is longing to escape. She heard her father and Joe talking to Barnabas and wanted to scream for help, but Barnabas told her he would kill her and the men if she made a sound. Because she knows who she is now, Barnabas has locked her in the cellar until he can decide whether to make her his own or kill her.

A new character has arrived: Sarah. She is a ghost (I think she is Barnabas’ sister, but that’s just a guess) who appears to Maggie. Maggie doesn’t realize she is a ghost and begs the little girl to help her escape. The girl offers a rhyme that may lead to a way out. Sarah also appears to Sam Evans and tells him to look for Maggie on the beach in the evening---then she disappears.

Elizabeth’s agreeing to marry Jason causes Carolyn to resort to crazy behavior. She stays out until all hours and runs with a rough crowd. She announces she will marry a motorcycle riding beatnik unless her mother ends her engagement to Jason. She later is in a car accident where she almost kills a woman and is arrested. Vicky convinces Elizabeth to pick up Carolyn from the sheriff herself to show how much she loves her. Elizabeth agrees to leave Collinwood, her safe haven for 18 years, to collect Carolyn, only to have her daughter reject her again.

I am anxiously waiting for episode #261. That (and once buying a whole chocolate cake with thick buttercream frosting at 9:30 at night just because I wanted something sweet) is my secret shame.

Monday, August 9, 2010

Thicker Than Water

I had to get blood drawn the other day. The nurse was so efficient, I barely realized she had put in the needle when she was already removing it. That was a good thing. I’ve never fainted, but I always get woozy. Bring a needle near me and the ocean sounds in my head and my stomach leaps to my throat. Someone else’s blood doesn’t bother me, though. I have cleaned numerous scrapes and cuts and gaping wounds in my teaching career without ever having that funny feeling.

Lucky for me as the last few episodes were filled with blood. Oh, not like in movies where it covers the scenes like thick red paint. This was far more subtle.

The doctor who was treating Maggie finds something puzzling in her blood sample. The doctor then insists on drawing blood from a reluctant Willie, fearing he may have the same condition as he has exhibited the same symptoms. Could this be an epidemic? Could the answer to Maggie’s disappearance somehow be found in Willie’s blood? (The doctor posed that question, not me.) Then we hear about blood that was spilled at Collinwood years before. Blood that chains Elizabeth to Jason as he is the only one who knows that Elizabeth killed her husband. And slimy Jason, who makes my blood run cold, blackmails Elizabeth into agreeing to marry him so her secret will not be revealed to Carolyn, a move that could still cost Elizabeth her daughter.

Missing Maggie

Maggie Evans has disappeared from her hospital room. She was so weak she could barely lift her head, but at nightfall, she managed to escape from her hospital room in the time it took her nurse to walk into the hall to page the doctor.

Where could she be? Why is she gone?

Barnabas knows. He has Maggie hidden away in the old manor house.

Barnabas has begun recreating his former life, starting with the homestead. Furniture. Carpets. Lighting (all candles as the home has no electricity). A commissioned portrait identical to the one of Barnabas that hangs in Collinwood. He is also recreating his long, lost love.

Once upon a time, Josette, the great love of Barnabas, threw herself from the cliffs in order to escape the evil she discovered he had become. Maggie is being molded into the new Josette. Barnabas traps her in his home, dresses her in Josette’s wedding gown, gives her Josette’s music box, keeps her in Josette’s splendidly redecorated room. He tells her that Maggie Evans never existed. That she has always been Josette. Maggie, in her weakened state, believes she is Barnabas’ love.

The town searches feverishly for Maggie. Some of them question Barnabas at his home. Several times they missed seeing her by seconds. Sam and Joe nearly walked in on her. David speaks to her, thinking she is the ghost of Josette.

Will the spell ever be broken? Can someone bitten by Barnabas ever truly return to their previous life?

Saturday, August 7, 2010

Would Some Chocolate Help?

No one knows what to make of poor Maggie Evans.  Normally a vivacious young woman full of spitfire and vinegar, she has been ill for several days. She wakes late and only when her father rattles her cage. She is weak and pale and unable to go to work. She doesn’t want to eat or drink anything. She sleeps the entire day away. She cries and complains of being cold. She has a pain in her neck (a real one, not her drunken father or strapping boyfriend). But worse than how she feels during the day is how she acts at nightfall.

Maggie feels better. Strong. Energetic. Ready to be up and about. Making pleasant conversation. Just as suddenly, she turns angry. She snaps at her father. She quakes at the sound of the howling dogs. She tries to sneak out of her house. She tells her boyfriend that she doesn’t need a babysitter, that she doesn’t want him for a boyfriend. She fights the doctor. She screams to be left alone.

And then there are those two puncture wounds on her neck that no one can explain.

My funny husband says he’s seen it before, thinks it all sounds like a bad case of PMS… and said that maybe he should check to the necks of the women living in his house. Like I said, he’s funny.

Friday, August 6, 2010

Try Not to Wake Sleeping Beauty

When I was in college, I lived in an all-girl’s dorm. The top floor only had thirteen rooms and twenty-five girls so we were very close. We didn’t get a lot of unintentional foot traffic, so we left our doors unlocked a good deal of the time. I had to rethink that after one embarrassing incident.

When I was a senior one of my friends was dating a football player. I knew who he was, of course, but I had yet to meet him. One night, he was visiting Mary in the dorms. They got to talking and she mentioned me.

“You know Amy.”

“Nope, I don’t think so.”

“Sure you do. She works in the cafeteria. She’s really short with straight, light brown hair. She works the desk a lot or behind the line.”

“Um, maybe, I’m not sure.”

So, Mary decided to see if I was in.

I was in alright. I was sound asleep, probably drooling or snoring or both. That, however, didn't stop Mary. She barged in and, bringing her boyfriend right over to my flannel-clad shape,  whispered, “Do you recognize her now?”

He wasn’t sure so he got really close to my bed and leaned way over. Peering at me so intently, I am certain he was mesmerized by my sleeping beauty.

“Oh, yeah. I know who she is!”

“See. I told you. I knew you’d recognize her.”

Thankfully, I slept through their unexpected visit and only learned about it the next morning. The girls on the floor all thought it was hysterical, but I could only imagine what it would have been like to suddenly wake up in a pitch black room only to see a big, hulking, strange man inches from my face!

I had forgotten this story until I saw the latest episode of Dark Shadows. Poor Maggie was sound asleep, fighting off nightmares, when the French doors to her room slowly opened and Barnabas Collins strolled in. He stood at the foot of the bed staring at Maggie.

I could easily imagine how she would have felt had she startled awake at that moment. Fortunately, she remained asleep just like I did. She didn't see Barnabas’ fangs illuminated in the moonlight while I only missed the silly whisperings and giggles of my friend and her boyfriend.

Tuesday, August 3, 2010

Let’s Hear It For Barnabas Collins

Okay, I will admit that I really enjoyed the first 209 episodes (at an average of 20 minutes each that is a true time commitment) of Dark Shadows. I like the characters. I like the quirky lighting and shaky sound and off-stage mistakes. But nothing, nothing, compares to the arrival of Barnabas Collins.

Now fellow fans already know this and I hate to be a spoilsport to those newbies who may have stumbled across this blog, but Barnabas is the original charming, handsome vampire. Oh, we don’t KNOW that he is a vampire yet but there have been clues: he was released from a chained coffin; he asks the portrait of Josette why she didn’t protect him when he lived in the manor; he describes the relationship between a young man and his father and how the father killed the man right on the stairs in the old house; he talks about how the Barnabas in the portrait (claiming he is his ancestor) outlived all his enemies.

And then there is the return of Willie.

Willie went missing for a while after he opened the coffin. Everyone was worried. They didn’t really miss him, they just wanted to be sure he was gone. Just as suddenly as he disappeared, he’s back. But he’s a changed man. He is quiet, subdued. He is apologetic and sincere. He is afraid of the dark.

No one knows what to make of the new Willie. They all agree something is off about him. He must be sick and should remain at Collinwood until he feels better able to leave.

I think when nightfall comes, they will change their minds.

Monday, August 2, 2010

Thum-Thump, Thum-Thump, Thum-Thump

 

We all fear things that go bump in the night.

Shortly after we moved into our big old Victorian home, my husband had to be away overnight. We don’t live in a particularly large city. Crime is evident here but not something I worry much about other than taking normal precautions. I am a college-educated woman with a variety of life experiences that make me more than capable of taking care of myself.

Nighttime, though, changes everything. As soon as it got dark, I scampered upstairs with several books and a pot of hot tea and barricaded myself in the bedroom. Yep, barricaded. The house was built in such a way that sections of it could be closed off with locked doors. The alarm system was set. I was perfectly safe.

Not long afterwards, the floors started creaking. I knew it was just the house settling. Of course that’s all it was. What else could it be? Then I heard footsteps. Heavy footsteps. My heart pounded and my palms were sweating even as I was convincing myself that no one could possibly get in the house. Then the cat, not very light of foot, appeared at the foot of the bed. Relief really does feel as if it washes over you. Minutes later, though, the cat began staring at the other bedroom door- the locked one leading to the hallway. The door leading to the top of the stairs that leads to the front door that I KNEW I had locked. Didn’t I? The cat settled about 30 minutes later. I never did. I slept with the lights on and waited for daylight.

Willie Loomis was hearing things too. (Heartbeats.) He kept staring at the portrait of a member of the Collins family. (Heartbeats.) Willie wanted the jewels the man was wearing. (Heartbeats.) They had to be worth a fortune. Rumor had it some members were buried with their riches. (Heartbeats.) Willie was greedy. Who would miss jewels stolen from a grave in the dark of night? (Heartbeats.) No one else could hear those beats. Not Jason McGuire. Not the caretaker at the cemetery. Just Willie. Call me a baby, but I would have given up grandiose thoughts of ill-gotten gains and raced like a jackrabbit away from the cemetery, the town, the state, maybe even the country. Willie wasn’t a baby. Willie was a dope.

He opened the chained (yep, chained) coffin

in the mausoleum

at the cemetery

at night.

He was ecstatic, surprised, then horrified in a split second.

Enter: Barnabas Collins.