Thwarted the Invasion of Snarl [3/02/04 4:06 PM]

When I awoke this morning to the golden rays of Sol pouring through my window into my consciousness, I sprang as I do everyday out of my pyjamas, and into my business clothes. While on my morning rounds, which constitute my exercise and small errands, I noticed that my personal agent and post officer, Lyle, was looking off color. Normally, Lyle is blithe, and I had never seen him ill. I am told by the postmaster general that in fifteen years Lyle has never taken a sick day, and the only instance fifteen years ago involved the bubonic plague. Not wanting to myself contract the plague, I covered my mouth with my handkerchief while giving Lyle my usual salutation.

 Little did I know that I had more reason to feel sick than did Lyle then. He of course noticed that I had not graced him with my full face when giving my morning salutation, and began to tell me about his own son, Lionel, who was the reason for his dreary mood and general poor health. Lionel had contracted rabies the previous evening while fetching an errant baseball from across the fence. This particular fence I had constructed myself three weeks ago Thursday, and I knew immediately when Lyle told me about this that Lionel would be in need of my personal intercession.

 I should explain about the fence. Sunny fence stands two fathoms high, and spans the length of Lyle's dormitory estate, which is some eight miles and eight inches if I remember correctly. I named it "Sunny" after a female courtly relation of mine who died of heat stroke after diverting a river of lava with her bare feet. Also the fence is equipped with a special mechanism I contrived myself to always have its major portion facing the sun, as was the horticulturalist Landlord's specific instruction. However, during one of the lower phases (I cannot imagine the boy climbing the fence while it stands at its tallest) Lionel's mates clubbed the poor baseball clear over to the dark side of Sunny. Had I been present at the time, I would have told the children to go home, and I would return the ball to them in January, taking all necessary precautions to ensure the safety of myself and the crew I would likely need to extract the ball. Unfortunately for Lionel, and thus Lyle, and thus myself, I was instead preventing the collapse of two bridges which ran parallel by convincing each it was in contest with the next. This required by talking to both at once miles apart, and being in two places at once for four hours before tea is quite enough without being in three.

 Lionel returned home, and immediately upon seeing the pitcher of water that usually sits atop the table in the center of Lyle's entryway began to bite the wall, and when she approached, the downstairs maid as well. Lyle then told me about he strapped his son down to his bed after interring the passed downstairs maid and recruiting her slightly more expensive replacement.

 Having heard this on my morning rounds, and knowing my schedule would be quite impossible after breakfast, I decided I could do well enough without the first cherry jam with toast. I walked the eighty-five miles to Lionel's new durance-bed at a brisk pace, enough to arrive in three minutes. Once I saw the boy myself, I knew that this was no case of rabies, but of course, I have dealt with the likes of Snarl before, hence my being commissioned to make Sunny fence.

 Snarl was inside Lionel, and making rather a mess of things, and I knew I should handle him myself. I would have to forego the hardboiled dove eggs as well. Since this was my second time dealing with Snarl, I knew him already to be a vagabond and pestilence, and I knew he relished persecuting children of post officers and military men by dancing inside their stomachs with his muddy boots. So, marching right into the poor ailing lad and up to Snarl himself, I defeated him in the traditional waltz, but he managed to elude me with the reel. So, having saved the boy and routed the ungentlemanly Snarl, I continued on to lunch

Elevated the status of women in the city with a salad fork. [3/08/04 9:24 PM]

Yesterday, while writing official letters to the senior military strategist of Siam, Jim, I ran out of ink. Ordinarily, my ink would be filled by the downstairs maid on every third Wednesday, but that day I had had her fired because the pot boy had informed me that the maid was part of a civil uprising that was contrary to the Queen. I could abide no such flummery amongst my servants, and thus I would have to provide myself with my own ink. Unfortunately, when she left, she had apparently employed the finest of her pettiness in stealing replacement ingredients and articles from all over the house, so not only was I out of ink for the tri-week period, but also soap and towels.

Soap and towels would be easy enough to come by, as I have a lifelong debt owed me by a skilled towel weaver named Frederick after I once saved his soap-maker-son from poisoning himself with lye. The ink was a rare gift from the princess of Ihmdi in repayment for things a gentleman does not discuss in letters. As it turns out, obtaining the ink yet again would be a masterful challenge, and it led me to travel yet again the silk road into the east.

I took my parasol and pot-boy with me, the one carrying the other, and in two days walked the thousands of miles to the kingdom of Inka at the far end of the silk road, moving, as always, at my leisurely pace. No need to press the matter, I thought. This is ink so I can write Jim, and my correspondences to him are worth fewer lives than usual this season because of the decline of the disease carrying vermin. Also I had instructed Jim to purchase defoliant already, so with starving the disease ridden creatures, he would not need to hear about the weak point in the opposing siege wall that I personally constructed from ornamental toothpicks last January for his adversaries for at least three more days, when they were likely to rotate.

Inka was my destination, and when seeking an audience with the king and establishing my presence and request in the usual courtly manner, the absolute boar saluted me with a flagon in hand. Was this his new scepter? Not even the king of the Moon is so strange as to have a flagon for a scepter, although I had heard it was a custom in certain primitive cultures, but who could call that a king? I knew I had to correct this matter before I left with jugs of his finest ink

As it turns out, the same uprising that had claimed the life of my downstairs maid had begun in this very kingdom last Tuesday. What a sham of a king, who cannot keep his women from rising up against this or that. I decided to make him a most outrageous bet. I would sit at dinner with him, and if he could maintain his composure without fidgeting or acting discourteous, I would wash his kingdom, and if not, then he would abdicate as king and I would take his second queen's first daughter to live with me.

The dinner was prepared by an absolute genius in the culinary field, whom I only ever heard referred to as "chef." I was unsure then why the king refused to give such a skilled cuisenaire a name. The first course was placed as a centerpiece, crispy duck with tzatziki sauce and lemon. I, however, would not get past the salad before winning my bet. The uncultured commoner of a king actually picked up the dinner fork to eat his salad.

Aha! I cried, and he realized his blunder with my razzing salad fork glistening in the mirrored sunlight.

He abdicated as promised, and chef came home with me, and the queen went on to rule Inka, and I am told started the precedent of allowing women to own property and hold titles, but usually chef-princess Lady Ellywynizityhood keeps quiet and cooks spectacularly.

Blast! I forgot the ink!

Convinced a dead man to dedicate a college in his own memoriam [4/04/04 6:01 AM]

I should have liked to pen another entry sooner, but my most recent dealings with the local university have prevented me from dictating any letter but J for reasons I cannot go into at the moment. Having re-hired my favorite scribe (he doesn't pay me, I'm a slave) I am once again able to relax to a quite evening of stargazing while acting as governor elect for a neighboring city- state while my associate is away clearing his summer home of persistent creepers.

Alas, my poor friend Gheuselt who had been as a second father to me after I escaped my first kidnapping by biting my captor's fingers off while whistling him to sleep has perished, and I was left with the heavy burden of sorrow and body mass that accompanied being the soul mourner and thus pall-bearer at Gheuselt's fanciful funeral. About this, he had spared no expense...except of course, to pay the staff.

It was only a week before when I had tried to convince him that in order to run a business, one needs at least one employee to help with the work. He was staunchly opposed, telling me that he so defied the prospect that he would legally forbid any person from taking a fee for performing his funeral rights when he was to pass on. I told him not to be grave, and at the very least hire a pot-boy so I would not have to climb the 1127 flights of stairs and ladders to fetch a bottle of brandy from the cellar. Gheuselt had a modest home, really. He could have afforded far better, as I told him, but he insisted on taking care of the house himself. So I made a wager with my old friend. My handkerchief, into which the princess Bellefleur of Calais one sneezed and cried after I refused to accompany her to the town market to purchase the morning figs, against the lower fourth of his cellar that I could convince him to staff a thousand people in a building dedicated to his first name. He accepted of course, thinking that my powers of persuasion were limited to my words, which he could ignore (but I can't, you should hear this guy speak. I have to. It's horrible...)

Ahem. As I said, after re-firing my scribe, I have employed my dear the lady Yvette L'Oignon, whose recent rescue of the uncrowned prince of Prego from a fire he started while prodding a peasant with a hot iron caused a nation wide woman hunt, which stirred me to disguise m'lady as my very upstairs maid, as my current scribe.

Of course, it would not be easy to convince a man like Gheuselt to sign the required papers. Wild hyena had mutilated his hands on a hunting voyage after his shooter detonated in his grasp the very afternoon he had broken his wrist in a barfight with twelve men and their trained capybara, Cindy. Worse was going to be convincing him to use his prosthetic pen for any length of time. The man was just stubborn all around. However, I had a plan all worked out and prepared for the morning of the 24th, when he would celebrate the anniversary of his escape from the oubliette de memoir across the river. I was going to deftly sneak into his mansion, elevate his bookshelf one quarter of an inch causing his copy of "Etiquette" to slide to the floor by nine in the morning, in which I would have placed a seemingly blank sheet that was actually a lemon-ink document requiring his notoriety, which he would place simply to never have a blank page on his shelf.

Alas, when I entered that morning, he had already died.

It was going to be harder.

Thinking quickly, I sent a message to the high priestess of the BearEye clan, who owed me her life, to come immediately to channel Gheuselt's authority (for nothing else was needed) and dedicate the college. By tea time, ground was broken on Gheuselt's grave and Paully Technic College, for they are the same building. I am told the faculty is having an out of student body experience, and I am being scrutinized for building the crypt into the library. They did not know this man.