Dissertation!

I submitted my dissertation today, and I printed an extra copy for myself and had it bound.  It was long enough, and the paper I'd used was nice enough, that it had to be bound in two volumes.  It's so pretty.  OMG.

Here I am showing it to Twilby.  Twilby is almost as delighted with it as I am.  He was very helpful while I was writing it, and he guarded the two copies all last night while I was asleep, because I was terrified something would happen to it.

(I'm showing him the Old English sentences in the section on the Germanic group genitive.)

Gilly was a bit more excited about the box.  When I brought the printouts home last night, he was initially confused, because he thought the box was my dissertation; now he understands.  He's quite happy that the box isn't the dissertation, actually, because it means I'm willing to let him play with it.  See, he's lashing his tail.

He says we shouldn't take his excitement at having a box as a sign that he's abandoned his dream of having a banquet hall full of mattresses lovingly draped in Oriental rugs, but he's satisfied for the moment.

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.

Erev Easter

It's become something of a tradition for AJD and me to watch Monty Python's Life of Brian on Easter.  The idea didn't originate with either of us, although I don't remember who came up with it.  Anyway, since he's up in Massachusetts this weekend for a concert, maintenance of the tradition fell to me this year.  I need to spend most of today working on my dissertation, so I opted to watch on Erev Easter instead.  Desmond (who is Jewish) and Tibby (who is a Roman, sort of) watched with me.  Good times.

Gilly the Mattress King

While the north room mattress was cleared for Izit-Football, Gilly insisted we take his picture on it.  This is part of his ongoing campaign to convince us to buy him more mattresses.   He is firmly of the opinion that he needs a mattress of this size all for himself, and that all of the other creatures we have around have the same requirements.

Gilly and Hrithik like to watch Jeopardy! with us.  (Some day I should explain about their various Jeopardy!-related eccentricities, but that's really a separate post.)  This is how we discovered that Gilly is unusually susceptible to commercials - and this is the source of his obsession with mattresses.  He's not interested in commercials for, like, coffee or whatever, but he was immediately fascinated by the commercials put out by this local discount furniture store called the "Dump!"

The Dump! has lots of commercials about its dramatically discounted couches and tables and things.  It used to be that a lot of these commercials were about mattresses, although I think they've since abandoned the mattress line.  Gilly's not interested in furniture full stop, but he's obsessed with mattresses, and also Oriental rugs, and also banquet halls, although the latter aren't sold at the Dump!, of course.  Not only is he obsessed with mattresses, but he's obsessed with Discounted Quality Mattresses, and fancies himself a bit of a connoisseur.

Ever since seeing the Dump! commercials, he's been after us to get more mattresses for everyone.  Failing that, he wants us to get him his own credit card so that he can buy his own.  We have this vision of giving Gilly a credit card and then coming home the next day to find the entire house jammed full of Oriental-rug-draped mattresses filling every available inch of floor space and Gilly sitting gleefully in the middle of one of them, negotiating the price on a rented banquet hall.

We have no intention of giving him a credit card, of course, but he seems pretty sure that he'll wear us down eventually, if he's persistent enough.

Now, let me draw your attention to just how little space Gilly takes up on AJD's mattress.

If everyone were to have a mattress of this size, no one would get to cuddle anymore.  This has been pointed out to him, but he kind of glosses over that part, in his zeal to have each of us in possession of our own mattress.  (Plus an Oriental rug.)  The thing is, though, Gilly adores cuddling; he doesn't have any obvious personal space issues besides his mattress obsession.  We really do think he hasn't quite thought this scheme through.

Izit-Football

AJD is away this weekend for the twentieth-anniversary reunion show of the showtunes singing group he was in at college.  Upon learning of this, the kittens decided to take over the bed for a soccer game.   They were so excited about the prospect that they didn't even wait for him to leave. The game was predictably adorable, and also very typical of the personalities involved, so we thought we'd share it with you.

The adults, needless to say, were having none of this kitten silliness and decided to get as far away from the fracas as possible.  I'm not quite sure what they were talking about because they got very quiet whenever I came near.  Not all the adults decided to hang out, though.  Stal isn't with them because he decided to sequester himself in the closet and work on his epic; Alfredo was off doing paperwork; the Wild Parliamentary Monarchy had some sort of board meeting; and so on.

So here the kittens are, choosing teams.

 

Mahler and Rusty got to be captains this time.  Rusty won the toss for first pick, and naturally he chose Khamsin.  Khamsin always gets picked first for athletic events, of course, because he's a cheetah, and everyone knows that cheetahs are the best at everything.  The annual Feline Games are very strict about cheetahs because of this; they're barred from competing in individual events and species-team events, and there are restrictions on the number of cheetahs per team in mixed-species team events.  If you want to see cheetahs compete, you have to go to the annual Cheetah Games instead.  (Most felines do, because they're awesome.)

Anyway, so Rusty chose Khamsin.  Mahler had the next pick, and he chose Navarre.  This left Cami and Flurry, and so of course Rusty chose Cami, because Flurry really doesn't understand the game yet.  Mahler decided to have Navarre be goalie; clearly having Flurry as goalie would be a really bad idea,  but he's not great on the field either, and since Mahler is older, he's a more experienced player than Navarre and probably better at picking up the slack.  On the other team, Cami got to be goalie, which he was really trepidatious about, although he's actually a good goalie.  He's just really concerned about letting his team down.

Now, before I start showing you actual pictures of the game, I should explain about the ball.

The kittens weren't really playing soccer, exactly.  They were playing Izit-Football.  It's exactly like soccer, except that the ball is an Izit.  This is the Izit in its usual habitat on AJD's desk.  It likes Czechoslovakian glass.

See that string between the Izit's eyes?  It's girded for battle.  You wouldn't think it to look at them, because they're balls of fluff with eyes, but Izits are actually a Proud Warrior Race.  Initiated adults are expected to always be ready to enter combat at a moment's notice.  Part of their training, as it happens, involves being a soccer ball, so when the kittens started making noise about having a soccer game, the Izit volunteered to be their ball.  The kitttens were delighted; none of them had ever played with a Battle-Girded Izit before, but they'd always wanted to.  (Except Flurry, because he's so young.)

Here we are, the match underway.

Khamsin has the Izit, and he's trying to get a pass off to Rusty, but he's going to have to get it through Mahler first.  Navarre is ready at the goal, just in case.  Cami's doing likewise; he's looking pretty nervous, although I'm not sure you can tell.  Flurry is basically trying to figure out what he should be doing.

Now, Mahler may not be as good as Khamsin, but he's a good player all the same, so he managed to intercept Khamsin's pass to Rusty.

Here's the view from behind Navarre's goal.  You can see Mahler driving the Battle-Girded Izit down towards the other goal.  Cami's looking increasingly nervous.  Fortunately for him, Khamsin, being Khamsin, is already there defending (yes, he really is that fast), and Rusty's on his way.  Also fortunately for Cami, Mahler's kind of stymied here.  He wants to pass to Flurry, but Flurry is looking beseechingly at Navarre for instructions and isn't paying attention.

Navarre, fortunately, had the presence of mind to tell Flurry to look at Mahler, and Mahler managed to pass him the Izit.

Cami is really sweating now.  But his teammates are behind him: Khamsin is in place at the goal, and Rusty is closing in on the other side.  Flurry has the Izit, and he's really excited about it.  He's so excited that he has absolutely no clue what to do.  Mahler is trying to get him to either try to score or pass it back.  Now, Flurry had worked out that Navarre doesn't really seem to have much to do in this game, so he had decided that whenever he wasn't certain what he himself should be doing, he would look to Navarre for help, since Mahler was (rather obviously) trying to do the work of two kittens.

So naturally Flurry misguidedly attempted to pass the Izit to Navarre.  This might have still worked out okay, except that his aim is... kind of terrible.

Flurry's pass went completely wild.  This is where Khamsin really got to shine. If you compare his position in the last picture to his position in this picture, you'll see just how fast he is (and why he's always chosen first): even though Mahler and Rusty were both closer to where the Izit ended up, Khamsin still managed to get there first.

Rusty was anticipating a pass, so he moved into position on Navarre's blind side while Navarre covered the goal to prevent Khamsin from rushing in and scoring, which he's entirely capable of doing.  Mahler, meanwhile, grimly made his way down the field.  Flurry was closer, and really should have been rushing in for defence, but he was too busy trying to get Navarre to give him instructions, which Navarre rather obviously couldn't do, because it was all down to him.  Here's the same scene from another angle:

You get a better sense of the spatial confiigurations in the second photo.  As you can see, if Flurry would move in, Khamsin wouldn't have so many options; he'd have to try to score before Mahler got closer.  With Flurry staying away, though, Khamsin could take his pick.

Had Khamsin been Rusty, or possibly even Navarre or Mahler, he might have tried to score, for the personal glory.  He'd have had a good chance, too, because he's so fast.  But Khamsin isn't all that egotistical.  He's really bloody good and he knows it, so he doesn't feel the urge to prove it all the time.  For him, athletic games are just fun, and worth playing purely for their own sake.  This is, of course, one of the things that make him good: his judgement is never clouded by his ego.

So Khamsin sent a quick pass to Rusty, still in position on Navarre's blind side.  Rusty (who, for the record, has the makings of a good player, even if he's not in Khamsin's class) promptly scored.

This picture, as you can see, was taken just after the goal, when Navarre had turned just a moment too slow.  Rusty, as you can imagine, was quite triumphant; not only had he scored, but he had scored against Navarre, which is the Accomplishment To End All Others in Rusty's book.  Khamsin and Cami are celebrating too.  Poor Mahler, who was essentially playing one-on-two, is staring banefully and dejectedly at Flurry.  And Flurry... is really excited because he's just so happy to be playing.

After the match was over, Lady Faraday gently suggested that perhaps the next time they play Izit-Football, the captain with second pick should get to choose two players rather than one, in hopes of evening things up a bit.  Khamsin could probably take on two other kittens with Flurry as his teammate and still have a decent shot at winning.

Goats

IS sent me links to three adorable pictures of baby goats.  They were sufficiently adorable that we decided to smuggle Nicodemus in past the chupacabra to look at them.  This was accomplished by AJD singing 'Granada!' while I slunk by with Nicodemus, keeping my back to the chupacabra.

Here you are, three adorable pictures of baby goats - with bonuses!

This one is asserting its natural position: dominance over sheep:

And this one comes with a bonus Archbishop of Georgia.

I told IS that there should be a rule that all bishops (arch or otherwise) have a baby goat.


Nicodemus enjoyed the goats, but then I made the mistake of casually referring to how it was worth smuggling him past the chupacabra, and he got twitchy.  Really, really twitchy.  So we smuggled him out again.  This time we were singing the opening song from Curtains.

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.