Natural Disasters Edition II: Hrithik Saves Greater New Jersey

The worst of the storm is over, anyway, and Alfredo has rescinded the evacuation order.  The Wild Republic is now emerging from the closet.  They appear to be no worse for the wear, but they're all a bit cranky.  Being crammed into close quarters like that was evidently an experience:

• Rusty complained most of the time because he wanted to watch the storm.
• The kittens got bored and sang a lot of 'One Hundred Bottles of Beer' whenever Jasper's attention was diverted.
• Cami and Angel Joe were pretty terrified the whole time.
• The Wild Parliamentary Monarchy delegates, plus Seleucus, Leprosy, and Desmond, spent the entire time having a spirited intellectual discourse on the nature of reality, which everyone else felt wasn't really in keeping with the gravity of the situation.
• Omri spent the entire storm trampling all over everyone in an effort to find Alfredo's clipboard, which (it was later revealed) Parsley was sitting on.
• Quixley, deprived of his usual dosage of caffeine, was pretty grouchy the whole time.  You can't really blame him, I guess, because he was worried that he'd have to configure the computer system all over again.
• Nicky fainted, but he got better.

By far the most notable happenstance, however, is that Hrithik insisted on meditating the entire time, because he was convinced that in this way he could keep the destruction outside to a minimum.  Naturally this began to wear on everyone else's nerves almost immediately, but with his Jeopardy! track record, no one could really make a compelling case against him.  Zebulon probably could have, but Zebulon, either in a show of Team Malagasy solidarity or because he's crazy, decided to take Hrithik's side.  Team Malagasy has pull, I'm telling you.

Now, of course, Hrithik is claiming sole credit for the fact that the entire eastern coast of the United States hasn't disappeared Atlantis-style beneath the waves, despite the fact that even the most alarming of the pre-storm predictions had not mentioned this as a possibility.

Oh - one other thing.  Sleepyhead managed to sleep through the entire hurricane, and quite possibly never noticed himself being evacuated to the closet at all.  Apparently this how giant pandas respond to natural disasters.

This is really getting ridiculous

I missed most of Jeopardy! tonight because I stayed late at work, and this is a shame, because it was a very eventful game.  Not only did a college student win $48,000 without breaking a sweat, either.  

When I got home, the Double Jeopardy round was not quite halfway over and Laszlo and Navarre were downstairs watching with AJD, Gilly, and Zebulon.  This was, naturally, due to the effects of Hrithik's alarmingly effective meditation routine.  Laszlo had won an honourable mention because the winning contestant's anecdote was about getting in-between a female moose and her offspring (moral of story: this is a bad idea).  And Navarre really cleaned up, because there was an entire category about lions in the first round.  It's not clear whether this counts as a five-game win or as winning one game five times, but either way, this is an unprecedented accomplishment.

Hrithik, naturally, is claiming all the credit.

This is on top of AJD's recent discovery, mentioned in the comment thread on an earlier post, that the conference he's attending next month has sessions on the dialectological situation in Madagascar.  We'd joked before about Murchison needing to monitor Team Malagasy for suspicious behaviour, but it must be said that since Zebulon got here and Hrithik started meditating, things have been strange.  What is next, and what is going on?  Madagascar gets to host an Olympic games?  Madagascar suddenly becomes a world empire? 

And the Streak Continues...

It happened yet again: Hrithik was meditating in the south room and the kittens collectively won Jeopardy!.  The category was "My Favourite Things", and it was actually about the Rodgers and Hammerstein song(!), so the top-level clue was kittens.  If this keeps up, I might start believing in Hrithik's mystical powers myself.  Maybe.

One could make a case for Alfredo and Beppe winning too - and Hrithik is - because Rome was also mentioned, and they're Italian wolves from an area near Rome; but Rome comes up a lot on Jeopardy!, so it doesn't have the same punch as Madagascar.  On the same note, one could make a case for Tibby, with his imperial connection, but I'm adamant that he's awfully Antarctic for it to count.

The category for the final today was "Comic Book History", which was how we learned that Zebulon is a comic book enthusiast.  Apparently he likes to talk comics with Quixley; they read some of the same comics, and Zebulon is interested in hearing about the ones he doesn't have time to read.  It's not clear that Zebulon and Quixley participate equally in these conversations, though, since Zebulon's half consists entirely of "Aye" and therefore Quixley can't really tell whether Zebulon is just being generally friendly or is interested in comics because he's not familiar with them or whether he actually knows comics himself.  I'm reasonably certain, in fact, that Quixley has probably not entertained the last, and correct, of these alternatives.

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.

My Lemur Won Jeopardy! and I Will Never Sleep Again

In order to explain exactly why my life has taken a turn for the insomniac, I need to give you two pieces of background information.

AJD and I habitually watch Jeopardy! in the evenings, and usually we have company when we do it.  A number of the animals have watched an episode or two, but the really die-hard Jeopardy! fans among the Wild Republicans are Hrithik and Gilly, although it's worth noting that Zebulon seems to have similar predilections.  Gilly watches because he likes puzzles and games, and also likes commercials.  Hrithik watches because he really wants to win.

Now, by "win" I don't mean "win" in the usual sense; I should make that clear.  For Hrithik, the win conditions are as follows: you win if your species is mentioned in a Jeopardy! clue.  Since Hrithik is nothing if not patriotic, he also wins if Madagascar is mentioned.  Winning the usual way is easier, believe it or not.  Until very very recently, Hrithy had won exactly once in several years, and that was with a mention of Madagascar rather than ring-tailed lemurs.

The second thing that you need to know is that Hrithik has recently taken up meditation.  I think he started about four months ago.  The meditating Hrithik looks pretty adorable.

It looks very cute, right?  Well, it's markedly less cute if you're in the same room.  I always thought that meditators, if they made any noise at all, made peaceful, restful noises.  Like, you know, 'Ommmmmm' or something.  Hrithik does not do this.  No, no, the noise Hrithik makes sounds like nothing more than a particularly obnoxious car alarm.  It goes something like this: 

'WAAAAAAaaaaaaaaWAAAAAAaaaaaaaaWAAAAAAaaaaaaaaWAAAAAAaaaaaaaa....'

Why?  I don't know!  It's not clear to me whether this is some sort of traditional lemur form of mediation or whether it's something he somehow came up with on his own.  I'm inclined towards the latter, given that I've known him for years and he's only just started this nonsense, and also given that he's a bit touchy about the whole thing.  But either way, it sucks!  His favourite time for meditation is night, because he is nocturnal, and... well... do you think you could sleep with that car alarm noise going off in your room for hours every night?  I didn't think so!  And the worst part is, he's been getting more and more enthusiastic about it as time passes.

In fact, he's become so enthusiastic about it that he's started proselytising.  Oh yeah.  I'm not kidding.  Look at this:

He taught the kittens to meditate!  The kittens!  And of course they loved it, perverse little creatures that they are.  Stal has to work his ass off to get them to pay attention to their Archaic Feline lessons, but Hrithik gets it in his head to teach them car-alarm meditation (it ought to be boring, given that they're kittens with the attention span of gnats, right?) and they just eat it up.  One moment the north room was a haven of slightly-bizarre tranquility and the next minute there are five kittens and one ring-tailed lemur shrieking their heads off zenfully.  'WAAAAAAaaaaaaaWAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaWAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaWAAAAAAaaaaaa...'  Gaa!

You know what it is?  They're Buddhists.  I really think that's it.  The kittens are Buddhists and therefore they're naturally predisposed to meditation.  Which is a problem, because it's hard to tell them not to meditate without stepping on their religious rights.  Fortunately they're not as diligent about their meditative practices as Hrithik is.  They're still doing it, though.

So I imagine you're wondering what on earth Hrithik's inner peace has to do with Jeopardy!, and after all the point of this post is not to complain about his influence on the kittens.  Here's what happened.

About two weeks ago, AJD knocked on my door to announce that it was time for Jeopardy!.  As is my usual wont, I asked Hrithik if he meant to come along, and he replied that no, this time he was going to stay in my room and meditate to see if it helped his game.  I shrugged and relayed this information to AJD as we settled down to watch the game.

And would you believe, he won?  Ring-tailed lemurs were one of the clues!  They even showed a picture of two of them.

We thought that Hrithik would be sad for having missed his big win - but we were wrong.  No, no, he was delighted.  Clearly, he explained, this is a sign that he's meditating properly.  He's reaching that higher state of consciousness.  He's doing something right and he must keep doing it!

*headdesk*

But it gets worse, you see.  Now that Hrithik is spending many Jeopardy! evenings meditating rather than watching the show, suddenly everyone in the Wild Republic is winning Jeopardy!.  Not everyone, really, but tons of people.  In the last week, Rochester has won, Parsley has won, the wolves have come close (the actual answer was "red wolf"), and Gus had an honorable mention a few days ago (one of the contestants has a son of that name) and then won yesterday (because of his name, not his species).  And today... well, today everything snowballed.  Humphrey won, Gilly won (because there was a G&S category), and Team Malagasy won (that is, Hrithik and Zebulon).  All with Hrithik meditating upstairs.

So not only has Hrithik himself won twice in as many weeks, but he's engineered wins for half a dozen of the others as well.

This means, unfortunately, that he is a lemur inspired.  He is unstoppable now.  He meditates longer and longer each night, and he's utterly convinced that he's doing it right, and there's nothing you can say to dissuade him really.  I cannot sleep.  None of us in the south room can sleep, except of course for Sleepyhead.  And what's going to happen once the kittens find out about this?  Then no one in the entire Republic will be able to sleep.

Jeopardy! is a destroyer of domestic peace, I'm telling you.  The only positive to all this cacophony is that when AJD finally makes it on the show - and he will one of these years, mark my words - he's going to have one hell of an anecdote.  I will admit that this is small consolation to me now.  At least he's cute.

A Spectrum of Pandicity

We introduced Gilly to Hrithik tonight, which had two positive consequences: Hrithik got over being angry with me over relocating him, and they really hit it off.  They have a lot in common: both tree-dwellers, both game lovers, and both possessed of awesome ringed tails.  Their bond was forever sealed when Gilly joined us to watch Jeopardy!  He spent his formative days at the MIT Mystery Hunt, so he likes that sort of thing.

Red pandas also have some things in common with foxes: shape, colour, tailness, that sort of thing.  So, in a manner of speaking, there are only two degrees of separation between ring-tailed lemurs and foxes, and if you put the three of them together, you get a spectrum.  

I shall now produce the proof: here are, from left to right, Hrithik, Gilly, and the Fox.

Here's an aerial view, so you can see their tails:

We finally broke down and told Gilly that Sleepyhead is also a panda; this confused him utterly, because clearly, he says, Sleepyhead is a bear.  He was satisfied only when we agreed to refer to Sleepyhead as a panda bear rather than simply as a panda.  For all that, they get along pretty well.

Here's Sleepyhead on his own; it's not his best angle or a very good picture, but it gives you an idea of his habitual affect.

Here's a better one:

Note that Gilly's tail is in both pictures.  Gilly has quite a lot of tail, so these things happen.

snow snow snow

More snow.  I peeked into the (still absent) AJD's room.  The snow animals are absolutely delighted.  The non-snow animals look suspiciously hungover, with the exception of Reggie, who is alert and upright.  It wouldn't surprise me if river otters are immune from the less pleasant effects of alcoholic overindulgence.

In further news, Sleepyhead has fallen out of bed again, and the ermine is staring down at him with great concern.  I continue to be concerned for him, as he's been here long enough for it to be absolutely clear that his issues were not the result of jet lag.  Also, Hrithik still hisses at me when I try to get near him, which hurts my feelings.

Hrithik Isn't Speaking to Me Right Now

I cleaned my room yesterday.  The primary objectives in doing this were eliminating the dust and getting the books off the floor.  I had a series of minor fits or something over the last couple of months and wound up with piles and piles of Harlequin Blazes on the floor, so I had to rearrange the contents of my bookcases to make room.  Now they're all on shelves.  I still have books on the floor (I've shoved them under the dresser for the nonce), but they're books I could get rid of.

The problem was that in doing this I had to displace Hrithik.  Lemurs like trees, right, so I had him on top of one of my bookcases, to imitate the tree environment as much as possible.  But I wasn't sure how much space I was going to need and ended up using the top of that bookcase for books.  Hrithik had to move.  He was distinctly unhappy with me over this.

Fortunately, it turned out I had about a shelf and two-thirds left over after I'd moved everything, so I could leave the top of one of the other bookcases (on the other side of the room) blank.  Now Hrithik is up there, on one side of my driftwood bat statue (Henri is on the other side), and it's just as high as the other one.  

I think this worked out just fine.  Hrithik still has a tree, and it's just as good as the other one, and he's even in a better position for conversation now because he's on the side of the room with more animals.

Hrithik, however, is distinctly pissed off at me.  He's been refusing to speak to me ever since I moved him down from his old tree.  I think he thinks I didn't care about removing his habitat.  Which wasn't true!  It really wasn't!  One of my other bookcases has my tarot card collection on top of it, and the tarot cards don't take up the whole space, and I'm pretty sure Hrithik could have lived up there, if the other bookcase hadn't worked out.  It would have been a tighter fit, is all.  I tried to tell him that, but he's still not talking to me.

As a result of the re-organisation, Skandar and Sithri have been moved to the shelf below Hrithik and Henri - they barely noticed, they were so absorbed in each other - and the chameleon has moved to Hrithik's former bookcase on the second-to-the-bottom shelf.  Casper and Seymour have moved down a shelf or so, which they're happy about because they're closer to Seal.  So I haven't ruined everyone's life, just Hrithik's.  Apparently.