sweasel.com

Congratulations, Wease!!!!

Thank you. My real estate agent just sent me a listing for a house a few doors up from mine that’s just gone on the market for slightly more than half what mine sold for. So, you know…mustn’t complain.

Though I must say, this is the most boring opening page of a novel I’ve ever read.

Wait till McGoo wakes up, Weas. And congratulations! I was starting to get a little antsy for you…

Stay antsy, Mrs P. The real nail biter is the visa. I can’t make plane reservations or anything without it, and the chances of my getting it by the 25th are no better than even. Current status of that: I’m putting together my side while Uncle B is Fed-Exing his side to me. Then biometrics, then I put in the application, then I wait.

My buyer has said he’s willing to let me stay for a while if it hasn’t turned up, though.

You’re right: boring first NaNoWriMo page, but what a nice guy to let you stay. He was raised right.
🙂

Oh, I’m antsy about that too. But I was afraid the buyer would be turned down, and then you would be back at square one. At least this way, you are totally in square two. GO FOR SQUARE THREE!!!

Ok, since McGoo apparently isn’t up yet, I’ll start off the Great Mustelid NaNoWriMo of 2008, with a previously-unknown character who no doubt will figure greatly in the adventures of Lord Badgerbugger and Lady Weasel:

~~~~~~
CHAPTER ONE
Will wearily rubbed the back of his neck, wincing as his work-roughened fingers rasped over his sunburn. He had lost his hat a few days prior, when a furious ewe had charged him and he had been required to make a rather ignominious retreat over (and partially through) a thick briar hedge.

Once safe from the woolly berserker, Will had found himself on the internationally famous Badger Manor, and now he was preparing the ground for Lord Badgerbugger’s greenhouse.

“Ferret!”

Will immediately bent back to his work, hoping against hope that the dour-handed Codswallop, who was chief groundskeeper on Badger Manor and who was now striding toward him, hadn’t noticed his brief reverie.

“Hey, Ferret! I’m talking to YOU! Quit fiddlin’ with that shovel and look at me!”

Will straightened and turned to face Codswallop. “Yes, sir?”
~~~~~~

So, what does Codswallop want with our beleaguered hero?

I’m awake! I was outside putting up soffit and attending to a thousand things on my garage. Then I fed my pie hole.

I figured we’d give the riff-raff over at the official NaNoWriMo site a head start: we don’t want to just blow ’em outa the water right out of the gate, do we?

************

Will straightened and turned to face Codswallop. “Yes, sir?”

“The Lady of the manor is having a fit over at the Big House and wants you there pronto”, Codswallop snapped at him.

Mouthing the toothpick between his lips to a different position amongst his brown and seldom-brushed teeth, he sneered derisively at Will and continued, “She says she saw some dumb Ewe wearing a hat, and wants it investigated.”

“Hat?”

“Yeah, dimwit! It’s a fashion accessory humans often wear on their heads. But that’s not important. What’s important is for you to get your butt over there now and make the Lady happy. And wash that shovel!”

*fingers crossed dearie

Someone will have to incorporate this into the story…
(note the space…blah..blah)

http: //tinyurl.com/6fnx98

Stole it from the hostages.

PnB – A carnation?

*blinks eyes in stunned disbelief*

Ya know…I’ve thought about it a lot and have come to the conclusion that people are strange. What is it about people that they are constantly sticking things where they have no earthly business being stuck?

If you gave a thousand monkeys a thousand carnations – how many would … oh, never mind.

If you gave a thousand monkeys a thousand carnations

Man, you never do forget your first prom.

Will thought to himself for a moment…”how is my washing this shovel going to make the Lady happ–OHHHHH…it’s like that, is it? The uppercrust sure are kinky.”

(and LOL @ apo)

I am gonna be laying waste to every kid in my neighborhood this winter.

It is SO ON.

Will thought to himself for a moment…”how is my washing this shovel going to make the Lady happ–OHHHHH…it’s like that, is it? The uppercrust sure are kinky.”

He shrugged and walked toward the big house, still carrying the shovel.

Lady Weasel was standing on the porch, scowling. “There you are,” she said as Will came to stand before her. “I just saw some ridiculous ewe come barreling through here wearing a hat, and I won’t stand for those shenanigans and goings-on in my manor. Now, you haven’t worked here very long, but Codswallop doesn’t have any complaints yet. Do you think you can track down the sheep?”

“I can certainly try, madam,” Will replied. “Where did you last see it? And what kind of hat was it wearing?”
~~~~~~

So…what kind of hat did the sheep have? And was it Will’s lost hat, or is it all a big coincidence? Or does the flock have a whole collection of hats, left behind as hapless people attempt to escape their attacks? Only ewe can decide!

By the way, Weas, when you wrote, “NaNoWriMo thread, if you want it. NaNoWriMo thread, if you don’t,” was the second NaNoWriMo supposed to be something like “NoNoWriMo”? ‘Cause otherwise, it doesn’t make a lot of sense. Or maybe I’m just tired.

I’m at ~1000 words on my silly trope-y story. I’m not sure if I like it or not. I intended to write something goofy, but I ended up opening the story seriously, and I just spent like 30 minutes researching stars close to Sol that might have a decent habitable zone, so as to keep my story at least semi-realistic. (The protagonist is from an Earth colony in the Alpha Centauri system, and most of the action is going to take place on a space station orbiting Lalande 21185.) SCOPE CREEP IS THE DEVIL.

But I am working my Random Trope in, and I’m actually rather proud of the idea I had to make it work. So that’s something, I guess.

The post header reminds me of Batman, it does.

So, someone over at The Hostages posted a link to one of those progressive events calendar to which one may submit events. Obviously, hilarity ensued.

But I spend a good half an hour researching Ahasueres (specifically, Achashverosh – was he Xerxes or Artaxerxes? What was his name in Persian? What ordinal was used by the last Persian king of that name? Where did Haman come from? Were there any other Grand Viziers named Haman before or after Haman ha-Agigi?)

Then I thought of being smart and putting up an event by Neturei Karta studying a book, Ma’amatzi (My Struggles) by Harav Ahash, Rosh Eretz Ashkenaz (“Ahash” from “Adolf Hitler Shicklegruber), Leader of the German land.

But then I realized this would be so obscure, no one would get it. So I dropped that idea.

Um, here’s the first page of a novel (Posthumous) I was working on about 10 years ago. Does that count? In any case, this is unedited, untouched, for that matter, for a decade. Nothing achingly embarrassing, but believe me when I say I have improved somewhat in the meantime.

They dug up the first body shortly after lunch.

Not an hour earlier, Greg Talbot and his new oiler had sat, their ears still ringing from the monstrous roar of the backhoe, silently munching sandwiches and swigging lukewarm coffee in the bright Colorado sunlight. Their bodies still felt the chill of high Rocky Mountain mornings, their noses burned on the ozone and the dry dust that hung in the air like the ghost of some huge ephemeral slug. Greg had tried out a new joke he’d heard on the oiler (a punk kid sent out from Local Number Nine just this morning), but either the kid was no fan of dirty stories, or was still too green to understand the joke, because he merely nodded and turned away to watch a distant magpie zero in on a rabbit squashed flat and arid on Highway 67.

Greg had sighed, closed his lunch bucket with a snap, and walked over to restart the backhoe. The oiler resumed his place at the edge of the pit (soon to be a sewer service hub), and leaned against his shovel. The backhoe grumbled to life and the afternoon’s work was underway.

Greg was, in fact, still sucking bits of Frito out of his teeth when the oiler started yelling. Greg expertly manipulated the controls of the Koehring 944, bringing the bucket around and lowering it to the red Colorado earth. The bucket was rated at a cubic yard, but Greg had talked the master mechanic into welding skirts on it, and now it could take a yard and a half of raw earth in a single dinosaur bite.

Darn it, JW! I want to know what happened next!

“Suddenly shots rang out and everybody feel dead. the end.”

Sorry, couldn’t resist, Musli.

Musli: That’s a work in progress (or was, 10 years ago; I have about 250 pages so far, with the rest outlined. It sold to some mass market paperback outfit the name of which escapes me at the moment, and then got unsold when I got in an argument with the editor over the title. It was a blessing in disguise, though, since it gave me the opportunity to fire my agent).

In any case, I’m loathe to use Weez’s bandwidth to post chunks of that story; I’m not loathe to do some link whoring, tho: If you’re interested in that kind of stuff, I do have a couple of short stories I published around that same time. You can read them here:
http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.ListAll&friendID=380260407

And btw: Thanks for wanting to read more of Posthumous. It’s what writers live for.

Lady Weasel narrowed her withering gaze. “It was my new red cloche. Don’t act so innocent – I know that you’re the one who dressed that ewe in it.” Will stammered his protests to no avail as the Lady continued. “I also know that you’re the one who put my best silk underpants on the Doberman!”

The Lady turned on her heel and slammed the front door in Will’s face.

Will stared at the woodgrain for what seemed like an eternity.

“Aw shoot. Damn doberman said he wouldn’t tell nobody.”

Apropos of nothing, a bespectacled duck on a string dropped from the ceiling behind a bemused Will. “Cloche, but no cigar!” said the duck wryly, and was jerked back out of sight to the riotous laughter of an unseen audience.

Silently, Will pondered the significance of the duck.

Then he was struck immobile by a thought. Silk underpants? What was Lady Weasel up to? Why is she messing with him? It is well known that she prefers men’s tidy whities.

Seemingly from out of nowhere, Will felt a hand pinch his buttocks. It suddenly all became too clear: “Duck, duck, GOOSE.”

He rubbed his wounded buttock thoughtfully. The game’s afoot, Will realized. But this door is no longer ajar. He turned slowly, peering through the darkness. There, on the shelf above the fireplace. A severed foot floating in a glass jar. He crept closer. The polish on each toenail, he noticed, was fresh.

“Who put this here?!” Will shouted frantically, then grabbed the jar from the shelf. He glanced about him. “Everybody knows,” he continued, “the Lady Weasel kept this in the Ballroom for a reason!”

Lord Groinmaster Dique De Bologna Grande Badgerbugger VIII, Last Duke of Stoatfinger (by marriage), Secret Bearer of the Ermine Seal of Royals, KRS, MP- House of Lords, FRS, MRS, PhD, member in good standing – Royal Puttiers & Glasiers Local 1408, and all-around Nice Guy – stood at the top of the massive curved stair and patiently watched Will below.

It was the Lady Weasel’s delicately screeching voice that had roused Badgerbugger from his musings amongst the photo CDs he’d laboriously collected from the Web. Now, seeing Will coochie-coo’ed by that damned duck and disembodied hand in the front hall, he sympathetically rubbed his own skinny buns in sympathy.

As he watched Will examine the Foot Bottle Thingy (as he privately referred to it), Lord B once again mused as to it’s origin and history.

–
1879 – Rorkes Drift, Africa

Colonal Lord Chelmsford Stoatfinger (ESQ, KRS) of Her Majesties 1st and 2nd battalions, 24th Foot, 2nd Warwickshire Regiment viciously swung his parade sword at the already dead Zulu that His faithful Sergeant Piebald had conveniently killed earlier on the Isandlwana battlefield. With a succinct tink! the sword broke in two. Using the jagged edge of the now-defunct blade, he hurriedly sawed off the offending warriors foot and stuffed it down his breeches.

“The don’t call us the 24th Foot for nothin'”, he chortled gleefully. “Now we can be the 25th! Bwaa hah hah”.

–

Snapping out of his reverie, Lord B spied the scullery maid sneaking off with the hensman out the back entry and smiled.

“Ah! To be young again, and completely at the mercy of your hormones!”

*

“Ah! To be young again, and completely at the mercy of your hormones…for that matter, to be young again and completely at the mercy of MY hormones.”

Stoaty, would you consider fighting pixy misa to the death for the right to redesign Ace’s site?

I only ask because his site richly deserves it, and plus I don’t think pixy could put up much of a fight, being a small winged mythological creature like tinkerbell but without the somewhat disturbing allure. Maybe something more like this, and I think we can both agree that’s no match for the sheer unbridled fury of a weasel.

I retract that request, it was wholly inappropriate.

I will not ask anyone to fight pixy to the death for me, even though I have a deep seated inhibition against hitting girls, animals, and fruity little elves who can’t handle regular expressions and probably use Frontpage.

Which means I’ll have to arrange for his demise some other way. Maybe dress him up as a hobo piñata full of Val-u-Rite minis and tie him in Ace’s tree.

Maybe dress him up as a hobo piñata full of Val-u-Rite minis and tie him in Ace’s tree.

Now that’s some good imagery, Apo! We need to incorporate a good hobo piñata scene in our *ahem* novel.

We need to incorporate a good hobo piñata scene in our *ahem* novel.

Can we incorporate pixy? Maybe the mansion can be plagued by leprechauns that take totally mundane, commonplace implements of communication and make them unnecessarily complex and unreliable.

Like for instance, you can have a telephone, but thanks to the wacky idiosyncrasies of the pixy army, each number button is in a different room in the mansion, and is also on fire. Also, you have to dial with your buttcheeks, but only the left cheek on alternating Tuesdays and Thursdays.

If I interpret all this correctly, someone – not naming names here – isn’t too pleased with Ace’s place.

Just testing my powers of observation.

I love ace’s digs. It’s his absentee landlord that chaps my ass.

[edit: my apologies for the distraction. We now return you to your previously scheduled Great American Novel, already in progress.]

What are Val-u-Rite minis?

The itty-bitty bottles like what you get on an airplane, Jill.

I know you knew that: you were no-doubt just testing us.

No – I didn’t know that. We have state-run liquor stores here in PA.

See? http://www.lcb.state.pa.us/

In PA, we buy beer and malt beverages from a beer distributor, but anything harder (wine and hard liquor) has to be purchased at a Liquor Control Board store.

Is muy effed up.

That does suck a bit, Jill.

Having only lived in MO, TX, AZ, and CA – I jes’ naturally assumed you were familiar with the li’l tiny bottles that the airlines serve alcohol in to passengers. They hold only one shot or so – a single serving.

They’d be great as party favors in a piñata.

Oh, I’m familiar – don’t get me wrong. We have them here too.
They make the work day so much easier. I just didn’t know them as Val-U-Rite minis.

I lived in Flordidia for several years so I’m hip to ABC Liquor.

🙂

***
Trudging up the idyllic country road, the man paused to once again examine his BP-issues map of the surrounding area and wondered – not for the first time – if he was still in Kansas. A motion in the field nearby caught his eye. It was a man and woman in the process of spreading a blanket on the ground and unpacking brightly colored feather boas.

“Ah! To be young again, and completely at the mercy of your hormones”, he thought contentedly. “For that matter, to be young again and completely at the mercy of MY hormones. Now that’s the ticket! God, I miss bondage!”

***

*ding dong!*

Lady Badgerbugger (nee Stoatfinger), Daughter of the Last Duke of Stoatfinger, cousin to the Royal Cheese Maker Festus Legume* lifted her head from her work, curious. “Who could that be? We’ve paid our bills? Culligan Man, perhaps?”

She paced quickly over to the massive front entry of Badger Hall and laboriously began cranking open the door.

*Twisting the small rusty door latch*

“Damned help.”

*cranks some more*

“Never there when the doorbell rings.”

Peering out the tiny portal espyhole, she espied a tall disheveled man carrying a small tattered valise. Looking again, Lady Badgerbugger noted that the valise was disheveled, too, as well as being tattered. But neither the man nor the valise was particularly grungy.

Sticking her head out the door, she queried, “Yeah?”, dubiously, wondering how he’d gotten past the electric fence.

“Good mornin’ ma’am, and isn’t it a lovely day!”, piped the man cheerfully, but with an odd directness glimmering in his eyes.

“Up yours,” said Lady B-S, cautiously, “What do you want?”

“I’m Farkas Numbnut, Genealogist, Raconteur Extraordinaire, Feather Boa Salesman, and cheese distributor.”

***

Then – suddenly – McGoo’s Muse walked out in a huff, taking the next three paragraphs with her.

“Harrumph!”,McGoo spat. “What? Can’t take a little overtime? A li’l weekend work? You wuss!”

Crestfallen at his interrupted thought train, McGoo resorted to alcohol and Schedule II drugs to numb his so-called intellectual pain, and was not heard from again for hundreds – if not thousands – of words. Fortunately this delinquency would pass unnoticed by his publisher and agent.

* It should be noted that M’Lady’s cousin Legume invented Lamb-Tripe & Peanut Nib cheese – the only cheese that requires both a British prescription and US weapons permit.

***

“Well, …um….”

“Exactly, My good lady!” Reaching into his valise, Numbnut withdrew an old leather-bound book. It was short, but not too big around.

“Check this out,” he murmured, turning the tome so M’Lady could read the gothic lettering on the front cover. He eyes bulged out of their sockets, unbelieving, as she ….

***

What were the words on the mysterious book being foisted on our heroine? And who cares?