Saturday, August 27, 2011

Bungee jumping

The gang decided to go bungee jumping. It was up to Ted & Ed to acquire the bungee cords. They all went to a fence with nice sturdy rails to jump from and lined up to go.
 
Emilio held on tight and jumped ... ~twang~ ... it was just a rope. He held on tight but just dangled there, no bungee-ing at all.
Next came Alphonso ... ~twang~ ... same deal. He hung there next to Emilio.
Then came Jorgé, Chico, Lola, Luigi, and Freddy. All 7 of them just hanging there side by side on their ropes. Another rope came snaking down and Gustave slowly made his way down it. He wasn't too disappointed because he can't hold on that well anyhow, but it was still a bit of a let-down.

Then Ted set up his cord on one end of the row, Ed on the other end, and they jumped at the same time. They had actual bungee cords and went boing-boing-boing all over the place -- up, down, sideways -- slamming into the others and everywhere, laughing like crazy.
Al watched from a tree branch overhead. Raoul sat on the sidelines below, just watching and shaking his head.

When the twins were done and all out of bounce, UpYours laid on his shell below them all so they could each drop down and land safely on his belly.

I doubt they'll go bungee jumping again, and if they do they sure won't let Ted and Ed manage the cords.

Wednesday, August 24, 2011

milking a cow

Last night they all went to a farm to get some milk. Emilio found a basket for all the hedgehogs, Freddy, and Gustave to ride in and Al latched onto that and took them all together. They were supposed to sit still but Ed & Ted ran around like crazy the whole time so it was a bit of a rocky ride.  Al tried to fly smoothly and straight but ended up veering off in every direction.  When they got to the farm he gently set the basket on the ground, then flew a little further to safely tuck and roll for his landing.

Before getting started, Alphonso put on a white suit (like the decontamination suits the CSI guys wear, without the face/breathing apparatus .. his face was still showing) to keep himself clean. They chose a brown cow so they could get chocolate milk and were very disappointed that it doesn't work that way.

Then Alphonso, Emilio, Jorgé, Chico, Luigi and Freddy all took turns hanging from and pulling on the cow's udder to pull out the milk. Gustave hummed to keep them in time ... hm hm hm hm hm squirt squirt, squirt squirt ... hm hm hm hm hm squirt squirt, squirt squirt ...

Ed & Ted each had a glass to hold underneath on a stool to catch the milk, running from squirt to squirt, but every time the gang took a break to see how much milk they had Ed & Ted had drank it all.  Once they had gotten all the milk from the cow and everyone was ready to have a drink they saw Ed & Ted lying back to back with bellies full of milk and nothing in the glasses.  Everyone was a bit disappointed and still thirsty but they had fun milking the cow so it was a good day.  They all piled into the basket and Al flew them back home.

Monday, August 22, 2011

The Order of Mostly Hedgehogs & Raoul

The Order of Mostly Hedgehogs & Raoul consists of mostly hedgehogs ... the "mostly" includes a snail, chameleon, turtle, and an owl. Then there's Raoul, who likes to be named separately. So let's meet the gang:
Emilio is the unofficial leader of the hedgehog group. He's a brown hedgehog. He loves to eat peanut butter and jam sandwiches and drink cranberry juice. He's very friendly.
Alphonso is Emilio's best friend. He's an albino hedgehog, so he's completely white with a pink nose and pink feets. He eats peanut butter sandwiches without jam and only drinks milk or clear liquids so he doesn't get stained. He usually wears a bandana or cloth napkin around his neck to keep himself clean.   Once his quills are dirty it's very hard to get them white again.  He's very environmentally conscious.

Lola is the only girl in the group. She's a showgirl, of course, and is a very good dancer. She's a regular brown colored hedgehog but has pink lipstick and pink painted toes.

Ed & Ted are twins. They're miniature hedgehogs.  They have to constantly remind people that "We're not babies - we're just small!!"  They love to eat chocolate covered raisins and drink lemonade (because it reminds them of poo and pee ... they're a tad disgusting and it drives Lola crazy). They love to cause trouble and move around by spinning very fast. They are always together and hardly anyone can tell them apart.

Jorgé hates it when people call him George. He's very groovy and says so all the time ("I'm so grooooovy!!"). He wears a psychedelic colored jacket, a cowboy hat and sunglasses. He likes gatorade and peeled grapes. Ed and Ted peel the grapes for him so they can eat the peels.

Chico is Jorgé's brother from another mother. He's also groovy with a cowboy hat and sunglasses, but he wears a green jacket instead of psychedelic colors. He likes fajitas, tacos, quesadillas, enchiladas, all kinds of Mexican food. He drinks milk to keep down the spicy. He loves to say chimmiCHANga! He's very good with the ladies and likes to say it in a sexy deep voice like "the layyyydeeees"

Luigi is Italian and goes around singing "That's amoré" all the time. He doesn't know the whole song, just sings that line. He loves to eat pasketti and meatballs and slurps his pasketti ... Alphonso can't sit next to him or he'll get splattered on.

So those are the hedgehogs .... here's the mostly:

Gustave is a snail. He likes to eat licorice but since he has no hands he needs someone to cut them into bite sized pieces for him. He's very polite and always says "thankyou muchacho". He's very wise.  The others often ask for his advice.  He goes to Mexico for Cinco de Mayo every year.  Usually he leaves in February because it's a long trip and takes him a long time to get there.

Freddy is a Chameleon. He's British and of course likes tea and crumpets (with flies in the crumpets). He has a slight superiority complex to the other critters sometimes.

UpYours is a turtle. He comes from a broken home where his parents were always fighting and yelling "up yours!" to each other, thus his name. His shell is very roomy and can hold just about anything inside it.  Unlike other turtles, he is very fast.

Al is a brown owl. He's very bad at landing ... has to tuck and roll. He likes fig newtons and cold beer. He has a gambling problem and recently got kicked out of Vegas for counting cards .... out loud.  
Then finally there's Raoul. He's a brown rabbit. He's very independent and doesn't want to be lumped in with "mostly" like the others. He doesn't like to be told what to do. 

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Emilio and Alphonso love to tell jokes. Their favorite is "knock knock" .... "To get to the other side!!" and then they both crack up laughing. Lola rolls her eyes at them. Ed and Ted think they're hilarious.

Ed and Ted got a wagon and wanted to hook it up to Raoul to haul them around, but Raoul wouldn't do it. He says he's not their Cabana bunny. Sometimes they use Gustave's licorice as a straw, but Gustave doesn't like that because it taints the taste of the licorice. They giggle crazily when anyone says the word "but" or the letter p. Lola thinks they're disgusting.

The hedgehogs love music. They don't sing (besides Luigi singing "that's amoré"), though Gustave sometimes hums, he has a very deep voice. When they hear music the hedgehogs stop whatever they're doing and just smile real big (no teeth showing) and bob their heads to the music. Lola and UpYours dance ... she obviously dances because she's a showgirl, UpYours breakdances and spins on his shell.

They all love to have their picture taken.  They think that when you smile for the camera you should show all of your teeth, so they sometimes look a little crazy in pictures with big wide teethy faces.

Al took Emilio and Alphonso with him on his last trip to Vegas.  He carried one in each claw while flying, then gently let them go before tucking and rolling.  Emilio had 5cents with him to gamble with and ended up winning $2.  He was rich!  Someone spilled red wine on Alphonso though, he had a big pink stain on his back.  Emilio wanted to bleach him to get it off but Alphonso would rather just wait and let it wear off.

This is not a very talkative group.   They don't sit around discussing things to decide what to do.  Usually they just follow each other's lead and do what feels right at the time.  Like if they need to leave somewhere in a hurry they all know that whoever is standing next to Gustave is supposed to scoop him up before running away.  The hedgehogs are good runners ... they have a determined look on their faces and usually run everywhere they need to go.