Sunday 23 March 2008

The Story of the Bald Frog with the Wig

(This whole story came from the random question generator on the profiles page. the original question was

The children are waiting! Please tell them the story about the bald frog with the wig:

There was once a frog. Not a very wise frog, but wise enough to know when spring was coming so he could burrow out of his hibernatory mudhole to greet the new day.

One day, he saw humans. A little boy and a little girl, to be exact. The little girl, who had been terribly sheltered (this was the first time she had been out of the House since the plague, which had started before she was born), said to the little boy (who was her brother, older and wiser in years and experience), "Oh! Look at the poor ickle frog, with not a strand of hair on his ickle head. How strange!"

For, you see, her reading books had been filled with fanciful, anthropomorphised creatures. Bipedal dogs, monocled cats, top hatted sparrows, the very picture of civilisation. And the frogs, in the imagination of the reading book writer, were always, always, judges. Impartial and composed and sober, always hearing each piece of evidence before passing fair judgement on each case.

(In fact, there was a case which stuck out in her mind, of the tuxedo cat v. the greyhound, involving several pounds of goat meat, rohypnol, and a distressed mouse that had impressed her highly due to the impartiality of the frog-judge in declaring the greyhound (who was the crowd favourite) guilty, and his cool logic in recounting the details of the case in the face of a rising mob, the specifics of which are far too long to involve in this tale, which is getting convoluted enough already as it is, and so we will tackle it another day, perhaps.)

So she had been accustomed, through no fault of hers to seeing good, honourable frogs in their black flowing robes, perfectly round tortoiseshell spectacles and dust white wigs. It was no surprise, then, when on her first jaunt Outside (which was what she called the world beyond the mahogany blind doors; the House was Inside), on spotting a Common Frog (Latin name Rana temporariam, size nine centimetres, olive-brown with yellow markings) who was in all aspects highly respected in the pond community, she would denounce it as follically challenged and, most hurtfully to the frog, strange.

While the frog (who had really been set upon quite unfairly, he thought) was ruminating on the unfairness of the human race and its narrow views on species other than themselves, the little girl and the little boy were called back to the House by the Patriarch, who had all the while been watching them, hawk-eyed, fox-during-a-hunt wary, through high powered binoculars. They have had enough, he thought, of green earth and sunshine. A bit of dark floor and fluorescent lighting never hurt anyone, he mused, all the while stroking a picture in an elaborate gilt frame with white, spidery, scar-ridden hands adorned by a murky emerald signet. Ah, Genevieve, he said to the woman in the picture, the woman in the chiffon flower-patterned dress, blowing about her knees on a blustery summer day long past, would that you were here to see our children running in the green green grass of the (at long last) plague free plains.

Meanwhile, the frog (who really was feeling very displeased), decided to go out into the wide world, to seek his fortune (which was what he told his dear mother, who, upon hearing the news, fainted, was revived with smelling salts, and upon awakening declared him no longer her son, then broke down into tears and begged him not to leave, and then, when the tears dried, accepted the news stoically and made ten lunches’ worth of fly sandwiches for him “for the road”, she said. All in the space of ten minutes).

But really, if he was honest with himself, he wanted to find a wig. A wig as majestic as a pharaohs’, as dainty as a lady’s, as uncorrupted as a judges’. A wig to impress the little girl (who was not at all a bad looker, he agreed with himself, while nibbling on a fly sandwich. Just a wee bit air headed, maybe.). A handsome, aristocratic wig to knock the socks off the little girl living in the shadow of the House on the (at long last) plague free plains.

Friday 14 March 2008

Must Resolve to Blog More Often

Or at least, write more often.

Must get proper journal. It's such a bitch to find just a simple, hardcover lined/unlined book. They're all either dated by day or have irritating little "inspiring quotes" at the bottom of every other page. Look, I bought this book, and I'm gonna be choosing my own quites, capsice?

Gah. I'm hiccuping again. I'm very supsceptible to hiccups. I suspect it's because I inhale my food. I read in White Fang (Jack London) or somewhere that wild wolves gulp down their food very fast because other wolves'll steal it right out of the slow eater's mouths.
Food is hard to come by in the Yukon.
I s'pose that's where to wolf [food] down comes from.

Just checked in the occasionally helpful yet occasioanally misleading wikipedia that hiccups are known to develop often in specific situations, such as eating too quickly, taking a cold drink while eating a hot meal, belching, eating very hot or spicy food, laughing vigorously or ... (etc, etc. Go to the page for full info)

ooh. Me hiccups have ceased. Yesss. And also, I read somewhere else that a girl once hiccuped for two weeks nonstop. Yikes.

Everyone should listen to Andrew Bird.