AletheaKontis.com

Yes, I certified my Geek Street Cred this weekend and finally learned to play Magic. Late Last night, Alethea Queen of the Elves stomped the table and triumphed in a bloody battle. (I know, I know, Gypsy stacked the deck. But I was learning to play! I also learned that I have slightly more evil tendencies than an all-green deck affords.)

Today it’s cold and rainy outside, as the world gets ready to warm up. Today, we’re teaching Chuck to play.

Later on, I’ll be taking Chuck to rehearsals. It’s the only way I’m going to be able to escape the tournament and get Chapter Eight done.

See, Mom? I’m working. I promise.

We’re out in the garage earlier — I’ve got my head down on the nice cool picnic table, sucking fresh air in between the puffs on Gypsy’s cigarette, and Gypsy’s explaining to Morgan about what she refers to as her “mosquito deck” of Magic cards. She goes on to say:

“You know, the mosquitos that bite you are only the females. The mosquitos that buzz are only the males. So if you’re in your bedroom in the dark and you hear the little bastard, you have nothing to worry about. But if you feel yourself get bit, you better wake up and kill the [insert nasty word here].”

After doing a bit of research on The Intarwebs, I have discovered that this oft-repeated saying is a myth. Both sexes of mosquito — though each at different frequencies to aid in mating – do, in fact, sound like buzzing to the human ear. Having never heard the myth before, I found it interesting. Having discovered the truth behind it, I know to better arm myself next time at night. In the summer. In the dark. In the swamp. In India. And now you know too.

Bzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

Almost two years ago, Stephan Pastis, creator of Pearls Before Swine, released his The Grass Menagerie collection of comic strips.I shamelessly used this as an excuse to tie him up in an hour-long phone interview. We had a lot of fun. Stephan’s a great guy — as many people who read his blog or visit Facebook have come to discover.

Back in August, I spent most of a Saturday putting this–once again, shameless–little thing together for Stephan’s birthday. Right before I posted it, I did a quick check and discovered that–according to Wikipedia–fellow Capricorn Stephan’s birthday is actually today.

Now, we all know how much weight to place on information we find on the internet (yes, I’m shaking my finger at you, random high school student who wrote a paper on the name of the tofurkey version of turducken…think about it). The way I figure it, when in doubt play by Mad Hatter rules: Even a stopped watch is right twice a day. Once this puppy’s live, it’s good every day, every year, so it’ll be appropriate EVENTUALLY. (And hey, my birthday was Monday, so if you’re dying to wish SOMEONE a happy birthday, I’ll happily accept.)

If you’re having a birthday or not today, Stephan, I hope you enjoy this little skit. I had a blast making it. I hope you have a great day.

Love, Alethea

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Title: The Man Who Took the Indoors Out

Author: Arnold Lobel

Pub Date: 1974

Status: Out of Print

Number nine on the list of My 21 Most Influential Books, The Man Who Took the Indoors Out is incredibly difficult to find, and is not even listed on Caldecott Medal winner Arnold Lobel’s Wikipedia page. This obscure little picture book was something we must have checked out on a long-ago library card, because I did not own a copy until a few years ago, when my mother hunted it down for my bookshelf.

The man mentioned in the title has a lovely house full of lovely furniture and lovely things…but those lovely things are bored from sitting around the house all day. So the furniture asks the man if he might let them out to play for the day. The man does. The furniture is happy and dancing and having a great time. When it starts to get dark, the man tells everything that it’s time to go back inside, but the furniture has other ideas. Having now tasted freedom, the chairs and vases and paintings and sofa and piano take to the hills, leaving their poor owner in the dust.

The man is very sad, alone in his empty house. It is a very dark and stormy night, and the man is worried. Then there is a small knock. The man opens his door to find his furniture — somewhat worse for the wear — has returned home. It is dirty and worn and wet and more than slightly embarrassed, but the man couldn’t be happier to have his good friends back. He welcomes them all back in and they live happily ever after.

I’m sad that this little tale has disappeared into the bowels of the literary machine, because it had some great messages. It was all about love and acceptance, setting things free and valuing happiness over material goods. It was about loneliness and shame and fear and going to far. It was about doing what’s in your heart and having it all work out in the end.

I always carry pictures of dancing furniture in my heart and know that, no matter how far away my loveseat runs from me — or I run from it — we will be reunited one day if we’re meant to.

…and by that I mean that the birthday was infamous. Not the pictures. Or maybe they are. You decide.

Click here for the full album.

Anubis & The Princess

Mr. Ichi & Chuck Wood

Bienve Prieto has a gorgeous Peter S. Beagle fanblog that he hosts from Spain: http://petersbeaglefanblog.blogspot.com/

Bienve asked if he could translate my recent interview into Spanish. I was honored.

Click here to read the interview, en español. Gracias, Bienve!

There is a moment from this weekend frozen in my mind: the girls are on the couch combing their lustrous clean locks, Tomo’s patiently waiting to find out just what he’s being sent to the drug store for this time, and I’m cross-legged on the floor between Della’s legs as she sits above me on the couch, inspecting the itchy nape of my neck. Kelli slides to her knees in front of me and announces: “You know why Murphy created this weekend? Because we all needed something to blog about.”

There is a moment of silence as the truth of her statement sinks in. And then: “Dibs on The Gift That Keeps on Giving as a title!” I yell.

“I get Shit Happens!” chimes Gypsy.

The hippie smiles and says, “Of Lice and Men,” and we all double over in laughter.

It was a weekend for the history books, ladies and gentlemen — the kind that brings us all closer together and reminds us what really makes a family. Because birthdays shouldn’t just be about fancy dresses and presents. They should be about laughter and love…and lice.

I’ve lived more life in the past six weeks than most people dare to live their whole lives. The parting of ways, the moving, the goodbyes, the journeys, the memories revisited, the sadness, the joy, and the pain. These weeks have given me everything I’ve wished for and then some. They have brought me new friends. They have made me sick. They have made me tired. They have given me hope for the future. My birthday marked the end of that journey. (The first chapter, anyway.)

In an effort to maintain what little sanity I had left, I postponed my Big Fabulous Party plans until later (possibly spring) and settled on a smallish get-together with only enough of my friends to fit around the dinner table (and their children). Oooh, a fancy dress party a la Mary Robinette Kowal’s last year. That would be fun. Excellent idea! Nice, relaxing, and low-key.

Thursday night there was some drama. Some folks got upset…and then got over it. A Canadian arrived. I went to bed early. Friday was awesome. There was Scrabble and giggles and turtles. The zombie kind. Tomo came and brought his girls as one of my birthday presents–Ariell returned one of the books I had lent her over New Year’s. There was dancing in the garage. We ate spaghetti. We remembered why we needed each other, and my worries went away.

And Ariell’s head started to itch.

Early Saturday morning, there were dead bodies on the pillow and a very distraught almost-thirteen-year-old.

“So, I hear my present came with a bonus,” I told her. She laughed.

Tomo went to the store and bought a two-pack of lice shampoo. Having been through this enough times in Elementary school with my sister, I knew a thing or two about Ye Olde Louse Comb. We’d nip this puppy in the bud, no worries. Ariell and I watched TV and bonded as I took my time combing her terminally tousled hair. We had no other plans. Dinner was five or six, the Eagles game started at eight — otherwise it was just us.

But the wimpy little shampoo didn’t work. A few things in the house broke. The turkey was wonderful and the stuffing divine and I looked great in my dress…but around halftime we decided that a.) the Eagles weren’t going to win the game and b.) we needed more lice shampoo. Not only was Ariell still finding Little Monsters, but the back of her neck was covered in bites. I was determined to conquer this once and for all.

I changed out of my dress and joined Tomo this time for the hunt…and was very surprised at what we discovered. 1.) There are many different brands of treatment available for lice, F.) There were not more than two boxes of any kind on the shelf, and 45.) I did not get yelled at for sitting on the floor in the grocery store for an extended period (but that’s another story for another time).We bought three boxes — one for Tomo and one for each of his daughters, just to be safe.

I finished combing Ariell’s hair for the third time sometime before 2am. “You realize this officially makes us sisters now.” I told her. And then I went to bed and cried myself to sleep. I dreamt of lice and crazy psychosomatic itching.

Only…it wasn’t psychosomatic.

Sunday morning brought us our third run — this time to the Rite Aid because we’d already bought out the Giant’s stash of medicine — bringing our total brands of medication tried up to five. We were informed while checking out that “Yeah. the entire district has it” which just made us laugh. Because we didn’t have local lice. Ours was imported from Virgina.

Only the best for Awesome Porch.

We broke a few more things this day — including the upstairs toilet — and while I had to wash my own hair it was Della who put in the gel and combed it out. Della…to whom I gave lice in the second grade all those years ago after she tried on my Brownie hat. It all comes full circle, doesn’t it?

Lice is a thing. It happens. Whether or not it’s a tragedy is only a matter of perspective. It brought us all to new levels of togetherness. It helped clean and spray the entire house. It taught us a lot, about lice and about each other. It provided a case study on the best lice medication to use (we all agree Lice MD is the best, the one with the green comb. It was the most successful, and was the least harsh to use on a poor sore head that’s already been terrorized by Little Monsters).

Most of all, it caused a quarantine that forced the whole crew to stay one more night. I got to wake up on Monday — my actual birthday — and have cake and singing and breakfast with all my friends. My more than friends. My family.

So..thank you, Ariell. Little did you know, you brought me the greatest gift of all.

Lice.

Best birthday present EVAR.

I didn’t actually mean to shove the laptop in a corner and leave the phone downstairs all weekend…it just turned out that way. If you just can’t wait to hear about all the fun and games, pop on over to The Gypsy’s blog: www.kellidunlap.com. Otherwise I’ll be blogging tomorrow about Illness, Infestation, Interesting times, and Mr. Ichi.

Much love to all of you and thanks for the birthday wishes!

xox

The Princess

Happy birthday to me!

It’s a big day today. It’s my dad’s birthday. There are a lot of folks who share my father’s birthday, namely this guy, and later my grand-nephew Caleb. We Capricorns are a special bunch anyway, but if your birthday is today you can count yourself among the extra-special special.

Join me in wishing my dad a very very happy birthday!

I’m going to go call him right now.

(Books on the Bed: Novels and stories I read as a child that still remain in my collection. Recommended reading for all ages. If you can find them.)

The first box I packed during my half-move from Tennessee was for my friend Ariell. She was the first person on Awesome Porch who I ever saw crack a book. (Everyone else here does, but in private apparently.) We started talking and discovered that we had a lot of the same interests. She recommended a few books to me — I’m currently halfway through Barry Lyga’s The Astonishing Adventures of Fanboy and Goth Girl and I’m enjoying it immensely.

In return, I brought up a box of fun books for her to borrow that she’d undoubtedly never heard of…books in my eclectic collection that I’ve been promising to talk about on this blog as my recommended reading list. I started a “Books on the Bed” series late last year with They Call me Boober Fraggle. I’ll now be posting one every Friday. Here’s recommended reading title number two.

Title: Ronia the Robber’s Daughter
Author: Astrid Lindgren
US Pub date: 1983
Status: Available!

“I’ll carry this summer around in my memory as long as I live.”  –Ronia

Everybody knows about Pippi Longstocking, because she’s the one who had the movies. We all wanted to be like her, wearing giant boots, having friends like Tommy and Annika, going on Grand Adventures, and sleeping with our feet on the pillow and our heads at the foot of the bed. (I still do the last one. When I actually *have* a bed. It’s not quite the same on an air mattress.)

But my favorite of Miss Astrid’s heroines is the much lesser known Ronia.

Black-eyed harpie-haired Ronia was born to the Robber Chieftain Matt on the same night a terrible lightning storm split Matt’s Fort in two. When Ronia is old enough to explore the forest, her father advises her to: 1.) Stay away from Gray Dwarves, wild harpies, and Burka’s Robbers (Burka being Matt’s sworn enemy) 2.) Don’t get lost in the woods or fall in the river and 3.) Don’t tumble into Hell’s Gap — the giant split in the fortress.

Ronia encounters all these things…only when she visits the top of Hell’s Gap she finds a boy there about her age–the only other child she’s met in her life. He is Birk Borkason, yes, son of her father’s enemy, and they have moved into the abandoned other half of Matt’s Fort.

Despite their families’ quarrel, Ronia and Birk inevitably become friends. This, of course, leads to hardship and adventure and the limits of how far one must go to heal old wounds.

Ronia — like her cousin Pippi — is one of the original kick-ass heroines. She is beautiful and independent and headstrong and fearless and will fight for what and who she loves. She’s a fabulous role model for young girls today, and I wish there were more like her. Luckily, Ronia the Robber’s Daughter is still in print, so she hasn’t gone very far.

Now I wish it was March already. I feel a Spring Yell coming on.