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.

There have been heating issues in my apartment, so I was wearing my ugly Flyers hat indoors.  Then the heat came on, and I decided to take a shower and wash my hair before it stopped working again.  Alfredo is kindly wearing my hat for me, to keep it warm while my hair dries.  It's very cute, and makes me wish I had a camera.

Quixley Says: It Gets Better

As many of you may know, yesterday was National Coming Out Day, and in honour of the occasion, AJD reports, Quixley decided he wanted to have his picture taken with the gay pride zebra shirt.

It probably hasn't come up on this blog before, but the southern domicile has an iconic gay pride zebra shirt.  My parents sent it to me for my birthday a few years ago without comment - I hadn't realised before that they were actively supportive of the gay zebra community.  We hung it up in the living room in order to indicate to any gay zebras who happened to be wandering in the neighbourhood that they were quite welcome with us.  It has been worn exactly once, when AJD went to a masked ball dressed as a gay zebra.

So, anyway, Quixley decided he should have his picture taken in the gay zebra shirt.  First, however, he wanted AJD to take a picture of himself emerging from AJD's closet beneath the banner of the shirt, as a "coming out" metaphor.

Quixley "comes out" beneath the Iconic Gay Zebra Pride shirt as a Dramatic Metaphor.

 Then he wanted to have his picture taken in the shirt.  Since Quixley is an actual zebra, and the shirt is not designed for actual zebras, but rather for human allies, this did not really work all that well.

Quixley attempts to don the Iconic Gay Zebra Pride shirt.

So instead, he and AJD decided to just have Quixley photographed with the shirt.

Quixley and the Iconic Shirt

Prior to yesterday, AJD and I had not realised that Quixley is gay.  In retrospect, this is primarily because zebras are apparently very supportive of the LGTBZ community, and Quixley himself is a pretty laid-back, chill kind of guy.  He doesn't make a big deal out of his personal life (or most other things), and it's no secret, since he's been out for ages.  So he naturally assumed everyone already knew.  It was partly my fault too, because I saw a photograph he had of himself and a cute girl zebra and leapt to the wrong conclusion as to their relationship, having not got a close enough look at it.  If I'd got a better look, I'd have realised that the female zebra was Quixley's sister Quincilla.  They're really close - he's only a year older.

Anyway, AJD asked Quixley to say a few words in honour of the occasion, so Quixley paused for a second and delivered the following speech, which AJD carefully notated verbatim:

Um, everybody... it gets better.

That's a few words, all right.  It's hard to envision a speech of fewer words, come to think of it.  Very characteristic of a zebra of few words.

Quixley later said that being gay really isn't a big deal if you're a zebra, as long as you're with other zebras.  He encountered a lot more trouble when he started attending high school in a more mixed environment; not all species are as accepting as zebras.  But then he graduated, and started doing his IT training, and found that yeah, it really does get better, even when you're not living with other zebras.

Stowaway!

Beppe is in so much trouble now.  Oh boy.

I went down to visit the Southern Domicile on Friday, as well as to take care of a few things and go salsa-dancing with AJD and EHC (who was also visiting).  I opened my suitcase to take out my toothbrush, and guess who popped out?

Of course it was Beppe.  He was so glad to be there, too; the moment AJD came in to see what the deal was, Beppe launched himself at him in a flurry of excited yips.  I'm really not sure how he managed to stay quiet for the whole bus trip from NYC to Philly, although I guess he spent the bus journey proper in the baggage hold where no one would hear him.

 

 

Rochester and the Fox gave Beppe a very stern talking-to.  He was initially unrepentant, but after a few minutes he started feeling more contrite.

Beppe unrepentant

Beppe contrite

We could just see Alfredo freaking out and the temporary Northern Domicile crawling with questing fluffies.  This is every parent's nightmare, after all.  While Rochester and the Fox were lecturing Beppe, Quixley immediately hurried to the computer to email Alfredo that everything was all right.  Then we just had to hope that Alfredo got the email, as I had taken my laptop south and the new computer system won't materialise until we have a permanent NYC abode.  Alfredo has a BlackBerry, but he's not very good at using it yet.  We could only suppose that he'd have Magick and Murchison glued to their iPhones.

Here's a close up of the text of Quixley's email.  You should be able to read it if you zoom in.  Note that Quixley prefers Gmail's "Ninja" theme.

A Qmail

Barry seized advantage of the opportunity to grill Beppe about whether or not he's seen Duke Ellington.  This was a complete failure, as Beppe had no clue what he was talking about.

So this morning I left Philly on a much earlier bus than I'd intended to, in hopes of preventing Alfredo from having a heart attack.  I got to my 8.30 bus so early they put me on an 8.00 bus, and I was home a little before 11.  Quixley's email had been received, thanks to Murchison lending Alfredo his iPhone, but Alfredo was nonetheless visibly agitated until Beppe popped out of the bag.  Naturally Beppe got another series of major talking-tos, first from his father and then from Desmond, Jasper, and Lady Faraday.  Moreover, Alfredo has informed him that he's not to be allowed out of his father's sight until after we find a permanent Northern Domicile.  He seems to be finally understanding that stowing away was maybe not a brilliant idea... but he still enjoyed every minute of it.

The Southern Domicile Celebrates Flag Day

What, you say?  Flag Day was months ago?  Well, yes, Flag Day was indeed months ago.  But the Southern Domicile had been feeling a bit glum, with most of their friends off living it up in the Big Apple, and so Rochester decided that everyone's spirits would benefit from a good Flag Day celebration.

One of Leprosy's talents is a sense of ceremony.  Give him an occasion, and he can put together an incredibly elaborate ritual for it.  So Rochester gave Leprosy charge of the details of the ceremony.  After some grumbling about how there weren't nearly enough animals to do it proper justice, Leprosy came through.  So here they are: the Southern Domicile, beflagged.

Each of them tried to choose an appropriate flag.  Rochester has the state flag of New York, of course; the Fox has the state flag of Massachusetts, where he's from; Leprosy has a Yacht Commodore flag (AJD's not entirely sure why he chose that one, but apparently he was adamant and seemed pleased with it); Quixley naturally has a flag in his own colours; and Meph has the creepy pirate flag because it's all ironic and stuff.  Look how happy he is.

Barry somehow missed the memo that the ceremony was happening.  He's been mopey ever since he found out that the Northern Domicile is in Duke Ellington's old place, and so Leprosy wrote him out of the ceremony.  Naturally he responded to this by interrupting the whole thing and dashing out into the middle of it with the most attention-grabbing flag he could find.

It's not clear whether Barry's relationship with Leprosy can ever be repaired.  Rochester's rather miffed at him too, because he's concerned that Leprosy will refuse to share his ceremonial talents ever again.

Butterfinger and Alcindarias played the role of audience; here you can see them looking on, bemused.  Neither of them really got the point, although they were agreeable enough to pacify Leprosy's need for an audience.  Alcindarias didn't get the point because in the Wild Mythic Federation, no one bothers with rituals like this.  The WMF doesn't really have any concepts of nationhood or anything like that; they're a bunch of individuals who have a loose confederacy for purely practical reasons that do not include the emotional.  Butterfinger didn't get the point because there wasn't any hugging.

Despite the hiccough in the middle, Rochester pronounced the ceremony a success, as it served its desired purpose: now no one is thinking too much about missing the Northern Domicile because they're all too busy taking sides in the current kerfluffle.  Also, Rochester got to have a moment of patriotism, and that pleased him mightily.  He's very proud of being from New York.  AJD says he doesn't want to relinquish the flag now.

Sleepyhead Gets Frisky (ish)

So when I fell asleep on this air mattress last night, I had my laptop on the right side of the pillow, and a cluster of creatures to the left: Sir Theo, Seal, Sir Tristan, Lady Faraday, Magick, and Sleepyhead.

Partway through the night, I woke up to find Sleepyhead on my right.  He appeared to be peering under my sheet; his head was mostly under it.  Shockingly, he was very clearly not asleep.  In fact, I don't think I'd ever seen him so awake.  I, however, was mostly asleep, as well as vaguely certain that if Sleepyhead felt hyper, I should not deter him; so I patted his rump and went back to sleep.

When I woke up this morning, Sleepyhead was lying there fast asleep with his head pillowed on my laptop and his back to me.  I've fallen asleep on my laptop before and it's not very cuddly, let me tell you, but he didn't seem to mind.  I moved him over so that his head is on the pillow now; he didn't wake up in transfer.  All that activity must have done him in.

I conjecture that Sleepyhead got up in the middle of the night to play with my laptop and fell asleep before he could sneak away again.  So far I haven't figured out what he was doing; there weren't any incriminating websites up or anything.  Maybe he was playing Dominion.