The Wild Republic Salutes the Philadelphia Flyers

One of the other things ASD and I did while he was here was go to two hockey games.  (We took Stal to the first one, actually, by virtue of necessity.)  The Flyers lost them both, the first in sudden death shootout and the second because their stupid captain hit a guy in the head with his stick three minutes before the end of the game , so the Bruins scored on the power play and we didn't have a chance to tie it again.

Anyway, so part of the fun of going to a Flyers game is that you get to wear all your hideous Flyers garb, because our colours are orange and black.  For some reason ASD and I only ever end up rooting for teams that wear orange and black; not sure what that's about.  So, since ASD is a good sport about these things, here we are in our hideous Flyers paraphernalia with the three orange-and-black denizens of the Wild Republic:

Gilly fell off my shoulder almost as soon as AJD took the picture, which is why my head is at that angle.

Another New Addition

I hereby present Stal, the newest member of the Wild Republic.

My brother ASD was visiting, as I mentioned earlier, and on Thursday we decided to go to the Academy of Natural Sciences.  Since museum gift shops are one of the best places to find new citizens, I insisted we check theirs on the way out.  They didn't have much, actually, which surprised me; Plouie and a couple of others came from there originally, and they'd had quite a selection at the time.  Most of what they had didn't interest me, either.  But they did have a lone smilodon who immediately stole my heart.  I've always liked saber-tooth cats, and there's something endearing about Stal's face.

"Stal" is not his real name, of course; it's short for "Stalactite", and it refers both to his dentition and to the era with which he is associated.  He's here because the Powers That Be apparently decided that not enough young felines are learning Archaic Feline these days, so they decided to make our chapter a sort of test case and have all the cats learn it.  Alfredo was kind of put out about this, because he feels like they're behind where they should be anyway, but there's not much he could do about it.  The cats from the Wild Parliamentary Monarchy all learned Archaic Feline at school, of course, but they're ambassadors and not tutors.  So the Powers That Be decided to send our chapter a native speaker of Archaic Feline: Stal, naturally.  He's supposed to address the kittens only in Archaic Feline until his superiors give him permission to do otherwise.

Here he is talking to Mahler and Cami in Archaic Feline.

You'd think a saber-tooth tiger would be kind of brutish and scrappy, but actually Stal is the soulful poetic type.  I mean that he is actually a poet.  Here he is, looking pensive.  

He's written and published lots of odes and elegies and epics, all in Archaic Feline; he's in the rather unusual position of being one of the most renowed ancient feline poets despite writing in modern times.  The Ice Age are in kind of a weird niche anyway, what with their extinction and all.  One doesn't talk about the extinction, because they're very sensitive about it; for this reason, the Ice Age creatures really stick together.  Mimsy and Gus were delighted to have another Ice Age creature in their midst.

Gus insisted on demonstrating how effective his shell is against predators by having Stal attempt to bite him.  (Stal, being a lover rather than a fighter, required some convincing.)

Mimsy thought this was all pretty amusing.  He's a little odd that way; I think he's sort of hysterical. 

It's the Ice Age extinction complex, you see.  Takes them all differently.  Gus is probably the least affected of our three, and he's kind of erratic; Mimsy's a bit mad; Stal is melancholy.

Stal's presence increases the soap opera factor of our local chapter a bit, because he's a poet, so naturally he needs an object for his courtly affections, and the most obvious candidate is of course Lady Faraday.  Here Stal is, probably composing an ode to her in his head.

Lady Faraday is pretty used to this, though, so she doesn't really mind.  She gets this a lot.  And Stal isn't really serious, of course.  Look how impressive her posture is.  When she was a kitten, they made her practise pouncing for hours with a book on her head.

A Cryptic Arrival

My brother's been here visiting, so I've gotten behind on posting stuff.  I really should have posted this a week ago.  But better later than never.

So.  I have mysteriously acquired a chupacabra.

AJD and I went to Vericon the weekend before last; I was sharing a room with KEH.  She got there first, and the room was in her name.  When I got to the room, both of the beds appeared to be claimed: one of them had a book and a blanket, and the other a mysterious cryptid, a note, and a flat wrapped package.  I'd thought there was only to be the two of us, so I was rather confused.  When KEH came in, I asked her which bed was hers, and she said the one with the book, and I asked her about the cryptid, and she said, 'Oh, I thought that was yours.'

Clearly she did not think he was mine, because the room was in her name and she had arrived first, and all, but she maintained complete innocence as to how the mysterious cryptid came to be in my room.  She pointed out that it is well known I have a habit of taking in plush creatures and perhaps my reputation led him to me.

Upon investigation, we discovered that the cryptid was a chupacabra, the wrapped package was a book about cryptozoology, and the note was in Spanish, and typed in an eldritch font, as follows (the original capitalisation and punctuation have been reproduced faithfully):

QUERIDA DAMA

BUSCO ASILO EN SU PAIS

TRAIGO CONMIGO ESTE LIBRA PARA QUE SEPA UD LOS CONOCIMIENTOS DE MI PUEBLO

SE PUEDE CONFIAR EN MI COMPORTAMIENTO EN COMPANIA DE LAS CABRAS

We have not yet verified whether he can be trusted with goats.  It seems best to be cautious, for Nicodemus's sake.  Anyway.

This is, at present, all I really know about the chupacabra, as he speaks only Spanish and Cryptic, and AJD and I speak neither.  While we were at Vericon, I left him in the hotel room with the TV remote control, and he entertained himself by watching Mexican soap operas, which he seemed to find hilarious.  But I can't ask him where he came from, or even what his name is, and he's a very inscrutable little chap who doesn't give much away. 

He has spikes all the way down his side, and also wings, neither of which can be seen clearly here, but you can see the book he brought with him just behind his right shoulder. 

So we have a mystery.  How and why did the chupacabra come to be here?  Can he truly be trusted with goats?  Can he be trusted at all?  I've become quite fond of him, and I don't really think he is here for sinister reasons or with a sinister purpose, but he's rather hard to read, so I can't be totally sure.

An Addition to the Mini Republic

There has been a recent addition to the Mini Republic: AJD has gifted me with a gnu.  Here he is; the Chinese lion with him is Sheng.  At least, I think that one is Sheng.  (The other lion, not pictured, is Fergus.)

Isn't he darling?  He's remarkably coordinated; he likes dancing and balancing on his head, neither of which are activities I would have predicted as canonical for gnus.

The new gnu is named Gyork.  This was the suggestion of our friend WMPT (who was visiting us for the day with his wife EHC), and the rationale ought to be clear with a second's reflection.  Gnus create far too many possibilities for terrible puns.

For the moment, Gyork seems to be enjoying hanging out with Sheng, although I'm not sure he's going to stay there.  Initially he was getting to know Henri; they had a good time talking about their mutual beloved homeland of Africa.  Here they are, along with a bat.  (There's a story behind the bat, as it happens, but now is not the time to tell it.)

It is my dearest wish (in a manner of speaking) that "bovines must have names related to New York" is not actually a rule, because if so, it's even worse than felines requiring nature names, which is bad enough.

Butterfinger Gets Attention

AJD recently made a visit to College Park, Maryland, to see EHC and WMPT.  At the last minute, it occurred to him that Butterfinger was secretly hoping to go along, because he never really gets to go anywhere.  So Butterfinger made the trip south, had a lovely time, and won a lot of attention upon his return.

Here he is, regaling a rapt audience with the story of his travels:

In the background there, you can see that Seleucus is not particularly interested, but Parsley behind him is enthralled.  Reggie and Navarre were the most interested, however.  You can't see Navarre from the first angle, so here's another view.  Actually, you can see Parsley a bit more clearly in this one too.

Barry, who spent the period of AJD's absence in the south room with me, is rather jealous, both of the journey and of the subsequent attention.

Our Tribute to Swan Lake

The Pennsylvania Ballet's production of Swan Lake closes later today.  This is my favourite ballet, and I have a subscription, so there was no way I wasn't going.  I went to the matinee.  It wasn't perfect - I really wish they'd cast someone else as Odette/Odile - but the choreography was awesome, the Prince was great, and there were a lot of really neat things about the production overall (e.g. the character dances, particularly the Russian; the stuff with the mirror; Odile's tutu; the demise of Rothbart).

There's a primary opposition in Swan Lake between white and black, with the lead female dancer playing the dual role of the white swan and the black swan.  Since this is both generally and specifically awesome, the denizens of the Wild Republic have put together an honourary tribute to Swan Lake by playing up the various possibilities for black/white contrasts.

Here we have Cami and Vim, artistically arranged.

There are multiple contrasts going on there, of course, besides just the black/white: feline/ursine, patterned/solid, shy/rambunctious, and so on.

Then here we have me with our two men of mystery, Magick and Murchison.

This is in fact exactly what I wore to the ballet today, although you can't see the black rosettes in my hair in this picture.  Slightly more of what was going on with my hair can be seen in this picture of me and Magick:

and this one of me and Murchison:

My belief that I am one of the least photogenic people on this planet has not changed, but this deficiency doesn't bother me as much as it used to.  Just to prove it, here's one of me without the boys.

AJD and The Eleventh Hour

There's a lovely book called The Eleventh Hour, by Graeme Base, about an elephant who has a party for his eleventh birthday, with his ten best friends and eleven games, only to find that someone had eaten the entire birthday feast.  The reader has to piece together the mystery based on clues in the illustrations.

It occurred to AJD that some of the denizens of the Wild Republic might appreciate The Eleventh Hour, particularly Barry and Rusty (the characters include an elephant and a tiger), and the younger ones.  So he snagged Barry and the juveniles and started reading, and it turned out everyone else was interested too.  The winter animals even came back from their snow-watch vigil.

Notice how Leprosy has appropriated a prime position for himself, and how Plouie seems to have misunderstood where the action is supposed to be.

He had to turn the pages himself; it would have been cuter if the others had helped, but they were too enraptured.

Afterwards, of course, the reading party turned into a general cuddling party.  I love how happy they all look.

Angel Joe and Navarre are ensuring that Nicodemus doesn't get too near to the book.

Something Sweet

In the interest of offering decisive evidence that Plouie is capable of more than simply crazy freak-outs, here is a picture of him on snow-watch vigil with Vim. 

Plouie can actually be very sweet, when he's calmer.  (He is, after all, essentially a ball of cuddly fluff.)  One of the ways to get him calmer is to set him watching for snow.  The appearance of snow, whether it's falling or fallen, particularly calms him, but even if there's no snow on the horizon, just the prospect of potential snow does the trick.  There's no snow around here anymore, what with the warming weather (touch wood), but Plouie's still content to watch for it.  His attention span is short enough that he doesn't get distressed if it doesn't appear.

At first we were concerned that the snow would actually wind him up; like AJD pointed out, he's from the southern hemisphere, so he might not be expecting to see snow this time of year.  Things are different in Antarctica, though; he's probably used to seeing snow all year round, so maybe the time of year doesn't matter.  Besides, Plouie doesn't really have a concept of time anyhow.

Plush Kittens Are Silly Too

Just to prove that plush kittens are every bit as capable of being adorably silly as live kittens, I present the following cat pyramid:

Top: Flurry

Medium, left to right: Khamsin, Navarre

Bottom, left to right: Cami, Mahler, Rusty

Flurry got to be on top because he's the youngest, and he was really excited about that.  Rusty kind of wanted to be on top, but then he realised that being on the bottom meant he was one of the strongest, and decided that this was even more awesome.

The Royal Seal; or, In Honour of March

Navarre and Nicodemus have recently developed an interest in AJD's computer.  More specifically, they've developed an interest in watching AJD and Sir Theo playing online Dominion, which has been generalised into an interest in the computer.  We've been encouraging this interest in Nicki's case because it keeps him from eating things.

When Navarre and Nicodemus frame AJD's laptop, they look kind of like the Royal Seal of Great Britain.  Here, I'll show you:

The alternative title of this photograph is In like a lion, out like a lamb, in honour of the old adage, 'March comes in like a lion and out like a lamb,' which is extremely relevant because we are in fact at the beginning of March.

Bored Puppies Do Odd Things; or, Beppe Undercover

Gilly and Beppe have finished the first book in the Wheel of Time series, and Gilly doesn't want to start in on the next one because Beppe will be going back to the north room before they have a chance to finish it.  This means that Beppe is bored and at loose ends.  His quest for interesting entertainment has led him to odd places.

You can't tell from the picture, but he's dangling about a foot above the floor here.  We're not sure what he's doing, exactly.  Is he looking for something?  Does he think that since he can't see us, we can't see him?  He's picked up a bit of Sleepyhead's James Bond complex; is this connected?

It's certainly cute.  It's also probably a sign that he's ready to go back to the north room, where there are more individuals to entertain him.  I hope the individuals are prepared.

Even My Owl Is Sick of My Dissertation

Lord Twilby has been attempting to help me with my dissertation the last couple of weeks.  Here he is:

This picture illustrates quite nicely the emotional states of both myself and Twilby at the moment, with respect to my dissertation.  We're of one mind in this: we're thinking of running away and joining the circus together. (Woman and Owl!  A fabulous double-act!) But he at least doesn't have to feel guilty when he decides to fall asleep rather than work on the blasted thing.

Photographic Support for a Previous Post

In my most recent post, I mentioned that there have been some eccentric happenings in my room lately: Gilly is reading Beppe the first volume of Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series (Beppe really likes the parts about wolves), and Sleepyhead mysteriously ended up on one of my bookshelves.  I can now offer photographic evidence.

Here you get the sort of panoramic view, loosely speaking.  (You can see bits of Humphrey, Lady Faraday, and Seal in the foreground.) 

I'm still not quite sure how Sleepyhead got up there, but I have vague suspicions which centre on Sir Tristan.

Here's a closer view of Gilly and Beppe:

Beppe's still in my room; the others (except Sleepyhead and Seal) have returned to the north room.  He can get away with this because he's the youngest here.  The other young ones are here for an education, but he's really here because he's Alfredo's son, although the plan is that he'll be educated here once he's old enough.  He picks up a little here and there (it would be hard to avoid), but he's not formally a student yet, apart from his singing lessons.  So he's not missing anything by being in here, and the others get a chance to breathe.  Beppe is sort of hyperactive, being a puppy and all.  Alfredo is going to want him back soon, though.