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October 27, 2012 //
0

When green asparagus appears in the shops, and shortly after when the deliciously red and sweet strawberries follow, then Winter is well and truly over! To celebrate the fresh arrivals, and as a small token of appreciation for all her work, I invited Mouse to the first strawberry breakfast of the season today.

She arrived with her little clipboard under her arm. I was a bit taken aback. It is Saturday and the clipboard reeked suspiciously of work. “There are only two items I want to quickly go over with you” she said apologetically, while I dished her up the biggest fruit I could find.

I had a quick glance and in her scrawly handwriting it said:

  1. Reminder: Lou and Philosopher due back tomorrow
  2. Cancellation email

Pretty small list. I wondered what she needed the clipboard for. She should have been able to memorize these two items. I guess she wanted to feel important.

1. Lou and Philosopher

With all the goings-on in the last week I have totally forgotten to tell you that Mouse managed to send Lou and Philosopher on the long-planned fishing trip. We first hatched this plan way back at Philosopher‘s birthday  in June. Lou was so in love with Skeleton Edeltraut then and I hoped Philosopher would be able to talk some sense into the puppy. But the weather was inclement throughout winter. Philosopher’s boat wouldn’t have been able to handle it and so it just didn’t happen. I was surprised, indeed, more than surprised, when they hastily departed last Sunday morning. Turns out Mouse had chartered a boat without telling anyone and then just said: “Well that is it: you two go now. Otherwise it will never happen” And they toddled off. Lou, the still love-sick puppy, went very reluctantly. Philosopher was out the door in a flash (not really a flash, but faster than his usually laid back speed – He loves the sea.) Problem is, Mouse hasn’t thought about who is going to pay for the charter boat.

I have to think about this one. I wish they wouldn’t do this to me. I am not a cash-cow. Oh, I feel a new puppet coming on. Yes, Cash-Cow would be a great flatmate for me.

2. Cancellation email

Mouse asked me who I thought wrote the email telling everybody the party last Sunday was cancelled.  She is very, veeeery upset that one of our friends would do such a thing. I looked at her and said: “This is a no-brainer, isn’t it? Of course it must have been Devil?”

“No, it actually wasn’t!” she rebuked

“What makes you think that?”

“He told me so! He was a victim here. He missed out on the party because of the email”

Everybody knows Mouse is a sucker for tall stories, and we often have her on. She believes everything and everybody. “C’mon, he is a devil after all. Do you believe him?”

“There we have it – you are clearly prejudiced towards devils. Just because he is a devil doesn’t make him a liar, does it? And yes, I believe him. He is my friend!”

“Oh no, not you too” I exclaimed resignedly “So who was it then?”

“I don’t know. But Devil told me he got the email and thought: Yes, rain is a good enough reason for her to cancel a party. After all, you cancelled the outing to the boat ramp because of rain!”

“Yes, but the party was in the house! Devil can’t be that thick!”

“That is besides the point. Someone has written an email to sabotage my hard work. I have worked my little heart out to pull off something really nice and on extremely short notice to boot. To be honest, I am terribly pissed off! So what are you going to do about it?”

Mouse jumped up. I have never seen her so agitated.

“I have to think about it. I don’t know who dunnit! I am at the end of my wits too if it wasn’t Devil!”

“I will leave it with you. And I want to see action, otherwise it was the last party I organised for you!” she said, and left without thanking me for the big juicy strawberry.

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Categories Art, Hand Puppets, Life, Photography, Relationships

Here comes Sunny

October 26, 2012 //
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Sunny has the most amazing smile. He is footloose and fancy free, but there is one thing I can bet on: A few days after a party Sunny will show up. When all the tidying up is done, all the left-overs are in the freezer and the place looks spick and span. It’s time to relax on the deck with a G&T. And then here comes Sunny, on the prowl for a frozen doggy bag to take home as a cheap meal. Usually his mum cooks for him, but if he can score a good frozen meal somewhere he is quite happy to give her a day off and treat himself to something different.

“Not many puppets around last Sunday, were there?”  was his opening line. “Didn’t you get the email?” I asked and watched his reaction. “I don’t read emails!”  He shrugged his shoulders. “Do you write any?” I inquired further, as all of a sudden I thought he might have uninvited the others to score a bigger doggy bag. “It wasn’t me, if that’s what you mean”. This is so typical of Sunny. He doesn’t even know what I am talking about, but he is sure it wasn’t him. And yes, most of the time it is true, as he doesn’t do much at all.

Then he told me he had hoped I would finally introduce him to my dearest friend Chance. If he had asked me before, I could have told him Chance wouldn’t be there, as she is currently out of town on a marketing assignment together with Foxy Lady and Clown.

“The crowd was pretty boring, don’t you think?  Isn’t  it always the same?… These puppets are so predictable… Professor and Pig get plastered… and this pompous git Ducky! Give me a break”. He was thinking out loud.

“Stop right there” I intervened. “You are talking about my friends!” And you are not the most exciting puppet either, I thought to myself, but stopped short of saying it.

He sat down next to me: “Any chance of getting a G&T around here?”

“

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Categories Art, Fun, Hand Puppets, Life, Photography

What’s going on?

October 25, 2012 //
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Thank God I had been warned. My reader Rae had asked in a comment who had his hand on Pig’s ear in the photo posted in Good Times.  My sincere apologies, as a publisher of photos I honestly don’t want to put anybody in the poo. I am not a papparazzi. It was an honest oversight on my part. When I selected that photo I looked at the expressions on their faces and didn’t pay much attention to their hands. Big mistake! But in my defense…when you are out on the turps you just have to behave yourself so much more nowadays if you don’t want to see any compromising images of yourself on the internet. But in this case it is slightly different, as Professor has now got his knickers in a twist, because he saw something he shouldn’t have seen.

Sure enough, last night when I came home from work Professor was waiting on my doorstep. As I had an inkling about what he wanted, I just jumped in and said: “Great to see you, can you tell me again about this email?…” He looked at me and shook his head. “It is not all about you missy, you always do this to us!!! We visit you and the first thing you do, is telling us what’s on your mind! We might be little, but we have problems too!” He really worked himself up into a rage here. I immediately backed down, apologised and asked why he had come.

He wanted to see all the photos I had taken at the party. He is suspicious there is something going on between Pig and Sunny. His biggest fear is being cuckold. Pig and Professor have been together for as long as I can remember and what a fine couple they make. After all, they are the poster boys on my blog. So I listened to his lament and thought to myself: jealously is a more likely feeling. Knowing Sunny, tickling Pig certainly  means nothing to him. Sunny is just an air-head, always silly. I would say, if he had five fingers on his hand, he would have given Pig the ever so popular rabbit ears on this photo. (I only found out recently the annoying V sign people make on photos are supposed to be rabbit ears, not the peace sign.)

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Categories Art, Fun, Hand Puppets, Life, Photography

The last we hear of it

October 24, 2012 //
8

I had to get up at 6:30 this morning to run an errand. Not my time really, I can tell you. I am one of those nocturnal sorts. But it was a gorgeous morning… beautiful sunshine. Secretly I have to admit, once I am up I do like the feeling of the world waking up around me.

My errand took and hour and I thought nobody had noticed me going, but when I returned, Devil was sitting right next to the door waiting for me. I was surprised to see him, as he hadn’t shown up at the party. “C’mon,” he said in his sweetest voice, “this is the perfect day for an outing. You still have a little bit of time before you need to go to work so lets skip down to the boat ramp.” I didn’t dare say no after my experience last week. There was absolutely no excuse, except that I didn’t feel like it. So I had to give in.

Skipping he did indeed… all the way down to the ramp. He ran, and stopped waited for me and constantly hurried me along. I even thought I glimpsed a little smile on the way there. But boy, was he disappointed when we arrived at the ramp. It was the totally wrong time for a visit. The landing lay in the shade, the tide was out, the water limp and uneventful. He could hardly hide his disappointment. I couldn’t resist taking another pic. Between you and me,  I will keep this one in my wallet. It will be a good reminder for him when he is overdoing it again some time in future. “…Remember Devil, when you didn’t speak to me for a week?”

At least he will keep mum about it now. Give him a couple of days and we will be best mates again.

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Categories Art, Fun, Hand Puppets, Life, Photography

Trust me!

October 20, 2012 //
2

Mouse must be out of her mind! I couldn’t believe my eyes this morning. I have to tell you the story.

When I woke up I heard a clinking and clonking from the kitchen and my first thought was: “Great, Mouse has everything under control. I will turn around and have a nice sleep-in.”  But then there was this shattering noise and of course I couldn’t resist any longer and had to check out what’s going on. Would you believe it? Of all the puppets… Mouse gave the job of cleaning my glassware to Push-Push! The elephant cleaning my precious glasses, my heart nearly stopped. And I felt like screaming.

“Get out of here” Mouse commanded when she spotted me in the door way. She was crouching over the dust-pan brushing up glass pieces from the floor. “You can’t be serious!” I exclaimed but I stopped short of telling her what I thought of Push-Push‘s dexterity. After all Push-Push was right there and it would have been terribly rude.

“Trust me and don’t worry. Push-Push is so keen and she can do it….”   Mouse said confidently and added “You don’t get that many volunteers these days.”  Then I discovered that she had given Push-Push all the cheap 1-Dollar-Warehouse glasses I had hidden in the back of the cupboard, while the heirloom pieces were still locked away.

Phew!.. Everything under control! Thanks Mouse.

 

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Categories Art, Fun, Hand Puppets, Life, Photography

Getting organised

October 19, 2012 //
2

I am going with Witch‘s recommendation and will invite all the Dede puppets for a social get together on Sunday. It comes in handy that it is a long weekend, so I should have no problems recovering before I have to go back to work on Tuesday.

But it is short notice indeed and I am not one to get organised in a hurry. I need my time, so I enlisted Mouse to help me. Honestly, if you ever have an event to publicise, Mouse is your puppet! She knows everybody and always finds something to talk about. She still believes strongly in face-to-face contact to keep friendships going. I think she should turn her skills into a business, but she lacks the necessary self-esteem to go out there and market herself.

I am very happy and grateful that she took over the job of inviting everybody. When I got up this morning, she was already sitting in the kitchen, pounding away on the computer. This is her only weakness: Writing emails takes a long time as she is a one-thumb-typist, but you should see her speed when she is texting….

Of course it would be even faster if the Dede puppets were on Facebook. They are resisting. They are very happy in their own little secret society.

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Categories Art, Fun, Hand Puppets, Life, Photography

Crystal ball

October 18, 2012 //
0

I went around to Witch‘s place last night. She is a brilliant mediator and I needed to confide in someone. Sometimes it is just good to talk to someone and the problems diminish. First of all she put me right. She said it is not always about me! Devil’s Advocate and Fairy Godmother are having an affair and of course Devil’s Advocate doesn’t want anybody to know because he is still married. So, their strange behaviour yesterday had absolutely nothing to do with me and they certainly were not talking about my case with Devil.

I discussed whether a puppet meeting at this stage would be a good idea, as Arindam suggested yesterday after I had posted the latest incident. Witch loves meetings and she says they are always good, but she had an even better idea. She said I should just invite everybody to a party at my house on Saturday. This could defuse the situation, no doubt. And it wouldn’t have an official feel to it.

Then she offered to look in her crystal ball for me to see how it all pans out in the end (of course for a  fee – she is not cheap, good old Witch). I shouldn’t have gone for it. Her best crystal ball is in the repair shop at the moment so she had to use her old one. That ball is so unreliable. She couldn’t see anything about me or Devil. All she could see was that Santa Clause will have an accident this year. This wasn’t helpful at all. Unfortunately I had already paid her, she collects her fees in advance and never refunds! It’s common practice, she says.

If I let the kids know that there won’t be any presents this year I will be in even more trouble. Sometimes it is better to keep your knowledge to yourself.

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Categories Art, Fun, Hand Puppets, Life, Photography

Paranoia sets in

October 17, 2012 //
2

Devil has left his spot on the sofa and is nowhere to be found. He is not one for being known as a gossip, but I have the feeling that all the Dedes know of our little disagreement that just got out of hand. Whenever I see two characters sticking their heads together I can’t help but think they are talking about me and how mean I am to poor Devil. Whatever I do, they all watch me out of the corner of their eyes and shut up, or worse, lower their voices to a whisper as soon as I approach. The situation is becoming increasingly awkward.

I wanted to ask Fairy Godmother for advice, but when I arrived at her place Devil’s Advocate was already there and they looked as if I had interrupted something important, their eyes unmistakenly told me: “Bugger off”.  I might try to win Witch as a confidant in this case.

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Categories Art, Fun, Hand Puppets, Life, Photography, Relationships

A rare find…

October 16, 2012 //
2

Devil is building a case against me… He says I neglect him and he wants to put me in front of the dede puppet tribunal. I am not too worried, (despite I am currently re-reading Kafka’s The Trial).

I wonder if Devil’s Advocate will represent him in court.  I don’t know who I could employ as lawyer if he does. Personally I don’t think  Devil has a leg to stand on, but I can’t laugh it off or take it too lightly. Devil is building the case around this photograph he found in the shed. He says it is proof I have taken Witch, Cat and Mouse on holiday, but I won’t even take him on a little outing across the road. He believes I am prejudiced towards devils. He wants to sue me for one million dollars in damages for my continued ill-treatment of him.

Obviously he has never been to Witch’s house, otherwise he would know that this image was taken in her living room in front of the horrible photo-wallpaper Witch is so proud of. This type of wallpaper was very popular in the seventies and obviously Witch hasn’t renovated since then.

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Categories Art, Fun, Hand Puppets, Life, Photography

Cancelled outing

October 13, 2012 //
4

The past week we had the most beautiful spring weather and I had promised to take Devil down to the boat ramp today, to catch a little sun and talk our puppet workshop through. For us humans it’s a little trip, just across the road and down a tiny lane and we are there. But for Devil it is a huge event.

Would you believe it? Every day this week I woke up to the sound of singing Tuis. Sadly, today it was the sound of pounding rain. First I thought Devil had his hand in it, but when I spotted him kneeling on the sofa gazing into the grey yonder I changed my mind. He is truly upset. He was all dressed for the outing. (As you might know, the Dedes have only five dresses and he had booked one of them as soon as I had told him my plans).

I had a hard time consoling him. As we say in German “Aufgeschoben ist nicht aufgehoben”. It means the trip is only postponed, not cancelled.

I do have an ulterior motive for the outing. I have to talk to him about how I should go about running the workshop. How shall I start the session? I am not sure if I should introduce the puppets by their name and character (as on the character page) or whether the participants of the workshop should come up with names and traits for the puppets they adopt for the session. What do you think?

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Categories Art, Fun, Hand Puppets, Life, Photography
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