Betsy Snow White Bibliophile

Tag: Columbus OH

  • Cemetery Ghost Tour with GGG

    Cemetery Ghost Tour with GGG

    Several weeks ago Seth, Myself and the ladies from Ghosts, Girls, Ghouls Jenny and Rebecca jumped in my car and headed off to Greenlawn Cemetery in Columbus to attend the “Night at Greenlawn Cemetery” ghost tour hosted by Bucky of Columbus Ghost Tours. As we arrived we pulled into a queue that then drove slowly through the cemetery stopping on a small lane between grave stones. We left our cars and found ourselves in front of the Lazarus Crypt to begin our night. Bucky came dressed in a coat and tails to set the mood for our walking tour of the Cemetery.

    He shared stories of suicide, death by misfortune, murder, grave robbing and much more as we wandered among the headstones of the 360 acre Cemetery. Some famous names appeared in the tales such as James Thurber the famous humorist writer who detailed his own brush with the paranormal in his story “The Night the Ghost Got In.” I will not spoil any of the amazing stories, but instead say it is an amazing tour and Bucky wonderfully lays out tales of the mystical, maniacal and macabre with humor and the panache of a natural born storyteller. When he reveals he is working on a book regarding some of the topics he covers it makes absolute sense.

    The cemetery itself is a registered arboretum and home to many different kinds of wildlife. Dusk set in we could watch bats swoop overhead to eat the mosquitos that were swarming around us on the humid Ohio summer night. As we wandered the night got darker and darker until every small thing seemed sinister. At one point what I believe was a skunk (I did not investigate) gave me a minor scare as it moved through the black of the night. It is truly disconcerting to hear a stick break behind you in a dark cemetery.

    If you are in the Central Ohio area, or are planning a visit, you cannot go wrong with one of the tours led by Columbus Ghost Tours. They offer a variety of tours as well as this one, including a tour of haunted bars where you get to drink and hear ghost stories which is on my list of things to do as well. You can follow them on Instagram at @boozeboos for more information and details.

  • 22 Days of Blogging

    22 Days of Blogging

    So, this is a little late. I had a big paper due this weekend, so I spent all day yesterday working on and refining that. Priorities, lol.

    I am super excited because the other day I received a package in the mail and no it wasn’t more stuff I bought online. Well…it kinda was, but not in the way my last post was talking about. I got my membership package for the Ohio History Connection in the mail. Ohio History Connection is housed in Columbus as the Ohio Historical Center building which houses various museum style exhibits, the Ohio Archives and Library, and The Ohio Village which is a recreated 19th century community where they hold events.

    With my membership I can go to the Ohio History Center for free once it is open to the public. I get reciprocal admissions from over 250 museums nationwide and reciprocal benefits at over 800. Free tickets to Ohio History Center/Ohio Village Events like Night at the Museum, All Hallows’ Eve and Dickens of a Christmas (I have attended the Dickens event and it is really fun). Plus many other amazing benefits.

    More than that, though, I know that I am supporting the preservation of Ohio history during a time when they could use that support more than ever. I am also considering buying a membership to the Columbus Museum of Art for a similar reason. We already purchased a COSI membership for the inlaws and the niblings (I found out this is the non-binary term for nieces and nephews and I love it.) We also still have our zoo memberships which Seth’s parents purchase us for Christmas every year. While we may not get much use out of these this year, we are supporting important pieces of our community.

  • Weekends are Skaterdays

    Weekends are Skaterdays

    I am still madly in love with roller skating, which is not altogether shocking since I have loved it since I was a child. I skated both days this weekend and enjoyed every moment of it.

    Yesterday I met my friends Amy and Christina at The Warehouse, which is a parking garage set up for skateboarding and roller skaters by a church. The floor is so ridiculously smooth and it was easy to skate on and to practice tricks and such. I met several more amazing skaters: Sparky, Alex and Faego.

    Amazing sign on the wall at The Warehouse

    Today I met Amy, Hannah and Jake at Como Elementary for a morning skate. Como has incredibly smooth asphalt as well, and I made a short video of me skating a circle in the court.

    I have a color scheme.

    I recently put in an order for a new pair of skates, because mine are well over 16 years old. Skates are hard to come by right now, and mine are probably not going to be ready until early next year. I am excited for them though. I ordered Moxi Panthers, and they are a leopard print dream!

    Ack! So cute!

    I am having so much fun falling back in love with skates and skating. I am going to work on rehabbing my vintage skate case over the winter and get it ready to house my new skates.

  • I am Starting a Roller Skating Club

    I believe I have spoken on the blog before about my love of Roller Skating. I have been roller skating since I was probably 5, but possibly even younger than that. I grew up having old skates that my cousins and I could hold skate parties with in my grandparents garage and driveway. I was also a frequent attendee of our local skating rink in Newark, Roll-a-Way spending hours there on my quad skates happy as a clam.

    I bought a new pair of quad skates in 2004 or so when I learned about Ohio Roller Derby, then the Ohio Roller Girls, and I wanted to do derby so badly. I bought my skates and I began going out to try to get my skate skills back. I would train with them several times in anticipation of trying out, but it never worked out that I could play. And after a fall, not skating related just klutzy, I tore my ACL and because of the nature of derby I knew that continuing to train would eventually lead to surgery, so I stopped training and became an athletic supporter instead (See Eight Wheels of Badass Joy, Talk Derby to Me: First Bout of 2019, and Skatemare Before Christmas)

    Then in 2020 the pandemic happened and I started to see people buying skates and skating on Instagram (Nicole Byer being a huge Inspiration as was Rolla Skate Club). I decide I would like to get back on skates, so I go to the internet. I already have skates, a couple of pairs in fact, but I needed new pads (knee, elbow and wrist), a new helmet, a skate strap and I decided I wanted a pair of toe covers since mine were pretty scuffed.

    I found my pads as a set on Moxi. They were roughly $75 for the full set of Knee, Elbow and Wrist pads. And on the same site I found a turquoise and pink leopard print helmet and I just had to have it, so I put in an order. I got a skate strap from PeaceGrenade on Etsy in Magenta Glitter. I got an amazing sticker that says Skate Witch from Simply Savage Design which lives on my helmet and I just ordered another couple to add to new things. I bought my toe caps from Rollerstuff they are super shiny leather and I LOVE them. All together the whole set looks like this:

    So…now I had skates, and gear, and no one to skate with. I had a thought and then I went to social media and I said:

    So…I added this on Instagram and Facebook just to see if anyone would respond or be interested, and the answer was a resounding yes. I had many friends respond that they were in, that they were looking for a reason to buy skates, and so on. I created a Facebook Group called Skate Expectations and we have our first meet up this Friday after work. I am so excited that this is becoming a thing, and also I am somewhat surprised, but so excited. I am hoping that I can branch this out into more interesting things. I have ideas!!

    More to come! Happy Skating Ya’ll!!

  • Headstones and Hitchcock

    Headstones and Hitchcock

    .A couple of weeks ago, Seth and I set off to explore Green Lawn Cemetery. Green Lawn is a large historical cemetery in Columbus.There are a number of “famous” Columbus figures buried within the cemetery and the abbey. I am a huge fan of walking in cemeteries, and this one was beautiful to visit. The grounds are full of beautiful trees of all kinds: oak, maidenhair ginkgo, various evergreens, and Ohio buckeye.

    I brought a plastic bag so I could pick up litter as we walked about, and Seth was happy removing branches that were laying atop grave sites and making piles under the trees. We cleaned grass off of markers that had been covered when the mowers moved through. We are talking about making a kit to take with us to make our cleanup easier next time with a small broom.

    We found a headstone of a type which I have never seen before. Where a headstone may say mother, father, sister, brother, etc. this one said Aunt. I loved it so much, and even more interesting was the fact that the Aunt in question had the fist name Salome. I believe that Aunt Salome is my spirit sister. I am absolutely in love with anyone who dies and is best known for being an aunt.

    The abbey at Green Lawn shows films outdoors to raise funds for upkeep during the summer. We went last Friday to see Notorious directed by Alfred Hitchcock. We got to visit the actual abbey, which is gorgeous with white marble and wrought iron. The film was entertaining. It was a Hitchcock I had never seen before, but it was very entertaining. There was an absolutely insane drunk driving scene that made me very tense, but Cary Grant who was actually in the car with the drunk driver Ingrid Bergman seemed generally unfazed. I love a good spy thriller though, so generally it was a good time. Next month they are showing Laura and in August The House on Haunted Hill with Vincent Price. We intend to see those as well. There is something so lovely about watching a thriller with the abbey looming above us.

  • Finally Feeling Fine…Lost Weeks and Drag Queens

    I had the flu, or something similar to the flu the week of the 27th. I was achy, coughy, sleepy, barely moving and just generally blah for approximately a week. I watched a whole lot of Netflix (the new season of Sex Education is beautiful) and more crappy rom coms than I can shake a stick at. I lost an entire week being barely conscious and incredibly icky.

    Then on the first day I was almost feeling human (Sunday) I went with my mom and my sister to a brand new drag brunch in Columbus at Local Cantina called the Moustache Riders Drag Brunch (interesting note the name of their house margarita is The Moustache Rider.) The food, and drinks, were delicious. The entertainment was top notch. We will definitely go again.

    I am finally feeling truly better and healthier and I am trying to get myself back on track.

  • These Are Things that I’m Gonna Do.

    I had so much fun working through my bucket list for the last quarter of 2019, so I decided to do more of them in 2020. Here is what I have so far…

    • Create 2020 Vision Board – Done!! Photos Below.
    • Get prettied up for Shrimp’s Cocktail Party!
    • Meet Dirty Martini at Shrimp’s Cocktail Party! on Saturday.
    • Buy a pair of Veronica Lockhart’s rhinestone cockroaches.
    • Go with the Wenches to Pub Sing at Dub Pub.
    • Wench wine meet up in February.
    • Be under or close to 200 lbs by my birthday March 14.
    • Visit Prologue bookstore.
    • Sew new Viking garb for Seth.
    • Write 30,000 words in my work in progress.
    • Go to Mustache Ride Drag Brunch
    • Go to Archery Range
    • Visit Elizabeth’s Records
    • Set up new Entertainment Stand.
    • Set up Stationary Bike.

    Vision Board – The lovely Molly Roberts held a live event for her Patrons all about creating a vision board. I decided to get in on the action and began building up images and words for my board. I just bought myself a brand new Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary (as previously stated my favorite dictionary) so my old falling apart one became fodder for my vision board. I found these battery operated lights I bought at Target a couple of years ago that have glitter in bulbs around the lights and I decided they would look amazing on my vision board. I bought a shadowbox style wooden box to use and painted the inside neon pink and the outside silver. I used glitter infused mod podge to place my images on the board. I began with bright colored images and then added words and pieces from the dictionary. I found some star shaped push pins and attached the lights to the edge with them. I am really happy with how it turned out. It is going to live on my new altar for 2020.

  • Craftin’ Outlaws Santa Display

    Craftin’ Outlaws Santa Display

    Please enjoy this video of the full Santa Sonny and Cher experience from Craftin’ Outlaws Alternative Craft Fair.

  • Gruss vom Krampus!

    Gruss vom Krampus!

    Columbus has over the past couple of years really embraced the darker side of Christmas which has led to a prevalence of Krampus related activities. This year the first day of December was marked with the second annual Merry Krampus craft show and the Fourth Krampus Walk sponsored by a local pagan shop, The Magical Druid. The International Wenches Guild Local 73 decided to plan an invasion of the Krampus events.

    The Merry Krampus was held at Strongwater and featured many alternative craft vendors. I had splurged and bought early bird entries for myself and Seth which gave us an hour of shopping before the show was opened to general public. I bought a beautiful hand printed calendar from Midwest Mermaid and an amazing wrought iron wand from Rust Wolf. I ran into some friends who were vending and selling chain maille and knives. My Madame of Vice, Sarah, and I got our pictures taken with Santa and Krampus.

    We then headed down to Clintonville to participate in the Krampus Walk. We had a pretty good turnout of wenches, and had a wonderful time parading down the street all dressed up. We were photographed a lot, and made quite an impression. Obviously I chose to go for more of a Krampus look, and I had a great time.

    General consensus is that we are mostly naughty, but a really good time. Happy Krampusnacht!!

  • Skatemare Before Christmas

    Skatemare Before Christmas

    On Saturday the 30th Seth and I went out to support Ohio Roller Derby (OHRD) at their fundraiser/ exhibition bout Skatemare Before Christmas. This bout pits team Halloween, The Roller Ghouls, against team Christmas, The Jingle Belles. They also premiered their rookies dividing them into team Candy Corns versus team CandyCanes. I came out to represent team Christmas this year, so Seth decided to root for team Halloween.

    20191130_1629164495304745528286118.jpg

    The rookie game was up first. The Candy Canes came out strong scoring in the first couple of jams, but soon enough the Candy Corns had tied things back up. In the second half the Candy Canes came back and they would win! Score one bout for Christmas.

    During the time between the rookie bout and the main event there was a show put on by a local break dance school. The kids appeared to be between the ages of 5 and 13. They were adorable and some of them were so talented!

    The final bout was much more fast paced. Once again the Jingle Belles came out strong at first, but then the Ghouls got a good run and took over the lead. It was a good back and forth battle for a while, but in the end the Jingle Belles came out on top.

    Team Christmas wins for this year!