I'll admit, I read The Pallbearers Club by Paul Tremblay and was angry afterward. Let me explain. The book starts off with two compelling characters – Art and Mercy. They are drawn together outcasts that become good friends through their volunteer work at a funeral parlor. He's in high school, and she's in college. She shapes his life by introducing him to punk music and drugs. Meanwhile, he copes with health problems and later self-medicates with alcohol and pain meds.

After Art passes away, he leaves a manuscript of a memoir behind for Mercy to read that details their encounters over the years. He feels that she's a type of vampire that lives off of stealing one's health. He doesn't have solid proof, and the convoluted way the "vampire" is described is hard to picture. Is it a blue blob? Is it tentacles reaching for someone? Is it a jacket come to life? I don't know, even after finishing the book!

Mercy edits Art's manuscript, gaslighting the reader into believing that Art is a drugged up musician and unreliable storyteller. She makes sure to let the reader know it's not a "memoir" but a "novel" because the way he remembered things is wrong.

By the middle of the book, I was reading it just to figure out what was going on, who was telling the truth, but you don't get that satisfaction. While I enjoyed the way it was written, with gen X references, editing notes for the reader, and could relate it to some friendships I've had over the years, the story fell flat for me at the end. I still don't know who's story was true and if the ending was just written to give Art's book closure. The Pallbearers Club was ok and an easy read, but not what I had hoped.

This past fall has been challenging, and I've had a lot going on in just a couple of months. We remodeled our retro kitchen, went on a weeklong road trip across New York State to Sleepy Hollow, NY, and shortly after was followed by the passing of our cat Vicktor Frankenstein on Oct 21, 2022. Needless to say, Halloween time was hard with black cats everywhere. We knew it was coming, we just didn't know when would be the right time. We decided when he started having more bad days than good, it was time to make the hard decision.

Vicktor was very much Andrew's (the hubs) cat, and I was little Ginger's human, and she was my familiar. He was a chonky black Bombay cat with a moody personality, but when he loved, he loved strong. His purrs were loud like a motor, and he would follow you around for food. ANY kind of food. He was about 3 years old when we adopted him with Ginger, and in his file it said he was "abandoned". I always joked it's probably because he ate them out of house and home! He liked his food, especially olives. 

He slowed down in his old age, after Ginger passed you could tell he knew something was missing but wasn't sure what. (After all, they were together for about 17 years! During this time he became my buddy because he knew I was sad.) He didn't play as much and napped even more if that's possible. You knew his arthritis was acting up when he was having trouble going up and down the stairs. At one point before our road trip, he didn't come out of the basement and crawled into a corner. I went to work and thought ok, this is going to be the day he decides to leave us, but he bounced back like nothing was wrong. This went on for weeks. He'd have really great days playing and chasing me up the stairs, then other days he didn't move all day and sat in his box. 

I really think the kitchen remodel stimulated his curiosity. He stayed upstairs when they were working on it, but when he came down, would explore and find new places to nap. What we didn't realize until later was that he started peeing in one corner of the house. He never did that before. After we found that out, his days started getting worse. 

Because of his mood swings, and the poo nuggies he would leave around the house, I would call him "poop" kitty, but he was our poop kitty, and he's very missed. He liked sitting with his butt in my face when I would lay down. He worshiped the sun and would lay in the smallest sunbeam. He liked heat and would sit in front of heaters hogging the warm air. He liked to hide in plain sight on black carpets too. I can't tell you how many times I've tripped over him. His fur was shiny and soft as velvet. He was smooth, and sometimes I'd refer to him as my "boyfriend" especially when he would hold my hand watching movies.

I feel like with everything going on in my life I haven't properly grieved for Vicktor. I'm still devastated from Ginger being gone. So please don't ask me when we are getting new cats. Yes, I miss having cats in my life, but I'm not ready for new ones yet. Everyone grieves differently. It's been almost two years since Ginger's been gone, and I think about her everyday. I still walk around the house talking to her likes she's still there, and I'd like to think both kitties are watching over me. 

The last week in September Andrew (the hubs) and I took a road trip to Sleepy Hollow, NY to celebrate our 20th wedding anniversary. On the way there and back, we stopped to check out some sights. I've been to Salem, MA a few times and was expecting something similar from Sleepy Hollow. They really don't cash in on their notoriety too much, and it felt like a suburb of New York City instead of a spooky town with history steeped in a headless horseman. Anyway, get ready ~ this is a long blog!

We started the trek across New York State and stopped at the Northeast Classic Car Museum thanks to a recommendation by Andrea (who you might remember from the Cat Video Fest) where even if you don't like cars, they have motorcycles, mannequins dressed in true vintage to match the cars, cars from the race of gentleman and fab art deco architecture! It was very impressive. I recommend.

Then we hit up Robot City Games & Arcade the largest arcade in NYS - I'm not a gamer but the blacklight arcade took me back! Andrew found some games he never played. He'll always get the high score at Galaga, but I kicked his butt at Tetris. We stayed over in Binghamton, NY the first night.

Day 2 we drove to Storm King Art Center. It's an outdoor sculpture park that I could have stayed in all day! It was so nice to be outside in the fresh air, and everywhere you looked there was a sculpture to walk to. It had rolling hills as far as thee eye could see, and a huge outdoor gazebo restaurant where we grabbed lunch. It's a lot of walking, and I wasn't sure what to expect, but I loved it.

After Storm King we continued driving to Sleepy Hollow, and checked in at our hotel that left much to be desired. It was cold in our room, and we tried to turn up the heat, and it wasn't working. We called the front desk and they gave us a space heater. What the hell! I guess they want us to burn down their hotel. In another instance I asked where the nearest post office is, and they were unsure. You're a hotel! No one has ever asked that before?!!! At one point I asked for a fork, they told me they didn't have any. They have a restaurant in the lobby, so don't tell me you don't have any forks. Plus they were doing construction on the sidewalk surrounding the hotel, so it was loud, and the key card swipe to the outside door was left unlocked the whole time. The hotel was a mess. I'm guessing they were recently sold and under new ownership and trying to get it together, but in that case, close for a few weeks, so your customers don't have a bad experience. Of course this was the hotel we were staying at the longest too. I DO NOT recommend The Sleepy Hollow Hotel.

Onward and upward! Adventures for day 3 included fueling up with breakfast at the Eldorado Diner and walking from end to end in the Sleepy Hollow Cemetery and around it. The cemetery was the best part of Sleepy Hollow. It felt old with a lot of history. If you plan on going to walk around, there's a ton of steep hills, gravel, and signs that say no picnicking. You can take tours though. We weren't able to catch one because our timing was off, but I've heard good things about them. Again, wear comfortable shoes because it's lots of walking.

The Eldorado is kitschtastic for Sleepy Hollow. The outside of the building is covered in mirrors, and the inside looks like it stepped out of the 1950s with a 1970s and 2000s update to the interior. It still has a rotating cake case, but it's dark wood, throw in a life size wizard, and it was the perfect breakfast spot!

On to the cemetery! On the way there, you'll pass this sculpture in a teeny tiny park in the middle of the street.

Inside the cemetery there's very old tombstones, many of the family plots have wrought iron fences around them, and did I mention it's hilly? In some sections, there's stairs to climb built into the hills to get to the top.

Washington Irving's grave...

Me on the headless horseman bridge in the cemetery. This isn't the original location, but it's close.

I wore my Sleepy Hollow dress from Kitschy Witch Designs a nice family loved it so much they stopped and took my picture.

Earrings from TheLadyDisarray

Shoes are Doc Martens

We also stopped at this statue which is outside of the cemetery...

That evening we had our 20th anniversary dinner at Goosefeather. It's in a boutique hotel, and the setting was perfect. I will remember this ginger and thyme drink forever, the food and drinks were delicious.

On day 4 we shopped at Pretty Funny Vintage and checked out the local Main St. Of course, I ended up buying books from the cutest bookshop Transom Book Shop and YES that is a copy of Bunnicula in a red velvet cover! I chatted with the owner who was friendly and approved my selections.

We also went to the Great Jack O'Lantern Blaze where there's over 7000 carved pumpkins set to themes and a soundtrack. It's on the grounds of an old plantation near water, so it's a vast setting. We sampled local pumpkin beer too. I liked the MOPA (Museum of Pumpkin Art) display best.

Day 5 we worked our way back to Western New York. We stopped in Syracuse, NY where we ALWAYS visit The Syracuse Antiques Exchange ~ it's huge! Then we ate at Dinosaur BBQ. I think I still like the Rochester, NY one best.

It was a nice getaway, but it wasn't as spooky as I had hoped, and of course it was a lot of driving, so I did need a little recovery time after our vacation. All in all, I enjoyed the stops to and from Sleepy Hollow better than actually going there. The cemetery was the highlight.