Rochester is Not Laundry

As you can see, Rochester somehow ended up in AJD's laundry basket, despite the fact that he does not qualify as laundry.  We're not really sure why or how he got in there.  Was he looking for something?  Did he fall in?  He won't tell us, which probably means that the story of how he got there is either somewhat ethically questionable or extremely embarrassing.  In Rochester's particular case, the latter is perhaps more likely.

It's That Time of Year

With temperatures in Philly reaching well into the upper eighties and expected to climb, AJD and I concluded yesterday that it was time to install our window a/c units.  (We don't have central a/c in our apartment.  It is unfortunate.)  We managed to do this without dropping either unit out of the window and both units are now blasting cold air at us: Operation Make Our House Habitable was an unqualified success.

We're not the only ones happy about this, either.  Here are Vim and Rebus basking in the kelth.

Polar bears are particularly sensitive to climbing temperatures - cf. global warming and all of that.

Group Hug!

Ungulates are so cute sometimes.  Need I say more?

Poker Part III

When I left off the account of the poker game, Magick had just won big on a bluff, and nearly caused an International Incident in doing so when he refused to show his winning hand.  Rochester and Humphrey were  rather riled up.  Not only were their general appetites for winning whetted, but they now personally wanted to beat Magick.  As news of Magick's enigmatic victory spread around the north room, the audience for the poker match steadily grew.

The new players still had not worked out that victories are worth more if you keep the other players in the game for longer.  A few games after Magick's big victory, Rochester made the same mistake that Reggie had earlier.  He had two kings in his hand, and Reggie dealt another king on the turn.  Rochester prematurely went all in, causing all of the others to fold (except Humphrey, who had already folded).  He felt a bit vindicated, after that loss to Magick.

Remember how I said that the size of the peanut gallery was steadily increasing from the point of Magick's victory onward?  One of the newer arrivals was Gilly.  Gilly wasn't actually all that interested in the cards, but he'd worked out that the poker chips were worth something and decided to claim them all.  He's a rather mercenary little fellow, our Gilly.

It was growing pretty late now, and everyone could tell that the end of the game was drawing nearer.  Magick was dealt the queen and ten of spades, and decided to sit.  Reggie, with a pair of aces, decided to raise.  Humphrey and Rochester called; Humphrey had the ten and king of diamonds and Rochester the six and nine of diamonds.  Magick decided to go ahead and call too.

The turn produced the nine of spades, queen of hearts, and three of clubs.  This produced a holding pattern: Magick and Humphrey were looking at possible straights, but could still turn out to have dross, and Rochester now had a pair, but a low pair; Reggie's hand wasn't improved.  Then the flip yielded the eight of spades, which made things look better for Magick.  He bet six dollars; Reggie raised to ten.  The others stayed in.  Reggie's enthusiasm was significantly greater than his skill, and no one really believed Magick had anything.

Then the river prodcued the jack of spades.  Humphrey now had a straight - and Magick now had a straight flush.  He promptly went all in.

Had any of the others gone all in, everyone else probably would have folded, but no one trusted Magick.  Rochester in particular was grimly determined to stay in and force Magick out of the game. He had an even better hand this time, even though his hand wasn't particularly good.  Humphrey, with his straight, was seeing glory.  Reggie was just having fun.

So everyone went all in.

Here's a shot taken further out, so you can see just how much attention the poker game had attracted by this point in the evening.

Gilly, Barry, Desmond, Parsley, Seleucus... even Leprosy had come over by then, and Murchison was excited enough that he had moved in closer for a better view.

With everyone all in, of course, Magick had to show his hand.  He played it up for all it was worth, of course; he made a great show of trying not to seem reluctant while secretly being reluctant and managed to draw out the suspense for just long enough before revealing his straight flush.  The game was his.

Such excitement!  Rochester and Humphrey stared at each other in profound shock, while everyone else rushed to congratulate Magick, except for Desmond, who stayed to provide moral support to his fellow marine mammal.

It remains to be seen how many of them will ever again agree to play poker with Magick, of course.  Reggie probably would.  Humphrey and Rochester could go either way; they might want revenge, or they might be reluctant to try again.  As for the spectators, they all want to learn poker now, but possibly not against Magick, although they all want to know his secrets.  He, of course, says that these are things one learns for oneself.

I was pretty impressed, too.  There's just something about males who know how to play poker.

Poker Part II

When I left off my account of the poker game, Rochester, who had been on the verge of quitting, had decided that he liked poker after all, thanks to an exciting showdown victory over Sir Tristan.  All of the players were fully committed now: Magick and Sir Tristan are longtime poker aficionados, having played together since their kittenhood; Humphrey had won two early games and was convinced he was a natural; Reggie just likes games; and Rochester, the last holdout, was converted.

After another hour or so, Sir Tristan, who had recovered somewhat from his loss to Rochester, won a hand with a pair of aces over Rochester's nines and Humphrey's jacks.

Sir Tristan had now achieved a tidy profit.  Not a huge profit; he's too conservative a player to win dramatic splashy victories most of the time.  But he was coming out ahead, and that was what he'd been after, so he collected his winnings and politely withdrew from the match.  He doesn't always decide to leave poker games early like this, but he always does when he's playing with Magick.

The new players weren't sure why he'd quit when he had, but they didn't mind too much.  They were starting to get the hang of the game now, but they hadn't picked up on some of the subtleties yet.  So, for instance, two hands after Sir Tristan's departure, Reggie discovered that he had two pairs between his hand and the table: queens and sixes.  Delighted, he promptly went all in, causing everyone else to fold.  Reggie didn't realise that he'd have won more had he kept the others in the game for longer; he was too excited over his victory.  Here he is, showing everyone his cards.

There are different kinds of winners and losers.  There's the quiet and gracious type of winner, like Sir Tristan, for instance.  Other winners get very excited and exuberant.  Some of them make you want to slap them, and some of them don't.  Humphrey is the first kind of excited winner.  When Humphrey wins, he gloats and pats  himself on the back and generally makes a show of himself, so that the losers feel that much more annoyed that he won.  Reggie is an equally exuberant winner, but in a very different way.  He's utterly delighted when he wins, but he doesn't take his victory as a sign of superiority in any way.  There's something almost innocent in his display of enthusiasm, and it makes the other players happy for him.

By this point in the game, Magick had managed a few small victories, enough to keep him playing, but he was still behind the others in terms of chips.  A game or two after Reggie's victory, Magick was dealt a bad hand and decided it was time to have some fun.  Sir Tristan had left the game, after all.  For the sake of friendship, Magick refrains from having too much fun until Sir Tristan has left the table.  Not that he'd gone far.  He'd located Lady Faraday, who had now left the kittens to their fun, and the two of them had come back to watch.  Sir Tristan leaving the poker game is always Lady Faraday's cue to come watch.

Rochester, who had the first bet, had been dealt two queens, so he bet five dollars; everyone else called.  The turn produced the ace of spades, six of hearts, and four of diamonds.  Rochester again bet five dollars.  Magick, playing as though he held an ace, raised two dollars.  Humphrey folded - he only had the ten of hearts and nine of clubs - but the others called.

The flip produced the king of hearts.  Rochester again bet five dollars, with some trepidation.  Magick decided that he also had a king, and raised another five.  Reggie had the king of diamonds and junk; he went ahead and called, but he was rather nervous about it.  Rochester also called.

So it was down to the river, which turned up the nine of hearts.  Rochester prudently checked, upon which Magick went all in.  Reggie and Rochester were sufficiently dismayed by this show of confidence that they didn't want to go all in and folded.  And so Magick won - with the seven of clubs and two of hearts.

The others wanted to see his hand, of course.  Magick refused to tell.

By the point Rochester was getting rather hot under the collar.  He had had a genuinely good hand, and proceeded to show everyone.  But Magick, still keeping mum, quietly and rather enigmatically raked in his winnings.  Magick is very good at enigmatic.  He comes by it naturally, but he's not above making use of it.

Magick explained to Rochester that the rules of poker do not require any player to reveal his hand, even if he wins.  Rochester did not believe him and insisted he show his cards; met with Magick's continued refusal, he demanded to see the rule book.  Lady Faraday, who had been perched on the rule book, promptly opened the book to the correct page - without bothering to look it up - and pointed to the rule in question.  She has watched Magick play poker before.

Confronted with the official rule, Rochester had no choice but to lay off, but he kept grumbling about it under his breath.  Had this happened earlier in the game, when he was still unsure he liked it, he probably would have quit.  Lady Faraday has no patience with this attitude; she believes players should always be gracious.  Here she is regarding Rochester sternly while the others clean up after the last hand.  (Humphrey has the next deal.)  You can see Murchison watching carefully in the distance.  Magick's activities are of general professional interest to him.

I should mention here that Lady Faraday did not decline to join in the game because she doesn't know how to play poker, or even because she is too ladylike to play poker in mixed company.  Actually, she's a very good poker player. She is better than Sir Tristan, in fact, and Sir Tristan is pretty good.  But she refuses, on principle, to play poker with Magick.

The game wasn't over yet, mind.  Now Rochester wanted revenge, so to speak.  And so did Humphrey, because this particular victory of Magick's eclipsed his own so far.

Poker Part I

During the reception held in honour of Sir Angel Joe, Magick discovered that there were some poker chips lying around, and decided to ask whether anyone wanted to play a game of poker.  It turned out that the denizens of the Wild Republic had never actually played poker before, but a few of them were interested in learning how.  Reggie was pretty keen, and Rochester and Humphrey were interested too.  And, of course, Sir Tristan wanted to play.  Magick and Sir Tristan have been playing poker together since they were kittens at boarding school.  A desire to keep the kittens of the local chapter unaware of the game for a bit longer led Lady Faraday to teach them Yahtzee instead.

So here they are, getting ready to play.  They've all anted up.  Reggie really wanted to be the bank, and Sir Tristan volunteered to take charge of the rule book.  He also agreed to be the first dealer.  Laszlo, Mahler, and Desmond aren't playing, but they wanted to watch.

They played for a very long time, so we aren't going to show pictures of the entire game.  That would be excessive and often not interesting.  I'll just show you the highlights, and bits from the first few hands.

Here everyone is after the first deal.  Magick raised, Rochester called, Humphrey raised yet again.  Rochester and Sir Tristan prudently folded, but Magick and Reggie went ahead and called.

After the turn, essentially the same thing happened: Magick raised, Reggie called, Humphrey raised again, and the others called.  After the flip, Magick raised again, but this time Humphrey didn't raise further; he and Reggie just called.  Then came the river, and this time Magick folded.  Reggie raised, but then Humphrey raised again, and Reggie decided to fold.  So Humphrey won, and he was very pleased with himself.  Probably more pleased with himself than he needed to be; but hey, he was new at this.

The next game they played didn't force a showdown either.  This time, Magick raised again; Reggie and Humphrey called; and this time Sir Tristan raised.  Rochester promptly folded.  He was starting to be a bit unhappy; he wasn't really sold on the game.  Folding early isn't really all that exciting, especially when everyone else calls and continues playing.

Here's the state of the game after the turn. The four of diamonds, five of clubs, and ace of spades are all on the table.

Magick raised.  He raised rather a lot, in fact; he depleted his stack of chips at a much faster pace than any of the others.  Reggie folded, but the other two called.  Then the flip turned up the queen of spades.  Sir Tristan was pleased: he now had a pair of queens.

Sir Tristan is a very careful player: very good at assessing the game, but inclined to play conservatively.  Nevertheless, he's pretty good at working out if he has a better hand than his competitors, especially when most of them don't really know what they're doing, and it was very clear to him that no one else had anything nearly as good as a pair of queens.  Magick raised again, and Humphrey called, but Sir Tristan still felt confident enough that he went ahead and raised again, and then Magick folded.  Humphrey folded after the river, when it was clear that Sir Tristan had a good hand. 

The next game they played turned out to be very disappointing for poor Reggie.  After the deal, no one had a particularly good hand; Humphrey raised a bit, but Sir Tristan and Reggie decided to fold, and the others just called.  But then the deal happened, and Reggie suddenly became visibly disappointed.  He's a river otter; they're not really all that good at hiding their feelings.  Reggie was sort of wiggling all over the place with big sad eyes.  He didn't say what the problem was, but the others could guess.

Humphrey, still feeling rather over-confident thanks to his early win, over-raised after the turn.  Rochester decided to call just to keep playing, because he'd folded on every previous game and was becoming impatient.  Magick called as well.  They all bet five dollars on the flip.  No one really had much of anything, though.  Humphrey and Rochester both checked after the river; Magick raised, but only a small amount.  Humphrey then decided to raise by a large amount, which caused the others to fold.  He was pretty pleased with himself.

After Humphrey's win, Reggie revealed that he would have had a straight, had he stayed in the game.  The others were sympathetic.  Well, except for Humphrey.  Here you can see Humphrey gloating over his mound of chips while Reggie regards his would-be straight mournfully.

See the way Magick is positioned, with his cards under his paw?  That's his general gaming pose, apparently.  He's very suave even when he's losing, which he was doing rather markedly at this point.  Compare his piles of chips to Reggie's.

By the next hand, the players had very different attitudes towards the game.  Humphrey was now high on two big victories and was convinced that poker is the best game ever, and that he, Humphrey, was a poker king.  Reggie was feeling a bit down, although Magick and Sir Tristan both assured him that he had been correct to fold given the information he had available at the time; he wanted to keep playing, though, in case he had a good hand.  Magick was losing but seemed unfazed by it; when Humphrey made a cocky remark, Magick said that everyone has off nights.  Sir Tristan was doing moderately well and felt pretty good about it.  But Rochester was really not having a good time.  He didn't feel like he was playing a game at all, and he was ready to stop playing.  The others convinced him to try just one more hand, and he gave in grudgingly.

After the next deal, Humphrey and Magick both folded.  Sir Tristan raised, and the others stayed in the game, Rochester with a sort of grim look of determination: this was going to be his last hand and he was going to play it out, damnit.

The turn produced the queen of spades, the five of clubs, and the queen of diamonds, and this was good for everyone.  Sir Tristan, who was to go first, had a queen in his hand.  Rochester called; he didn't have anything just yet, but he had the beginnings of a possible flush.  And Reggie had two pairs, so he stayed in as well, really wanting to redeem himself.  The flip turned up the six of spades, and Rochester perked up a bit.  He was starting to feel like he was playing after all; he even raised Sir Tristan's bet.  Reggie folded at this point, but Sir Tristan called.  And the river turned up the eight of spades: Rochester had his flush.

This was the game's first showdown, so the new players were particularly thrilled.  After Sir Tristan's bet, Rochester went all in - and won.  He had had the two and king of spades.

Here you can see Mahler, Laszlo, and Magick admiring Rochester's winning hand.

Sir Tristan was gracious in defeat, and Rochester was (mostly) gracious in victory.  He decided that poker was a good game after all, and that was the end to his thoughts of quitting the game.

Lady Faraday Teaches Yahtzee

After Angel Joe's investiture was over, and the reception was coming to a natural end, Magick asked whether anyone else wanted to play poker, and found a few takers.  Lady Faraday did not want the younger denizens of the Wild Republic getting too interesting in this poker game, as she could see that this would undoubtedly lead to some sort of disaster, so she decided to distract them by teaching them all how to play Yahtzee, and that is precisely what she did.

In the end, her pupils were just the kittens and Tibby; the polar bears and Beppe were already having a blast doing something else, and Beppe is still too young anyway.  This still left six players, and Lady Faraday thought that the game would be too long with six, especially since none of them had ever played before, so she decided that only four players would start, and then had them all roll dice to see who would be in the first game.  That's what they're doing in this first picture.

Flurry, Rusty, Cami, and Khamsin won, which left Navarre and Tibby to watch.  They were intrigued enough by the game that they only minded a little bit.  It took Lady Faraday a while to explain the rules, though, because Flurry is young enough that he found them tricky to understand.

I'm not sure quite what it was that Flurry had so much trouble understanding; I think it had something to do with the stuff on the bottom half.  Lady Faraday thought it would be best if he sat next to her so he could watch her keep score. 

Finally the game got underway.  Here, Rusty has rolled a large straight.  He was very pleased with himself.

A little bit later, the first Yahtzee of the game was rolled, by Flurry, which made everyone tremendously excited, although Rusty was a little sore about it because he'd wanted to get the first one.

Flurry was happy that it was fives rather than some lower number; he never did quite understand that a Yahtzee is a Yahtzee is a Yahtzee.  Tibby's keeping score now, as you can see, with Lady Faraday's help.

Almost immediately after Flurry's Yahtzee, Khamsin rolled one too.  It was sixes!  Flurry was so very impressed.  Rusty was getting kind of anxious about everyone else getting Yahtzees.

Sadly, Rusty never got his Yahtzee, and Cami never got one either.  But the rest of the game was not without excitement, albeit of a rather different kind.  Beppe, who had been hanging out with the polar bears, got bored of doing that and came to see what the kittens were up to.  He burst right into the thick of things and ran off with two of the dice.

Cheetahs are really useful to have around when these sorts of thing happen.  You can see in the picture above that Khamsin is already in hot pursuit; he was able to successfully overtake and pounce on Beppe before the puppy got too far.  I suspect he rather enjoyed it.  He didn't let Beppe up in a hurry, either; he held him down long enough for Lady Faraday to arrive and reclaim the dice.

After that episode, the rest of the game was almost anticlimactic; as I said, no one else got a Yahtzee.  Flurry won, which made him very happy.  It almost makes up for him causing his team to lose the Izit-Football match.  Here everyone is congratulating him, except Rusty, who was a bit sore about losing.

One might think that losing would make Rusty disinclined to play again, but in fact the opposite was true: losing whetted his appetite for a win, and he insisted that everyone keep playing.  The others had had a good time anyway - and Navarre and Tibby were eager for a chance to play - and so they kept playing Yahtzee quite happily until it was time for them to go to bed, and Lady Faraday was able to leave them to it with a clear conscience.

Speaking of clear consciences, Alfredo insisted that Beppe apologise to her for interrupting the game, muttering darkly about how he is being negligent in his duties as a parent and wishes his wife were alive because she would do so much better.  I'm not sure Beppe was exactly sorry, but he certainly was contrite.  You can tell by his subjugated posture.  She accepted his apology very graciously, of course.  Lady Faraday is always gracious.

The poker game was still going on, by the way.  It went on well into the night, long after the kittens had fallen asleep.  But I'll tell you about that later.

The Investiture; or I Hereby Dub Thee Sir Angel Joe

Ever since the arrival of the Wild Parliamentary Monarchy, there have been rumours afoot that Angel Joe was going to be knighted for his service to the Crown - that same service that left him severely traumatised and permanently if only slightly disfigured.  These rumours were confirmed earlier this week, when a special medal for Distinguished Service arrived.  The official ceremony of investiture was held this afternoon, and naturally we took pictures of the entire thing.  So many pictures.

Now, under ordinary circumstances, a knighthood of merit would be conveyed by the Monarch, but in this case the honoured recipient is away from home on another assignment, and so the Monarch is unable to be present and the ranking members of the delegation are officiating in the Monarch's stead.  The Wild Republic has graciously allowed the use of their facilities on this solemn and august occasion.

This was taken shortly before the ceremony, once the audience had all been seated.  I don't know if you can tell, but a great deal of attention went into the seating arrangement here.  

They're more or less seated by rank.  In the upper left corner by the dais are the members of the Wild Parliamentary Monarchy who are not participating in the investiture; on the other side are the ranking members of the Wild Republic, many of whom have not previously been featured in pictures on this blog.  After them come the ordinary members of the WR, in approximate order of rank, and then the young ones are all grouped at the bottom.  Alcindarias, the griffin, kept himself a bit aloof, as is typical.  He's a member of the Wild Free Alliance of Mythical Beasts, not the Wild Republic.

Here, look how attentive they all are.

Here are the ranking members of the Wild Republic.  You don't hear as much about them because they're largely retired.

Seal in front there is the highest-ranked Wild Republican in our local chapter; the Fox, to his left, is also of very high rank.  Behind them you can see Casper and Seymour, who are retired.

Now the procession is underway.  Alfredo, as the head of the local Wild Republic chapter, is the official host for the occasion, so he's leading the procession, followed by Lord Twilby, the only peer present.  Note that Beppe managed not to call out to his father as Alfredo went by.

Now that Alfredo and Lord Twilby are in position (Twilby is on the side where the Wild Parliamentary Monarchy delegates are seated), the officiating officers, Sir Theo and Lady Faraday, are making their way to the dais.

Angel Joe, of course, entered last.  Sir Theo seems to have given him a few words of support when he reached the dais.

The ceremony was opened by Alfredo, as the official host.  He didn't really have much to say, so we didn't take a picture.  The first real speech was Sir Theo's, and it wasn't really all that interesting.  Actually, it wasn't interesting at all, although it was very inspiring.  It was all about honour and valour and rigour and other virtues of that nature - not Angel Joe's specifically, you understand, just sort of in the abstract.

Beppe got bored.  He was really only interested in his father's speech anyway, so once Alfredo was done, he decided to take off.  No one stopped him, partly because he was at the back and partly because the adults were all just a little bit worried that he'd try to join his father on the dais or something and cause an International Incident.  Averting an International Incident was much more important than having Beppe at the ceremony.

Now, to be fair, Beppe wasn't the only one of the kids who got a bit bored.  You can see in this picture that Vim and Flurry are having some sort of conversation, Khamsin is doing... something (actually, I'm not sure quite what he's doing), and Rebus has fallen asleep facedown.  Tibby, though, despite his youth, is paying rapt attention.  Imperial penguins love ceremonies; it's in their blood.

But then it was time for Lady Faraday to give her speech, and everything suddenly got more interesting.  She is less long-winded than Sir Theo, and she got the better material: her job was to relate the stirring story of Angel Joe's heroism to all present.  The only creature present not paying attention was Alfredo, who was wondering where his son had got to.

It turns out that Angel Joe had been on a very serious and highly dangerous mission to recover some vital stolen documents from enemy headquarters.  The documents were encoded, but they contained state secrets, and if the enemy had had them long enough to decipher them, they would have learned the identities and code names of all of the Wild Parliamentary Monarchy secret agents, among other highly classified information.  Angel Joe, along with his partner (a badger named Winidavefred who, like Angel Joe, is no longer a field agent), was tasked with their perilous retrieval.  They successfully snuck into enemy headquarters and stole the documents, but they were unable to sneak back out without attracting attention, so Angel Joe bravely created a diversion to enable Winidavefred to escape with the documents safely.  As part of the diversion, he arranged his own capture and was held as a prisoner of war.  Winidavefred, fortunately, made a safe escape, and reported to his superiors the fate of Angel Joe.  The Wild Parliamentary Monarchy sent some of their best agents to raid enemy headquarters and recover Angel Joe.  He was still alive, but had been subjected to terrible torture in an effort to get him to reveal state secrets; however, he had refused to talk.  Upon his return home, Angel Joe retired from active field duty and became some sort of cultural attache instead.  He has recovered from most of his physical wounds; his whiskers had been taped to his face, and although Pedro was able to successfully free them, the tape cannot be removed and will mark him for the rest of his days.  In addition, he suffers from severe PTSD and has lost the ability to shift his coat with the seasons.

This story was a big hit with the audience, naturally, but the most exciting part of the ceremony was the investiture itself, which was also performed by Lady Faraday.

After the investiture, everyone cheered long and hard.  They cheered so long and so hard, in fact, that they scared Plouie and he fainted.  This was probably to the good: it eliminated the other potential for an International Incident.

Unfortunately for the audience, this was not the end of the ceremony: Lord Twilby had yet to give his speech, which was all the historical importance of this momentous occasion.  Here you can see the audience already getting restless and Twilby is still in the middle of his opening remarks (which are about how he is going to keep his remarks brief).  See how the kittens and baby polar bears are starting to creep away? 

Twilby went on speaking for like forty-five minutes (I asked Lady Faraday afterwards if that really was "brief" for him, and she winced and said yes it was).  He looks awfully cute, though.  I really like Twilby's "I'm Being Rhetorical Here" pose.

Here the youngest animals are all sneaking off, except for Mahler (who is old enough to feel he needs to stay put), Navarre (who feels he must stay for the honour of lions, and is also too far front to sneak out inobtrusively), and Tibby (who is totally eating this up; he's paying attention to Twilby every bit as closely as he did to Lady Faraday).  Poor Navarre; he looks so bored and woebegone.  The younger animals are not the only bored audience members here, though.  Hrithik, next to Navarre, was listing state capitals in his head the whole time.

Here's the other side of the aisle, with the tail end of the exodus of the younger generation.  Cami, like Mahler and Navarre, felt he had to stick out. 

He's actually paying better attention than the adult members nearby.  Barry and Gilly are busily whispering anagrams of everyone's names to each other, while Parsley tries to figure out what on earth they're talking about.

But Twilby's speech didn't actually last forever (only forty-five minutes), and eventually the ceremony ended with a very dignified recessional march.  You'll note that the audience is conspicuously smaller than it was at the beginning of the ceremony, and that Plouie is still unconscious.

Now Angel Joe - or rather Sir Angel Joe - has this awesome medal.  It says Avag Co Bepsig and everything.

Afterwards, there was a reception for everyone.  Well, not quite actually.  The younger animals who left the ceremony early didn't realise there was a reception, so they weren't there, and Plouie sort of never woke up. He's kinda still there.

But everyone else certainly went to the reception, which was a great success.  The main hors d'oeurves were field mice, at Sir Angel Joe's request.  Here the other attendees of rank are congratulating him while everyone else mills about.  The Ice Age animals are sticking together and kvetching about how different these things were in their day (more bonfires, more spears, less speeches) and the three remaining younger cats are trying to eat as many field mice as possible.  Good times.

I don't know how well you can see this, but there are some poker chips over there under the papa-san, sort of by Nicodemus's hind quarters and Leprosy's snout.  When the reception was dwindling, and Angel Joe had been whisked off to a special dinner with various high-ranking individuals, Magick and a few of the others decided to put those poker chips to good use.  I'll tell you all about how that went later.