In which - an update!

Actually, a lot has been happening - which is part of the problem. I haven't had time to write anything down.

For one thing, I have neighbors now.

Jett's partner in crime, Spike, crossed the Rainbow Bridge a little over a month ago with a scent gland tumor that turned out to be one of the rare metastatic ones. We intended to get two babies to introduce to him as new friends - but the introduction didn't go well, to say the least.

Jett is doing well, though - getting lots of extra attention - and I ended up with a gerbil condo next to my house. Oh well. :-) Meet Pagey and Percy. Pagey is the one in the first pic - the sort of Siamese-spotted-whatever one - and Percy is the reddish one, which Maddy said was called "Argente."

This was all just before the last Mercury retrograde. Normally I'm kind of skeptical about astrological things like that - I'm an Aquarius, after all, and we tend to be - but yeah, this last one was rough. Among other things, Maddy ended up with a friend in the hospital (another slipped disc - which happened about the same time last year, too,) the "Check Engine" light on in the Rogue for quite literally no reason ("Other/Unknown Error,") a rather anxiously awaited (and pricey) package going astray for almost three weeks and some weird cold/flu hybrid making the rounds that she's almost recovered from, except for a cough that sounds somewhat like a tuberculin seal (her words, not mine!) On the doll front, Shel tried to change shirts one afternoon and ended up needing emergency limb reattachment surgery when his left hand came off along with it. (Maybe not having separate jointed hands like they do isn't such a bad thing after all....) However, all patients, human and doll, are home and recovering, the "Check Engine" light went off  on its own, the stray package has arrived and all seems to be normal again.

Well, normal for here, anyway....

~*~

Devon's fella Rafael arrived just before all of the above started. He's a nice guy - not at all like what I was envisioning. Not I that I thought he wouldn't be nice, but - if I've got this right, he's an Unquiet Spirit like JT, also from New Orleans, who was a Vodou priest (is that the right term? I need to get a book on this.) Not sure about the circumstances that led to him being an Unqiuet Spirit, but I'm sure it's an interesting story - yeah, that kind of "interesting." He is a really nice guy, though, an seems to really know his way around the spirit/elemental realm.

And this is Paisley's friend Kilbey.

There has to be an explanation for him, and I think it has something to do with the same brown acid going around the first Woodstock festival - the stuff that was apparently not so good.

He said the missing antenna will grow back. (Apparently that isn't an eyestalk?) He also said he wished it would hurry up and do so, since it was like having one - well, unlike Kilbey, I am going to keep this G-rated.

As for the fact that he is in fact a "he" - Paisley said he's related to Mystery Snails, which actually do have genders. Most snails don't. Or do - they're both at once. Which explains how one stray pond snail in an aquarium turns into one bazillon about three days later. (I suspect the same is true for coat hangers in the closet.)




And if you need more proof that this last retrograde messed with EVERYTHING, look no further than our trusty thermometer. See that inside temperature? That was also the outside temperature, according to both the Weather Channel and the working thermometer. And no, the sensor wasn't in the sun.

And yes, it was sunny that day, too.







Bonus pic: Tempest and Kilbey.






















(Kilbey is a Doll Chateau Larry. He's named for both musician Steve Kilbey of the Church and the snarky but sweet shapeshifter who was best friends with the Lady Madrigal Baker in my Doctor Who fanfic days. Rafael is a Pukifee Pio - the only human-ish male in my BJD crew.)

In which Hitty Emmaline's grandmother isn't who you'd think.......

"Here we go - now, let me fix your scarf. Good little baby....."

"Um, Paisley?" Zephyr said. "Why do they need scarves? Don't emperor penguins come from Antarctica?"

"They're babies. They can't keep warm the way the adults can." As you can see, Paisley seems to be establishing a home for baby birds. "Now, did you eat all your krill? Good boy!"

"That was krill? I thought you were making smoothies," Zephyr said.

I wondered why my blender was soaking in the sink....

"Hey everyone!" Tempest said, coming in. "You'll never believe who's here all the way from Florida!"

"Devon?!" Zephyr exclaimed, running to hug the new deva in town. "What are you doing up here?!"

"Trying to help some of the other devas put an end to this awful weather," Devon said.

"Problem is, we don't even know exactly where it's coming from," Tempest added. "Well, we know where, but we don't know who blocked the normal atmospheric patterns or why."

That doesn't sound good.....

"And here's Emmie! How do you like it here in New York?"

"It's nice...."

"I told you it would be."

"....but I still don't know why you had to sell the farm to those pixies. It wasn't losing money."

"Sweetheart, it was time for a change. I'd done all I could working with that land. It was time for someone else to take over. And you needed a change, too. All that time with those china head dolls wasn't good for you. You're a wooden doll, sweetie. You can afford to take chances that they can't."

It took me a moment to put it all together. "Wait. Your grandmother is a deva?!" She'd mentioned her Grandmother Devon awhile back, but I'd been expecting another Hitty. Not a deva who looked younger than Emmie herself.

"I was a linden tree deva before I learned to work with storms," Devon explained. "Emmie is carved from one of the branches of a seedling of the tree I was brought into existence to tend. So in a way, it makes me her grandmother."




"Are you and Rafael still together?" Emmie seemed at a bit of a loss for what to say.

"We are, indeed. He may be joining us later this year up here. I'm going to try to talk him into it, anyway. Right now he's working with manatees,"
Devon said.






"Devon is the one who sent me to find Tempest," Zephyr added. "Her sister Gail worked with her - Tempest, I mean - to turn that tornado that those awful storm devas sent toward that town."

"I know a good deva when I meet one," Devon said with a smile. "My sister should be joining us here pretty soon, too."

Not who I would have expected, but pretty cool nonetheless.....



Note: Devon is a tan Pukifee Ante from the FairyLand Halloween event. She was ordered directly from FL, We're still waiting on three other tan Pukifees ordered through DDE.

She's named after a pilot we saw on "Hurricane Hunters" whose first flight was through Hurricane Rafael (the one just before the infamous Sandy.) I do wish I could remember her last name, because she was totally awesome.

In which - Happy Yule!

We'd like to wish our readers in the northern hemisphere a happy first day of winter (is that an oxymoron?) our readers in the southern hemisphere a happy first day of summer (no oxymoron there!) and everyone else a very happy Yule!

(And that tank is NOT as scuzzy as it looks. It's just algae on the front - again. It was cleaned about five days ago.)

By the way, this is what we woke up to this morning. it snowed off an on most of the day. Just a coating, but enough to make it what Aura calls a totally dreich day.

Bonus pic. :)

In which my nemesis and I meet again.....

And so it begins......

Away, thy foul white demon! Away with thy polluting filth, thy wint'ry perversion....



Or, to quote Scaramouche: "What the #$&%!, Tempest!"

Tempest pointed out that this one wasn't her doing She isn't responsible for what happens when a storm deva in the Pacific decides it's time for a super typhoon and whoops! There goes that polar vortex again.

Yes, this outbreak was indeed triggered by a super typhoon in the Pacific wrecking havoc with the jetstream. And there's always a polar vortex. It's just when Polar doesn't keep its Vortex to itself that we have problems

Kira hasn't seen this before. She said she wasn't sure she liked it. Where she comes from, they don't see snow, Just rain in the winter.

Hmmm. Wonder if Maddy would consider a move to the Land Down Under?

Tempest, however, is used to it - although she insists that this isn't where Snowdonia, Wales got the name from. (It's from Lord Snowdon, she said,)

















All I can say is it better melt or else I'm getting John-John's nuclear-powered jet-engine turbo-charged blowdryer and taking matters into my own hands.......

In which - introductions and random pictures....

I think I'd like autumn better if it went right back into spring, but it is a pretty season.....

Leaves won't be changing for another few weeks, but we have some color.

Although Maddy insists that green is a color, too.....

Aura said it was good fishing weather. If - no, let's say when - I'm ever lucky enough to meet John Ashton, I'll have to ask him about that. If he and Aura don't end up talking hooks and lines, the whole time, that is.

Someone, however, forgot to tell the fish - or maybe warned them, I'm not sure....

"Aw, come on, fishies, Why don't you want to eat this nice, fat, juicy worm?"

Besides the obvious, she means? And you really have to hear that last line with Aura's Scottish accent.

The sisters....

Even storm devas like to just watch the clouds go by sometimes.

 And now some introductions....

Meet Kira. She's the sea star (aka starfish) deva who Scaramouche met down in Australia when she was trying to help find that missing Malaysian plane. Kira's hoping to learn how to communicate with - well, just about everyone and everything, the way Scaramouche does.

Kira's very outgoing, outdoorsy and down to earth, as they say. I think winters here might be a bit of a surprise, but I think she'll be able to handle it just fine. And I just love the color of her eyes.

And this is Tempest's friend Zephyr - yup, like the fish :). Zephyr is, appropriately enough, a wind deva. She's very, very shy and hasn't told us much about herself. I think John-John, our intrepid stylist, may be planning his first devic makeover on her. His first words to me were "The poor dear is so cute, but her hair just isn't doing anything for her face!" Don't get him wrong - he's not being nasty. Anything but.

"The only really ugly people - or dolls - I've ever met were ugly because of their personalities, not their appearance," he told me once. "I have, however, met a lot of people - and dolls, for that matter - who have no idea how beautiful they really are. Sometimes you don't even really need to change anything about them. You just have to make them see themselves the way they really are."

And people actually wonder what Shel sees in him.....