There have been heating issues in my apartment, so I was wearing my ugly Flyers hat indoors.  Then the heat came on, and I decided to take a shower and wash my hair before it stopped working again.  Alfredo is kindly wearing my hat for me, to keep it warm while my hair dries.  It's very cute, and makes me wish I had a camera.

Moving Out

Well, so the day has arrived.  This will be my last post from what will henceforth be known as the Southern Domicile.  I'm relocating to NYC (henceforth the Northern Domicile) with the majority of the local chapter of the Wild Republic.  It's just starting to sink in.  We've spent the morning getting the departing animals comfortable in their travelling cases and saying goodbyes.  Everyone is sad (except the younger ones, who are mostly just excited, except Cami).

The local chapter isn't exactly breaking up, per se, but apparently it was decided that they needed multiple locations to conduct their business; since we've never been clued in on their business, we can't really comment.  Quixley is staying here to maintain the IT equipment; Leprosy and Meph are also staying here.  Rochester has been appointed the leader of the Southern Domicile Faction.  He still answers to Alfredo in larger matters, but for daily concerns, he's the one in charge.  Here you can see Alfredo giving him some last-minute instructions.  Alfredo is confident that Rochester will do a great job.

Meanwhile, AJD and I were saying our good-byes.  Here I am saying goodbye to Leprosy and the Fox, and giving the Fox one last kiss between the ears (he really likes that).

Here's AJD with Plouie, Vim, and Alfredo.

And here I am with Rochester.

Then it was time to get everyone settled.  Alfredo, naturally, supervised the packing of the travelling boxes.  We needed three, two of which also contained other things.  Each box had a designated box captain to ensure everything went smoothly  There was some scrambling to make sure that particular people ended up in the right boxes - Lady Faraday and Sir Tristan were almost accidentally separated.  Here's Alfredo checking on the first box, which also contained electronic equipment.  Jasper and the kittens went in this one, with some others, so it made sense for Jasper to be the box captain.

The second box had a lot of random things in it, like poker chips, a book of Persian faery tales, my dancing shoes, and a pot.  This box kind of had two captains: Seleucus was the official captain, but Desmond was appointed auxiliary captain in case Seleucus has a diva fit.  Desmond is quite content as second; he noticed that the soundtrack to Grey Gardens was in this box, and happily claimed it.

Alfredo himself captained the third box, which contained most of the Wild Parliamentary Monarchy, as well as Beppe, Murchison, and Plouie.  I'm not sure whether putting Magick and Murchison in the same box will prove interesting or not.  Those two are pretty cagey about whether or how they knew each other before.

After everyone was packed in, the Southern Domicile gathered around to say goodbye to their friends, and that was it.

So... we've got to take off now.  I'll post again on the other end of the trip.

Natural Disasters Edition

Well, so there's a hurricane.  Exciting, right?

At the first signs of severe weather, Alfredo ordered the entire local chapter evacuated into the closet to wait out the storm, ambassadors and all. This isn't actually a sign that he's an alarmist so much as a practical matter; Alfredo may be neurotic, but he rarely panics.  His objective was mostly to ensure that everyone kept away from the windows and stayed in one place, so that the more easily scared animals - Plouie, Cami, Angel Joe - were neither staring at scary weather nor being tortured with it by animals made of sterner stuff.  He did let Rusty watch for just a little bit, though; Rusty loves storms.

Several hours after the evacuation, I discovered that Murchison wasn't in the closet.  Whether he stayed behind on his own initiative or Alfredo's is not clear; he's not saying.  I persuaded him to move further back from the windows, anyway.

Psychiatrist Wanted

Alfredo is fighting with his superiors over adding new members to his staff again.  He only won the battle for legal counsel and a full-time supervisor for the kittens about two months ago, but this isn't stopping him.  This time, he's trying to convince them that his chapter needs a full-time psychiatrist.  He is, in fact, probably quite correct; but not for the reasons he thinks.

See, Alfredo has two chief reasons for getting a mental health professional here.  The first is Zebulon.  He's yet to see a firsthand demonstration of Zebulon's legal prowess, because although Zebulon's taken several cases since he got here (and won them all), they were all cases on the side; he's too good a lawyer for his post here to be the sole extent of his responsibilities, especially when you add his personal ambitions to the mix.  So Alfredo remains highly skeptical.  He'd feel better if there were a shrink on site to maybe make Zebulon a little less crazy - or even declare Zebulon unfit, although he doesn't think this is likely to happen.

Unfortunately for Alfredo, Zebulon doesn't really need a shrink.  He's insane, but all aye-ayes are insane, and he's highly functional despite his insanity; it doesn't interfere with his job, and it bothers other creatures much more than it bothers Zebulon himself.  So getting a shrink on-site is not likely to alleviate Alfredo's fears.

His second reason for wanting a shrink is his son.  Alfredo is absolutely terrified that Beppe is going to have serious psychological problems because he's motherless.  He's sure that he's being too strict a parent, or maybe too lax.  It's bad enough that Beppe's mother died; now he's stuck with a father who is an incompetent parent.  At least, that's how Alfredo sees it.

Actually, Beppe seems to be doing just fine.  Certainly his mother's death has affected him, but he appears to be quite well-adjusted despite that.  Moreover, Alfredo, despite his anxieties, is doing a perfectly good job as a single father, and Beppe seems to enjoy having a bevy of doting uncles, kittens to play with, and Lady Faraday to lick his fur every now and then.  Sure, he could probably benefit from some counselling, but his situation isn't very urgent.  All things considered, he's in good shape.

Despite the fact that Alfredo's two main reasons for getting a shrink aren't really as urgent as he thinks they are, the local chapter really could use a shrink anyway, because plenty of other locals could use some help.  Take Sleepyhead; Pedro has concluded that there's nothing physically wrong with him, but maybe a mental health professional would find reasons for his persistent somnolence.  All three of the Ice Age creatures could use some help with their extinction issues, especially Mimsy, who is slightly batty.  At least three of the kittens could use counselling: Navarre because he takes himself far too seriously; Rusty for his ego issues; Cami for his anxiety.  Parsley and Nicodemus have insecurity issues.  Angel Joe has been doing much better lately, but he still has some lingering trauma and would definitely benefit from some professional help.  Omri, we suspect, has made poor career choices.  And then there is Alfredo himself: neurotic in the best of times, uncertain of his abilities to parent his son, and still deeply grieving for his beloved wife.  All of them would benefit from the presence of a skilled therapist.

Plouie, of course, is probably a lost cause.  But never mind that.

It's probable that Alfredo's current lobbying campaign will not meet with immediate success, but he's confident that it will ultimately prove successful.  He has cards he hasn't played yet: he's willing to offer to take a pay cut if they'll send someone qualified.  They would never force a pay cut on him - for Beppe's sake alone - and he knows it, but he also knows that they'll realise he's serious.  He's a wily one, our Alfredo.  Anyway, so we're likely to get a new psychiatrist around here eventually, although it might take a while.

Zzzzzzzzzz

I'm not really sure why AJD wanted to take this picture of me and Alfredo, but he did, so here it is.

Tibby On Guard

Today was a very important day for Tibby: he received his first ever official training assignment.   See, here he is standing guard.  Alfredo is checking to make sure he's doing okay; he was keeping an eye out more or less the entire time.

Now, of course security detail is not Tibby's projected career path.  He is slated for a career in diplomacy, and since he has the best of credentials (yes, I know it's a Republic, but imperial blood does still open some doors) and the beginnings of an excellent record, he's likely to end up where he wants to be.  But everyone has to start somewhere, and the Republic takes seriously the idea that its fledglings ought to be familiar with as many of the different roles played by its personnel as possible, especially if they're headed for an elite career.  Guard duty is a very typical first assignment.

Aye, aye!

When Alfredo was sent here to head the local chapter, he knew it would be a challenge, but he hadn't realised that he would end up host to a sizable international delegation.  He likes challenges, but he doesn't like ulcers, and the combination of prestigious international delegation with a tribe of hyperactive kittens, a deranged moronic penguin, and his own puppy son keeps him up nights worrying.  He's absolutely terrified that somehow his constituency is going to start a war.  Conscientious to the point of neurosis: that's Alfredo.  But one has some sympathy for his position.

So, in addition to a disciplinarian for the kittens, Alfredo has been lobbying with his superiors for some sort of resident legal counsel, just in case.  He'd met with about as much success until the Bubble Gum Tail Incident, and then his superiors promised that they'd send him a good lawyer.

And they did send a good lawyer.  They sent one of the most promising young up-and-coming lawyers they could find, a fellow who breezed through law school, aced the bar exam, and has an excellent track record in court.  This is a lawyer who has won the respect of all his peers for the incisiveness of his mind and his uncanny ability to work the law to his advantage.  Despite his relative youth, several of his arguments have been collected as examples for law students to study, because of their unusual clarity and persuasiveness.

But the lawyer in question was... not quite what Alfredo was expecting.

Poor Alfredo.  He looks so dejected.  You can almost hear his inner monologue: 'Why me?'

Zebulon is an aye-aye, and aye-ayes are primarily famous for three things: they all have an inexplicable fondness for ships, despite lacking all aptitude for sailing them; they are all, without exception, incredibly brilliant; and they are all, without exception, absolutely bat-shit insane.  Zebulon is a very good example of his species.  He's the most promising lawyer of his generation, but he has a few screws loose, and you'd never know it from his behaviour out of court.  Out of court you're lucky if you can get him to say anything other than 'Aye.'

I think Alfredo can be forgiven for not quite trusting that Zebulon will live up to his hype.  We haven't seen him in action yet.

The denizens of the Wild Republic are of two minds about Zebulon.  Some of them try to steer clear of him, because they're not quite sure what to make of him and can't quite believe he's not another Plouie.  (I mean, Plouie gives the impression of having a larger vocabulary.)  The other group finds him kind of fascinating.  Barry, for instance, rather likes Zebulon.  One wonders how much of this is due to the fact that Zebulon's conversational peculiarities make it easier for Barry to talk about himself.

Humphrey is being far more patient with Zebulon than one might have expected, given that he's a retired commodore and aye-ayes are notorious amongst nautical men.  See, they really like climbing around in the rigging and untying knots, and when you are a sailor you have a vested interest in keeping knots tied, so having an aye-aye aboard is a massive inconvenience.  They're sort of like gremlins that way.  But Humphrey is doing a commendable job of keeping his anti-aye-aye biases under control.  He's had a number of conversations with Zebulon that consist of Humphrey talking about his nautical exploits, punctuated by lots of "aye aye" from Zebulon.

Actually, on second thought, Humphrey's tolerance for Zebulon is not really that unlike Barry's.

Hrithik is the only other local who has had previous experience with aye-ayes; this is because Zebulon, like Hrithik, is from Madagascar.  Hrithik is excited enough about having another member of Team Malagasy - and a fellow primate, to boot - to overlook some of Zebulon's peculiarities.  He's also our primary source about aye-ayes in general.  When we first asked him what he thought of Zebulon, he did that "draw a circle near your ear" gesture with his tail, but then he elaborated that they're all like that.

Here's Team Malagasy, perched in a very short tree.

Hrithik spends most of his time on top of one of my bookcases; that's his tree.  Zebulon is less picky about his habitat, but he has a habit of hanging on things, usually upside down.  Sometimes this takes his neighbours by surprise.

Gilly and Nicodemus hadn't even realised he was there until after we took the picture.  They were rather startled.

Zebulon is kind of okay to have around, all told.  He really likes being scratched, and makes the most adorable noises when you indulge him thus, and also the most reproachful noises when you stop.  He seems to like Jeopardy! so far; he started watching mostly out of curiosity, like Hrithik once upon a time, but the game appeals to him.  Also he appears to be something of a hypnotist, which makes me rather nervous.  AJD stopped him in the middle of hypnotising me and we're not really sure what would have transpired if he hadn't.

Expansion!

Our local chapter of the Wild Republic has just been enlarged by five.  All of them are adults, which I'm quite pleased about; I love the young ones (they're so cute!), but I was afraid the balance was tipping too far in the juvenile direction.

Alfredo is particularly relieved.  He'd been requesting some reinforcements from his superiors for some time, and the bureaucracy finally decided to grant his requests.  This had more than a little to do with that incident a bit ago, the one where the kittens somehow managed to get illicit bubble gum on Leprosy's tail.  Alfredo had been telling his superiors for months that he needed someone sent here specifically to handle the kittens: it's all well and good that our chapter was chosen to train young felines, but without anyone actually in charge of them, they were getting out of hand.  I'll explain more about this in a later post.  But anyway, his superiors finally admitted that they really should have been listening to him all along, and they found someone to deal with the kittens.  They also agreed that, with such a large foreign delegation stationed here permanently, and with some of the members of the local chapter being more than slightly eccentric and unpredictable (*cough* Plouie *cough*), Alfredo was correct that he could use some permanent legal counsel on staff.

So here they are, our five newest denizens of the Wild Republic:

In the front row, left-to-right, we have Jasper, the leopard, who is here to look after the kittens; Quixley, the zebra, whose exact responsibilities are not yet clear to me; the aye-aye, who has not yet gifted us with his name, and who is the promised legal counsel; and the sloth bear, whose exact role is not yet clear either.  Behind them all we have Meph, the bat, who is from the Ministry of Transportation and who intends to reform the local postal service (i.e. Plouie).  ("Meph" is not his full name; apparently bats are fond of giving each other very long names.)

Yesterday was a long day, full of meetings between various old and new residents.  Alfredo was particularly busy getting everyone settled in.  He's really delighted that we have Jasper now, as you can imagine (so is everyone), but he's not sure quite what to make of the aye-aye.

Father's Day Romping

Yesterday was a big day for Alfredo - I'll explain why in my next post - but he still took time out to spend some quality time with Beppe. 

Here they are playing the time-honoured game of Chase Your Father's Tail.  This is the sort of game that is more or less exactly what it says on the label; there aren't any rules as far as we can tell.  Nor is there a winner or loser; Beppe was very happy whenever he caught the tail, but so was Alfredo.

It's just a bit tricky to work out what is going on in these two tail-chasing pictures, because Alfredo and Beppe are the same colour and Beppe is essentially composed entirely of fluffy.  Any picture we have ever taken of Beppe makes him look like a ball of fur with ears.  So keep your eye on the black spot.  That's the tip of Alfredo's tail.

Alfredo worries a lot about not being a good parent.  He's always worried that he's not spending enough time with his son because he has so many responsibilities and takes them all so seriously.  Although he almost never mentions his wife, you kind of know he's thinking that if she were only here, Beppe would be much happier.  He's really afraid of screwing Beppe up forever; he's never sure whether he's being too strict with him or too lax, and he's sure that if Laura were here, he'd do a better job.  Alfredo sometimes lies awake at night with visions of poor Beppe needing lots of therapy because he lost his mother and his father didn't know what he was doing.  This is very Alfredo.

It's true that Beppe's got an excessive amount of energy and is prone to do silly things, but he's very very young and he's also a puppy, and that's par for the course.  As far as we can tell, Alfredo's doing just fine. 

A Tail Inspection

We noticed Alfredo perfoming an inspection of Leprosy's tail the other night.

This was a singular occasion on two counts: one doesn't normally see Alfredo performing such inspections, and Leprosy is such a stickler for details and conventions that you'd not expect him to give anyone cause.  It turned out, though, that the kittens had put bubble gum on Leprosy's tail and Alfredo had to get it off with peanut butter.  Neither Leprosy nor Alfredo was pleased - the kittens aren't even supposed to have bubble gum - and the word is that disciplinary actions are underway.  No word yet on their nature, though.

Ingenious

So I've spent the last month or so basically mired in dissertation.  Fortunately, AJD had other company to keep him entertained.  It turns out that Alfredo is really good at Ingenious.  Here they are, contemplating the board.  (It's Alfredo's turn.)

They're pretty evenly matched, but Alfredo won this particular game.

It was a good game, though.  You can tell by how tight the board is.

The Wolves Are Intrigued

Not long ago, on the recommendation of KH (who edited them) I read the first two instalments of Robert Redick's (totally awesome) fantasy epic, the first volume of which is entitled The Red Wolf Conspiracy.  AJD wanted to read them after me, so I passed them along.  Alfredo and Beppe saw the book on his bed and were highly intrigued by it.  

Here they are, being intrigued:

That's Alfredo on the left, the one who looks more recognisably lupine.  Beppe really does look more or less like a ball of fur like that; AJD's first words after laying eyes on him were, 'He's rather hairy, isn't he?'

Their intention is to read The Red Wolf Conspiracy after AJD has finished it; they're very curious about the nature of a conspiracy involving wolves.  Alfredo is particularly interested, because he doesn't believe wolves are naturally part of conspiracies; his job, as he sees it, is to keep everyone in line.  If it were The Arctic Fox Conspiracy, Alfredo would merely nod sagely (and Murchison would be highly flattered).

South Room Duty

AJD and I have different circadian rhythms: he's a night owl and I'm a lark.  We've learned the hard way that we have a tendency to screw up each other's sleep cycles, so during the week I usually end up sleeping in my room rather than his.  Every Sunday, when I migrate back to my room, one or two of the Wild Republicans come with me.

I never choose who is going to be posted for duty in my room for that week, because I'm not capable of choosing between my animals.  Ask me which of them is my favourite, and I will reply that I don't have a favourite, but I have a special soft spot for Sleepyhead and Plouie and Cami and Mahler and Seleucus and... before long I will have produced a litany of the entire populace.  My favourite animal is whichever one I happen to be holding at the time.

The reasons behind the assignments are not entirely clear to me.  Sometimes, AJD asserts, the animal with south room duty volunteers simply because he likes me.  This was the case with Parsley (the okapi), who is on duty this week.  Other times there seems to be more to it than that.  For the young ones, south room duty seems to be a break from study (for them), with an additional bonus in some cases as an opportunity for the adults to have one less rambunctious youngster around.  For the adults, it's sometimes a sort of working vacation, and sometimes a bit more.

Alfredo and Beppe had south room duty together last week, and this was both an opportunity for them to re-bond after their separation and a chance for Alfredo to get a bit of a break before throwing himself into preparations for the arrival of the delegation from the Wild Parliamentary Monarchy; as leader, most of the work falls to him.  Alfredo tends to use south room duty as a chance to confer with Seal about stuff - what, I'm not privy to.  Conferring with Seal, and sometimes even the private citizens, is apparently part of the point at least some of the time.

Sometimes Murchison is posted here, which is particularly intriguing.  He's a secret agent of some sort, and he doesn't believe in time off, so whenever south room duty falls to Murchison, one has to suspect something is up.

Sleepyhead has permanent south room duty.  I don't think this was planned; I think that initially the idea was that he'd be in here until his jet lag wore off.  Since he's been here almost six months and is just as jet-lagged as he was at first, I've taken his presence here as permanent; it's a good thing Seal has a certain fondness for him.  The other animals vary dramatically in their reactions to Sleepyhead.  Khamsin thinks he's really boring; Vim thinks he's confusing; Cami is worried about him; Tibby thinks he's unusually enlightened; Seleucus returned from his last south room duty feeling like his sense of reality had been warped; some of the others just ignore him; and so on.

Parsley hadn't had south room duty in a very long time - long enough that I don't think he'd met Sleepyhead before.  He clearly falls into the "Sleepyhead is good for cuddling" camp, which is good, because Sleepyhead took an immediate shine to him.  I conjecture that south room duty for Parsley - this time, at least - is going to be purely a mission of R&R.

Romance in the Wild Republic; or I Am Slightly Pathetic

There's not much in the way of romance in our particular chapter of the Wild Republic.  This is partly because the denizens of our chapter are predominantly male (by which I actually mean that they're all male), and partly because I am not a furry, and therefore I'm not particularly inclined to speculate about the sex lives of my stuffed animals.  It just seems wrong.

This is not to say that there is no romance at all.  I mean, Skandar (the white tiger) and Sithri (the Siamese cat) have been together ever since I brought Sithri home four years ago, and they've barely come up for air since.  But their romance just sort of made sense to me.  Skandar's this tough, scrappy, bad-ass tiger, and Sithri's this pampered, blue-blooded, opera diva Siamese, and I just sort of knew they were made for each other.  It was all very Lady and the Tramp, and I've always loved that movie.

Also, I've always kind of suspected there was something going on between Casper and Seymour, but since Casper and Seymour are both highly reserved, private individuals, as well as consummate gentlemen, I've never been entirely sure, and it seemed impolite to ask.

But these four are all private citizens, not citizens of the Wild Republic.  There hasn't really been any romance in the Wild Republic proper.  Not here, anyway.  However, there have been two offstage romances, so to speak, and both of them have recently borne fruit.  I'll almost certainly devote an entire post to both of them at some point, so I won't go into any details now, but I should at least allude to their existence.

First, there is the tragic romance in Alfredo's past.  Alfredo is the leader of the local chapter of the Wild Republic, which is appropriate because he is an alpha wolf.  He's also a widower.  His wife, Laura, died tragically and heroically in the line of duty a few months before Alfredo was sent to us, and he's still grieving because they were very much in love.  Wolves are devoted to their mates that way.  He'll probably never love again.

I felt so guilty about doing this to Alfredo that I went to great lengths to reunite him with his son, Giuseppe, whom everyone calls Beppe.  Beppe arrived here exactly a week ago, having spent the last few months competing in some highly prestigious singing competitions.  He has his mother's eyes.  It's very sad.  But Alfredo is much happier now that his son is here.

The second romance involves Sir Tristan, the emissary from the Wild Parliamentary Monarchy.  See, he has a girlfriend - she's a serval - who is also highly ranked in the Wild Parliamentary Monarchy, and so when he was posted here about a year and a half ago, she couldn't come with him because she had an important job of her own to do.  They do write lots of letters to each other, which sometimes goes horribly awry because Plouie is still postmaster general.  Sir Tristan has missed her terribly.

But all will soon be well, because I felt almost as guilty about separating Sir Tristan from his beloved as I did about Laura's death.  In other words, the Wild Parliamentary Monarchy, delighted with the success of Sir Tristan's mission, has decided to send some of his colleagues to join him, and - hurrah! - Sir Tristan's girlfriend will be among them.  So they will be reunited before too long, and hopefully everything will be happy.

"Hopefully" is apropos, because of course she will be the only female member of the active set, and I'm not sure what this will do to the group dynamics, particularly among the adolescent cats.  Also, two of the other members of the new delegation are adult male felines. One of them is Sir Tristan's best friend, but the other is an unknown quantity, and I'm not sure what either of their relationships to her are like.  I hope there's no rivalry involved, genteel or otherwise, because I'd rather the romantic elements of my animals' lives remained low-key.

But yes, I worry so much about my stuffed animals not being happy enough that I shell out money to bring other animals in to make them happy.  I know.  You don't have to say it.