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The end of dharna

November 17, 2012 //
1

We went to a function at the biennial exhibition NZ Sculpture OnShore last night. I really wished the Dedes could have seen it. But they are not the outdoor type. They can’t stand the rain. The exhibition is at Fort Takapuna, a disused military space high on the cliffs overlooking the sea, a perfect location for a sculpture show.  The evening was balmy with a slight sea breeze. The light wind and the setting sun played whimsically with many of the sculptures. It felt like art heaven… and on a more mundane note… we had the best fish and chips ever. I couldn’t stop thinking the Dedes should be there as well. I have to find a way to water proof them. They really should be allowed to enjoy the gorgeous view from Fort Takapuna one day.

When we arrived back home, a light drizzle had set in (heavy rain is forecast for today) and the Dedes who were on their dharna shift were huddled together at the front door. There is an alcove which gave them a little bit of protection from the elements. I felt sorry for them but didn’t want to give in just yet. Personally I think I haven’t done them enough harm to justify a dharna. So I just stepped past them to unlock the door.

Socialite held on to my trouser leg and asked: “Could we come in and sit on the window-sill inside to continue our dharna? It would be dry and people could still see us.”

I had to laugh “Nice try” I said “but no, that is not how it works… Maybe it is time we talked.”

As Philosopher didn’t want to be involved they had elected Witch as their mediator. She was more than ready to come to the table. In fact she was already there when I came into the kitchen. We closed the door so that nobody could hear what was said. Witch told me in confidence she thought everybody overreacted a bit and I immediately said I was very happy to apologise. I had already said so on Buchalov’s Blog. Buchalov was so kind to dedicate a post to the Dedes, and in a comment I said that it wasn’t a good idea for me to have told the Dedes they should learn a lesson from Buchalov. He is a very nice chap, but not a role model for the Dedes. (By the way, Buchalov, lovely drawing of Mrs Esta Blished, the fairy godmother).

“From now on, cross my heart, I will let you be who you are. You have some strong supporters out there in the big wide world!” I finished my speech.

“Only time will tell” Witch mumbled, but I chose to ignore this.

Then we continued to chit-chat about the exhibition for a while. We didn’t want the others to know that we were in agreement right from the beginning.

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Categories Art, Fun, Hand Puppets, Life

Let’s give it a go!

November 16, 2012 //
4

The Dedes have made themselves scarce after my outburst two days ago. I really think it wasn’t that big an outburst to justify their reaction. I just told them what was on my mind and you should be able to do this amongst friends, shouldn’t you? I wanted to give them an idea about how to improve themselves and education is always a good thing, isn’t it? But judging from their reaction I must have hurt them a lot!

Philosopher is the only Dede who still speaks to me apart from Bad Conscience (the guy I am not so keen on). Philosopher told me they always believed our relationship was based on mutual love and respect, but my outburst indicated that my love for them was somewhat lesser than theirs for me. But he added in his opinion there is no way you can measure love, he was only the bearer of the message. This is his style of telling me the subject is not open for discussion. He has no mandate to speak on behalf of all the Dedes. And he added: “I personally love you all the way to the moon and back.” It was heart warming and I had to give him a hug, even though he is not the huggy type of puppet.

While we were having our conversation something was going on at the front door. At first I ignored it. It sounded like an entire army of rats or possums or cats were running over the front porch. But then I heard whispering as well and I knew the Dedes were up to something. I had to ask Philosopher.

“They are doing a Dharna” he said. I looked at him blankly.

“They didn’t know either what it was, but Arindam suggested it to them. You know their friend from India? He seems to think it is an effective method to get an apology from you!”

He told me that after Arindam had planted the idea, Mouse had invited them all to the kitchen to look up on the internet about how to do a Dharna. They figured out a Dharna is a means to show the world that somebody had not treated them in a just way. So, they have to go to the offenders house and fast on the doorstep until they get justice or die.

I’m sorry if they got it wrong, it was their first attempt and they had to learn it via the internet. When they voted on whether they should go ahead, Devil immediately said he thinks it is basically a good idea, but with his love for food, there is no way he could participate. He suggested to send Skeleton Edeltraut to my doorstep, as she doesn’t eat anyway. Even though they thought it was a brilliant idea, they all agreed one puppet on my doorstep wouldn’t have much effect. After all, they all had been offended by me. In the end they decided there are enough Dedes to divide them up into groups and take 8 hour shifts. As long as Skeleton Edeltraut was always there, surely no passerby would notice that they had swapped. And then they went to bed to start in the morning.

The first shift is out there now.

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Categories Art, Fun, Hand Puppets, Life

Identity crisis

November 14, 2012 //
5

It is not all honkie dory in the Dede household at the moment. The Dedes and I are not on particularly good speaking terms for the time being. I told them about a blog I came across, written by the German artist Jürgen Küster. He writes his blog together with his Alter Ego art figure Buchalov (there is an English translation at the bottom of each post).

My very first thought (cross my heart!) was: Isn’t that typical, here is a man – all he needs is one (1) figure to discuss all the issues. Then here  I am (female) and I need at least thirty (30)! and still don’t come to a conclusion.

But then there are more differences. Buchalov is very supportive of his artist. As I understand it, he critiques the work of Jürgen in a helpful way. He is more like a mentor. They have deep and meaningful conversations, beneficial to the artist’s progress.

Oh, I wish I could have a deep and meaningful conversation with my lot, but no… intellectual the Dedes  are not! Look at  them, they are all over the place. All they want to have is fun. And when they get into a pickle, it is me who has to bail them out. No support from them at all. They are unruly little creatures. Even worse, whenever I say something, they say “Yes, but…” and then they give me this long spiel about why I can’t be right!

So I got a bit annoyed with them yesterday. I said they should be a bit more considerate. They are living in my house and it would be very kind if they wouldn’t challenge everything I say. Then I pointed to the art books on the shelf and said they should go and study for a bit. They looked at each other and said: “What’s wrong with her today?” and disappeared, leaving the art books behind. Only Philosopher continued his nap on the sofa unfazed.

“I will sell you all and only keep one!” I called after them.

“No you won’t” a voice from the sofa replied

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Categories Art, Fun, Hand Puppets, Life

We didn’t get the Award

November 12, 2012 //
0

Sorry guys, this might be a bit of a boring post as it reports about our “Full Dede Puppet Meeting (FDPM)” yesterday. We had to have a FDPM as there are a lot of decisions to make at the moment. At least you can read the report – I had to be there! It was an all day meeting with every available puppet present. Even Clown, Chance and Foxy Lady came back home for this occasion. There were only three items on the agenda, so you think it would be a short meeting… Ohhhh nooo!

Here is the agenda:

1. Face book fan page. Yes or no!

2. Exhibition. How to proceed.

3. One Lovely Blog Award.

Devil’s Advocate presided over the meeting and Mouse took the minutes. As we still can’t agree on the Facebook page and the exhibition process it was mooted to form two sub-committees which will have to do some research and present their recommendations as soon as possible.

The most pressing item on the list was the “One Lovely Blog Award”, which was bestowed on us by Arindam last Wednesday. A lively discussion ensued (see below). The puppets are not big on awards (I think that is a German thing) and I have written about it in earlier posts (sushine award and to award or not award). But since the Dede puppets really, really appreciate Arindam’s participation in their lives they have of course unanimously agreed to accept the award.

If you accept the award you have to do the following.

1. Link back to the blog of the person who gave you the Award.

Here it is… Thank you Arindam (who writes the blog Whenintrovertsspeak ) for the award and your input into the Dede puppet blog. We love your comments!

2. Insert the picture of the award

http://whenintrovertspeaks.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/onelovelyblogawardgraphic.jpg

Done!

3. Tell 7 facts about yourself

And here the fun started. They were all shouting out their personal favorite facts about us. And Devil’s Advocate had to call them to order a lot.  In the end each had to write down one fact and one fact only. Then every fact was discussed by the entire group (if you are a member of a committee you know what a labourious process that can be) and then a vote was taken on whether the fact should be included in the list or not. Once the preliminary list was done, it was whittled down to seven items. There were a few long faces when a fact was voted out. In typical Dede fashion there were a lot of contradicting opinions. One puppet said: “We have no vices” while another one had written down “We have a lot of vices” Believe me it was chaos! A few hours later we finally had a publishable list of the facts we all agreed on.

1. We are real (for some)

2. We are unreal (for some)

3. Some people go gooey over us

4. Some people won’t even look at us because we are too scary

5. We act on the spur of the moment

6. When people don’t like us, we just walk away

7. The motto of Dietlind (that would be me!) is: “Don’t annoy me, or the puppet gets it!” That is pretty scary for all Dedes!

Getting this list together was quite a feat. There were 33 puppets at the meeting, which meant as many as 33 different opinions.

4. Nominate 15 other blogs for the award

Here the Dedes slowed down quite a bit. They got tired of discussing everything. But of course they have blogs they love. I will recount what I can remember from this part of the evening. (Mouse had a sore wrist by this time and refused to continue writing).

Witch immediately suggested Veggietoria.  I am not surprised. Even though Witch is not vegan, she has – what others might call – some strange dietary requirements.  Witch‘s favorite site is based in Austria, unfortunately this means it written in German (all the Dede puppets are bilingual). There were a few other German blogs named, but for the benefit of the majority of our readers, we decided to exclude them.

Sunny the aspiring artist suggested Artist at Exit 0  This is an absolutely amazing project, really worth a look. Sunny wished he would have had this idea himself (he thinks that could have been his break through).

L’artiste of course loves anything arty like Fragments or  Chicquero or Anarty to name but a few. He just loves to look at sites to see what his colleagues are doing. He calls this his inspiration.

Professor and Pig are more for the funny blogs. They absolutely love ButIambeautiful. They suggested this blog, even though we already named it for the “Sunshine Award” earlier this year and we don’t want double ups.

Deutsch Fraulein (German Girl) piped up and said: “If we can have double ups, I want to put Mindretrofit forward. She writes such lovely poems, even though they are sometimes not that easy for me to understand as a second language speaker.”

Pirate the entrepreneur of course voted for  Cristian Mihai. I think there might be a bit of professional envy here :). Pirate would really like to push the Dedes for more publicity. But the rest are stalling him. They want to have a quiet life.

Philosopher loves the writing of Kate Shrewsday. Well founded stories and wonderfully phrased, that is his liking! Young puppy Lou on the other hand adores the stories of Alice’s Adventures in New York City.  Fairy Godmother, who fancies herself as a bit of a writer, admires Dianne Gray for all she has achieved and therefore follows her blog closely.

And then there are the photographic blogs we all enjoy, such as Photo Nature Blog or Little frank Photos or Patrick Latter with his amazing hiking photographs.

“15…” Mouse called out. We all got a big surprise, as we thought she had fallen asleep. “Lets go home!” In a flash she had put all her pens back into her satchel.

“Hang on, we still have to notify the blogs… that is the last requirement” I said. But Mouse replied: “It’s half past eleven now. I don’t feel like it. They will find out for themselves. Meeting closed at 23:30pm!”

And this is why we fell short of getting the Award!

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Categories Art, Fun, Hand Puppets, Life

Monkey as police?

November 10, 2012 //
0

I went to the pub with Philosopher last night. After all it was Friday. I was so annoyed with Bobby that I couldn’t stop talking about him. I went on and on with blah, blah, blah and blah, blah, blah. You know the story. Philosopher is not the right person to have a rant to. He just sits there, lets you get it all out, but doesn’t respond. And I have to admit that gets boring very quickly. If you have a rant, you want to have someone who tells you that you are right and who understands your problem, not someone who just sits there with his eyes closed, smiling mildly. So in the end I started to get annoyed with Philosopher. This doesn’t happen very often.

What he finally said – though infuriating last night – makes sense the light of morning. He said: “So far, Bobby has done a fine job in my opinion. If you want someone to bend the rules for you, you should have employed Monkey as a policeman, not Bobby. But then, Monkey would bend the rules for anybody who gives him a banana, not just you. So what use would that be?”

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Categories Art, Fun, Hand Puppets, Life

Puppy in the Poo

November 9, 2012 //
2

Mouse really should have been the first one to hear about Lou‘s confession. Unfortunately, I had sent her to a friend’s house on Wednesday to help with the new Dede dresses we have ordered for the workshop tomorrow. I rang my friend yesterday, but Mouse couldn’t come to the phone. My friend said she was sitting on the deck in the wicker basket sunbathing. So much for her help!

Now, since Bobby and Clay Head had announced they were going to interview us yesterday, I had to tell them that Lou came clean. I am not a gossip. I haven’t told anyone else yet (apart from you of course, but I trust you explicitly. I am sure you can keep a secret, can’t you?)

I cancelled the appointment with Bobby and Clay Head as their services were no longer needed and expected them to basically forget the whole incident and let Mouse come up with an appropriate punishment. Oh, am I naive or what? Bobby looked at me with his stern face and said: “That is not how it works, Missy! You called the police and you can’t just cancel on us willy nilly. We are not like a plumber and or an  electrician. We are the police! We have to write a report!” And out they got their big pens and started writing.

“But there are no lives endangered! It was just a juvenile joke”

“You should have thought about this before you engaged us…” lectured Clay Head, but was interrupted by a short sharp “Ha!” from Bobby. We both looked at him “Juvenile joke!…” he exclaimed “I have seen Lou‘s record… he is not a first time offender. He already has a strike against his name. Back in June he attacked Skeleton Edeltraut.”

Oh no, not this old story, I thought and said: “We never really solved this one. It was just a matter of two different opinions.” I remembered clearly, it went  on for ever with he-said/she-said and all the Dedes took sides. I was so happy when it finally got quieter around the story and I was so sure time would heal the wounds of all involved. I was surprised to hear now that it was on Lou‘s official record.

“Hang on,” I continued, “you can’t just put a strike against a name and not notify the person, or me in this case, as I am his guardian. He is still a puppy!”

“You have to make a submission… then we might re-open the case. You have to go through the official channels!” Bobby said coldly and continued writing on his report. It was obvious  I wouldn’t achieve anything here today….

Pleeeeeeaaaaase, give me a bottle of wine and send for Philosopher!

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Categories Art, Fun, Hand Puppets, Life

Unexpected turn

November 8, 2012 //
4

When I came home from sports last night, I crashed on the sofa. Of course not without moving Lou first, who seems to have set up camp permanently on MY favourite spot. It didn’t take him long to come back and hop on my lap. He was quite cuddly…. which is very much out of character for him. Usually he is immersed in his own thoughts and insists on his own space. But yesterday was definitely different.

After a while he asked sort of casually: “So the police are coming tomorrow?” I nodded while I had my eyes on the TV.

“What for?” he inquired

“Ah, you know, they want to find out who wrote the email to cancel the the party”

“What happens to the puppet who wrote the email when they find out?”

“I don’t know” I said, I really didn’t want to answer all these questions. I wanted to watch the news on TV. After all, America has been voting.

“Will the puppet go to jail?” he continued.

“Don’t be silly!” I laughed to disperse his obvious worries and stop his questioning.

“After all the police are involved” he said quietly to validate his previous thought.

“Hang on a minute.” I looked at him seriously but he immediately started scratching flees out of his fur. “Why all these questions? Do you know something?”

He was too busy to answer. I put my hand on his tummy and repeated the question slowly. He looked to the side and said “Maybe.” Which in his lingo means as much as “I know the whole story, but I am not prepared to tell it yet.”

“It was you! Wasn’t it? But why?”

And then he blurted it all out. On the day of the party, he had his cereal in the the kitchen. Mouse talked to Philosopher in the living room. Needless to say they weren’t aware that he was there and the door was ajar. So, Mouse asked Philosopher to take Lou away for the night, as Skeleton wanted to come to the party but was still traumatised by the shopping incident in June. Philosopher said something to the tune of it might be helpful for the healing process if Lou and Skeleton meet on neutral ground, but Mouse didn’t want to have a bar of it. She insisted! In the end, she said she is going to ring a charter boat company right now – knowing how much Philosopher loves the sea – and charter a boat for the two of them. After all, it was her responsibility to organise a great party and if she agrees to organise, she does it thoroughly. Lou has to go! She doesn’t want to have any trouble makers in the house.

Of course Lou was taken aback. He wouldn’t call himself a trouble maker (but who would?). In fact he had been looking forward to the evening and really wanted to catch up with Skeleton in particular. It was apparent that  Mouse had made up her mind and this wasn’t going to happen.

She shouldn’t have left her laptop logged-on in the kitchen. Lou just thought: If I can’t have a party, nobody will have one – and did the deed.

“What now?” He asked timidly when he had finished the story.

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Categories Art, Fun, Hand Puppets, Life

Poor Puppy Day

November 7, 2012 //
4

I should declare the 6th of November “Poor Puppy Day”. We all know fireworks scare the wits out of animals, but Lou has taken Guy Fawkes particularly badly this year. While Cat and Mouse are back to their usual business, Lou is still lying on the sofa under the blanket and feeling sorry for himself. He has done so all day yesterday. Okay, he is young and he suffers from mood-swings: One week he is totally over the moon and it is all happy, happy, joy, joy.  The next week he is lethargic and doesn’t move an inch from his chosen patch.  I have to be honest with you here, seeing the young puppy like this makes me feel extremely uncomfortable, as I don’t know what to do when he is down. Shall I just leave him to it or shall I talk to him? I haven’t figured it out yet.

Tomorrow Bobby and Clay Head will come around and interview us about the email. Maybe I should ask Bobby if there is a chance to train Lou as a sniffer dog. A bit more routine might help.

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Categories Art, Fun, Hand Puppets, Life, Photography

Guy Fawkes

November 6, 2012 //
0

Yesterday was “Guy Fawkes”, a bonfire night, an English custom celebrated in New Zealand – mainly because it is the only time of the year when you are allowed to have private fireworks. In previous years nothing much happened in our neighbourhood. We live in what some might call a lower socio-economic area (and love it). But recently a lot of houses around here were for sale and we got a set of new neighbours. It looks like the area is starting to gentrify. One sure sign was the amount of fireworks we had here last night. The street went to town!

Much to the pleasure of some of the Dedes, but not all. While Devil, Sunny and a bunch of others ran out in the garden to watch, Cat, Mouse and puppy Lou huddled together under a blanket and were visibly uncomfortable with the goings-on. Mouse pleaded with me to make them stop. I pretended I would do something about it, knowing very well that I couldn’t. But I hoped it would be all over in half an hour anyway.

When I came into the garden the Dedes were standing around in a circle and Devil was daring Daredevil to use one of the rockets as a jet pack. You should have seen me… I turned into a human rocket… This was definitely one step to far. Devil is grounded for a week!

Apologies that I didn’t get a photo of this incident. It was over all too quickly.

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Categories Art, Fun, Hand Puppets, Life

Oh, Bobby…

November 4, 2012 //
0

Bobby got his colours yesterday. It was a very nice ceremony. Congratulations, I say with a smile …and gritted teeth. I can tell you guys, I am very disappointed!

Yes,we all knew Bobby will become a policeman one day… He looked like such a fun guy while he was still at the Academy and we were all looking forward to having him on neigbourhood watch. But now that he is finished he turned out totally different.

Have you ever experienced this? You give someone a tincy whincy bit of authority and overnight they turn into real pricks and start terrorising their old friends – only because they can do it, because they have the power. Bobby seems to be one of those.  Yesterday he cried tears of joy for winning the election,  thanking everybody and shaking hands with every single puppet. Today he is a stickler for rules. He stands upright and has this “don’t-mess-with-me-look” on his face. All the fun seems to be gone. He is like a brick head.

I certainly hope this change of behaviour is because he is young and inexperienced and has to prove himself to the world… He takes his new job seriously and doesn’t want  to muck it up… – not because he is a red-neck idiot!

Only time will tell.

Maybe it is my fault, and I was a bit too hasty when I  said to my reader Whichwillitbe that if Bobby stuffs up he will be out of his job faster than you can say “boo”

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Categories Art, Fun, Hand Puppets, Life
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