Sir Theo is a Bed Hog

Sir Theo has been hanging out in the south room with me the last week or so.  Ordinarily, this is great: he's so big that snuggling with him is like snuggling a pillow with feet and ears.  The problem is that my mattress is quite small, and after a week or so spent sharing it with me, Sir Theo seems to be feeling a bit cramped.  He kept stealing the space.

This happened two or three times last night: not exaggerating.  I would wake up on the very edge of my mattress, almost against the bookcases on the left side, with a large body blocking any attempt to move further right.  'That's funny,' I would say to myself, 'I don't remember sleeping with someone.'  Then, 'Oh, Sir Theeee-oooo,' and I'd do my best to roll over, slide my arms around him, and move us both further to the right.  This solution proved temporary.

Perhaps I shouldn't be so surprised.  Cats are like this, after all.  The cat we had growing up was less than half Sir Theo's size, and she could take up an entire bed easily.  (Once I even woke up on the floor to find her sleeping contentedly in the middle of the bed.)  So at least Sir Theo wasn't dumping me out onto the floor.  And I love Sir Theo dearly and will not hold this against him.  But hell!

Lynxes Appreciate Great Literature

AJD recently decided to read Italo Calvino's If on a winter's night a traveler.  He happened to mention this to Sir Theo in conversation, and Sir Theo told him, with great excitement, that he'd been wanting to read it himself for years.  Being of a generous nature, AJD agreed to share it with him.  They worked out an arrangement whereby AJD would read a chapter and then pass the book along to Sir Theo - although AJD quietly confided that Sir Theo was unable to resist reading ahead a little.  Apparently Sir Theo really, really liked it.

Comforting Pats

If all goes well, I will be submitting my dissertation tomorrow afternoon - a very daunting proposition.  I defended it (successfully!) not quite two weeks ago, and the time since has been a race to get the introduction and conclusion and proofreading and various formatting things taken care of.  It's not exactly difficult, but it's frequently tedious and also remarkably psychologically demanding.

This is why Sir Theo has been sleeping in the south room with me the last few weeks.

Sir Theo is essentially a pillow with ears and feet.  He's just so large and so snuggly.  You take him to bed with you and you can just sort of curl up around him; it's quite an experience. 

But that's not the only reason having him around is useful.  He's a soothing presence independently of his size.  There's this perpetual look of gentle benign avuncular sympathy in his eyes that is remarkably calming.  In addition, Sir Theo is a renowed master of the Comforting Pat.  He'll just reach out put his paw on you, and you just melt.  Or you can lie on your back and put him on your chest with one paw on each shoulder and feel that someone has your back (or, at least, your shoulders). 

For demonstration, here's Sir Theo giving Angel Joe a Comforting Pat.  

Angel Joe is perpetually in need of Comforting Pats, so I feel moderately guilty about depriving him of Sir Theo for so long, but he says he understands.

The Perils of Online Gaming

The board game Dominion can be played online.  This is both a blessing and a curse: a blessing, because I like playing Dominion, and a curse, because it's rather addictive.  AJD and WMPT and I have taken to spending far too much time playing it together in various combinations.  I am proud to say that I've so far managed to avoid it during working hours; AJD can't say the same, but of course he's getting much better than I am because of all the practice.

This evening, we discovered that the Dominion vice has spread further:

We expect that Sir Theo is probably very good at Dominion, as his career as a diplomat has honed his  strategic thinking to a razor-sharp edge.  He doesn't have his own username, though; he apparently borrows AJD's because he thinks that he might not find any competitors should he be outed as a lynx.

Wild Parliamentary Onomastics

It took some doing, but we finally figured out the names of all seven members of the new Wild Parliamentary Monarchy delegation.  I am particularly proud of us given that three of said members are felines and two of them also have titles.  

Some of these names are old news, of course, i.e.,

• The capybara is named Pedro, which is a reference to The Twenty-fifth Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee.
• The lynx is named Sir Theophilus Pearl, Bart., commonly called Sir Theo; the surname is a reference to the almost pearlescent quality of his fur.
• The ermine is, yes, named Angel Joe.  It came to me in a dream.  I don't know why.

 Others of them are not old news.

• The goat is named Nicodemus, probably because his nouveau riche parents were trying too hard.  My cousins had a black cat named Nicodemus, so it seemed like a good name for a white goat.  [This is not a complete reconstruction of my thought process, but it's kind of very close.]
• The owl is named Hrothgar Q. Hornbeam, Viscount Twilby.  Since he's a viscount, he'll typically be called Twilby, although Sir Theo addresses him as Hrothgar because they're old friends.  He has graciously given his permission to me to address him thus myself, which makes me very happy because I am uncommonly fond of the name Hrothgar, but I'll probably end up using both names.
• The serval is named Lady Faraday Pebble-Stone; the "lady" is due to her status as an earl's daughter.  Her surname is a reference to the markings on her coat, which look rather a lot like pebbles; we agreed that plain Pebble felt a bit too Flintstonian, and surely one of these guys would have a double-barrelled name.
• The panther is named Ruthven Jet Shadewater, Earl of Ebonwood, although his intimates (including Sir Tristan and Lady Faraday) call him Magick.  Coming up with a surname for him that was a) a reference to nature and b) a reference to black things and c) not a totally obvious reference to black things and d) vaguely plausible as English pseudo-aristocratic was remarkably hard.  I'm rather proud of both his title (by which most of the Wild Republic will be required to address him) and his nickname, which is a very indirect reference to blackness.

Everyone has a name now, which is a relief.  Tomorrow we're going to introduce the new delegation to the Wild Republic, who so far have met only Sir Theo, who has been in AJD's room to confer with Alfredo.  This promises to be memorable and we fully intend there to be photographic evidence.

Also at some point I really ought to tell everyone the story behind the Sir Tristan-Lady Faraday-Magick relationship, now that I've learned it.

Getting to Know the New Ambassadors

Some of the members of the new delegation are more secretive than others, but here's what I've managed to learn about them so far.

Pedro, the capybara, is in fact Sir Pedro.  He was knighted for his merits as a doctor.  At first glance, he seems an unlikely candidate for such distinctions: he looks like a very large guinea pig.  He's got this sort of steely-eyed glare, though, which indicates that he's a force to be reckoned with.  All of the others clearly respect him - including the panther - and he's the sort of person who doesn't say much, but always says something worth listening to when he decides to say something.  He also has a rather caustic sense of humour and remarkably cute little ears.  (I'm not going to let him see that last part.)

The only other member of the delegation I've successfully put a name to thus far is the lynx, who is, somewhat improbably, the largest cat I have.  (Go figure.)  His name is Sir Theophilus Pearl, Sir Theo to his friends; like Sir Tristan, he's a baronet.  "Pearl" is an appropriate name for him because his fur has this sort of pearlescent quality. He's been in diplomacy since he was a young kitten, and is the official head of the delegation, with appropriate gravitas, although he's more genial and avuncular than Sir Tristan.  I'm quite fond of him, actually.  He seems to be both level-headed and compassionate, and I can already tell that he and Alfredo will get along swimmingly.

I haven't learned the owl's name yet, but I suspect it's even more eccentric than Sir Theo's.  What I have learned is that he's a scholar, in the grand old tradition of half-dotty abstracted gentlemen.   Sometimes the others refer to him affectionately as "the Professor", but in fact he's not officially affiliated with any university; he's a viscount. He's quite intelligent and (of course) very wise, but a bit absent-minded.  His academic tastes are quite eclectic: officially he's here because of his work on behavioural dynamics, but he spends at least as much time musing about philosophy and he also collects rocks.  Tibby is going to love him.

The goat is not a viscount; he doesn't have a title and is the son of self-made goats.  I feel a bit bad for him.  He was sent to all the best public schools, and his behaviour is generally impeccable, and he's done quite well for himself; but... he's a goat.  Goats aren't really known for their elegance, gentility, or decorum - quite the opposite.  Every now and then he starts randomly eating something, or his speech  sounds a little suspiciously Cockney, and then he gets all embarrassed.  He must be quite brilliant - the others clearly respect him and tactfully look the other way when he starts trying to eat the carpet - but he's a little insecure.

Then there's the panther, whom I find terribly intriguing.  Black felines in general, and black panthers specifically, really take my breath away, and this particular specimen is quite splendidly beautiful.  He's also  (as I said before) very clearly dangerous.  It amuses and astounds me that he and Sir Tristan are best friends from school, because they're so very different and Sir Tristan's impeccable decorum makes him seem much older.  I'm not entirely clear on exactly what his role here is: he seems a highly unlikely candidate for a diplomatic delegation, because he's definitely a loose cannon.  (Also probably a ladies' man, so it's a good thing that he and Sir Tristan are so close.)   Possibly it has something to do with his familial connections;  he holds the courtesy title of earl, as the eldest son of a marquess.  I've yet to learn his name or the specifics of his title, although apparently his friends often call him Magick.

I haven't had much of a chance to get to know the serval yet; she and Sir Tristan are still enjoying their reunion and I'm reluctant to interrupt that.  My impression of her is favourable, both in general and as an appropriate partner for Sir Tristan.  She's very much a lady (officially, even, as the daughter of an earl), and everything she does is eminently dignified.  But she's not here merely because of her association with Sir Tristan.  Apparently she's extraordinarily brilliant and knows absolutely everything one could possibly know about policy.

This leaves the ermine.  I'm still kind of baffled about the ermine; he's so damaged, and I'm not entirely sure of their intentions in sending him off on a mission like this.  Possibly it's a clever disguise, but it doesn't really feel like one.