Everybody

I mentioned a few days ago that I'm moving.  AJD is not.  It's sad but true.  So we really wanted to get one big picture with the entire local chapter of the Wild Republic (both retired and active members), the Wild Parliamentary Monarchy, the Wild Mythic Federation, and us, before I leave.  Here we are, immortalised by our intrepid photographer friend ML.

After ML had taken this, we realised that somehow Seal was missing.  Obviously this would not do, so I got up and found him and talked him into being in the picture.  Seal's not camera-shy, but he's retired, and accordingly tries to avoid anything suspiciously big and official.  This position is understandable, as he's not just any retiree: Seal was president pro tem of the Wild Republic Senate for fifteen years until he decided to retire - not just any fifteen years, mind you, but the most prosperous and well-run fifteen years of its entire history.  He is legendary: one of their greatest political figures of all time.

But when he thought about it some more, he decided we were right: this occasion was worth making an exception for.  So here is another picture with everyone, Seal included.

Look how Barry is so eager for centre stage that he's blocking my face.  That's so very typical of Barry.

The Many Guises of Seal

Sometimes you can know someone for years, and think you know pretty much everything there is to know about them... and then they surprise you, and you realise that there are still things about them you never even suspected.

I went to take a nap a bit ago, by which I mean, I sort of collapsed facefirst onto my mattress.  Immediately a problem revealed itself: I was wearing an oversized T-shirt that I'd tied with a scrunchie, and if I insisted on sleeping in this fashion, the scrunchie was going to make it uncomfortable.  So I sort of heaved myself up just long enough to pull the scrunchie off the shirt, and then I stuck the first place I could think of that it wouldn't get lost, which happened to be around Seal's neck.

This had a most unexpected consequence: observe.

Seal is an Elizabethan!  Look at how naturally he wears the ruff and how well it suits him!  I never guessed!  Here we've been together twenty-seven years and counting, and I never realised that my sea lion companion is Elizabethan.  I felt pretty embarrassed, let me tell you.  How could I have failed to notice it before?  But Seal was very nice about the whole thing.  He said that it took him quite a long time to realise it himself, and in fact hadn't twigged to it until I put the scrunchie around his neck.

Sometimes we surprise ourselves.  It's true.

Despite what you may think, Seal is not a stranger to cosplay.  Nope.  I'm a Jew-by-choice, not a born Jew, and I was raised Catholic.  Every year at Christmas, I used to torture poor Seal by dressing him up in the little Santa Claus costume my mother made for him when I was three or four.  I still have this costume, and Seal graciously agreed to be photographed wearing it (the things one does for love, right?).  

See, he's a Christmas Seal.

Come to think of it, he was awfully delighted when I told him I was converting.

Out of Character

Hmm.  It seems that Pedro's examination had an unexpected result: Sleepyhead is awake right now.  He's been awake for all of fifteen minutes!  Look at this.  He stayed awake long enough for the event to be captured on camera.

You may be wondering what exactly Seal is doing upside down like that.  He says he's trying to encourage Sleepyhead to stay awake by being particularly entertaining.  I'd say I hope Sleepyhead appreciates how many creatures have inverted themselves for him lately, but I know he doesn't.

To be fair, this may not be a direct result of Pedro's efforts at all.  Sleepyhead didn't actually wake up while he was being examined, so it may have been coincidence.

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.