The Saddest Octopus

I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that there had been Shenanigans up in the Northern Domicile.  This is because the apartment I had been living in got infested with bed bugs and we all had to evacuate and the menagerie was quarantined and it was all really messy and I ended up slightly homeless and spent a few months occupying the couch of the incredibly generous WMPT and EHC.  Magick, Seal, Gilly, Plouie, and Ilari came with me.  I am still amazed that they were willing to look after us for so long.  It's a good thing Hrithik went into quarantine with the others or they might not have been.

Anyway, so while I was there, WMPT went to the Museum of Natural History and rescued an octopus.  He and EHC seem to have a penchant for taking in distressed stray creatures, I guess.  The poor octopus was pretty distressed; it didn't even talk when he first brought it in.  It would just look at you with these huge tragic eyes.  WMPT asked me to take it in, because he knows I have a menagerie and hoped it would feel at home.  He and EHC have a menagerie too, but theirs is full of eldritch creatures (whereas I have only one eldritch creature in mine) and he was concerned that they'd be too much for the poor traumatised octopus to handle.  I concurred.  I don't think I've ever seen anything quite so distressed as this poor octopus.  I started thinking of him as the Saddest Octopus because he wouldn't tell us his name or anything.  He'd just look at us with these huge doleful eyes.

The Saddest Octopus -- not the best picture, but look at those tragic eyes

The Saddest Octopus is at something of a disadvantage in my menagerie because he's the only invertebrate, so I carefully put him with other sea creatures in hopes that he'd be able to find some common ground to talk about.  He doesn't really talk much, though.  Whatever has happened to him shook him up pretty bad.

Fortunately for him, we happen to have a world-class psychotherapist among us.  Ilari is really good with trauma victims, it turns out, so he's been working with the Saddest Octopus, and I am pleased to report that after several months we've managed to get the Saddest Octopus to talk to us a little bit.  Only a little bit, but that much constitutes considerable progress, so we are quite hopeful that he might end up okay.

We don't know much about what happened to him yet, and Ilari, who knows more, isn't telling because of confidentiality and all.  But we've learned the Saddest Octopus's real name, and once you hear the story of his name, you'll have some idea as to why he's so very sad.  I mean, even the poor thing's name is traumatic.

The Saddest Octopus is named Tollemache-Tollemache Featherstonehaugh-Featherstonehaugh-Featherstonehaugh-Featherstonehaugh.... or possibly Tollemache-Tollemache Featherstonehaugh-Featherstonehaugh-Featherstonehaugh-Featherstonehaugh.  That is the tragedy: he really doesn't know which.  His mother was a Featherstonehaugh-Featherstonehaugh, and his father was a Featherstonehaugh-Featherstonehaugh, and when they went to hyphenate their names, they really could not agree which of them should come first.  Should their son be a Featherstonehaugh-Featherstonehaugh-Featherstonehaugh-Featherstonehaugh or a Featherstonehaugh-Featherstonehaugh-Featherstonehaugh-Featherstonehaugh?

Although he hasn't directly talked about it, it's pretty clear that the Saddest Octopus was very deeply affected by this debate.  His parents fought over his surname fiercely for a couple of years and then went through a very bitter divorce over it; he clearly blames himself, and now he can't even give his name to people because he doesn't want to have to take sides in the matter and therefore the poor guy doesn't even know what his name is!  Can you imagine?

Now, it's pretty clear that the name wasn't really the problem for the Saddest Octopus's parents.  It was symbolic of much larger issues in their relationships.  His mother's family, the Featherstonehaugh-Featherstonehaughs, is working class, while his father's family, the Featherstonehaugh-Featherstonehaughs, is very wealthy, so his mother got a lot of slurs from his father's family and she never thought he supported her enough; he, in turn, eventually started trying to make her feel inferior.  She wasn't a Featherstonehaugh-Featherstonehaugh for nothing -- her family is known for being pretty tough -- so she fought back.  Apparently she won a pretty decent chunk of her ex-husband's assets in the divorce proceedings.  But the poor Saddest Octopus still blames himself.  Children are like that: they blame themselves for their parents' issues and demons.  It's really hard to work through all of that.

So that's the very beginning of the story of the Saddest Octopus.  Hopefully, as he gets more comfortable with all us freaky vertebrates, he'll tell us more about himself, and maybe even become a little less sad.

A Refugee Seeks Asylum

Those familiar with this blog should, by now, be familiar with the mess that is the Wild Fascist Dictatorship - that haven for lunacy, tyranny, atrocity, and drama where torture and sadism run rampant and the mad sheep Ebenezer Popcorn governs with an iron fist, and where Angel Joe and Winidavefred performed their stunning acts of heroism for the sake of liberty, security, and the Monarchy.

Well, guess what!  A very high-profile figure from the Wild Fascist Dictatorship has recently taken up residence in our very own Greater New Jersey chapter, upon fleeing the WFD to seek political asylum in the Wild Republic's bastion of sane neutrality.  The request for asylum was granted, and for some reason the local chapter was selected to have the honour.  We're becoming more important all the time, over here.

Argantry Iqbal Elessdill requires no introduction in the various animal kingdoms, but as this is written for a human audience, I'll go ahead and give her one anyway just in case.  She is, of course, the courageous harbour seal who began a peaceful campaign of non-violent protest against the Popcorn regime several years back, inspired by the deeds of great human dissidents like Gandhi or Mandela.  Her career began back when the Dictatorship's university was still an institution of repute; she was a professor of Economic Philosophy (specialising in Game Theory and Rhetoric) who found herself more or less accidentally the leader of the university-wide protest against the worrisome changes demanded by the then-dictator, Popcorn's immediate predecessor.  The protest was, alas, unsuccessful: the entire faculty of the university was dismissed and replaced by unqualified individuals who were friendly to the new regime.  But by the time it failed, Argantry's association with non-violent demonstrations had made her a very public figure, and she decided that the ethical thing to do was use her new reputation and her training in rhetoric for the public good.  

She's been the somewhat-unofficial leader of the local resistance movement ever since, and her fame has spread to the global level; she is the recipient of every single peace-related award presented by the animal kingdom and has written five books on various subjects pertaining to the recent history of the Wild Fascist Dictatorship.  None of the awards have ever been presented to her in person, as she's spent much of her time under house arrest.

It has come as a surprise to many of her admirers that Popcorn and his predecessor have let her live, considering her influence (both local and global) and the success she's had with highlighting the sins of her country; it's generally believed that they feared killing her and making her a martyr would make her even more difficult to deal with.  Now, however, her unexpected amnesty has come to a close: Popcorn has decided that she should be silenced.  

Argantry has friends even amongst Popcorn's adherents - she is that beloved - and therefore she was not only warned of his intentions in time to hurry away, but helped in her escape by individuals high up in the regime.  At least, that's what they told her; she suspects that actually they're hoping that her escape will weaken Popcorn's power and help them seize it for themselves.  At any rate, it apparently took some doing to convince her to flee; she at first felt it would be cowardly for her not to accept her martyrdom.  But then she realised that she could probably do more to help her country if she were alive and in the face of countries with the possible agency to offer aid and assistance to the dissidents, so she fled the country in the dead of night... and now, five months later, she's wound up here.

Alfredo, as you can imagine, is torn between elation at the recognition his chapter is getting and blind terror that this will end in utter disaster (with the help of Plouie or Beppe or the kittens).  Everyone else is delighted to have her here.  Twilby's thrilled to have another academic around; Zebulon's thrilled to have someone he can talk about rhetoric with; the pinnipeds are pleased to have another of their kind around; the Monarchy delegates are over the moon, as she is even more famous over there than she is in the Wild Republic; and there are a number of others here who have long supported her.  This is a big deal.

Not one to sit idle, Argantry is currently writing her sixth book, about the various factions jostling for power in the upper echelons of her country (apparently, Popcorn's control over the country isn't as solid as outsiders believe).  She's also working on some speeches, because she has a number of speaking engagements scheduled over the next six months.  And she's volunteered to do a little teaching, which Jasper's pretty excited about, and a series of monthly lectures on Game Theory for the adults, which has generated a lot of excitement. 

An Expansion of the Wild Parliamentary Monarchy Presence in Greater New Jersey

The ambassadorial delegation from the Wild Parliamentary Monarchy has just been enriched by the arrival of not one, but two new delegates, apparently by direct order of the Monarch.  This has been the cause of great celebration for the members of the delegation already present, as the newcomers are not merely not strangers, but old friends.  So it gives me great pleasure to announce the happy arrival of Sir Winidavefred and Lady Artemisia Lapis-Lyme.

Those who read this blog are probably quite familiar with the heroic saga of Angel Joe and his withstanding of dire torture at the hands of the evil Ebenezer Popcorn, dictator of the Wild Fascist Dictatorship.  You will recall that Angel Joe and his partner in the field, Winidavefred the badger, daringly penetrated the enemy stronghold in order to steal back vital documents which, had they remained in enemy hands, would have put the Wild Parliamentary Monarchy in gravest peril.  But they were unable to both sneak away undetected, so Angel Joe bravely allowed himself to be captured so that Winidavefred could escape with the documents, and underwent all sorts of grim torture until the Monarchy's best agents could recover him.

Well, now Angel Joe and Winidavefred are on leave from active duty, to allow them to recover from their harrowing experience, and they've both been knighted for their heroism, and... as of last night, they have been happily reunited with each other, as it was decided that since they were both on leave anyway, they might as well be posted together.

So Winidavefred the badger has joined us here in the Greater New Jersey chapter of the Wild Republic.  He's not on medical leave - technically I think he's on "personal" leave - and will apparently be helping Nicodemus, the official Administrative Liaison, from time to time, but primarily he's here to hang out with Angel Joe.  They'd been partners in the field for so long, and trusted each other so implicitly, that they'd really missed each other.

You might ask why, given that Angel Joe has perked up considerably since Winidavefred got here, the Monarchy didn't think of this before; but actually they had good reason.  Winidavefred, you see, felt absolutely terrible about having to leave his friend behind - in fact, he would have much rather preferred being the one to stay and take the torture.  They had to draw straws to determine who would go, because both of them felt this way.  So it was incredibly hard for him to see Angel Joe at the height of his infirmity.  For his part, Angel Joe felt a lot of conflicting emotions: genuine gratitude, because by all accounts Winidavefred moved hell to get his friend rescued as soon as possible; relief that he had spared Winidavefred the same treatment; and yet some understandable anger.  It seemed best to separate them until they'd both recovered a bit from their ordeal.

Now they're doing much better, and they feel only relief in seeing each other again.  Their reunion was incredibly poignant; I know I wasn't the only one with tears in my eyes watching it.  (Sithri was so overcome by emotion that she fainted, but of course she's an opera diva and she does that sort of thing a lot, when she's not inhaling Skandar.)

They're probably going to spend the next few days alone catching up, and everyone agrees that this is important and that the kittens and baby polar bears and Beppe need to be kept away from them if possible, despite the clear curiosity Beppe in particular feels towards this new hero.  This is likely to be successful in the case of the kittens, at least, thanks to the identity of the other new arrival.

Lady Artemisia Lapis-Lyme has not previously been mentioned on this blog, but she is best described as "something else."  She is a caracal, and she has been Lady Faraday's best friend ever since they were roommates at school; this could and perhaps should have gone horribly wrong, as Lady Faraday was clearly intended to be the Good Influence on Lady Artemisia, who was something of a hellion.  But in fact they got on swimmingly, even if Lady Faraday was always having to bail her friend out of some sort of ridiculous scrape or other.

Like Lady Faraday, Lady Artemisia is the daughter of an earl, in her case the Earl of Kereswicke.  The Earls of Kereswicke are the highest-ranked noble caracal family in the entire Wild Parliamentary Monarchy, so she is an august personage indeed.  On her mother's side, she's descended from the Tarragon family; the Tarragon family isn't noble, but they're very wealthy and very influential. 

In many respects, Lady Artemisia is to Lady Faraday what Magick is to Sir Tristan: she's the one prone to getting into trouble, and she's the one who has clearly been around the block a few times.  You can tell just by looking at her that she is one tough cat.  By all accounts, she's quite brilliant - Lady Faraday once told me that the only reason Lady Artemisia wasn't expelled from their school (the way she had been from no less than six others) was that the headmistress was impressed by her genuine intellectual curiosity and became convinced she was just too intelligent for her intellect to go to waste.  (Apparently, Lady Artemisia is particularly gifted in mathematics.)  And, again like Magick, it's not really quite clear what she is doing here.  She is known to work for the Foreign Office, but the capacity of her employment is unclear, particularly as this is her first non-domestic posting - unlike Magick.  And, again unlike Magick, her arrival does not correspond to any sort of Unfortunate Incident; she has a reputation for being a hellion, but not for being particularly scandalous otherwise, and she doesn't seem to have been sent here for disciplinary reasons.

Her arrival, therefore, raises some interesting questions.  Why is she here?  Does her presence here have anything to do with Magick's? Did they really send Winidavefred just for Angel Joe's sake, or is something else afoot?  Why is Murchison taking a particular interest in this new arrival?  I really have no idea.  I mean, I still haven't figured out what Magick is doing here, and apparently the plot is already thickening.

So... the other thing is, we now have a female feline with us who is not affiliated with any of the males.  Gasp.  There is so much potential for disaster here.  Lady Faraday keeps trying to stop herself from smirking, and I can't say I really blame her.  I'm actually not so worried about Magick - he and Lady Artemisia have known each other forever and are good friends, and if they get up to anything, I suspect no one will get hurt by it.  But... then there's all the others.  Who knows what will happen.

But anyway, the local chapter is now happily enriched by two individuals who are old friends of someone or other, and while there is some potential for complications, on the whole everything seems to be pretty good.

Our New Swan

I have not posted in forever, because I am a terrible person.  There are actually quite a few things I could post, which is, ironically, one of the reasons I'm not posting: there's so much to catch up on that it feels very daunting, and I can't always remember what has been posted and what hasn't, &c.  But there is one thing I can post now.

At long last, the Greater New Jersey chapter of the Wild Republic has acquired an on-site psychologist!  And as you can see, he's really quite remarkably beautiful.

Our new psychologist: a black swan

Our psychologist's name is Illarion, but he prefers Ilari.  He is Russian, and in addition to being a psychologist he is quite the balletomane; apparently he was even professional while he was in school, but since acquiring his credentials he has retired from ballet.  But he still likes dancing, both as a dancer and a spectator.  Omri is delighted to have another dancer around, and Magick is delighted to have another gorgeous black creature around.  (They've hit it off quite well already, those two.)

Ilari has his work cut out for him, of course.  He will be spending the next few weeks conducting psychological examinations of everyone in the Northern Domicile.  I don't envy him this job.  He plans to leave Plouie out, though; it's so clear that Plouie needs help that he's just automatically on the schedule.

Many thanks to AJD for assisting with Ilari's journey up here.  He has a few more pictures I will try to post soon.

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.

Our Post Office Will Never Be the Same (and Thank Goodness)

There's this stereotype of the bat as a dark, dangerous, sinister creature who strikes terror in the hearts of men and whose morals are suspect at best.  You know, all creepy, like this:

Those who buy into this stereotype have clearly never met our new bat, Meph.  Meph is unrelentingly upbeat and absolutely delighted to be alive and a bat.

His name, moreover, is short for "Mephibosheth", not "Mephistopheles".  Bats apparently have a penchant for long and awesome Hebrew names.

We've never had a bat before, so many of the long-time residents find Meph very intriguing.  Here he is with Murchison and the Fox, with whom he shares a certain foxy affinity.  He's telling them all about what it's like to fly.

Look at that wingspan.  Isn't that awesome?  Meph's wingspan is even more impressive than Lord Twilby's.  Twilby's not jealous, though; he and Meph are getting on quite well.

Meph comes to us from the Ministry of Transportation.  There's been some internal reorganisation in the Wild Republican bureaucracy of late, and as a result, the postal services are now under the province of the Ministry of Transportation rather than the Ministry of the Interior, as it was previously.  As is so often the case with reorganisations, this bureaucratic move is accompanied by a desire for reforms and improvement, including clearing up any odd irregularities.

I'm sure you can see where this is going.

The mail delivery in our local chapter has never been any better than "irregular".  This is what happens when you make Plouie postmaster.  He is very enthusiastic about his job, but he really sucks at it.  Outgoing mail tends to arrive at its destination water-logged, because Plouie cannot comprehend that not all species send waterproof messages.  This is when the mail is delivered at all.

Plouie was almost single-handedly responsible for breaking up Sir Tristan and Lady Faraday.  While Lady Faraday was still stationed elsewhere, she and Sir Tristan used to write each other letters every week.  At one point, Plouie proudly presented Sir Tristan with a bundle of his own letters, lovingly tied together with a green-striped ribbon, and Sir Tristan realised that his last two months of correspondence to his beloved had never been delivered.  He panicked and sent Lady Faraday the following telegram (Parsley, not Plouie, is in charge of the telegraph system).

CRAZY PENGUIN IN CHARGE OF MAIL HERE STOP MY LETTERS NOT SENT STOP VERY VERY SORRY STOP I LOVE YOU STOP DON'T BREAK UP WITH ME PLEASE STOP LOVE TRIS

 This telegram was sent just in the nick of time.  Lady Faraday, no shrinking violet, had every intention of buying a plane ticket and demanding to know in person the reason behind her beloved's sudden and uncharacteristic silence.  She had to wait until she had a moment of leave, or she'd have left already.  Fortunately, she is eminently reasonable, and upon learning what had happened, she put the blame where it belonged.  So, in addition to nearly destroying a relationship, Plouie's incompetence very nearly sparked an International Incident.

Sir Tristan and Lady Faraday were not the only ones affected.  Reggie's nephew Barmy has received some pretty strange mail over the last year, everything from coded messages from Murchison to letters of a *cough* delicate nature intended for one of Magick's ladies, because there was this period in which Plouie, pleased with himself for working out how to send mail to Barmy, proceeded to send all outgoing mail to that same address.  A letter from Magick to one of his ladies was mistakenly sent to another, causing no end of trouble for him; Navarre's letter to his parents was accidentally sent to Rusty's parents, and you can imagine how well that went over, given that said letter was full of complaints about a certain obnoxious tiger.  And any number of messages have been lost entirely, or eaten, or God knows what, under Plouie's watch.

And to think, they'd made him postmaster because they wanted to give him a job that wouldn't have dire consequences.  Sigh.

So there's some room for improvement in the local postal service, and that is one of the reasons Meph was sent here.

Meph's first meeting with Plouie went about the way you'd expect it to, but not the way Meph had expected it to.  Poor Meph.  He had wanted to talk business, but Plouie was unable to get past the part about Meph being birdlike but conspicuously not a bird.  First he was startled.

And then he passed out, to Meph's astonishment, and hasn't woken up since. 

Par for the course, really, but Meph's not used to doing business this way, and he's not sure what to do now.  He can't really reform Plouie's role in the post office while the penguin in question is passed out in a box.  Speaking of that box, I'm not sure you can see it well, but remember how Omri was looking for Seleucus's stationery a while ago?  It's under Plouie.  I'd say that this is why Omri hadn't managed to find it, except that Plouie and the box are on the opposite side of the room from the radiator where he was looking, so he really wasn't all that close.

Discipline Arrives At Last

So you may recall that a month or so ago, there was an Unfortunate Incident involving the kittens putting bubble gum - which they should not have even had - on Leprosy's tail.  This created a huge uproar, and left the kittens grounded until further notice.  The situation was pretty dire.  Leprosy was threatening to resign, and he's sufficiently high-ranked that this would have caused massive problems, not merely in our local chapter, but in the Republic as a whole.  So the Republic did something that Alfredo had been asking them to do for ages: they agreed to send a full-time headmaster to take charge of the kittens.

The traditional method for training up young animals within the Republic is a sort of fosterage system.  The idea is simple: promising young animals are sent to some chapter of the Wild Republic to learn from their elders, all of whom teach occasional series of classes on their respective areas of expertise.  It's all relatively informal.  None of the adults is specifically responsible for the young ones, but they're all expected to keep an eye out.

Under ordinary circumstances, this works pretty well.  It probably would even have worked well here; think about Tibby, for instance: he is a perfect model of how this tutelage system is supposed to work.  The problem is that our Local Chapter includes six kittens.  

I'm sure this is the result of some brilliant idea someone had, possibly upon realising that this chapter already had an adolescent clouded leopard and a baby snow leopard.  Why not station a bunch of kittens from different species in a single chapter, in order to foster interspecies harmony?  Especially if the bunch includes a lion and a tiger, with enough non-lions and -tigers to provide a bit of a buffer for the inevitable dischord?

Well, our local chapter gives you the answer.  Put six kittens together without anyone officially in charge of them, and all of that natural energy will feed on itself until it mushrooms into something exponentially greater than the sum of its parts.  You will get chaos.  And shenanigans.  And bubble gum on the tails of crotchety elite citizens.

It's not that they didn't try to rein in the kittens, but the fact that all of them had other jobs meant that they didn't do a great job of it.  Alfredo is supposed to be running the local chapter, not keeping a constant eye on the kittens.  Lady Faraday, bless her, did what she could, but she's a high-ranked visiting diplomat; she has her own job to do, an extremely important one, and it does not extend to baby-sitting foreign kittens.  Stal is a poet first and a tutor second; he's not trained for any more than that.  He's felt very guilty about it, but it's not his fault that he was thrown into a job for which he's neither prepared nor well-suited.

Alfredo has sent a number of impassioned pleas to his superiors, begging them to send someone, anyone, to take charge of the kittens; but all of his pleas were brushed aside because they failed to sufficiently appreciate the situation.  Until the Leprosy incident.  After that went down, Alfredo's superiors belatedly moved heaven and earth to find a suitable candidate.  Poor Alfredo was gritting his teeth at all the 'Why didn't you tell us how serious the situation was?' shit he was getting from his superiors.

And so they sent us Jasper.

Jasper has credentials.  He has a master's in education and was the headmaster at an exclusive all-boys school for kittens for several years, after serving first as a physics teacher at the same school.  He's also the eldest of many litters and is a world-ranked kick boxer.  If anyone is qualified to take charge of the kittens, it's Jasper.

I'm not sure who was more relieved by Jasper's advent, Alfredo or Stal.  The day the new arrivals got here, immediately after the initial formalities were taken care of and before he had even started unpacking, Jasper had a long conversation with Alfredo about what his approach would be, how he would structure the kittens' lives, and so on.  Look how relieved Alfredo looks.

Then he had a similar conversation with Stal, who feels as though a huge burden has been lifted from his shoulders.  Now he can work on his epic and some odes without feeling guilty about it.

While this was going on, the kittens were roughhousing over on the "water" in their classic style.  Rusty was doing rather well for himself, as you can see.  I really like this picture of him, actually.

Jasper watched them for a while to get a feel for his new charges.

Then Alfredo officially introduced Jasper to the kittens, and really laid down the law.  The kittens were duly chastened; they'd been aware for weeks that they were going to get it.

Jasper isn't cruel or anything.  He's not keeping the kittens chained to their desks or scrubbing floors all day.  He's a cat, and he knows that kittens will be kittens.  But he's not letting them get away with anything, either, and they know it.  Rusty and Navarre made a token effort to get the better of him and learned immediately that this would not be tolerated, and they've been remarkably well-behaved ever since.  He's always at least three steps ahead of them.

We haven't learned much about Jasper the private individual yet, in part because he jumped to work immediately and in part because, well, he is a very private individual.  We know that he's a bachelor with a lot of brothers and sisters, and that he and Alfredo really hit it off right from the start, and that he likes singing baritone in barbershop quartets.  We know about the barbershop quartets because he's trying to get people together to form a new one here.  Alfredo's in; he is, as you know, a world-famous wolf tenor.  (It's not clear whether he'll sing lead or high tenor; he's by far the best singer we have, so he'll sing wherever he's most needed.)  Barry wants to be in, but he'd have to sing bass rather than baritone and he's a little miffed about that.  I'm sure there will be pictures at some point.

Maybe it was over here...

So we have this new bear.  His name is Omri, and he's a sloth bear, which means that he has very unusual teeth and very large claws.  Sloth bears are awesome, and if you didn't already know that, you should go read about them on Wikipedia.

Omri is our new investigative specialist.  He's here to help Alfredo find things.  You know, car keys, pencils, missing important diplomatic documents, and so on.  If you're concerned that important diplomatic documents go missing often enough around here to warrant a trained specialist to be sent here, well, that's fairly normal for the Wild Republic.  It happens when you have a lot of deranged penguins and peppy puppies hanging around.  Not to mention the kittens.

In the interest of complete candour, I have to say that Omri's general method for investigation is not the most inspiring.  It seems to consist primarily of pacing back and forth, or occasionally in circles.  He's not particularly subtle about it - actually, it's something of a production.  We recently caught him on camera when he was trying to find Seleucus's personal stationery.

Is it over here?

No, maybe it's over here.

...No, maybe it's over here.

...No, maybe it's over here...

As you can see, Omri's investigative efforts tend to generate a sizable audience.  I should point out that it's not at all clear why the stationery should be by the radiator at all, but Omri was pretty devoted to the idea that it was.  

I will tell you what happened to Seleucus's stationary later.  (It has been found.)

Now, in Omri's defence, he's still very new to the investigation business.  He's only just completed his training; this is his first real posting, and he really wants to impress everyone, and as a result he hasn't got over his initial nerves.  Also, the training that they receive leaves something to be desired.  They hide something in one of two locations, so if it's not in one, it really is probably in the other.  Having more than two possibilities for missing objects is throwing Omri off his game.  He was really good when there were only two possible locations.

Apart from his occupational insecurities, Omri is still something of an enigma to us.  The other thing we've learned about him so far is that he's a trained dancing bear.  Laszlo, who is a world-class tap dancer, is over the moon at this revelation; we'll show you pictures of them together later.

The Wild Republic Gets Tech-Savvy

So we have a zebra now.  His name is Quixley.  You will note that there are no "z"s in this name.  Zebras get sick of everyone always wanting their names to begin with "z"; it's an old joke and they're over it.  'You're a zebra!  Is your name... Zachary?'  In fact virtually no zebras have names that start with "z".  They much prefer "q" and "x".  Like Quixley.

When we first introduced him to Quixley, Parsley was rather distraught.  He's a very sweet guy, but more than slightly high-strung, and he has a bit of an inferiority complex that pokes its head up at odd moments.  In particular, he has this thing about zebras; he thinks that okapis are disfavoured because they're less stripy than zebras are.  If you look at this picture, you'll see Parsley's initial reaction upon realising that we'd brought home a zebra.

He was a bit taken aback.  You could see him looking at his stripy legs and then at Quixley's all-over stripyness and getting more threatened by the moment.  Then he ran over to AJD and stared up at him as though he'd been betrayed.  It took a while for AJD to sufficiently reassure him that we hadn't acquired a zebra because we thought Parsley was deficient and that we're very fond of Parsley and Quixley will never supplant him in our affections.

To our great relief, this actually worked. Parsley went back over to talk to Quixley, who graciously pretended not to have noticed his temporary panic, and they ended up having a sort of ungulate bonding session with Lazslo.

Fortunately Quixley is pretty chill that way.

Quixley is here because the powers that be in the Wild Republic hierarchy have decided, after months of debate, that it is time they entered the new millennium and got with it.  That is, it's time everyone learned how to use computers.  At the moment, the Wild Republic's technological expertise is sadly lacking.  Some of the animals - Sir Theo and Gilly, for instance - know how to use a computer for gaming purposes, and Rochester caught Mahler and Khamsin trying to get to a cat-porn site a while back, and a few of the others know how to use Word and Excel and check their email.  Tibby's computer skills are actually quite good.  But by and large, they're all pretty useless when it comes to computers, and the systems they've been using are all hopelessly out of date.

And this is where Quixley comes in.  He's a trained IT professional whose mission is to bring our local chapter into the new millennium if it kills him.  Everyone is supposed to be subjected to mandatory tutorials and training classes and this and that.  This should have commenced a week ago, but Quixley's still trying frantically to get the computers updated.  The systems they were using were so out-of-date, and had so many problems, that he's been working overtime.  Sadly, the budget doesn't extend to getting wholly new equipment (the powers that be aren't savvy enough to truly understand the necessity), so poor Quixley has his work cut out for him.

It's a good thing that Quixley appears to be the laid-back sort.  Lesser zebras might have been panicking by this point, but Quixley just drinks more coffee, shrugs, and gets on with things.

Eventually his job will become a pretty easy one, and he'll be able to spend his time doing whatever he feels like while answering the odd call of duty, but those days are still in the future, because many of the community members are less than thrilled about all this new-fangled technology crap.  Leprosy and Humphrey are particularly resistant to the idea, and are making it clear that while they'll comply with the mandatory training, they are doing so under duress.  Some of the others (Alfredo and Stal, for instance) are more willing but don't obviously have the aptitude.  The kittens are the most enthusiastic about the new technology, and will probably take to it more readily than the others, but come with their own set of problems.  Quixley doesn't seem fazed.  He says that he likes a challenge, and that it will all work out in the end.  You have to give the guy credit for his attitude.

Quixley is our resident geek.  It's not just that he's an IT expert, either.  He's watched every single episode of every single Star Trek series at least six times (and all the movies), and every episode of Babylon 5 at least thrice, and he's really into WoW, although he says his guild is about ready to disown him since he's been so busy working lately that he's neglected them sadly.  He likes computer and video games in general, particularly the sort of old-timey classics, although he also really likes Portal.  And Portal II; he's been after AJD to play Portal II so that they can talk about it, but AJD hasn't yet.   He's also a huge fan of George RR Martin, and is really looking forward to discussing the first season of the TV series with Alfredo, who hasn't read the books but liked the show because of the portrayal of wolves.  Quixley, of course, had read the books beforehand, so he's very curious to hear Alfredo's take on it.

Anyway, so Quixley is fun.  He doesn't take anything, including himself, overly seriously, but he's dedicated to his job all the same.  These are both qualities that should serve him well with this bunch.  I'll let you know how the training sessions go once they're underway; there's bound to be some interesting stuff to say about them.  The first thing Quixley means to do is explain to Plouie and the others that the iceberg is just an obsolete desktop, which should be interesting.

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.

We Gain a New Polar Bear

Alfredo has been concerned for some time that Vim would grow up to be... distinctly odd.  The problem is that the younger generation here is almost entirely feline: Mahler, Cami, Navarre, Rusty, Khamsin, and Flurry.  There's also Beppe, but he's quite young; there's Tibby, but he's a bird; and there's Gilly and Sleepyhead, but they mostly live in the south room.  This means that most of Vim's playmates, including Flurry, his best friend, are cats.  Now, in a sense, this is a good thing; it is, after all, part of the Wild Republican Mission Statement to foster good feeling and harmony amongst different species, and educating younglings in a species-diverse environment is an integral part of this.  

But this isn't supposed to preclude said younglings from growing up with mannerisms foreign to their own species.  Alfredo is worried that Vim will take on too many feline characteristics to allow him to function in ursine society.  And even though Vim himself loves his companions, he does sometimes wish there were other bears around.  Neither Butterfinger nor Sleepyhead counts, exactly; and the cats get to talk to each other in Feline and then he feels left out.

So Alfredo and I agreed that a younger bear friend for Vim would be beneficial, and it just so happened that right around the same time, I discovered that by making a donation to a particular charity, one could acquire a polar bear. 

Clearly it was fated.

So, with all that ado dispensed with, it gives me great pleasure to introduce our newest Wild Republican, Rebus.

Rebus, you'll note, is quite small - much smaller than anyone had anticipated.  

 His diminutive size is actually part of why he was sent here: he was born prematurely, so he's very small for a polar bear.  His parents and the clan elders have agreed that the best option for his future is scholarship or diplomacy, so they applied for one of the coveted Wild Republic Youth Education fellowships on his behalf, and he was accepted.  Now, it's possible he might have wound up in this position anyway; as you may guess from his name, Rebus is quite clever.  But his size was definitely a contributing factor.

Vim was so excited to finally have another bear around.  Rebus was slightly startled by the magnitude of his welcome.  He's kind of used to being overlooked, since he's so small.  (Vim is much larger than Rebus, but he's actually younger.)

After offering this fulsome greeting, Vim introduced Rebus to his two closest friends.  Rebus and Tibby hit it off right away, as you can see.  Granted, most of the newbies tend to hit it off with Tibby, because he's such an amiable little fellow (surprising, given his pedigree, right?).  But Tibby and Rebus are both interested in learning stuff, and Tibby took Rebus right under his wing, so to speak.

Rebus's introduction to Flurry was somewhat more dramatic.

 Flurry can't really help it.  He's sort of genetically programmed to pounce on small things.

If you're starting to fear that Rebus is going to spend his time here getting beaten up by everyone, don't be.  He's small, but he knows how to take care of himself.  Rebus has an elder brother, Robulus, who is everything polar bears are reputed to be: huge, red-blooded, and brawly.  Robulus is the kind of guy who gets elected leader of the hunting squad and that sort of thing.  His relationship with Rebus is characterised by a complete lack of understanding of the other, coupled with genuine good feeling.  Robulus might have been a bit rough with his brother, but it was well-intentioned; he meant to toughen him up a bit.  The result is that Rebus is used to dealing with larger bears and can take care of himself.  He'd never had to defend against kitten-pouncing before, but he can probably adjust his strategies with some practice.  Rebus is a clever lad.

Also, he's already acquired a champion.

Apparently Rebus reminds Humphrey of one of his younger nephews.  We're not sure whether this is because the nephew is also very small for his age or because he's simply quite young; neither is Rebus, and he's not going to ask.  But it's sweet for Humphrey to take such an interest.

Right now, Rebus is still getting adjusted to everything and everybody.  He feels quite at home on the blue comforter.  I think I mentioned somewhere that the aquatic animals like to pretend it's water because it makes them feel at home (except Plouie, who seems to actually believe this), and Rebus is taking full advantage of it.  And getting to know Vim, of course.  We suspect that Rebus and Cami are going to become best friends - they're of similar ages and temperaments - but sometimes bears like to have other bears around, and Vim and Rebus definitely approve of each other.

Another New Addition

I hereby present Stal, the newest member of the Wild Republic.

My brother ASD was visiting, as I mentioned earlier, and on Thursday we decided to go to the Academy of Natural Sciences.  Since museum gift shops are one of the best places to find new citizens, I insisted we check theirs on the way out.  They didn't have much, actually, which surprised me; Plouie and a couple of others came from there originally, and they'd had quite a selection at the time.  Most of what they had didn't interest me, either.  But they did have a lone smilodon who immediately stole my heart.  I've always liked saber-tooth cats, and there's something endearing about Stal's face.

"Stal" is not his real name, of course; it's short for "Stalactite", and it refers both to his dentition and to the era with which he is associated.  He's here because the Powers That Be apparently decided that not enough young felines are learning Archaic Feline these days, so they decided to make our chapter a sort of test case and have all the cats learn it.  Alfredo was kind of put out about this, because he feels like they're behind where they should be anyway, but there's not much he could do about it.  The cats from the Wild Parliamentary Monarchy all learned Archaic Feline at school, of course, but they're ambassadors and not tutors.  So the Powers That Be decided to send our chapter a native speaker of Archaic Feline: Stal, naturally.  He's supposed to address the kittens only in Archaic Feline until his superiors give him permission to do otherwise.

Here he is talking to Mahler and Cami in Archaic Feline.

You'd think a saber-tooth tiger would be kind of brutish and scrappy, but actually Stal is the soulful poetic type.  I mean that he is actually a poet.  Here he is, looking pensive.  

He's written and published lots of odes and elegies and epics, all in Archaic Feline; he's in the rather unusual position of being one of the most renowed ancient feline poets despite writing in modern times.  The Ice Age are in kind of a weird niche anyway, what with their extinction and all.  One doesn't talk about the extinction, because they're very sensitive about it; for this reason, the Ice Age creatures really stick together.  Mimsy and Gus were delighted to have another Ice Age creature in their midst.

Gus insisted on demonstrating how effective his shell is against predators by having Stal attempt to bite him.  (Stal, being a lover rather than a fighter, required some convincing.)

Mimsy thought this was all pretty amusing.  He's a little odd that way; I think he's sort of hysterical. 

It's the Ice Age extinction complex, you see.  Takes them all differently.  Gus is probably the least affected of our three, and he's kind of erratic; Mimsy's a bit mad; Stal is melancholy.

Stal's presence increases the soap opera factor of our local chapter a bit, because he's a poet, so naturally he needs an object for his courtly affections, and the most obvious candidate is of course Lady Faraday.  Here Stal is, probably composing an ode to her in his head.

Lady Faraday is pretty used to this, though, so she doesn't really mind.  She gets this a lot.  And Stal isn't really serious, of course.  Look how impressive her posture is.  When she was a kitten, they made her practise pouncing for hours with a book on her head.

A Cryptic Arrival

My brother's been here visiting, so I've gotten behind on posting stuff.  I really should have posted this a week ago.  But better later than never.

So.  I have mysteriously acquired a chupacabra.

AJD and I went to Vericon the weekend before last; I was sharing a room with KEH.  She got there first, and the room was in her name.  When I got to the room, both of the beds appeared to be claimed: one of them had a book and a blanket, and the other a mysterious cryptid, a note, and a flat wrapped package.  I'd thought there was only to be the two of us, so I was rather confused.  When KEH came in, I asked her which bed was hers, and she said the one with the book, and I asked her about the cryptid, and she said, 'Oh, I thought that was yours.'

Clearly she did not think he was mine, because the room was in her name and she had arrived first, and all, but she maintained complete innocence as to how the mysterious cryptid came to be in my room.  She pointed out that it is well known I have a habit of taking in plush creatures and perhaps my reputation led him to me.

Upon investigation, we discovered that the cryptid was a chupacabra, the wrapped package was a book about cryptozoology, and the note was in Spanish, and typed in an eldritch font, as follows (the original capitalisation and punctuation have been reproduced faithfully):

QUERIDA DAMA

BUSCO ASILO EN SU PAIS

TRAIGO CONMIGO ESTE LIBRA PARA QUE SEPA UD LOS CONOCIMIENTOS DE MI PUEBLO

SE PUEDE CONFIAR EN MI COMPORTAMIENTO EN COMPANIA DE LAS CABRAS

We have not yet verified whether he can be trusted with goats.  It seems best to be cautious, for Nicodemus's sake.  Anyway.

This is, at present, all I really know about the chupacabra, as he speaks only Spanish and Cryptic, and AJD and I speak neither.  While we were at Vericon, I left him in the hotel room with the TV remote control, and he entertained himself by watching Mexican soap operas, which he seemed to find hilarious.  But I can't ask him where he came from, or even what his name is, and he's a very inscrutable little chap who doesn't give much away. 

He has spikes all the way down his side, and also wings, neither of which can be seen clearly here, but you can see the book he brought with him just behind his right shoulder. 

So we have a mystery.  How and why did the chupacabra come to be here?  Can he truly be trusted with goats?  Can he be trusted at all?  I've become quite fond of him, and I don't really think he is here for sinister reasons or with a sinister purpose, but he's rather hard to read, so I can't be totally sure.

An Addition to the Mini Republic

There has been a recent addition to the Mini Republic: AJD has gifted me with a gnu.  Here he is; the Chinese lion with him is Sheng.  At least, I think that one is Sheng.  (The other lion, not pictured, is Fergus.)

Isn't he darling?  He's remarkably coordinated; he likes dancing and balancing on his head, neither of which are activities I would have predicted as canonical for gnus.

The new gnu is named Gyork.  This was the suggestion of our friend WMPT (who was visiting us for the day with his wife EHC), and the rationale ought to be clear with a second's reflection.  Gnus create far too many possibilities for terrible puns.

For the moment, Gyork seems to be enjoying hanging out with Sheng, although I'm not sure he's going to stay there.  Initially he was getting to know Henri; they had a good time talking about their mutual beloved homeland of Africa.  Here they are, along with a bat.  (There's a story behind the bat, as it happens, but now is not the time to tell it.)

It is my dearest wish (in a manner of speaking) that "bovines must have names related to New York" is not actually a rule, because if so, it's even worse than felines requiring nature names, which is bad enough.