NEW RELEASES
The anthem will be to the tune of Teddy Bears Picnic
Alright. Enough is enough. Today I am blogging in outrage.
One of the Canadian pandas
Just exactly what the hell do the Quill Sisters need to do to get a damn panda bear or two or three? I mean besides ask nicely which we haven’t actually done yet.
The Chinese government seems to be happy enough to just give them away to any old people. First the Canadians get two and now the French get their pair. How is this fair? Then when doing research for this post, I discovered the Scotts got some for the Endinburgh zoo back in December. What the hell?
Bambou avec du beurre, s'il vous plaît
There is no way the Canadians or the French are going to take better care of or love their pandas more than we will. Besides the French will just make it fat with all that butter and the Canadian ones will end up with that odd accent. Then when the bears go back to China they’ll get made fun of for
Alright, this is funny. We'll give 'em that.
saying all those weird “o” words like toaster. To make matters worse, the Scots met the poor bears at the airport with bagpipers. I’m certain that scared the hell out of them.
I think what the Sisters need to do at this point is declare ourselves a sovereign nation. We can make a pretty Tiffany blue flag and have an official state flower – the iris.
The more I think about this, the more I’m certain this is the way to go. Having our very own country would really solve a lot of our problems. Then all we do is apply to the US for foreign aid and we’re set for life.
I’m gonna get to work right now on the lyrics for our national anthem.
And you thought it was stuffy. Not!
For those of you who don’t read the Wall Street Journal because you think it’s too stuffy or highbrow for you, I disagree. Not only are you getting a clear view of the news, but there are really fascinating articles and, if you have a sense of humor, there’s some funny stuff there. Just notice how many times I refer to the WSJ in my blogs.
That’s where we first learned the word “kerfuffle”. About that word – I can’t tell you how disappointed I am that I can’t use it in my book. If you recall, I write Regency romance (London, England 1811-1820). One must be very careful not to have anachronistic words, ideas and the like in the stories. I can’t tell you how disappointed I was when I looked up the etymology of the world “kerfuffle” and it was first used in 1946. BAH! Too bad.
If you still don’t believe me that the WSJ is worth your time, then feast your eyes on this.
- “I know, but…” by Mu Boyan
This was in an article titled, “Arts New Pecking Order” about China and their emerging artists.
If you have a bucket load of money, you too could buy a sculpture like this to put in your dining room. That’s where I’m putting mine.
So, because I was curious, I Googled Mu Boyan to see what else he had out there. His sculptures are amazingly lifelike and I’m very impressed. But I don’t know if broadening my horizons like this is actually making me a more mature person because as I toured his work, I found myself giggling uproariously.
I dare you not to join me.
Now Ava would like to tell you that’s her after Bikram Yoga but there isn’t enough sweat and regardless of what Ava says, she’s actually nicely slim.
The sculpture on the right is actually me trying to reach the cupcake that fell over the side of the sofa.
It does seem that Mu Boyan is a little obsessed with either Sumo (isn’t that Japanese?) or of plump Chinese people. Do you suppose that it’s some reference to the 
Chinese culture emerging into the greater world as a super power and thus being Super Sized? Or that they are competing with the West and thus are becoming Americanized and fat?
Chinese culture emerging into the greater world as a super power and thus being Super Sized? Or that they are competing with the West and thus are becoming Americanized and fat?Or do you think I’m completely full of shit?
Whatever the deal is – the Wall Street Journal is some fun reading. Who’d have thunk it?
Our new “puppy”
I think the reason Ava and I are so obsessed with these cute little animals is because we don’t have enough to do at the soul sucking day job with Bank of No Forks. Also, what we do have to do is completely boring and 100% unsatisfying.
Today we found this picture. After an extensive discussion where I postulated a theory that there really aren’t anymore Panda bears. They just look so unbelievably perfect they can’t possibly be real. I suggested that China and Disney are in cahoots and that they’ve got a crack team of Chinese Imagineers running around the bamboo jungles of China moving around stuffed bears to fool the tourists. She said there was a video and the pandas moved. I suggested animatronics. You know how good Disney is with all that.
Ava refused to believe that they aren’t real and I’m unconvinced so we decided that we needed to investigate this more fully. I offered to look into the flight arrangements. I pulled up Expedia and typed in what I wanted: two first class tickets to China. There is no way I’m flying all the way to China in anything but first class. It’s nonnegotiable. Expedia wanted to know where in China. I didn’t know. The jungle-y part. The panda bear part. NOT the part where the outdoor markets try to sell you giant cockroaches on skewers to eat. I will NEVER be that hungry, I assure you. I stared at the list of Chinese airports.
Fortunately, right then the building maintenance man wandered into my office to spackle my wall where I tried to tunnel out using a wooden coffee stirrer and the butt end of my stapler. He amuses me because he’s about four feet tall and Irish. (It occurs to me that this post is quite multi-national. Good for me.)
I asked him, “If you were flying to China to kidnap a panda bear, would you fly
our new "puppy"
into Shanghai or Beijing?”
He didn’t answer. I hope he’s not a company spy here to see if I’m misappropriating Bank of No Forks resources.
I found a near perfect flight from here to Phoenix then London and off to Beijing. It will cost a paltry 21,990.00 before tax. Each. And, the way back we need another seat for our new “puppy.”
I wonder if the flight is cheaper from Rome to Beijing? We could work in Operation Panda Liberation right after we withdraw all the funds
in that Latin ATM. In fact, depending on how smoothly this whole thing goes, we may also stop off in South America for that prehensile porcupine and a llama.