Weddings and things

Despite her generally despicable record at making it to weddings, this Dreva actually managed to get to Kairi's and Archangels. Unfortunately, I had been testing a potion earlier that day and mistaken a left-left-right-left stirring pattern for a left-left-left-right stirring pattern, and, as a result, was a minor narcoleptic all day. So I was passing out on Xuvenia's shoulder most of the evening. But I was myself for parts! It seemed a lovely wedding, and, despite certain spectral interference, seemed to go very will. I missed the reception due to another passing-out thing. Also, Orchid's date, Professor Carnegie Hurst, retired, furnished Dreva with a bottle of vodka later in the day. Carnegie deserves our praise and acclaim.

What else has Dreva done? Oh, yes, we have a singer, who goes by the name of a well known and rather delicious restorative beverage. There have been more practices, and we have a few songs ready, we think. Hire us!

Dreva wanted to write about something else on Drevablog next time I did, but I've totally forgotten what. I'll write it next time.

Paaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaain

Dreva is a guitar player an' a druid, and she is in the Witches of Ribbit and the Druid Anticlan. These two have been causing her pain. Not emotionally, noooo. Me bandmates are sweet and loving and the Anticlan is, as always, a source of uncooperative joy. But physical is another matter.

Between band practice and playing guitar in my closet, I must have played for hours yesterday. The fingertips on my left hand feel like I bruised bone. I know you can't literally bruise bone. I am a professional druid, after all.

Which has had its side effects too. I've been continuing my ongoing research into delicious potions that make me feel funny (and benefit mankind and druidkind and almost anything but surgeon or SSGWkind.) Now, I know what I'm doing, but this is bleeding edge. Particularly the bleeding edge of my forehead after another vial has gone 'splodey on me. I have to keep the mirror covered up to keep it from being damaged in the explosions, but I think I may have singed one of my eyebrows yesterday. *mourn*

Also? *I* put the bop in the bop doo wop. It wasn't a man, but you can shake my hand if you want.

Band! Squee!

Dreva is in a band now, yes she is. We are called the Witches of Ribbit. I came up with the name, watch how I strut. Dreva plays guitar in it, with Friend Orchid on bass and little Aryia hitting things with drumsticks, except we have our very own stagenames to use, so we are really Pixie, or Pix, Pipes, or Pip, and Spud respectively. Yes Spud. It also means potatoes and potatoes are awesome, so don't knock it. We have an Ayda also although she hasn't decided on an instrument or hair colour yet. Oh yayaya, we have our very hair colours. Pix is blue and Pip is a nice shade of purple. Spud is red. We need a singer still, Dreva hopes to get one when drinking too much on New Year's *nodnodnod*. Bibi for now!

Squeeeeeee!

I've been a horrid Dreva lately, and barely written. Do not try to assure me of innocence, I know my guilt, and I shall bravely try to conceal my shame. But it is because I have been such a disheartened Drevathing.

The SSGW watch...such a good idea in theory. But I failed to realise that if they annoy me because of their pervasive influence then they, erm, are pervasively influential. We've not had great success. There has been a small, cold Dreva standing in front of department stores, trying to hand out fliers. I've spoken to other organisations looking for their aid, and the only one I've gotten on my side is the Druid Anticlan, and that's because I run it.

But I've heard that a friendie wants me to go ahead with founding it. So we will. Yes, we shall. Never shall our delicious and pretty and vaguely pine fresh goodness be vanquished.

In other news, I've spent part of my time being despondent about the watch thing working on me potions. And tending to the injuries of the village people. Not those Village People, although a construction worker, a sailor and a city watchman have all needed some minor poulticing or somesuch. And technically London isn't really a village. But you get the idea. I'm a domestic druid! *squee*

Utterly Unprofessional Introduction

So you want to join the SSGW Watch. Good for you. Or maybe you're one of those little stretchers and you think you're going to get information on the "enemy" now, hmm? Well, that's naughty. Put this down. Now. Put it down. And don't leave it open so you can read it while pretending to have put it down. I'm wise to that one.

Moving right along, let's tackle (or pounce, or flop, or whatever you personally do) some basic questions!

1) Where did the Stretchers come from?

A good question! Most *modern* Stretchers became one relatively early in life, generally in their early to mid teens after some sort of exposure to a vampire story and/or symbol of the backwards N (for which they seem to hold some arcane fascination.) Serial killer or demon stories have been known to cause variations as well.

The stretchers as a whole, on the other hand, arose sometime before you were born. Or after, depending on when you were born, really. Regardless of the when, evil noticed that it wasn't getting very much fresh blood. Well, literally it was. But not many people were joining the team. Their reasons were many, from fear of vicious entangles, to having to hang around evil people, to some trepidation at the compulsary "monstrous appearance," which generally meant that one's job totally torpedoed one's dating career.

What's more, they noticed that, inconveniently enough for them, those who did join were, well, *evil*. Evil people have a tendency to be bastards. Plus, getting any dungeon supplies or your favourite barbed spear that you lent them back was hell on Earth.

So in came a new idea. Make evil look sexy. While this inspired a great deal of backlash at first, management persisted. At the time it seemed comical for Igor to "dance," or for a seafoam green, bewarted (It's a word! I made it up myself!) witch to be showing leg, but it caught on over time. And now we're stuck with stretchers. Guess those old ones really *were* evil.

(Incidentally, this does not include Cthulhu and the Great Old Ones who absented themselves, claiming that they were sexy, you just needed tentacles, 1000 eyes, and an appreciation for blasphemous geometries from maddening realms out of space and time and sanity and thesaureses.)

Next installment will answer, "So why are stretchers a threat?"... or "How to evil-proof your herb garden for fun and profit but mostly fun when you watch another one of them get stuck in in that springy tree trap thing," depending on how I feel and if I can figure out a way to keep the trap from catching the postman.

Where have all the Baba Yagas gone?

Friend Orchid, in her blogthing, has pointed out a very disturbing trend: The SSGW (Stretch, Smirk, Grin, and Wink.) It is what the new generation of naughty people do. I think it is their way of saying, "I may be plotting to do some evil or another, but I'm still free Saturday night." Do not take them up by the way, for evil is about taking for yourself and good is about giving to others, and, well...there are certain arenas where those can be very important traits.

Regardless, the SSGW must go. Dreva is goodness and healiness and sweetness and therefore opposed to evil and stompiness and making kittens cry. What's more, we had a proper sort of evil when I was training, and I'd like to see a return to it.

Time was, you'd have an evil witch (there were good ones too.) And she'd not be a dreadlocked girl who wore lots of hemp, she'd usually be some sort of hag with an unusually crooked nose. If you asked her about natural foods, she'd say eating children was a perfectly natural thing to do, look at lions. Anyway, she'd cackle, and hiss, and look at things with a sort of evil manic gleam in her eye. In turn, good druids would go and smack her over the head with something or assail her with a vicious entangle and things would be done with. Of course, there was parity. I was a good druid, and I would pet the little fawns and heal birds with broken wings and generally smile and laugh and have a pleasant demeanor. Now goodness is always some new sort of brooding antihero with a tragic past who's short-tempered and surly and clich...rude with little apparent motivation.

But I'm not here to oppose good! I am here to fight evil, kyaa! Well, more like heal people who actually fight evil while I stand in the back where it's safe, but you get the idea. So I hereby form the SSGW Watch, in effort to find and in some way confront (or at least tease behind the back) those who are evil and Stretch, Smirk, Grin, and Wink. Kyaa!


P.S.- Coven are good witches, I am not saying we should assail them with vicious entangles. Many hugs to them.

More Doggerel

I was kinda bored and stompy, so I wrote this. It's not about anyone I know, just one or two people I used to know.


Shoot the poet, she can't write.
Cleanse the pages of her blight
And give me back the past
Five minutes of my life.

I've my own angst, I don't need yours.
And I wince in pain at "Saturn's dark pow'rs."
I've dealt with teenage angst by now,
But at that, I cry for hours.

It seems you've the illustrious fate
To with such poetic greats reside.
As "Little Miss Gothy Homicide."
And "Pretentious boy I used to date."

Most can't write, that needs no proof.
But at least they can admit the truth!
You think that you're the new Rimbaud
I think you're the new McGonagall.*

Now to be fair, I must admit
I seem to be a hypocrite.
But I don't write, I just scribble,
And I don't missay "poem" for "drivel."


*William Topaz McGonagall is considered a front runner for Worst Poet in the English Language. His work is truly awful, and he's been dead long enough that we can say it without feeling guilty. A lot of it is online if you wanna look it up.

Bring out yer dead...or at least get them on the horn

Friend Orchid needs to speak with her grandmother, and I agreed to help (although I haven't done anything like this in ages.) She's a little nervous about it since those sorts of...people are not exactly her thing, but I think it will be fine. It may sound a bit mean an' neglectful of her, but I suppose I should mention that her grandmother passed on a few years back. Soooooo...seance! (I'm baking the cake!)

Dreva, while not able to sense the fates or futures or whatnot (although there are a few old druidic techniques for those things, but I didn't learn them. I am *not* going to do *anything* like that to a goat,) has, at times, been a bit of a spiritual lightning rod. It comes from growing up in an old castle full of ghosts and being pushed down the stairs a lot. They never know when you're gonna come an' join them, so eventually they just give up and get to know you in advance.

I'm excited for the event, frankly. Orchid's mom an' dad were so very nice to a Dreva, and I've heard wonderful things about her grandmother, so I'm eager to meet her. So much so, in fact, that I decided to bake a cake in case other people come over. *bouncebouncebounce*

I swear I exist

I knowwwwwwww, I've been quiet a while. I really do exist. But I got sick (and you may say druid heal yourself, but you try getting a potion right when you're coughing every 2 seconds.) And then it was a bit of a spree on experimental potions. Then I started sleeping only with difficulty. But normal Dreva is back. I exist again. I swear. I shall write more later!

Orchid has her rhymes, I have my doggerel.

In London-town did Dreva-khan
A flimsy pleasure dome decree,
Where Thames, the filthy river ran
Through teahouses measureless to man
Down to a mostly bright sea.

So twice five feet of cut-price ground
With twine and ribbons were girdled round
And Dreva can't remember more,
Anyway, this parody was starting to bore.

==============================

A wave of lust has gripped the world,
I sit and watch the hormones swirl.
Some are breeding, some are seeding
Innuendo and glands do the leading.
Now I'm no prude or puritan
And I know the ways of girls and men,
I don't care if your mind is dirty,
But keep your hands to yourself
If you're over thirty.

==============================

More later!

Why do I drink?

Seriously, why? Whhhhhhyyyyyyyyyy?

Orchid had a gentleman caller last night. He didn't know about the "placate the roomate" ritual, where you bring them an offering, usually vodka, to sedate them and make them docile so that they don't start shouting and pounding on the floor/ceiling when you're, well, you get the idea. Ignorance is a sad thing, particularly when it means a Dreva has to pay for the vodka herself. Which she did. To be fair, since she paid for it herself, she drank it herself. The whole bottle. Feeling bad about having poured too much of the bottle into her stomach, she tried to pour some back out. Wanting to make sure she did it right, she spent an hour or so hunched over the "Epicurean Bucket." Mind you, the conversation she was having with Ralph on the big white phone (okay, not *technically* accurate here, but I like the phrase) did do a lovely job of drowning out what she believes was the second and third instances of not doing anything (she was making out with a charming Russian for the first.) But the two times in the morning. Hungover Dreva. Noises. Sober Dreva doesn't like noises. And I...she couldn't find her sunglasses.

I finally went down to make breakfast and see if putting something in my stomach would make me feel a little less like a wolverine had crawled down my throat and was giving birth in the neighbourhood of my precious internal organs. As I crawled about the kitchen, I noticed Orchid's gentleman caller making his ungentlemanly escape. You can tell because they're carrying their shoes. Anyway, I felt it was my roomately duty to make a halfhearted attempt to delay him, so I fed him breakfast. Pancakes and hash browns. And I had my revenge for the noise! I gave him the one slightly scorched pancake. I'd mention his name, but I don't feed and tell.

My stomach no longer feels as though...yeah, the wolverine thing. But my head hurts, and light is painful. And sound. Why would it betray me so? I have always been good to it! I think I am going to wrap this up and go wash my face, where I shall hope I drown.

It works!

I have titles! I've never had one before! Wheeeee heeeeee!

Maybe I'll actually say things later. Who knows. But a Dreva fixed it! *squeal*

Also, an Orchid has helped a Dreva make the site look nice and pretty now. Yay greenthings.

There are times in one's life where, for one reason or another, people think you slept with somebody. Perhaps they crashed out at your place the other night, perhaps you both left a party at the same time, perhaps you are just the sort who constantly has their poor, helpless reputation constantly impugned despite the fact that you are sweet and innocent and pure. It's an unenviable position, but there are worse.

Per example, the reason people think you slept with someone could be that they said so, despite the fact that they've never seen you with socks on, let alone naked, let alone slept with you. Now, not only do you have a bastard on your hands, but your protestations of innocence have a little snake working against them. This is what has happened to Orchidfriend, except in the oddest way possible. Some person has claimed that she has slept with them in the future. Or so it sounds. I was arranging my closet at the time.

While I've helped defend her reputation where applicable, I find that people who claim that they will sleep with me are best dealt with by making them change their mind about my appeal (assuming I don't agree that yes, they are going to sleep with me and I am going to love it.) My personal taste tends towards trying to fit Cthulhu into every sentence. Most people who love a Cthulhu joke are people that I like anyway, and the creeps tend to...well, get creeped out.

So, Friend Orchid, if you want him to go away, then you need to go on and on and on about that Great Old One, Cthulhu, who lies dead and dreaming in sunken R'lyeh (save for Wednsdays, when he makes his way over to Westminster for a few rounds of squash.)

Orchid's blog is prettier than mine now! *cry* I really should convince her to teach me how to make these things look like more than, erm, what they come like. But, you see, I have this problem with devices. I can't make them work. Well, I can, but only when you can make them work by creative application of the kick.

In actual news, I am doing my twitchy little best to smoke less an' less an' less an' less. Only three cigarettes in the ashtray next to me little blankie pile. Yayfor that. But I dun think it makes me any less sad about Orchidfriend's much, much better blog. *mope*

Society after we got back from Village Faraway has been dullish. Nothing to do, nobody to talk to, and Orchid's usually been sitting in the shop eating ice cream anyway. The other day we went out, though, and acted out Rime of the Ancient Mariner. Granted, I think it was cover for Orchid getting drunk and shooting an albatross. But it was exciting and snarky and fun. Unfortunately, nobody got the joke:( But it's okay, it was fun regardless.

My nose is running a lot lately, which is a pain when you're always working with plants. There are some I can chew on to make it better, but sometimes they don't work nearly as well as they should. Oh well, right? I'll get by.

Postcards from Orchid and my trip, for those of you who didn't get one. And just because I didn't send you one doesn't mean I dun love you, it's just that I had a private little war with our stamps that resulted in a lot of casualties


Dear Zillah,

We're on our way out of the Kingdom of Nowhere, or Middleofnowhere, or something like that. Orchid told me, but I was busy working on a new potion (doesn't work well unless you like green ears, don't ask.) They treat you really nicely there, but they do not get too many visitors due to an impenetrable wall of cornfields. Seriously, it's cornfields as far as the eye can see, interspersed with a cow or two. Thought it might remind you of a few places with that appellation in the 20th.

Your arms-length friend,
Ana (Orchid would sign it too, but she's still busy trying to get the horses to let us sing)

=====================================================

Dear Nadia,

It's hotter than hell. I think it's applying to join, because, well, yeah. Torment. Deserts should not be allowed, and an Ana is melting. Even the ground is hot and burny! I've been drinking so many flight potions to stay off it that my lips are purple! I tried to offer some to the horses, but even after I'd led them to a trough filled with it, they wouldn't drink any. Oh well.

Much love,
Ana (&Orchid, who is far less melty)

======================================================

Dear Xuviesweet,

We passed by a spice trader from a faraway land today (even farther than Village Faraway, where Orchid's from.) I decided to root around and see if he had any interesting herbs, and, as usual, spent too much. But I made an experimental potion, and it was very, very interesting! Orchid danced around and sang nursery rhymes while I ran about hugging everything in sight! I put a picture of a pretty flower on the other side.

Ana & Orchid

======================================================

Dear Nadia and Maha (hi Maha!)

A boat! I got to go on a booooooooat! Orchid says it was only a short cross channel trip, an' that's true, but it was fun! I bounced and squealed and enjoyed it till Orchid threatened to throw me over the side, then I got to sit around happily and read my book on deck.

So the picture is Orchid standing on the boat, and I'm there too. I'm just sorta climbing around on it, so I'm a little hard to find, but I bet Maha can do it! Yes, Maha, that's a boat! *squeal*

Ana Alexandre and Orchid Baeyond

Friend Orchid has lost her connection to the fates. This is highly badfor, seeing as it's how she makes her living and whatnot. It's even more badfor as she is the one who pays the rent. Our home is in danger thanks to some stupid book King Whitevoice brought over! It makes a Dreva angry, and you wouldn't like a Dreva when she's angry. No huge green muscles or anything, but boy does my voice get shrill!

I suggested we sell slushies to make ends meet while we wait for her fates or whatnot to come back. She got angry. I hid in the closet where it was safe. So other things must be done. She's paid the bills long enough, so I should really take responsibility. Perhaps I will become a freelance prepper while she's blocked, or maybe even break my druiding strike. Only time shall tell. Of course, I could always go through the old castle to see if the looters missed any wealth...

I'm now a knight of that little club, and have time to focus on my other one. Oh, and apparently I'm supposedly some sort of "royal explorer" or something. I've been diligently exploring the club's bar.

SB (tm) is going wonderfully. I forget whose idea it was to start a club where we sit around and do what we do anyway but feel a little more superior about it, but it was grand. We also managed to focus long enough to pick a colour scheme. Teal and purple compliment each other, I swear!

Captain Bondage has become Nadia's pet hellhound, or somesuch, and I'm very happy for my ever-creepy roomate, but I'm not gonna be the one who takes him for walks. The people of London dislike the shop's inhabitants enough without an Ana walking around with a boy on a leash and refusing to use the pooper scooper. I think I'll buy him a doggie dish though, and I've got an old, shall we say, "Epicurean bucket" that I can wash out and use as his water pail.

...beat on the brat, beat on the brat, beat on the brat with a baseball bat, oh oh.

Whaaaat did I do yesterday? Hmmm. Oh, right, well, I joined this little club with my Orchid and Nadia and one or two others. It's not a clan or anything, it's just a club where we sit around and do what we do anyway, which is kinda my specialty. Oh, and I got another rank from that other silly club, the one with all the English gentlemen who are extraordinarily susceptible to disease. But they've got free booze and tobacco, so it's a good place to have a bit of favor.

And hey! Zillah did something that *doesn't* make me want to call him arsebreath for a change! I'd kinda lost a lot of heart after my poor bag got lost in that cavern, but he got me a new one! Yayfor Zillah not sucking today. *nodnod* bibi!

So, good news bad news. On the bright side, my excessively somnulent phase has passed. So much so, in fact, that I was able to attain membership in some sort of explorer's club. They have free tobacco, so it pleased me muchly. On the dim side, conservatives. Ah, but I kid. No, rather, as I was looking for a fellow member's lost journal (I seem to have entered at the rank of "errand girl") I, well, kind of maybe got crushed to death.

...I got better. But all my things were irretrievably lost. So! Time for a new wardrobe! Incidentally, I got into an argument with one of Orchid's customers, the other day. I know, I know, it's out of the goodness of her psychic little heart that she lets me live in the shop and I shouldn't do that, but apostles of the inky blackness or whatever always irritate me. I think it's the perkygoth in me that rebels at such thoughts. So long, boring debate later, I threatened to beat darkness over the head with a metaphor. I like threatening people with a metaphor, it's something that makes most look at me funny and not think of a response. Oh well, bibi kittens!

I have been sleeping far too much of late. Well, it's not so much that I've been sleeping far too much as I've been sleeping at the incorrect time. I always end up waking up in the dark of night in the shop, everyone else asleep, and just me by my lonesome. I kinda miss being up and around when people come to visit and Orchid's doing business or people are adventuring and whatnot.

Maybe I'm just sick or something. We'll hope it's that. I think I may try to stay up during the day today.

I ran away a few days ago, but I am back now. Well, I was sorta back a day or two ago...but not quite. I was visiting my friendies an' all again (and Nadia gave me one of the bestest gifts ever,) but I was still sleeping in strange places. But last night I crawled back into the shop, curled up on a pillow, an' fell soundly asleep. Is good to be home, but I think I kinda had to run away for a little while. Every now and then I get ooky like that.

So anyway, lately it's seemed like the world has been going all 'splodey an' stuff a lot, but I've adapted nicely. It'll be nice to have it back to normal, but it seems like everyone has gotten used to the ookiness and gone about their business.

What else do I have to tell me kittens? Oh, yeah, a little while back I made a temporary break in my strike to heal Zillah in one of his non-serial killing adventures (well, he was killing, but not just for kicks like he says he does or whatever, these were bad people,) and last night he paid me back with a full bag of herbies! It's nice to be appreciated, and really, that sorta thing was one of the main points of the strike in the first place. So yay, one person got the idea. Now there's a whole two people on the good side! *sigh*

Oh, and I ran into Lia the other day, as some friends and I were wasting time in the Falcon Inn. At the time, she was looking for someone to be the front line to her supporting healing herb magic, but not finding any. It made me a little sad, given that even with my strike I can find people to run around with amongst my few exceptions, and Lia was like a hero druid back when I was a wee one! We really need a union. Oh well, bibi!

Hazy, oh so very hazy.

I have no anecdote today! It is a horrible shame but I have been in such a terrible haze all day. I was really barely able to leave the shop. But thas okay cauze all sorts of people were there from when I woke up, blearily crawling off the pillow and denying accusations of drooling, to when I went to bed, blearily crawling onto the pillow and preparing to catch whatever creature had framed me for drooling (There must have been something! And I shall catch it!) Nitenite, kittens. I crash and burn now and crawl back to my pillow (and no luck on catching that thing yet.)

Punch-drunk and otherwise confused

So I've kinda been crashing at Orchid's place for the past whatever an' all. My place doesn't have a bed. Or a roof. Or anyone I talk closer than like 2000 years. So I kinda started crashing there, and lately Zillah moved in, or started crashing on the other pillow or something. Big scary bitey-boy. Except he' s not much bigger than me and he can't make himself invisible or see invisible people or go places without walking (or even flying!) there. So meh. I'm not especially shaken. He is, however, an excellent drinker. And no snores, so yay.

I know, I'm small, I can't do anything on my own and I spend a lot of time standing in the back where it's safe for a very good reason, that being that if I don't, things hit me and I'm not especially robust. I should be scared, but, eh. When you're that small and running around slinging herb at people who are fighting things that have limbs that weigh as much as you do, you learn to not be afraid of things whether or not you can take them on. I have successfully not been killed by so many things now, I've totally lost track. So yeah, weakness and hiding as a path to courage, who knew?

Anyway one of these mornings, I *think* it was last morning, well, it turns out Captain Bondage can play violin. So he started playing a random tune, I think he was making it up as he went along, but the lyrics I know he was making up. It was, well, it varied, but the only one I can recall precisely is, "Ana is a sissy la-la." So I grabbed my guitar, started playing whatever sounded good at that point in time and started singing, "Zillah is a little sissy something and cries like a little something would." And it went from there. And it was ever so amusing, my kittens, my dear little kittens. And you should totally do it sometime so you can tell your friends about it. But if you don't, you can always just tell them that I told you this story and it may count for sommat.

So that was my anecdote. I'm told these things are supposed to have an anecdote. Was that right? And was that an appropriately thought out anecdote? I really can't tell, see, referencing the title for the very firstest time, I couldn't sleep. An' no, Zillah wasn't snoring, I just couldn't sleep. So I'm a bit confused and I'll write more about it tomorrow. But time to nap now!