In Which We Sort of Travel and Other Stuff...

 Well, Christmas this year was certainly in keeping with the rest of 2020.....

Long story short, we had a rain and wind storm on Christmas Eve. A really, really nasty rain and wind storm. And, like in August with Hurricane Isaias, the power got knocked out. After it became very obvious on Christmas Day that we were NOT getting it back any time soon, my person made the decision that we were going to a hotel until it came back on. We spent four days powerless after Isaias and I really don't think any of us could deal.

Not a bad deal, though. The room was clean, and cute and, most importantly had amenities such as electricity and running water. Which may not sound like amenities, but in this case, they totally were.

I mean, really, we've had worse ideas. And it wasn't expensive and it was for the one night. 

We got a text about nine-forty the next morning (26th) saying the power was back, but we'd gotten texts like that twice before that had turned out to be not quite the case. So we called the house to see if the answering machine (ansaphone, as Crowley calls it) picked up. It doesn't work with the power out. When it picked up, we knew all was good. 

And speaking of Isaias....

This is one small part of why power was out as long as it was:

This tree was part of the stone wall between my person's house and the neighbor's. As you can see, it didn't get uprooted. It broke in half. Holy CRAP was that ever loud when it came down. By then the power had been out for a good couple of hours as it was.

Which was a good thing, because there went the lines

See those lines in the background? They're not supposed to be down there. 

This one uprooted. It's in the yard next door.

That tree on the left is the one my person thought was down when she got to the end of our street. She had to sit there about ten minutes because they were still chainsawing the one that fell. She said later that she was sure it was going be like Christmas in August - a tree in the house. It was an absolute mess, but we did end up standing outside a couple of days later at two in the morning watching a truck put lines up. That was cool. Unfortunately, the freezer wasn't cool anymore by that time. Everything thawed. 

2020, man......

Even the (actual) Christmas tree fought back this year. I think the idea was that Crowley would hand the lights to Jade, who would hand them to Aziraphale. 

That's - not what happened. 

Meanwhile, Celine was trying to talk Emmie into something fancy. 

Celine can be a bit - chaotic, shall we say. There was the time she decided to talk to some very drunken and/or high guy in her true form. Given that her true form is something like a bazillion wings and eyes all at once....

Aziraphale says she gets it from her mom. I don't know. He can be "Just Enough of a Bastard" sometimes....

Opal and Lily. Opal is Jade's younger sister. 

Jade is a model, BTW, and has done a number of photoshoots. 

You can see why.....

This is Benjamin. He's one of Maddy's friends. 

And a quick bonus shot of Aziraphale, Crowley and Opal.

In which life under lockdown continues....

So apparently some places let their people do something they call telecommuting. It's becoming quite the thing in this time of plague. And my person was asked if she would be willing to. Of course she said yes.

My person's original intent was to set everything up on the dining room table, but we all forgot that there isn't a plug handy over there. The sewing machine only gets plugged in as needed and then promptly unplugged. So - after much banging around of things and foul language and whatnot, part of the computer table from the old computer room is now inhabiting the living room and my person has a nice work desk. She said it's staying even after everything goes back to normal and the computer goes back.

The only problem was that she needed to plug it into either the modem or the router. She wanted to use the router since the modem has to stay pretty much where it is. However - that didn't work. At all. So, 100' of wire later, we're plugged into the modem, which is located on the other end of the house. That was actually about ten feet more than she turned out to need, but she wanted to err on the side of guesstimating high rather than low. All this had me wondering why they didn't just give her a laptop, but she said those were in short supply and being reserved for people who have to go out in the field.


"The heck is this?"

I looked around. "You mean you don't know?"

Crowley looked at me. "Looks like those things they used to have all over London."

My person looked around. "Ask the Doctor when she and Maddy get back. They'll explain it to you,"

He's taking quarantine hair to the extreme, I think. Everyone's starting to look floofy because all the salons are still closed. Some people are complaining about that. They also don't like that they can't go hang out and browse in stores - right now you really need to just get what you need and come back home - and that they have to wear masks. My person said that she'll deal. She also just ordered a set of masks so she won't have to try to wash hers and get it dry quickly.



"Dear, does this mean you'll still be home most days?"

My person nodded. "Yeah. I don't have the schedule out past the end of next week, though."

















Indy and Celine were going to go to one of the parks, but it's raining. I think they were also concerned about distancing. They decided to stay in and stream a movie instead.



















"Do you know how to fly a plane?"

"Surely you can't be serious!"

"I an serious, And don't call me Shirley."

"So what are we watching, ladies?"

"Airplane."

"Ah. Excellent choice."







"Dear, isn't that dress a bit - revealing? Especially for a proper young cherub?"









"Dad?"

"Yes, dear?"

"Don't start."














Bonus pics:


This is the living room with the new sofa, but before we moved the desk in. The desk is now where the printer table was. The printer is back on the dining room table and there's now a random table in the kitchen because it didn't fit through the spare bedroom door. The random table, I mean, not the kitchen.




Sofa fort. Fawn talked Crowley out of sleeping until July.




















Thicc boi is thicc.













"Okay, listen up. She put a lot of work into moving this plant stand over here for you lot, so GROW BETTAH!!!!"

In Which - New Friends from Old Places - Maybe....

We still can't go anywhere.....

My person was right. They shut her office down to one-quarter staff, so she now has a very staggered schedule. Almost everything else is closed and now she needs to use that mask pattern she downloaded to make masks for herself and us in case we need to go out, too.

Not that I'm complaining, really. It just makes it hard being a travel doll if one can't travel.

Plus we just got an email from Amazon saying that the CD we preordered back in January will be shipped later than expected, and they don't have a date. Which might not suck so badly if it wasn't the Psychedelic Furs first CD since 1991......






"Need a hand expressing how you feel?"

You would think I'd be used to this whole detachable option parts thing after six years, but no....














 













"Atta girl..."

"Hey, Crowley? Shouldn't you and Aziraphale be out there taking care of this whole pestilence thing?" Fawn said.

"It didn't miracle away. Believe me, we tried," he said."That virus is worse than glitter when it comes to getting all over everything. And I should know. I'm the one who came up with it."

"The coronavirus?" Fawn looked at him.

"No, glitter. I don't do pestilence,"











Like I mentioned, we've had a couple of new arrivals in spite of everything...

This is Lily, which she says is short for Lilith. She's a pixie. I asked her if she was related to another pixie of Fawn's acquaintance, but she changed the subject.

Daisy is happy to have someone else her size here.


That's the happy bit.
















The not-so-happy bit is that my person also adopted a doll named Lenore. That in itself is not the unhappy part. The unhappy part is that Lenore didn't want to leave her former home. She, like Fawn, was one of the old Wylde Kingdom's residents. She always believed that she'd be the one who'd be there forever. But things change, the Kingdom is no more, and it was decided that for Lenore's sake, she needed a new home.

She isn't happy,

Worse, my person is the one who adopted Fawn six years ago. Lenore always hated Fawn. Now Fawn, for her part, is more than willing to let all that go and start over. But Lenore isn't having it.

So yeah, not good....








"Dear, really now. You know it was for your own good. You didn't want
to be an only doll now? Especially not one stuck in a box. That's no fun for anybody." Aziraphale, trying his angelic best to smooth things over.

"Yeah, well, I sure didn't want to come here. I think I'd rather be in a box."

"I'm sure we could arrange that." Crowley said, looking around.

My person, who was sitting between them, started to scold Crowley, but Fawn shook her head ever so slightly. There's a method to their madness - when they don't forget which one of them is using the single brain cell they apparently share, that is.









"Leave me alone, okay?"




















"No, not okay." Crowley came over. "Now you listen to me, young lady. There are a lot worse things than being here, okay? Being discorporated, for one."

"You were discorporated?"

"Totally. And because freaking Gabriel and Hastur were in on it. guess what? We can't get bodies back. Not now. So we're here. My plants are probably all dead and I don't know what's happened to the angel's bookstore, but at least we're here and together. So lay off the moping around bit, okay? You might actually find out you like it here."










"And if my dad's in love with an angel, I'm sure you can be friends with Fawn," Indy added, coming over as Crowley stalked off in a pretend huff.

Something tells me it's a good thing my person is going to be around here most of the time for now. Because she may need to mediate.....














~*~



Bonus pic #1 - Lenore arrived bearing books. We promptly lost Aziraphale for the rest of yesterday afternoon....



















Bonus pic #2:

Crowley, having been summoned: "What the fuck, Indy?"

Indy: "Next time answer your phone, dad."




















Bonus Pic #3: "I'm sure this can be more sonic."

In Which - Can We Just Unplug 2020 for Ten Seconds and Plug it Back In?

First things first: Rest in peace, Red October. You were a good car.

Red's transmission failed just before Christmas after eleven years and 175,338 miles. 

You have to admit, that's not too shabby. 

Now, meet Zira.                                                                                                                                         

Crowley has been giving my person a hard time about the gray, given that it's apparently quite popular. But she couldn't get the dark blue, didn't want another red one and didn't want black, either, so the gray it was. I kind of miss the sunroof and I think my person sometimes misses Red's CD player, since Zira's is a LOT pickier about which CDs will play and which won't. So it's mostly Sirius XM until it gets warm enough to sit in the car for any period of time and figure out playlists.

Zira is a 2019 Nissan Rogue Sport, BTW. And she's a really sweet little ride. If - big if - we could actually do any riding around right now, that is....

Freaking coronavirus.

We're not under mandatory lockdown, but we're on the very edge of the New York outbreak - we have one confirmed case in our county so far. My person thinks it will just be a matter of time - a short time - until her office is closed. The two adjacent counties have closed their DSS offices through the end of the month, and we rather expect ours will follow suit. We're being asked to limit unnecessary travel, so no outings. Plus, the nursing home my person's mom is in has banned all visitors for the foreseeable future. Apparently this virus is worse the older you are. Combine that with my person trying to navigate all the ins and outs of her mother actually having to be IN the nursing home in the first place - this all started in December - and the new car and all the usual stress and well - it's kind of complicated. She's even wondering if she'll be able to properly renew her driver's license at this point, since she needs to get an enhanced one, which will require a trip to the DMV.




"Dearest, I'm sorry it's all so complicated right now."

Aziraphale's sweet, he really is. He's been doing his best to help. My person promised that if she does end up having to stay home, which she probably will, she'll make him an outfit like the one he usually wears.















"Complicated? Angel, the word you're looking for is clusterfu--"

"Language, dear boy." Aziraphale scolded.

"Seriously? Caroline's person uses worse when her printer acts up." He's trying to put the Fear of Crowley into some of my person's remaining houseplants. Not many of them survived the winter.

They might have stopped the Apocalypse, but they apparently didn't foresee humans getting into fights over toilet paper.










"This is it, dear boy. The kitchen. This is where all the magic happens."

"I rather thought that was my bedroom, angel."

Celine, off camera: "Too much information, Uncle Crowley!"
















Celine went back to her natural blonde, BTW. Like father, like daughter.




















This is Celine's half-sister, Indigo - Indy for short. I didn't know Maddy had two daughters, but here we are. If I understood correctly, Indy, in her old life, was Maddy's son - the one her ex made off with. She ended up being raised by an aunt and uncle, who kicked her out upon her coming out as transgender. Having no one else to turn to, she - he at the time - Facebook messaged the mother who he'd been told didn't want him - only to be picked up ten minutes later via TARDIS and whisked back to the UK. I think the gender switch was done via regeneration, but Crowley also had a hand in adjusting Indy's DNA to no longer reflect any of her human father's. In other words, she's half-Gallifreyian and half-demon. Maddy said the Indy has her one mother's - Penthesalia's - complexion, more or less her looks and her father's eyes - kind of. And like her dad, she can shapeshift into a serpent, although she usually doesn't because she's afraid she'll forget how to change back.









"Oh dear, it seems to be snowing rather harder than expected."

"Ya THINK, angel?!"




















Pinky and Aziraphale's rather awkward first meeting. He forgot that he can't fly like he used to.





















Aziraphale: Nice reusable shopper.

My person: I thought so.

Crowley: Okay, I am much cuter than the bloke who played me.

Nah. I think they're equally adorable.


















Maddy rocking the Feral Sheep look. Although I think that hat is supposed to be a poodle.





















However, there is one bit of good news. The Psychedelic Furs are finally releasing a new album in early May. More on that to come....