Yesterday we went puppy-hunting - not with a shotgun, don't be silly, what a horrid idea. We went to animal shelters looking for a puppy to adopt. Unfortunately, that is not as simple as it sounds. We can't just take whatever mongrel we find appealing, because one can't predict the size a bitzer puppy will grow to, and there is a pet size limit for this apartment complex. Lizz has her heart set on a cocker spaniel, having found them agreeable pets in the past, but they're not easy to find. Yesterday we managed to determine over the phone that there were some cocker-and-something-else puppies at the county animal shelter (which was conveniently situated in the scariest suburb of the city, a place where little white girls like Lizz and me Simply Do Not Go), but it took us ages to find our way to the place, and when we finally got there the kennel manager had to tell us that between our morning phone call and our afternoon arrival, it had been found that the puppies had a disease called Parvo and they'd had to be put down. Talk about a bummer. At the moment, we have no more leads.

Kevin is coming to stay with us this weekend! Yaaay! I'm hoping he will take me to the Powerpuff Girls movie *^.^* Or maybe MIIB. He's coming down in his car on Friday night. Perhaps he can help with puppy-hunting. On Saturday there will be puppies at Petsmart and we can make enquiries there...

One reason why I am pleased and proud to be a New Zealander (even if temporarily uprooted from the whenua of which I am a Pakeha tangata) is that we have an official national wizard, whose duties, according to a Prime Ministerial proclamation, are 'to protect the Government, to bless new enterprises, cast out evil spirits, upset fanatics, cheer up the population, attract tourists and in particular to design and promote a new and improved universe which puts New Zealand on top of the world both physically and metaphysically.' It's that last, most ambitious part that I particularly enjoy. More countries need this kind of policy.

The wizard also has a small cat named Flopsie.

I keep having a strange recurring dream in which, yes, I am living in Alabama, but only on weekdays. For the weekend I commute home to New Zealand and sleep in my own little bed again. I miss my bed very much. It was queen-size and provided exactly the right juxtaposition of firm support and soft cushiness. My pillows were new and didn't smell musty and hadn't gone flat. I had a romantic white cloudy mosquito net canopy. Here I sleep on a fold-out sofa bed. It's also nominally queen-size but a smaller queen than my one - perhaps Queen Victoria who was always a shortarse. I just have one pillow and no quilt. To be fair the weather is too warm for me to want a quilt for anything except how nice and snuggly it feels covering you up, but it makes me feel a bit forlorn not to have that snuggly niceness. Also it squeaks every time I roll over. I am thinking of having a go at its underside with some WD-40 or something.

Today I cleaned the apartment very nicely. Floor is vacuumed, kitchen and bathroom are clean and shiny. I even wiped up the lint from the new towels, which is apt to collect on the floor under their rack and look a bit unsavoury. Breaking in new towels can be such a pain in the butt until they finish shedding. The lint sticks on my body and somehow migrates into the cups of my bra, where I find it when I undress at night. It is dark green.

I wish I had a small cat named Flopsie to keep me company. Lizz will come home late tonight, though. Then we'll spend most of this week putting the finishing touches on our costumes before we jet off for Anime Expo, which takes place over the Fourth of July long weekend. After we get back from that, we're getting a puppy. Or at least that is the plan. I'm afraid Lizz will be guilted into adopting another adult dog with problems, because they get picked less often and she feels sorry for them. Xander, her previous dog (mayherestinpeace), was a lovely person, but he had no teeth, he was deaf, he tended to get his legs stuck between the sofa cushions, and walking was not his strong suit. I've never had a puppy and I would like to find out what they're like, whereas I've known plenty of grown-up dogs and am less curious about them. I wouldn't mind looking after an old dog with problems, but I'd really like to see it grow from the beginning of its life before it came to that.

I have just finished reading this and I laughed so hard that I almost hurt myself. The Young Visiters is a novel written by a Victorian child called Daisy Ashford, age nine. It was published when she was an adult, with a foreword by J.M. Barrie (author of Peter Pan & Wendy, of course) and is one of the funniest things in existence. I recommend it to everyone and their friend Dave.

I think the Stone Soup people are making slightly too much of it as an example of literature by children, but they provide an online version of the full text so I forgive them. Please go and read it now and have some tissues handy in case your eyes water slightly.

There is also some information on Daisy herself at this page. Apparently she was real.

I had a very curious dream the night before last. There was a new Asterix book with an odd title: 'Asterix and the Thousand Mermaids.' I started to read it and it appeared that Albert Uderzo had finally realised he needed a new writing partner, but it was Neil Gaiman. Asterix, Obelix et al did appear, but only as a brief framing narrative that kicked off the story of a waifish mermaid who had been deprived of her fishtail and travelled on land on a lonely quest of some kind. Uderzo had completely changed his art style; it was ethereal, misty, mournful and quite beautiful. He kept sneaking in references to other Francophone comics; I remember the Smurfs being on one page. I never quite grasped the story because I was flipping pages in bewilderment, trying to figure out when this turned back into an Asterix book.

My sleep patterns are a pain in the arse lately; I can't go to sleep when I want to and waking up is a major struggle. The problem, obviously, is inertia. I don't want to have to dope myself in order to sleep at night, but sometimes it seems that's the only way.