I never drink… wine

Sorry, I just had to use that classic quote.

Just a short one today. Ever wondered why the majority of movie vampires have such a restricted diet? But why some do eat? I’m thinking wonderful things like deep-fried onion ‘flowers’… (Name That Fictional Vampire!)

I probably should have mentioned this just after Christmas, when everybody’s motto is  “Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we diet.”

So…

Food.

I know I have briefly talked about this before. But looking back, I realised that I never explained it properly. Well, guess what – today is your (un)lucky day.
I have talked about allergies and sensitivity to certain foods. I have not gone into detail about their effects on my vampire metabolism. Nor will I. Some things you just don’t talk about. Nor would you want me to talk about them.

It’s really quite straightforward.

But first, I’ll go off on one of my infamous tangents. Well, I say infamous…  the truth is nobody cares. Like when some brand/store/restaurant claims that something of theirs is world famous, you can be pretty sure that it’s probably not.

So, here’s my tangent. Mostly to try to key into your human sensibilities by sharing an incident that actually happened to a human. A rather cool human, to be honest. One of the few friends I had growing up. But that’s a tangent on a tangent.

Anyway!

This friend… let’s called her Persephone. Mostly because I wanted the excuse to use that name somewhere. Persephone was not a ‘look-before-you-leap’ kind of human. She was always an ‘Ask-questions-after’ kind of person.

One day, Persephone was thirsty and wandered into her kitchen and saw a nice glass of lemonade sat there. Thinking it had been left sitting there by one of her flatmates, she glugged it back, making a note to replace it later. She also ended up needing to replace her lunch, and the kitchen mat.

It wasn’t lemonade.

It was cooking oil.

Her flatmate was baking and couldn’t find the measuring cup for the oil so had used a glass instead.
And if that wasn’t enough to make her check first, a mere few days later, she pulled out a chunk of cheese from the fridge and dived into it. She carved herself a big chunk and scarfed it down. Only it wasn’t cheese. It was butter.

As you can imagine, it put her off oil and butter. She dry-fried her food for the rest of her life. Her relationship with lemonade and cheddar was also touch-and-go for a long time. Now imagine if you actually were allergic. Imagine how put off you would then be if you tried a food and it made you feel ridiculously ill. Even seeing it would set you off.

Makes you wonder what must’ve happened with the garlic, doesn’t it? It’s a classic thing that vampires are utterly revolted and repelled by the stuff. Think about it. That’s got to be the most traumatic garlic bread ever.

And so that’s why you see so many vampires that just stick to good old blood. It’s just easier. Beats all the hassle of –

But I said I wouldn’t talk about that.

And the ones you see eating? We’re the ones that got past the knee jerk reactions and worked out what we could eat.

Simple, really.

The Vamp Who Came In From The Cold

It’s cold.

It’s so cold, I can’t move my face.

This is what it must be like to have Botox.

Let me explain. I’m not too aware of the actual sensation of feeling cold, but I do tend to notice small things like having no sensation in my toes or fingers.

I remember back in school, many, many decades ago, we had a PE teacher who we called Witch Hazel for no apparent reason (but then I also got the nickname ‘Lily-Trot’ using similar logic).

It would be this time of year and hockey season was in full swing. Witch Hazel would be standing there in full North Pole gear, looking like the infernal offspring of a 1970s Football Manager and a Grizzly Bear. Sheepskin coat, wooly hat, fur-lined gloves etc.
Anyway, she’d be standing there with only her nose exposed to the elements (well, one element – ice!) and there was us in our shorts and T-shirts, icicles hanging off our ears.

“Get moving!” she’d shout “You’ll soon warm up!”

It was a lie.

And that’s when I discovered the existence of FOPs.

FOPs

Fluorescent Orange Patches.

The skin on my thighs would be so cold that these little bright, bright orange patches would appear. I have no idea why. I think it might have been some kind of protest march by my skin cells. Not quite sure either what my blood cells were up to. On the whole, they’re a bit like me  – they keep themselves to themselves. They were disconcerting, but they encouraged me to keep moving in case anyone decided to play join-the-dots with my legs…

And then there’s the human obsession with snow…

This confuses me…

I’ve heard “One swallow does not a summer make” but it seems one snowflake will a blizzard make.

Did that even make sense?

One flake, and everybody is going crazy. The scenes in supermarkets are like something you’d expect to see at the End Of Days. Yes, because when the end of the world comes, I want to make sure I have enough milk and bread to see me through Judgment Day.
And then there’s the other classic of confusion…

“It’s too cold to snow.”

TOO COLD?

Yup, the cold is so hardcore, even the snowflakes are too scared to come out.
But I’ll finish there with one useful rule of thumb.

You know it’s cold when washing your hands in hot water warms them up.
You know it’s really cold when you warm them up by washing them in cold water.

Stay warm, everyone.