Purple Kappa: As You Are Now So Once Was I

The Kappa In Japanese Folklore

Kappas are legendary creatures that inhabit the rivers and waterways of Japan. They have beaked noses, shells on their back and a depression on their heads that holds water. Kappa are mischievous troublemakers. Their pranks range from the relatively innocent, such as loudly passing gas or looking up women's kimonos, to the more troublesome such as drowning swimmers and eating children. They feed on their victims by sucking their liver though their anus. They love cucumbers and if you write your name on a cucumber and throw it in the river, the kappa may be appeased by your gift and allow you to swim in peace.

August 26, 2011

As You Are Now So Once Was I

It's been quite a while! My camera was rendered useless back in May, and I've been without a camera all summer. Not that there has been much to document, it's been a series of one calamity after another. We've been battling fleas with all our pets, trying everything from Frontline to borax in the rug and flea combing all the animals. I think we might be finally triumphant, although I hesitate to post such a boast. Early in August I was in a scary car accident when the gas pedal got caught in the floor mat, causing the car to accelerate on its own, the brake wouldn't work and I lost control of the car, plowing into a utility pole and knocking it down. I was fine, the car was not. And then last week one of our tiny foster kittens passed away--common with kittens so young, but the first time for us. Summer is not my favorite season.

But a package arrived last week, a surprise family gift from Brian's mom. A wonderful new camera, much nicer than any I ever had before. So while Brian worked on all the details with the insurance company and arranging to buy a new car, Ivy and I took a trip to Lakeview Cemetery. Years ago I lived nearby and would often walk around this beautiful cemetery. I hadn't visited in quite a long time, and thought it would be a good place to do gravestone rubbings which Ivy had seen on the television show The Haunting Hour. Unfortunately, the charcoal we were using was more like a pencil and kept making distracting lines, we need to return with something softer. So, instead, we took the sort of goofy gothic photos I would have been enamoured with back in the nineties when I was wandering around the graves smoking cigarettes.

She's hoping someone will drive by and think she's a ghost. I told her it was a little too sunny and bright that day to believe in ghosts, that we needed to come back on a gray and gloomy day.