Shades of Poe 6 Rooms, 6 Spirits, 6 Tales of Woe

                                                                              

If you like Edgar Allan Poe, then you're going to love this review!

This past Friday, my friends and I headed over to Collingswood to the Historic Collings-Knight Homestead to watch Shades of Poe, a vignette of six Edgar Allan Poe stories presented by Fractured Mirror Productions, conceived, compiled, directed and designed by Patty Verzella. The house is located at 500 Collings Ave. on the corner of Collings Avenue and Browning Road, across from the park.

                                                                         

I had no idea what to expect, but when the event began, I was knocked off my seat; the show was better than imagined, and I highly recommend that you go see it.

                                                                   

After arriving at the house, the three of us were led into the small parlor which was furnished with furniture from the Victorian Era. After all the guests arrived, we were greeted by Poe (Jonathan Elliot Coarsey) himself who read a poem  from "Ulalume" before introducing the first act. Each act was presented in a different part of the house and told by six different spirits beginning with: The Raven performed by Brock Vickers; Ligeia performed by Tyler Christie; The Tell-Tale Heart performed by David Hutchison; The Imp of the Perverse performed by Tess Kunick; Berenice performed by Casey Williams-Ficarra and ending in the basement with the Cask Of Amontillado performed by Michael DeFlorio as Montresor and Tom Geigel as Fortunato. The final poem read by Poe was "Spirits of the Dead".
                                                                                 

I don’t know about the other guests, but I felt like I was plopped right smack into Poe’s imagination and I absolutely loved it. The actors and actresses were so intense in the telling of their tales that I swear I saw the dead Ligeia rise from her bed.

                                                                        

The Collings-Knight House offers a new show each month. Check out their website, http://www.collingsknighthouse.org/ make your reservations and tell them Steampunk Granny sent you. 

 

Apples to Google+ and Farewell to Good Friends

                                                                
                                                                      

                                  This weekend was somewhat bittersweet for me.

                                                                                                                           
One of my close friends and a former co-worker from when I worked at the Academy of Natural Sciences is leaving the Philly area. She’s moving to Washington D.C. where she’ll be teaching Science at an elementary school. It will be a big loss for the Academy, but what a wonderful gain for the students she’ll be teaching. Michele ran the Outreach Program, bringing science and animals to the schools of the tri-state area for many years. Here's Michele with me.

                                                                   

Here is Michele with Naomi and Anita. All four of us had worked at the Academy and Anita still volunteers there.

                                                                      
                                                      Michele, Naomi and Anita

We had a going away party for Michele, but first they wanted to see our pond and our very large goldfish.

                                       Here is my husband proudly showing off the pond
                                                                      

                              

                     I have two apple trees and this is the first apple produced.

                                                                 

Anita did the honor of slicing the apple for us. The apple was very sweet and I hope to see many more on that tree. When we ordered the two apple trees from the catalogue, we were told that apples would be popping out the first year…six years later, we've only had the one.

                                                                    

I get a lot of butterflies, native honey bees and hummingbirds in my garden. Here is a butterfly. Anyone want to take a guess on what it is? Come on, take a guess.

                                                                         
                                          I also get lots of finches at my bird feeder.

                                                                    

After dinner we had cake and gifts for Michele. I’m wishing you well in your new career.

                                                                                      

                                                                    

                    Sunday, I decided to go to the Collingswood Arts and Craft fair

                                                                                      
 with my daughter and the youngest of her desperadoes, Nathan. He was not in a good mood, can you tell?

                                                                          

                     But we did get to shop at Pat Cunningham’s Busy Beads

                                                                           

                                             and get ice cream from the Pop shop
                                                                               

And we did get to hear some great music from the band known as Foster Child.

                                                                               

But I had missed the Kelli Campbell Trio which had played on Saturday. Check them out, they are awesome.

                                                                             

Now we’ll jump to my adventures with publishing and Google. In today’s publishing world, the writer has to have a following, a persona if you like, on the internet. This means a blog, a twitter account, facebook, etc. etc. before publishing companies will even take a chance on you.

                                                                             

So, I have a blog which I try to update once a week and I have my Lilith Episodes which I post every Friday, but I also keep a daily presence on facebook

                                                                 
                                                              and twitter

                                                                    
                                   I've met some interesting and amazing people,

                                                                    
I love it, but if you want publishers to see how serious you are about writing, you should also think about Google+

                                                                                   

Now remember, I can’t walk and chew gum at the same time! I have a chance to get a story published and I was advised to build up my Google+ presence. There’s a Google+? Who knew? I’m still trying to figure out regular Google and recently someone mentioned Google Chrome. Help…I’m still looking for my lost webkin, Zeppie, on the Web. Has anyone seen him?

                                                                               

Anyway, if you do go on Google+ and you’re feeling kindly towards me, please follow me. I will appreciate this very much and will treat you to some delicious apples the next time they grow on my little apple tree.

                                                                  

Birthdays and grandsons

                                                                  

All three of my daughter’s sons were born in June. I wanted to do something special for them and asked them for suggestions.

                                                                                                                            

After vetoing the first three,

                                          No! I can't walk and chew gum

                                           No! and don't ask again.

                                               Hell no!                                                         
 we settled on a day in Philly, but we had to hold off on the trip because I was busy getting things ready for my trip to California.

                                                                           

Jimmy has a job now, so he was unable to spend the day out with us and I missed his editorial comments on the trip.

                                                                                                  
Josh and Nathan love going to China town

                                                                 
and especially to their favorite restaurant, the Empress Garden.

                                                        
We had a fine lunch and then headed over to the Philadelphia Visitor’s Center to purchase tickets.

                                                                      

The boys wanted to ride on a double decker bus and take a tour of the city. I’ve never done this, so we were all excited to try it out. We chose the Big Bus.

                                                                     

Here we are before the bus starts the tour.

                                                                        

It was a very hot day so we didn’t look as perky at the end of the ride,

                                                          
 but… the tour guide knew his stuff and we did enjoy the tour.

                                          And we may have even spotted Elvis!                                 

We took the train back to Jersey and met my husband at the Pop Shop.

                                                      
 Best place for Ice Cream.

                                                                          

After the ice cream, we went to see a movie, which I wasn’t so sure that I wanted to see because it was yet another movie about Spiderman. How many ways can you see Spiderman before you get bored?

                                                                        

I was pleasantly surprised at how good it turned out to be.

                                                                             

Next week, I’ll be going to Laurel Hill Cemetery

                                                                   
 to do a little ghost hunting
                                                         Ghosts Among Our Graves:
Paranormal Investigation of Laurel Hill Cemetery
Saturday, July 21, 8:00pm        
 and I’m sure that I’ll have some great pictures to share with you on my next blog.

                                                                          

Have a great weekend and a productive week.