h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I was going to call this thread the Christmas Rat Race, but there are some things that even rats won't do.

The year is almost over, so I have an increasingly more limited amount of time in which to make tempests in teapots, mountains out of molehills (or the reverse), silk purses out of sows' ears, and similar matters that would be considered unproductive during the earlier part of the year.

2018 is so close to being finished that I can coast on my laurels (how's that for a mixed metaphor?). Or not. I ran the good race, fought the good fight, lugged tons of water to pour over ungrateful (and unneedy) landscape plants, and concocted very long, complex sentences beside which even this one will seem short by comparison.

I amazed myself with the fecundity of the zucchini plants that flourished in my front yard. The green beans that grew beside them also produced bumper crops. I savored every bite of this cornucopia, but alas they are ll dead now, and in their place I have sunk 18 flower pots planted with Coneflowers and cold-hardy azaleas. Next Spring then plants in these pots will be ready to take over the world, assuming that the rabbits can be coaxed into not eating their leaves before they get a chance to bloom.

Some of the posts in this thread will be conversations between me and figments of my imagination. Never underestimate such figments. They will give me enough material to fill thirty long Winter nights....

Jump in any time, Folks.

Tomorrow I will interview the last surviving Dodo. We will talk about the severe randomness of chance in the universe, gloating at all the times when we made mistakes but did not suffer for them, while getting shafted for getting things right at other times.

'Cos you asked so nicely


lil xx

No jumping for me today, falling on my face is more likely. Danged BP has been in the bin for 9 or 10 days. That mortality clock is a-ticking.

So please Paul, amuse with your twists and tales.

It's great to see both of you.

Tomorrow I will interview the rare dodo who escaped extinction.

Soon after that, I will tour a university for fairies.

Since jumping is also out of the question for me these days I will grab the liberty to edge myself in sideways.
How can you be so sure you will meet the last of the Dodos? According to one Stephen Dunkley there were 19,486 at the last count

Steve Dunkley has his figments of the imagination, and I have mine. never the twain shall meet, as much fun as that might be.

Now, on to the interview:


Interview with the Dodo

PAULH: You supposedly went extinct in 1681, yet here you are. What shall we call you?

DODO: If extinction is debatable, wouldn't the concept of "here" be even more so? In any event, you may call me TLD

PAULH: For The last Dodo?

DODO: Correct. Or even TTD, for The Talking Dodo.

PAULH: May I err on the side of optimism and just call you Dodo? No other dodos are here at the moment.

DODO: Okay, but I may err on the side of sarcasm and wonder how you will distinguish me from the other figments of your imagination?

PAULH: So noted. The odds against your existence are pretty steep...

DODO: Well, you should have been dead years ago yourself, but you persisted. I think we're *both* pretty fabulous and well worth listening to. What's your first question?

PAULH: Are you a marvel of genetics, or a pioneer in time travel?

DODO: I survived because of the many mistakes I made. Nature is petty random, Wonderland even more so.

PAULH: So you admit that you were there with Alice?

DODO: I was in my favorite cave in Mauritius. I knew that one tunnel led to a dragon, and the other didn't. It led to a tiny door, through which I could see an Alice. I had never seen an Alice before. Then I saw a little bottle with a label that said, "drink me." I shrunk enough to fit through the door. Then Alice made herself too large,
whereupon she wept. I almost drowned in her tears.

PAULH: I hear that Alices are now extinct.

DODO: I'm happy that I got out alive. As I said, I was in a shrunken condition. I fit through another tiny door, into a beautiful garden. I made friends with Reepacheep, a valiant mouseketeer who invited me to join the crew of the Dawn Treader.

PAULH: So you went from Wonderland to Narnia?

DODO: No. I made *another* mistake and passed up the chance. I met someone who advised me to go to Oakland, but Gertrude Stein discouraged me, saying "There's no there there."

PAULH: So Gertrude Stein was in Wonderland, too?

DODO: No, I met her later. As you can tell, I have no sense of direction.

PAULH: That's a pity. If you could remember where you've been, publishers would pay you millions for your memoirs.

DODO: Instead, I'm here telling you all this, and not earning a single penny for it.

PAULH: I would call that another of Nature's random mistakes.

PAULH: I'd like to thank Awix for damning the new Robin Hood movie with faint praise. He said that the movie was better than the recent Peter Rabbit movie. That's not a high bar to clear. I, of course, welcome the chance to take the lemons that fate has given me, and make something other than lemonade. Or, even better, something no sane person would want to combine with lemons

I present: Rabbit Hood.

RABBIT HOOD: Really? Why on Earth would you want to summon me? I was about to enjoy a lunch of fresh lupines.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qLkhx0eqK5w

RABBIT HOOD: I think you are stark raving mad, Paulh.

PAULH: You're a perfect fit for the role of lupine thief, far better than Dennis Moore. Why would he want lupines?

RABBIT HOOD: To eat?

PAULH: That's the point. You, at least, would enjoy eating them.

RABBIT HOOD: That's true, but I'd rather eat your coneflowers and asters.

PAULH: Well, I think that will be all for today's interview.

RABBIT HOOD: It's just as well. The Merry Men keep stepping on my toes anway, and they laugh at me because I can't climb up into the Major Oak.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Major_Oak

[EXIT RABBIT HOOD]

If life gives you lemons, chop down the tree.

Not that it matters, but...

"Exit" is a strange word. In Shakespeare, for instance, characters "enter" at first then they exit or exeunt (depending on how many they are. One word is English, the other Latin. Latin for "enter" is "intrabit," but that didn't catch on. The English antonym for "enter" might be "leave," but that hasn't caught on either.

I may be belaboring this point unnecessarily, but there are many areas where the words for before and after have some similarities. For
instance, Prelude and postlude refer to music before and after the main piece. Preface and postscript seem akin to each other somehow. Prewar and postwar. Preview and review. Antebellum and postbellum.

(yesterday I was going to imagine interviewing a polar bear after accidentally allowing the bear to eat me. This would have been an interview from *inside* the bear, complete with instructions from Saint Peter on how to get out of the bear's stomach. God does have a soft spot for helping fools, having created so many. But this never jelled....)

Paul..... just what are you smoking... hope it’s not bananas again?

I just bought a small bottle of liquid mesquite smoke today - nice flavouring for beef jerky. Perhaps Paul is the source of this stuff, and just been inhaling a bit much of the main smoke?

Let me go off on another tangent....


A Christmas Squirrel

Mrs. Filbert Crackit was getting tired of sitting on the riverbank. It was the best of times (for gathering acorns), but it was the worst of times (to be outside). Christmas was the next day, and a cold wind was blowing. Well, at least it was not a dark and stormy night.

Meanwhile, Bob Crackit was hunched over a ledger as usual
in the barely heated office of Ebenezer Squirge. He hoped Filbert
could gather enough nuts for the next day's holiday feast. Perhaps Mr. Squirge would let him have Christmas Day off so the family could be together?

"Our walnut exports were disappointing this year," Mr. Squirge complained.

"Pecans were a bright spot, though," Bob piped up.

Mr. Squirge glared at Bob. perhaps this was a bad time to ask for Christmas off? "Squirrels are fated to work every day from the cradle to the grave," Mr. Squirge said.

"What about those who cannot work?"

"Might you be thinking of your lame child, Puny Pistachio?" the old miser said, a glint of malevolence in his eyes.

"Surely, Sir, you would not blame a father for wanting to remember a happy moment in the life of his family, given that it might be Pistachio's last Christmas dinner."

"A squirrel who cannot run across a telephone wire is a disgrace to squirrelhood," Mr. Squirge snapped, "but I've read the rest of this story, and the ghosts will give me no peace if I don't grant your request. Just remember that Little Pistachio will prick his finger on the spindle of a spinning wheel on his sixteenth birthday and die! Unless that cockamamie author steals an even crazier plot twist in the next paragraph."

All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way, Bob Crackit mused as he swept the floor prior to going home for the day.

Meanwhile, Mr. Squirge was musing that you are what you eat, and squirrels mainly eat nuts. In the beginning there was the word. Then more words, and finally too many words. Bah, Butternut! He went straight home without stopping for food. There were stale peanuts in the pantry....

And for a special celebration of the worst of days for the lowest of the lows - aka the Crackits - there was that small cache of butternuts (walnuts) that arrived without orders, and were entirely off of the books.

Obviously a shell game! Or, much ado about nutting.

(This is not a serious thread. ;- ))

Actually, those peanuts had gone a bit past the stale stage, but Mr. Squirge believed in letting nothing go to waste. Perhaps that was his downfall, for in the middle of he night he as awakened by the sound of heavy branches rubbing against the walls of the room, and an equally unsettling sound of acorns rustling.

He sat up and beheld a sight fit to freeze his blood. It was Jacob Gnarly, the ancient oak tree in whose hollow trunk Squirge had had his first office.

"Repent, Squirge!" Gnarly said in a scratchy voice. "I was too attached to my acorns, never wishing to let them drop to the ground and start new trees. Now they weigh me down for all eternity."

"How is it possible for you to even be here?" Squirge protested. "The last I saw of you was a log that I put into my fireplace."

"What part of 'I'm a ghost' don't you understand?"

"Well, this is a story by Paulh, so I doubt that even *he* understands half of it."

"Good point," Gnarly admitted. "Trust him to be somewhat lazy, though. There are supposed to be three more ghosts. Chances re, he will have them come together, briefly show you how silly your life has been, and then rush off for afternoon coffee together."

Gnarly's words were strangely prophetic. Or maybe they were prophetically strange. In any event, Squirge could hear distant, high-pitched singing:

"Christmas, Christmas time is here,
Time for toys and time for cheer..."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1B0eIdwFvI

The singing grew closer:
"I want a plane that loops the loop.
Me, I want a hula hoop."

Finally Squirge remembered his teenage years in the 1960s. He even remembered a hula hoop that he used to use. Could he ever have been that young and feckless? Then he realized who the singers were, and he groaned.

"The chipmunks?!" he exclaimed. They aren't even proper squirrels, even assuming they weren't animations.

"Chipmunks are ground squirrels," Simon corrected him. "And for your information, even animated chipmunks like us have more life than you have, you dried up old sourpuss."

"Flattery will get you nowhere," Squirge rasped.

"Well, we've shown him Christmas past with our song," Theodore said.

"And we see Christmas present," Simon added.

Simon and Theodore looked expectantly at Alvin. "This is your chance to show Squirge the lonely tomb Squirge will end up in," Simnon whispered in Alvin's ear.

Alvin did his best, but Squirge wasn't buying. "Sorry, guys, but I'm with Gnarly. I look forward to the afterlife with him, nibbling on all those acorns that dangle from his branches."

"Not the outcome we were hired to achieve," Theodore groaned. Jacob Gnarly groandi n the background.

"Well, what did you expect from a squirrel?" Squirge said. "A squirrel is born to hoard everything he touches."

"He has a point," Sion whispered to Simon, who shrugged.

The end, or what passes for one.

So, paulh, reverened Nick told me: " Last year ... had some venison jerky, thanks to a dart-playing buddy."

So naturally I asked him: "Your buddy killed venison with darts?"

So Real Nick Keip answered: "He is very good, one single dart and game is over."

So I say: "One dart and game over? I see what you did there
Can't wait to tell paulh"

An he then says: "You tell him, and he then tell you - - - "the rest of the story". (North Americans will get that)"

You're welcome!

"The rest of the story" is a phrase by an American radio personality who happened to have the same name as mine.

Deer is a type of wild game.

I'm not sure if there's a tame form of game....

I would guess that the only tame sort would be found at petting zoos and protective farms. I imagine that it would be rather flat of taste without the wild diet.

And actually, my dart-playing buddy most often hunts with a bow, being somewhat more sporting than using a rifle from a quarter of a mile away.

And now YOU know the rest of the story.

Hehehe, yes I do. Thanks

I asked my neighbour, Mr. Roebuck, if he wanted to go on a hunt with me.
He answered: "Sure, I'm game".