Tag Archives: Pet

The New Princess

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We’ve adopted a new Princes.  Princess (Name To Be Determined) Pricklepants.  The Council hasn’t come to a decision on a final name.  Some candidates are:

Perdita

Pepita

Petunia

Poopopotomus

Persephone

Primrose

Prudence

Her Highness is eating and drinking in her new home, and enjoyed anointing the hand servants with the two offerings.

As a result, she’s already had her first bath:

bath

The princess also been given her first lesson:

DSC_0096

“Wait, you want me to do what!?”

 

DSC_0092

No!  No!  No no no!

DSC_0103

“Hold on, I’m busy checking email.”

DSC_0088

“Heh, nobody will ever find me here.”

Her place upon the throne has been secured.  More updates to come.

Princess Pricklepants, Winning Hearts and Minds

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Dear readers, our introduction will be brief for this, our latest blog post.

We are required to mention the existence of superb, compelling t-shirts that you clearly want:

Bat-Hog
Bat-Hog
Delightful Hedgehog
Delightful Hedgehog
Big Hogs
Big Hogs
Hedgehog Haiku
Hedgehog Haiku

 

Bat-Hog, Delightful, Big Hogs, Haiku

Feel their powerful draw, can you resist?

With that complete, we begin our story with a picture with words under it.

hedgehog at tea

Princess Pricklepants and friends were sitting in a new meeting about Her Highness’ presidential campaign.  They were gaining some supporters, but humans had a strange tendency to support one of the human candidates, despite her clearly being an ideal presidential candidate.

“Item one,” said Jane, “so far we haven’t sold any shirts.”

“The shirts are so delightful, this is a real puzzle,” said Her Highness.

delightfulshirt

“I feel like I’m living in a shameless marketing ploy,” said Boris.

“Deal, Mr. Existential. Anyway, they’ve only been up for a day, maybe we need to wait,” said Jane.

“Okay, so what can we do to win more voters,” Princess asked?

“I know what to do,” said Boris, “forget the humans, they’re fickle.  We need woodland creature support.”

Jane protested, “What about farm animals?  The cow vote is critical.”

“Cows never vote,” said Boris, “they’re sheep.”

While the others were bickering, Princess wandered off to go on Twitter, which was where presidents were made these days.  It seemed like just the sort of place for calm, mature discussions of political matters.

hedgehog reading boingboing

She decided to check in with the squirrels there, since squirrels were a key part of the small furry mammal base she wanted to win over.  She also had read a book about squirrels that she found deeply delightful for some reason.

1941346_886587401366880_3174169183037743045_o

In the Twitterverse, she found a politically engaged squirrel, and was delighted…

Wisconsin’s primaries were winding up, and she was excited to see the news about her support from squirrels there.  She didn’t want to hurt any squirrels feelings, so she apologized politely while sharing the news of her support.

The count was ongoing…

Happily, the final count put hedgehogs clearly in the lead:

For some reason there was skepticism.

Her Highness politely pointed to science to help the misguided:

Sadly a minority of squirrel extremists read some misinformation on the internet and became very upset.

But truth reigned supreme.

Sadly, it was clear that some squirrels were reading fringe conspiracy theory web sites…

While most squirrels supported Her Highness, these particular squirrels were less enthusiastic.  And definitely not polite.

Things got even more disappointing…

Disappointing, and clearly rooted in a handful of species-ists.

She realized that she had to reach out to squirrels with kindness and politeness to try to build bridges and promote inter-species understanding.

This worked out, squirrel polls showed even better numbers, so it was time to reach out to other woodland creatures.

With knowledge that support from squirrels, mice, and opossums was growing, she thought about the next core demographics for support – bunnies, guinea pigs, and chinchillas, but was a little tired.  She went back to the living room.  Jane and Boris were still arguing about cows voting. She got some tea, and went to bed.

bedtime

She was really not looking forward to the New York and California primaries…

Princess Pricklepants, Magnificent Mender of Monkey Manners

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Dear reader, hopefully you were led here from this post’s immediate antecedent. Due to technical reasons far too risky to explain, we shall now only refer to that previous post as The Post That Must Not Be Named.  Still, there’s happy news – those previous complications, digressions, and Dark Arts can now be left behind (provided they are never discussed, explained, or named).

And so we begin with our first picture with words under it.

DSC_0935Princess Pricklepants was profoundly pleased.  After a complicated series of events and delays (which must not be discussed, explained, or named), she was finally able to fulfill her supreme destiny in teaching a monkey all the things a monkey should know – politeness, manners, and grace at a tea party (well, there was also dancing, singing, and proper diction, but those were a digression, and at this point Her Highness had become very suspicious of digressions). The tea was set out, there were some nice snacks, and she had her artful friend Artemisia as a model manners  assistant. There was even a fancy chair for the monkey. Things were going swimmingly.

Now all she had to do was teach the monkey.  She’d been so busy with email and avoiding meetings that she’d overlooked making a lesson plan. She decided to wing it as delightfully as possible.

“Now Monkey, um, let’s see.  To be polite, one should use the term ‘one’ instead of ‘you’, smile nicely (as I and Artemisia always do), and also… Hmm…”  She thought about having Monkey walk with a book balanced on the head to teach grace and poise, but that really didn’t seem like the right thing to do around cups of tea.  Enunciation lessons would be frustrating since Monkey didn’t speak English like a normal hedgehog, bear, or cow. At a loss, she decided to google something polite to do at tea parties.

DSC_0928Puzzlingly, when she looked up ‘Tea Party’ on google, the results were utterly bizarre and distressingly impolite.  Google was clearly confused, it seemed to be looking into some strange and rather grumpy alternate reality she was pleased to be no part of.

With no help from the internet, she bravely forged ahead. She began a lesson showing Monkey how to make a plate of treats with impeccable manners. Surely this would be a simple and foolproof lesson.

DSC_0947

She illustrated daintily placing a treat on a plate with grace and poise. Next came Monkey’s turn.

DSC_0948Unfortunately there was a mishap. But in every mishap, there’s an opportunity to be polite and helpful. “Oh dear, Monkey, are you okay? Let me help you back up.” She politely helped Monkey back to the seat. Monkey got back on the seat but at this point, things took a turn towards the complicated, as reality cruelly conspired against etiquette lessons.

DSC_0964Monkey sat upon the chair, but in a sense that was not so much “upon” as “upon, but in the entirely wrong way.” Monkey sat in a manner sadly lacking in refinement and sophistication. Princess politely looked away to give Monkey the chance to correct the posture problems.

In retrospect, looking aside was a poor choice. While looking anywhere but at the monkey, she noticed the wonderful beckoning dark space under the table. The beautiful, hypnotic, irresistible dark space. The allure was strong, so she decided to gracefully climb under the table.

DSC_0970She felt wonderfully sublime exploring this mysterious and fascinating new space, but the monkey posture problem remained. She had to think of a solution. She thought, and realized the solution. It was incredibly simple and elegant. “Monkey, perhaps you’d like to look under the table? It’s so lovely to crawl around there, and it’s so polite and refined,” she helpfully suggested.

DSC_0977It a was a perfect solution. The posture problems were in the past. There was a slight down side, though. The monkey’s trip under the table left Artemisia inexplicably distressed. Princess Pricklepants felt great concern. She tried to comfort her artful model friend.

DSC_0991Some aspects of this may have comforted her friend (though the quill stabbing aspect was much too uncomfortable to be very comforting), but it had an unfortunate complicating effect. Monkey noticed that comforting Artemisia looked incredibly fun and decided to try it too.

DSC_0983 (7)

Unfortunately, despite the monkey’s best efforts at being comforting, the end result was somehow not comforting at all, but distressing.

At this point Artemisia needed additional comforting due to these attempts at comforting. Princess politely jumped in great enthusiasm to offer aid and comfort. The outcome was truly memorable, which is the hallmark of a good party, so it worked out really well.

DSC_0995

There was one tiny issue. She may have jumped in a little too enthusiastically, since bits of party ended up strewn across the floor. Still, there was a happy side, since some cookies had fallen to the floor. With the floor cookies she could both practice and illustrate her manners at not eating off the ground (challenge level: extreme), and there was added bonus – she could say “excuse me” for the minor faux pas.

While the incident had many wonderfully polite and delightful aspects for Her Highness, there was one very, very unfortunate side effect. In clambering across the table, she spotted something with an allure even greater than the magnificent sub-table space. Out of the corner of her eye she spotted the wonderful, enticing, tantalizing Gap Under The Sofa (so delightful it had to be capitalized). An irresistible space with an allure so tempting that there was only one possible polite pursuit.

DSC_0997

Clambering under the couch was so fantastically, irresistibly polite that Monkey, as a new student of politeness, joined in happily. This pleased Her Highness to no end. These manners lessons were going so well!

DSC_1000

With Her Highness sniffing under the sofa in the most refined and delightful way she could manage, and with Monkey following suit, her heart swelled. Her charge in charm training was clearly getting the knack of politeness, grace, and delightful things! Monkey Manners Mission Accomplished!

And with that happy ending, she was as delighted as could be. Clearly Monkey had seen that manners are fun and would now behave like a proper monkey. With a bit of work at balancing books on heads, a bit of refinement of diction, and perhaps some ballroom dancing lessons, things would be peachy. Now she just had to get those chickens in shape.

Coming soon in our next episode:  Will the monkey manners be maintained?  Will the chickens learn civility? What happened to the skunk?  Will the story shift in some other unrelated direction pretending none of this ever happened?  Will the author lighten up on the adjective extravagance? Will the crocodiles (or is it alligators?) return? These and other questions may or may not be answered in Princess Pricklepants and the Chicken Charm School (working title – subject to change).

 

Princess Pricklepants and the Mystery of Monkey Manners

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(previously)

Dear reader,

Please be advised that the following story contains graphic self-referentiality. Younger readers and those sensitive to chronic self-reference exposure might experience dizziness, confusion, and mild irritation when reading this post. Precautionary meta-measures should be taken, though were we to mention them, this in itself could trigger acute self-referentialititis in those afflicted.

Since this is a longer post somewhat past the bounds of prudence and justice in hedgehog-blog related literature, we’ll keep this preamble brief except for this one item of note: Someone came to this blog from a search for “how can make the models of cow & duck from waste materials.” We feel like someone who suddenly found a mysterious doorway in their home that they’d never noticed before. This opens new dimensions.

And now, our first picture with words under it.

PP and Boris“Good morning, Boris.”

“Good morning, Your Highness. I notice that we’re in a standard two character intro.  Lovely!  Things are looking nicely normal for the literary form. I assume we’ll be briefly describing an important detail of the plot’s conflict to the audience mixed with a bit of light banter to set the mood?”

“Not sure what you mean about standard intros, but I was just having some tea and sitting here working out my plan for Monkey.”

“Ah, yes, Monkey. Have you read my latest blog post on Monkey?”

“You have a blog?”

“How could you not know this?  I email links to it every time I post something… It’s a handy way for me to explain my displeasure at certain cows and other figures in a delightfully indirect way. I just skip sending links to the annoying… Uh… So, yes, eh, I have a boring blog.  You shouldn’t read it. Very dull.”

“Ah.”

“So, the monkey business?”

“Yes, I have a perfectly pleasant plan to promote politeness and philanthropy in our primate pal.”

“Interestingly, I wrote on my blog about alliteration recently…  Anyway, you’re going to send Monkey to a zoo?”

“No. I’ve realized the error of my ways. The key is the tea. That’s what I always say now. So we’ll have a lovely and tasteful tea party. Monkey will be pleased, delighted, and educated.”

“Do those three words usually go together?”

“Yes. Now you too are pleased, delighted, and educated.”

“You know, I suddenly have a new blog post to work on. Good day.”

PP and Jane

Jane entered in a way no adjectives could properly describe, so no description was offered. “So, the meeting. You ready? I’ve got a few new items. I found an amazing way to make models of ducks and cows from scrap paper! Oh, also it turns out the bear has a blog where he talks about us and how we’ve annoyed him. One of the chickens forwarded me a link.”

“Oh, maybe we could not have the meeting today? I have plans. Tea party plans with the monkey. It will be luminous.”

“So you’re really skipping an important meeting where you can contribute valuable time and resources to go have a tea party with a monkey?”

“It’s to teach Monkey manners.”

“I thought we were going to get that monkey a job. We’ll be going over this in the meeting we all really should be attending.”

“Would you mind holding on just a moment? I need to send a quick email.”

Checking Email

To: theprincess@princesspricklepants.com 
From: theprincess@princesspricklepants.com 
Subject: A Missive on Manners in Meetings

I have some incredibly important business to attend to teaching a monkey proper primate etiquette, but to do so would require skipping a meeting. Is it polite to skip meetings if it’s for the purpose of furthering a great and noble cause?
-PP

To: theprincess@princesspricklepants.com 
From: theprincess@princesspricklepants.com 
Subject: Re: A Missive on Manners in Meetings

Dear Somewhat Impolite Nickname,
Pursuing the promotion of proper politeness is a perennially perfect and proper plan. Perhaps you could try telling the meeting organizer you’re busy and see if they can reschedule.
-Princess Pricklepants

To: theprincess@princesspricklepants.com 
From: theprincess@princesspricklepants.com 
Subject: Re: A Missive on Manners in Meetings

What if they don’t agree?
-PP

To: theprincess@princesspricklepants.com 
From: theprincess@princesspricklepants.com 
Subject: Re: A Missive on Manners in Meetings

Dear Still Inexplicably Using That Somewhat Impolite Nickname,
Mention that they skipped the meeting yesterday. Note that there’s clearly some flexibility in scheduling.
-Princess Pricklepants

To: theprincess@princesspricklepants.com 
From: theprincess@princesspricklepants.com 
Subject: Re: A Missive on Manners in Meetings

Oh, that’s a great idea. But how did you know about the rescheduling? Oh, wait, you must read my blog…
-Princess Pricklepants

“Say, Jane, could we reschedule the meeting?”

“I really want to have a word with everyone about that bear and his blog.  He said I was a passive-aggresive control-freak!  You should hear what he said about alliteration!”

“Couldn’t you just talk to him?”

“That’s a kooky idea. We’ll talk about it in the meeting.”

“Remember how you rescheduled the meeting yesterday?”

“Yes, it’s been so long since we’ve had a meeting. I really miss our meetings.”

“Perhaps you could write a note about impolite blogging for the bear and leave it on the refrigerator? Then we could discuss leaving notes in the meeting tomorrow.”

“Fine. I’ll leave a note for the bear. I guess. But someone else might be seeing her own note about meeting rescheduling… And in the next meeting we’ll be discussing the importance of attendance.”

Dear reader,

An astute reader might have noticed that we’re already remarkably far into this story with a withering sea of dialog, but no tea parties, few photos, and barely any story per se. Yet adorable photos of hedgehogs participating in tea parties with monkeys are really the main purpose of this blog post. “Why?” You are probably asking, “Why no hedgehog monkey tea parties? Why all this dialog and email business? Why this rambling authorial intrusion?” The answer is perplexing to us all, I’m afraid, even to the narrator. Sorry. We’ve really been trying to make things go that way, but instead here we are not presenting you with hedgehog-monkey-tea, and are even talking about not doing that very thing, adding to the sense that this digression is as distressing as it is inexplicable, like a metaphor without a comparison. Apologies. We really ought to do something about that.

-Author

To: sirsandwich@princesspricklepants.com 
From: excelsior@princesspricklepants.com 
Subject: A Dramatic Failure

Dear Author,
I know you don’t read my blog. I check. You really should. You’re a terrible writer tormenting me with an endless litany of literary failures, non-existent dramatic structure, meandering prose, and peculiar diction. I have so much advice for you. Please subscribe to my blog. Regarding your current meandering malaise of muddled mystification, hideous whimsy, mutilated story progression, and crimes against literature I also have some advice. Instead of reading your email you might want to just write the story. Or at least plug some pictures in with our charming bear protagonist offering helpful advice and commentary to his hapless animal friends.
-Boris Maximus
“Excelsior!”

To: excelsior@princesspricklepants.com 
From: sirsandwich@princesspricklepants.com 
Subject: Re: A Dramatic Failure

Dear Bear,
Thanks so much for contacting us with your criticism. Negative feedback can be a valuable part of the development of a creative work, but sadly, we are busy writing a lovely story about a hedgehog having a tea party with a monkey and currently cannot accept your criticism. We also regret to inform you that we have no plans to process criticism anytime in the near or distant future, including complaints about not accepting criticism, complaints about spending time writing email about not accepting criticism when we should be writing other things, criticisms of literary structure, complaints about typos or or speling errors in response emails, or any other from of complaint, critique, denunciation, etc. For further details, please see:
http://the-toast.net/2014/09/19/no-criticism-thanks/
If you’re concerned about us effectively recycling someone else’s material, that too is a form of criticism which again falls under the category of things we are currently not accepting.
Kindest Regards,
Sir Sandwich
P.S. Please feel free to review this email whenever the thought of contacting us with criticism arises.

Soon another email arrived, but the Author had stopped checking email, since he was busy reading some articles found after googling procrastination, thinking about whether there actually was some way to construct a metaphor without a comparison (since that would be really cool), and trying to think of a way to work the phrase “bear umbrage” into the story somehow.

Things got complicated, and it didn’t seem like there was any hope the story could progress. How could a denouement be reached? With far more than a thousand words already spilled in a format with an arbitrarily self-imposed thousand word limit, a story that was in revolt against its own plot, and levels of self-reference that seemed like they’d suck everything into a swirling vortex of recursion the impasse seemed intractable.  Fortunately Her Highness had an idea.

“Perhaps you could just call this complete, then start a new story. In the new one, we just need to find the monkey, set up a nice tea service with a few treats, some tasteful decorations, and an environment full of sweetness and light. With that, things will naturally unfold just as they should, and all will be well in the world.”

So, it is your Destiny that you must click here to continue to Princess Pricklepants, Magnificent Mender of Monkey Manners (we were going to title it, “Princess Pricklepants and the Quest for Monkey Manners – A New Beginning,” but certain editors protested) in which there are many photos, monkey manners may be modified, and tea is served.

Princess Pricklepants’ Somewhat Distracted Guide to Manners, Monkeys, Etc.

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Previously: Princess Pricklepants and the Monkey Business

Dear Reader(s),

Something odd happened recently – a story from our humble blog wound up briefly on the front page of a tech news site (news.ycombinator.com) – naturally it was Princess Pricklepants, Startup Founder Extraordinaire. So we got a lot of visits for a bit and were for a very brief moment slightly more famous (9,000 hits in a day), though things are largely back to normal now.

For perfectly good (though difficult to explain) reasons relating to that, Her Highness now has a LinkedIn profile, so if you’d like to add a Noble Hedgehog Adventurer/Farmer/Model/Space Traveler/Acupuncturist to your professional network, feel free:

https://linkedin.com/in/penelope-pricklepants-98198010a

There are a lot of words in this, our latest post (more than two thousand five hundred – sorry for the wordiness), so we’ll keep this preamble succinct, pithy, and free of superfluities, and will not drone on in a long run-on sentence about how brief, concise, and terse our intro. is, but rather will press on into the body of our story with no delays, distractions, or pointless diversions. And so we begin with our first picture with words under it.

The Quiet Place

Princess Pricklepants was rather irked by The Monkey Situation. She decided to be forthright, proactive, and assertive in dealing with the problem. She went off to be alone in her room to hide under a blanket and reflect on how best to be forthright, proactive, and assertive. In her room, she started writing a note to place on the refrigerator:

Dear Monkey,

Please do not leave the refrigerator door open. Please also be sure to help clean the dishes. While doing so, please do not throw any more dishes. Once again, Buenos Aires is the capital of Argentina. In addition, please stop harassing the alligators.

That font was all wrong, so she tried out different fonts for a while, bumped the font size and adjusted margins, and then went to Wikipedia to check on something. After a brief voyage through the Wikipedia spiral of distraction, she found herself logged onto the PrincessPricklepantsCentral Forum.

PrincessPricklepantsCentral Forums -> Community board

Her Highness – Nov. 22 2015 11:00 AM
DSC_0012

Senior Member

She of the tea

 Hello, did anyone think of a job for Monkey?
Boris – Nov. 22 2015 11:01 AM
Clipjungle4new

Senior Member

“fourth wall demolitionist”

 No. We’re all just avoiding the obnoxious food-stealing monkey.

Hey, you know why the monkey liked the banana? It had appeal.
Jane – Nov. 22 2015 11:03 AM
captainquillbeard

Admin

the accountant

 Some of us are also avoiding the obnoxious food-stealing bear.

You know what you call bears with no ears? B.
Boris – Nov. 22 2015 11:05 AM
Clipjungle4new

Senior Member

“fourth wall demolitionist”

 Sounds like someone is a mad cow, maybe it’s time for your check-up?

On a more important note, is this plot ever going to go anywhere? It’s like the writer’s just shamelessly making it all up as they go along…

What do you get when you cross a bear and an elephant? A revocation of your research grant and a stern rebuke from the ethics committee.
Her Highness – Nov. 22 2015 11:10 AM
DSC_0012

Senior Member

She of the tea

 So everyone, shall we have a meeting to go over Monkey employment then? These forums seem too… frivolous.
Jane – Nov. 22 2015 11:23 AM
captainquillbeard

Admin

the accountant

 It’s Sunday. Maybe we should hold off until tomorrow, then we’ll be able to call around to see if anyone will hire Monkey.

Also, agreed, Boris’ jokes are becoming unbearable.

 

She logged off the forums and tried to catch up on email. Being a hedgehog, her eyesight was poor. Happily, when she had difficulties reading things she went by smell which worked remarkably well (as far as she could tell).

To: theprincess@princesspricklepants.com 
From: [redacted]
Subject: Pinterest Advice

Dear Princess Pricklepants, I try to be a polite, refined, well-mannered person, so naturally I have been throwing tea parties. I’ve been getting great ideas from Pinterest. Recently my husband, Ned, has been joining us at the parties, which is nice except that he eats the kale and quinoa salad with his fingers, and drinks his hot tea in a mason jar. I’ve told him that mason jars are not for tea, but are for lemonade (or for candle-making, creating a sewing kit, toy storage, crafting, holding tortilla chips, salad, cocoa mix, potpourri, etc.). How do I convince him to be more genteel and refined in the ways of proper manners at tea?

– Pinterest Paige

No Touching

Touching non-finger-food with hands and touching all the cookies – troubling manners.

To: [redacted]
From: theprincess@princesspricklepants.com 
Subject: Re: Pinterest Advice

Dear Penless Page, thanks for writing. Table manners are oh so very important, and a domain in which I have an extensive background. Let him know that the appropriate way to eat is to sniff out food, then bring one’s snout to the food dish, grab the food with one’s mouth, or perhaps slurp it in a bit with one’s tongue (provided it’s long enough), then crunch away. That is, until the monkey shows up, grabs the food with his hands, then throws it, and the food spills everywhere, leaving you very confused, while your attempts to teach manners and geography are completely ignored. Gently suggest to your husband that using his hands is being like that monkey, and nobody would want to be like that monkey. Don’t be that monkey.

-PPP

To: theprincess@princesspricklepants.com 
From: [redacted]
Subject: Refrigerator Lurking

Dear Princess, my kids and my husband will wander into the kitchen, go straight to the refrigerator, and then just stand there with the door open staring into the void. It drives me crazy – it wastes electricity, risks food going bad, and it’s just plain frustrating. What can I do to help others to break free from their former lives as fridge dwellers?

– Wishing They’d Cool It With The Refrigerator

Fridge Time II

Loitering with the refrigerator door open – uncouth

To: [redacted]
From: theprincess@princesspricklepants.com 
Subject: Re: Refrigerator Lurking

Dear Wishing You Were As Cool As a Refrigerator,

When a person, beloved pet, or monkey spends a long time lingering in the refrigerator, this might be because they have already eaten all of your food and are just wishing more would appear. Or perhaps they just love the rich and interesting smells that refrigerators emanate (such a fascinating bouquet). But if you ask politely for them to stop, and they act like a tricky monkey, then I’d recommend you write a note and place it on the refrigerator. Be sure to use a nice font. Make sure the note is polite, thoughtful, and kind with a clear helpful lesson on manners (and perhaps geography), so it can ultimately lead to an outcome somewhat like the plot of My Fair Lady, with singing, dancing, and a somewhat ambiguous ending.

To: theprincess@princesspricklepants.com 
From: [redacted]
Subject: A Crumby Old Bed

Dear Princess Pricklepants,

My husband Vern is a good man, but he brings toast, cookies, crackers, and even cups of tea into the bed all the time while sitting to read. He creates terrible messes! What’s a polite way to tell him to stop bringing food to bed?

– Neat Freak

Eating In Bed

Eating and drinking in bed – a politeness apocalypse

To: [redacted]
From: theprincess@princesspricklepants.com
Subject: Re: A Crumby Old Bed

Dear Nut Freak,

Too often one may find oneself in the situation of a person or monkey climbing on one’s bed, eating bananas and leaving the peels all over, spilling drinks, jumping on the bed, and even throwing pillows. To deal with this, hold a household meeting to discuss a plan to deal with the bed crumbs. Then have a followup meeting to go over the plan’s implementation details, followed by a series of pre-planning meetings for each item, and ideally some off-site training. At some point the amount time used by all the meetings and preparation will be so great that there will be no more time for bed eating/hopping/sleeping/etc., and the problem will be solved. Be sure to follow Robert’s Rules of Order.

-HRH PPP

To: theprincess@princesspricklepants.com 
From: [redacted]
Subject: Teenager Acting Out

Dear Princess,

I have a lovely 17-year-old step-daughter. Recently she has developed a lot of anger issues and has loud, tantrum-like outbursts where she curses out her father and me, and says very hurtful things. She even called me a witch! What can I do to bring her in line?

– Frustrated Mom

Witch Trial

Witch accusations – ten points from Slytherin

To: [redacted]
From: theprincess@princesspricklepants.com 
Subject: Re: Teenager Acting Out

Dear Frustrating Mom,

I think you may have written in before, when I was interrupted due to some dinosaur-related business complexities. Apologies if that’s so. Witch accusations are no laughing matter, and not to be taken lightly. They must be followed up by a proper trial. Our favorite method for testing whether someone is a witch is to build a large set of scales and weigh the accused to see if they weigh more than a duck. If they weigh less than a duck, then they’re a witch.

If you find they are a witch, ask them which house they were sorted into to, ask if they’ve met Hermione, and see if you can help get a teacher to reward their house points. Also please let me know (unless they’re in Slytherin). I’ve been looking for the secret passage to Diagon Alley for a very long time with no luck yet. I love the Harry Potter documentaries, and really would love to visit the wizarding world.

-Her Royal Highness PPP Grand Duchess of Tiggy-Winkle, Defender of Hufflepuff, etc.

To: theprincess@princesspricklepants.com 
From: [redacted]
Subject: Miniatures Photography Woes

Dear Princess,

My husband is a bit eccentric. Or, well honestly, really eccentric. He is a photographer who creates little sets with miniatures and props for his photos (he even puts our pet in the photos sometimes). It’s a hobby and seems to make him happy, I suppose, though it’d be nice if he cleaned up his mess more. Sometimes our nieces and nephews come over to visit and treat his photography equipment like toys, which bothers him. How do I get him to put his equipment away before people come over?

– Really Not Toys

Miniatures

Playing with other people’s toys without asking – very impolite

To: [redacted]
From: theprincess@princesspricklepants.com 
Subject: Re: Miniatures Photography Woes

Dear In Reality Toys,

That sounds like a really wonderful hobby. We have a doll house also, and enjoy putting our toy cows and animals in little scenes, though recently we’ve taken on a monkey in residence who has been ruining our setups, creating general chaos, and leaving banana peels in the tiny, carefully set up doll rooms. It smells like you need to get a lot more toys for your husband’s doll house so that if there are visitors they can play too.

-PPP

To: theprincess@princesspricklepants.com 
From: [redacted]
Subject: Advice re: Uptight Cow

Dear Princess,

Sometimes at work (I work as a programmer writing robot controller software and internet forum software) I like to read Facebook or hit Pinterest or read Cute Overload. My overbearing cow-orker Jane has become a total control-freak, insisting I focus on my work and nothing else. How can I tell her to loosen up a bit?

– Bessie

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Surfing the net – politeness will vary

To: [redacted]
From: theprincess@princesspricklepants.com 
Subject: Re: Advice re: ... Cow friend

Dear Bessie,

We’ll put this on the agenda for the next meeting. I’m fairly sure we just need to get an outsider from the big city to come in and teach us about modern music and dancing to loosen things up and revitalize the spirit of the repressed townspeople, but this will need discussion.

-PP

To: theprincess@princesspricklepants.com
From: [redacted]
Subject: Need Advice About An Accursed Monkey

Dear Princess Pricklepants,

Due to tangled reasons involving a turgid plot too difficult to describe for both emotional reasons and time limits, I’ve wound up with a horrid monkey living in my home. It eats all the food. It is a conniving, cruel taker of snacks. With the monkey menace so serious, I feel that it would be courteous to wage guerilla warfare against the monkey. I was thinking that we could let the Universe decide whether the monkey should stay here by loading the monkey into our catapult and flinging the monkey far, far away. Please tell me that this is the polite thing to do.

-Primate Adversary

Catapult

Flinging monkeys with catapults indoors – clearly not polite

To: [redacted]
From: theprincess@princesspricklepants.com
Subject: Re: Need Advice About A... Monkey

Dear Boris,

It smells like it’s not so much manners you’re worried about here, but your food. Instead of trying to throw the monkey out of your world, help Monkey to improve as a monkey – be the changed monkey you want to see in the world.

Regarding the catapult, it’s never polite to fling monkeys with catapults inside. If you take the catapult outside its polite to fling jewel encrusted antiques, rare glasswork, a cat, or other items that would be fun to watch fly, but not monkeys. Perhaps you could take Monkey on a trip to a farm where Monkey could live happily?

-HRH PPP

To: theprincess@princesspricklepants.com
From: [redacted]
Subject: Re: Need Advice About An Accursed Monkey (don't edit my subject either)

Dear Princess Pricklepants,

I believe we’ve established that deliveries are Jane’s job. It’s polite to lock Monkey in a cage, right? It feels very polite to me.

I would mention my concerns about the lack of plot development with this episode, it’s like this whole post is just a pernicious plan by a particularly peculiar person to post pictures of their pet posed with pleasant pint-sized props and pen pleasantries rather than pursue a proper plot.

At this point I have to say that I truly feel that my rights are being violated by being used in this way, and plan to contact Amnesty International’s fictional bear’s rights program. Regardless, I know you will just ignore it. How do you always manage to ignore these pressing literary matters?

-Primate Adversary

Caged

Caging monkeys – probably poor manners.

To: [redacted]
From: theprincess@princesspricklepants.com
Subject: Re: Need Advice About A Monkey, Now With Improved Subject

Dear Boris,

I am fairly sure it is not polite to put monkeys in cages. I checked Haley’s 2007 etiquette guide, but it didn’t say anything one way or the other.

On an unrelated note, I have happy news. I’ve discovered something that Monkey is very good at. Monkey is a skilled and talented illustrator of poor manners. I think we should give him a job as a politeness model for every conceivable item in the “do not do”column.

-HRH PPP

To: theprincess@princesspricklepants.com
From: [redacted]
Subject: Re: Need Advice About A Banana-stealing Monster

It seems fitting that Monkey’s purpose in life is to serve as a warning to others.

– Boris

In our next episode, will we just forget the monkey and finally get to Princess Pricklepants and the Live Action Role Playing Game? Will we just wander and digress pointlessly some more? Will we stick with the monkey so we can do Princess Pricklepants and the Code Monkey? Will an homage to Curious George appear starring Her Highness as the Hedgehog Princess in the Yellow Hat? Tune in eventually when we finally get to publishing the next episode to find out what happens next. With the Holidays things will be spotty.

Princess Pricklepants, and the Brief Hiatus

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We’re on vacation for a little while, will be back in a couple weeks.  Her robo-friends will miss her, and she will miss her loyal servants.

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Here is a small, somewhat confusing preview of what’s to come in Princess Pricklepants and the Perils of Pirate Plunder Part II – The Great Middle:

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Princess Pricklepants and the Perils of Pirate Plunder: Part I – The Great Beginning

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Previously: Princess Pricklepants and the Dinosaur Denouement

Dear reader,

Happily, and/or sadly, nobody has sent us any correspondence, so we have no reader responses to offer. We did find one search that led someone here for “how to have manners like a princess.” I’m sure we were very helpful. Someone also came here looking for “pleasantries synonym.” I assume they found what they were looking for.

This will be a brief prologue, since we have work to do here, thus we now offer our first picture with words under it:

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Princess Pricklepants was generally enjoying a regal life of leisure with her friends. They caught up on hedgehog documentaries, tried out surfing on a vacation…

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…and hung out with their old friend Moonflower the sheep from back in the farm days. One of the robots, Redbot, had moved in as well, to help as a personal assistant, tea connoisseur, and generally nice robot.

One day, while having tea and enjoying some truly delightful baked goods, Bessie, the generic cow and robot programmer, had a suggestion.

“Remember that pirate treasure map that you’ve had sitting around forever? Maybe we could go seek out the lost treasure of Captain Quillbeard.”  They looked at it to help justify this picture:

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They were impressed.  It looked like it must have taken someone a fair bit of work to make that map.  Also it clearly indicated something important.

Princess said, “This sounds like a very plausible premise for an adventure.”

Boris was puzzled, “Wait, we just found the pile of treasure chests in the quiet spot. What would be the point of even more treasure?”

“Because it would be fun. Also Captain Quillbeard’s treasure is a mystery. Maybe there’s something better than old coins.”

“Well, I suppose that does sound like a plausible premise for an adventure.”

They decided to start the adventure the typical way, by surfing the web for a while. Princess looked up Captain Quillbeard to do some research. She found nothing in wikipedia, which was strange. A query on hedgehogtreasureseekercentral.com returned no information. Google was no use. They even tried Bing, which returned results with a wikipedia article on chickens. After reading articles on chickens, red junglefowl, Christmas Island, and a number of other fascinating things, she had almost given up when she discovered an ancient secret web site that told about Captain Quillbeard. (note to reader: please make sure to visit this important link and read the important information therein, then come back here.)

The story told by the mysterious ancient web page seemed like typical pirate fare, but had some interesting information. Unfortunately that was all she could find, and all the links on that page to other notable things were broken.

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Jane was concerned. “OK, so this is one of those things we can’t just wrap up quickly, like most things.  So we need to actually for the first time in our lives have a plan.  And we have to make a real plan.” She was still recovering from her tech. career, and thus began most sentences with either “OK,” or a conjunction.
Boris suggested a plan, “First I finish this pie, then we take a helicopter loaded with shovels and stuff to the place the map indicates, then we dig the stuff up, then we take the stuff we find back in the helicopter. Finally, we have more pie.”
“OK, there are some problems, though. First, the island is part of Henakau. And they don’t permit helicopters and hasn’t got an airport. And the only way to travel there is by boat.  Also, quit hogging the pie.”
“So we fly to the nearest normal place, then hire a boat, eh?”
“OK, but part of their customs require that you take the boat from your home.”
“Fine. We have to take the boat. I hate boats.”

They ordered rope, shovels, metal detectors, food, and boat-related supplies from hedgehogtreasureseekercentral.com with free two day shipping, then sat around for two days binge watching Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog on Netflix and baking macarons while they waited, except Bessie who worked on reprogramming Redbot to serve as a Henakau protocol droid.

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Princess Pricklepants, Boris, Moonflower, Redbot, Bessie, and Jane prepared for adventure while robots loaded the ship.

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Boris said, “Maybe we could use a helicopter and air-lift the ship to Henaku?”
Jane explained, “That would be prosaic and dull. Besides, you can’t have adventures with helicopters.”
Boris began to think about explaining that you could have many adventures with helicopters, but then realized that using a pirate ship to seek out the treasure would add extra symbolism that would enhance the narrative. He then worried that there wasn’t a proper call to adventure, as a conversation over tea and cookies was barely a call to adventure at all. He thought about many other things as well, but we won’t dwell on them here, since the literary thoughts of bears are not the point of all this.  While he thought about pie and came up with a plan that didn’t involve eating more pie, but would help the narrative.

Boris pulled out his cell phone and called Princess. “Hello, this is Princess Pricklepants, hedgehog adventurer, who is calling?” (She was still working out etiquette for answering phones, she really preferred texting, where manners were easier to understand).
In a deep spooky voice, as mysterious as he could muster, Boris said, “It is I, the ghost of Captain Quillbeard. You must seek my treasure, for the Universe now needs it for its very safety, and only you can undertake this great quest!”
“Boris, is that you? Why are you using that odd voice?”
(spooky voice) “No, it’s Captain Quillbeard’s ghost, eh!”
“Why does my phone say Boris is calling?”
(spooky voice) “I am haunting his phone.”
“Oh, but also Boris is standing next to me, and is using the same funny voice and saying the same things.”
(spooky voice) “Pay no attention to the bear, eh, listen to me, the ghost of Captain Quillbeard. Seek the treasure.”
“Well, we were seeking the treasure, so I think we’re all set here, thanks Bor… Captain Ghost.”
“Oh, thanks, eh… hey, wait, you’re supposed to refuse at first, then go along with it…”
“Well then, I refuse to not seek the treasure.”
“No, you refuse to… Well, never mind. See you on the ship.”
“See you, Boris.”

DSC_0051

With that settled, they were ready to go. Boris was not fully satisfied, and was also annoyed that that last photo put the hedgehog in focus and left him in the background, but figured it was a start. Boris knew they needed to meet a wise person to mentor them at this point for everything to work out. He figured they’d met Moonflower recently, so that was pretty close.

“Hey Moonflower, got a second?”
“I have all the moments in the Cosmos, all in the now.”
“Oh, perfect, you sound like a wise mentor. I need to ask you a favor.”
“Right on, man.”
“Uh, so we need someone to help Princess make decisions on the journey, a kind of wise counselor who can guide her.”
“Oh, I’ve helped out on some really wild trips, I am so in.”
“Perfect. Thanks!”

Things were going swimmingly, except with a boat and ideally no swimming. They prepared to board and begin their journey.

End of Part I

Coming soon: Princess Pricklepants and the Perils of Pirate Plunder: Part II – The Great Middle

Will they find the treasure? Will there be sharks involved? Will they keep reusing one small set with boat pictures over and over? How will they manage to make a set that involves digging up treasure? These and other things will be answered soonish. Here is one small preview that answers the shark question, though:

shark_week

Princess Pricklepants And The War Against Cats

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Dear readers,

We have three apologies to make before this post.

First, some reader feedback – Quentin, a council of the cows was held, and no, we can’t use small words.  One cow politely recommended that you might want to buy a dictionary.

Second, sorry for creating a post so soon after the last two.  It was raining, we weren’t able to go out, and so another post happened.

Third, sorry that we don’t have one other thing to list in our apologies here, we’ve run dry a little early.

Fourth, sorry, that we’ve now apologized for one more thing that we’d originally said we would.

Now, our first picture with words under it:

PP Farm II - 1 of 11

Princess Pricklepants was delighted, her trip to the Planet of the Baboons went nicely (she had helped Mufiki, the Baboon King to reclaim his throne from the evil uncle Blemish, perhaps more on that later if we get enough baboons to illustrate), and Mufiki, the Baboon King had returned with her to see her robo-farm to learn about new alien cultures and technology.  But when she arrived, things seemed amiss.  There was a castle.  There were no cows.  There was no bear.  The crocodiles were sitting in a moat, looking sad.

PP Farm II - 2 of 11

A cat approached, and delivered a sinister monologue. “Greetings, Princess Pricklepants. I am Mittens, a humble farm-cat (with an Electrical Engineering degree from MIT – go Beavers!), and I have taken over this farm! You now are a former-hedgehog farmer, as I now control the farm! A-ha-ha-ha-ha! Using my advanced programming skills, I reprogrammed the robots to serve me to do my wily feline bidding. A previous advice column of yours had advised flinging cats via catapults, and now I have my revenge! Also, I banished your cows, forced the crocodiles to serve as slaves in the moat, and your literary bear friend is stuck in a paddock with no books to read! Bwa ha ha!” It was strange to hear a cat laugh. Regardless, the cat continued on for a while explaining how it accessed the reprogramming interface port of the robots, and some other details, but you don’t need to hear all of it. It was a very long monologue.

PP Farm II - 3 of 11

Droidon and Galaxy came out and hugged the villainous cat since we had a photo of that. It was taken with the intent of adding to the drama and sense of just how sinister this cat was, though in retrospect, hugging cats doesn’t quite deliver the right mood. So, we ask you, dear reader, to please imagine that the photo illustrates the cat hacking up a hairball on your couch instead.  Thanks!

PP Farm II - 4 of 11

Princess explained to Mufiki that nothing like this had ever happened before in her adventures, normally dramatic conflicts were far less overt, but given the situation they needed to form a plan. So they formed a plan.

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Princess went and found the cows. Together they formed The Cows Of The Round Table (the members were not all cows, but Cows, Baboon, and Hedgehog Of The Round Table just didn’t roll off the tongue). Together, they planned a great battle – a siege against Castle Mittens to defeat the wicked cat and bring justice and order back to the farm, then Princess granted them knighthoods authorizing them to serve in the battle. She looked up the wikipedia page on knighthood to see if they had the details of the ceremony, but it was missing most details, so she winged it.

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Princess ordered several catapults from hedgehogfarmsupply.com (some assembly required) and prepared for battle. They had only ever seen one movie that involved catapults, so they loaded the cows into the catapults and began to fling them onto the castle.  Christine, the cow safety officer, said something before they were loading her, but in the fog of war they were far too busy to get caught up in digressions.  Now was the time for action.

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Unfortunately, they didn’t have many cows, so soon they were out of ammunition. Lady Bessie (they weren’t sure of the right title for female knights, and Wikipedia didn’t mention what to honorifics to bestow on cows knights at all, so they settled on that), Sir Unintentional Product Placement, Princess, and Mufiki realized they needed another plan. Bessie lamented that while she was a generic cow, she did have a Computer Science degree and before joining the farm had worked as a contractor doing programming work for a few companies developing robotic Artificial Intelligence software. With that kind of nerdy desk-job skill set, she was useless for most things, especially in medieval conflict…

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“Don’t feel bad, Bessie, we still like you,” said Princess gracefully. Mufiki said, “Wait, didn’t the cat reprogram these robots? Can’t Bessie just hack into their robotic computing mainframe matrix, or whatever you Earthlings call it, and override the program?” They hatched a cunning plan.

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Princess lured Redbot out while Bessie snuck up and reprogrammed his loyalty circuits to bond to hedgehogs and not like cats.

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They then reprogrammed Galaxy, while Sir. Product Placement tried to distract Mittens.  That distraction worked poorly, so Princess licked her nose.

The ploy worked!

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And so, the farm returned to its former state, Princess was delighted, and things returned mostly to a normal state, though they now had a castle on the farm, an evil imprisoned cat, a pig had shown up from somewhere, the bear was freed and given some interesting books, the Spinosaurus returned to doing Spinosaurus things, and the word count was a little low but was good enough to declare The End.  For now.

Princess Pricklepants’ Guide To Politeness, Manners, Delightfulness, Grace, and Related Things

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Princess Penelope Pricklepants presents this practical guide to manners, politeness, and related topics to you, dear reader.  This guide is not presented out of any concern that you are impolite, ill mannered, or uncouth, but only because this is a topic which she, as royalty, has a deep and extensive knowledge about.  In this guide she hopes to share some insights, thoughts, tips, and pointers with the hope of helping to make the world a more polite, well-mannered, and generally delightful place.

Lesson 1: Hats

Princess Pricklepants wearing a nice hat at her tea party.

It’s perfectly delightful for hedgehogs to wear hats indoors, so long as they remain on the head, or so long as they fall in a delightful or pleasant way when wandering about.  Hats with straps are not delightful at all though, as we illustrate in this helpful example:

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If you look carefully, you will note Princess’ gentle concern at the impoliteness of the hands that put this hat on her.  Do not under any circumstances ever strap a hat onto a hedgehog.  It’s distressingly impolite.

Lesson 2: Tea Parties

Tea parties are always wonderful places to practice manners, politeness, and that sort of thing.  For our example tea party, the kind and gracious models Artemis along with her daughter Arteminica are hosting a small party for our delightful guest to help guide the teaching of lessons in manners.

At tea parties, hats are optional, as you see in the following illustration.  Also, note how Princess shows an interest in whatever things happen to be on the table, in the room, on the couch, under the table, or in any other interesting spots.

Princess Pricklepants politely hatless at a nice tea party.

Lesson 3: Peeing

Hedgehog sitting on couch at tea party, wearing hat.

If you happen to pee on a couch (and who doesn’t pee on the couch at times?), it’s polite to make sure that any photos of the event don’t include unpleasantly specific details.

Lesson 4: Eye contact

Hedgehog, hear turned away, wearing hat at tea party.

If there are guests who have eyes, try to look at them sometimes, this is polite.

Lesson 5: Unexpected guests

Hedgehog at tea party with toothpick holder.

If an unexpected guest shows up, like Princess’s special friend, Pick, who is also a hedgehog, though a different species, be sure to greet them and make sure they feel welcome to the tea party. You may wish to compliment them on their colorful quills or other interesting qualities, like the ability to stand remarkably still for very long periods.  If you happened to poop on the couch while meeting the new company, be sure to be discreet, have a helping hand clean it up, and be sure to thank the hosts for using a plastic couch that’s very convenient for taking care of such things quickly and discreetly.

Lesson 6: Climbing under the table

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If a guest should try to climb under the table during a tea party, this isn’t considered polite.  Gently remind them to try to remain above the table, perhaps with an unassuming hand gesture, as Arteminica illustrates here.  Also remind them that while in general wearing hats to indoor tea parties is polite, it’s considered extra-polite to remove your hat before climbing under the table.

Lesson 7: Toppling over other guests

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If, while politely wandering about under the table, you happen to inadvertently fling one of your friends on the ground, be sure to say something polite, for example, “Oh, pardon me, I didn’t mean to knock you over.”  Also remove your hat as a gesture of respect.

Lesson 8: Stepping on friends

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If you inadvertently clobber a friend, and stomp on their hand and/or arm, try being subtle about it.  Helpfully lighten the mood by wandering off a bit to sniff at something.

Lesson 9: More knocking and fleeing

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If you happen to knock a friend over while trying to climb under their chair, and they inadvertently kick another guest in the head, be sure to say, “excuse me.”  Note also that the hat has been respectfully removed.

Lesson 10: Helping hands

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Sometimes the hand friends might grab you and hold you in poses.  If they do, make sure to let them know that you appreciate their gentle help, and that you are sorry if you accidentally stab them a little with your quills.  If you do this, you’ll be sure to knock their socks off, or if you are incredibly polite, you might even manage to knock their feet off.

Lesson 11: More under the table dealings

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Since hedgehogs are burrowing animals, it’s incredibly difficult to not climb under tables.  Really, it’s mind-bogglingly challenging.  It’s virtually impossible to resist the alluring dark area under there.  When you do climb under the table, if a guest should spill their tea, be sure to apologize for any spilled tea.

Lesson 12: Flinging guests backwards while fleeing tea

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Tea parties can be stressful for hedgehogs, and you might feel the need to leave seconds after sitting/being set on the couch.  While we may have already covered, this, as a gentle reminder, when flinging friends backwards in their chairs towards the ground as you leave the table, which is a truly delightful thing to do, be sure to do so as politely and with as much grace as possible.

Lesson 13: Toppling techniques (advanced)

Hedgehog climbing off couch under table, knocking someone over.

At tea parties people will be flung backwards and thrown to the ground, this is a natural and inevitable development.  When you do manage to throw a guest from their chair, spilling tea cups, and flinging hats aside, be sure to do so with as much grace and elegance as possible.

There’s only one proper way to end a tea party, and that’s by ensuring that tea cups are spilling, and guests’ limbs are flailing as they hurtle towards the ground with chairs toppling backwards.  If you follow this simple guide, you’ll be sure to have a very delightful tea party with many very memorable moments.

If you enjoyed this, you might enjoy our book.

next: Princess Pricklepants’ Continued Guide To Politeness, Manners, Delightfulness, and Grace In Common Situations

Search III

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OMG.  Today, not too long after posting the last filler article on search terms, I looked at the search terms again and saw this:

Today

Search Views
african pygmy hedgehog poo 1
http://www.free lovely images of princesses.in 2

Okay people.  Two http://www.free lovely princesses.in searches?  Are you messing with me?  Or really looking for hedgehog poo?  Regardless, thank you.

Also, look:

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The highlights are blown, but it’s still cute.

 

Search II

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It’s time for another episode of “I think you guys are using the Internet wrong, or something.”  Here are the searches that brought people to our rather quiet blog over the last 30 days:

2014-05-01 to Today

Search Views
pain penelope 1
princess penelope and the dragon 1
hedgehog geographic location 1
peregrinate wit me 1
hedgehog napping 1
princess penelope answer key 1
http://www.free lovely images of princesses.in 1
african countries that don’t hate pygmies 1
what are the metaphors in princess penelope f

Okay people.  Almost all of you are doing the Internet wrong!  Wrong, wrong, wrong!  Let’s enumerate the ways so we can use an ordered list.

  1. First, “pain penelope,” person, a word to you: no.
  2. “Princess penelope and the dragon” person, thanks for a future blog post title.  We have no criticisms.  You are clearly using the Internet right.
  3. “hedgehog geographic location” person, hedgehogs have many geographic locations.  They are a type of animal that lives all over Africa, Europe, and Asia (and New Zealand).  They are not a monument.  I can see that you might not totally understand that, no hard feelings.  You have to start researching somewhere, though it shouldn’t be here probably, unless you are interested in research on the perils of pet prejudice, or research on the captive African Pygmy Hedgehog’s responses to images of the Verreux’s Eagle Owl, where you’ll find we are a notable researcher.
  4. “peregrinate wit me” person, you were looking for a travel blog and made a typo, that part is understood.  There is the question of why you were looking for a travel blog and wound up clicking on a hedgehog blog, but I can understand the draw of hedgehog mystery.  You are not doing the Internet wrong.
  5. “hedgehog napping”  God bless you, it’s relevant.
  6. “princess penelope answer key” – wait, what?  This is inexplicable.  You are definitely doing the Internet wrong if you are trying to cheat on homework and you wound up here.  Though the answers are: A, A, D, C, B, A, E, C, A, D.  (Though not necessarily in that order).
  7. “www.free lovely images of princesses.in”  I was briefly worried that there was a http://www.freelovelyimagesofprincesses.in site out there, and that it would perhaps have some naughty content on it, because nothing is sacred on the Internet.  But no, there is in fact no website there.  You “www.free lovely images of princesses.in” search person are doing the Internet totally, completely wrong.
  8. “african countries that don’t hate pygmies” – luckily I wasn’t drinking anything or it would have sprayed on my screen when I got to this one.  Seriously, like, I just don’t even.
  9. “what are the metaphors in princess penelope f”  Yes, sadly, that is the grade you will be getting.

Also, look, isn’t she cute?

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Poll: Which Is The Most Adorable?

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Recently while admiring the recent wonderful photo of birds and other things from our trip to Disney World (with a Gatorland side-trip), we meandered a bit further back in time and reviewed the photos from Princess in her anarchist period.  There are always a lot of things we don’t post since we generally try to distill things down into the 8-23 photo range.

Here’s one that would have been perfect, but which was supplanted by a different perfect photo:

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Seriously, that hedgehog smirking at Mary-Kate and Ashley, thinking of a hilarious thing mocking them in hedgehog language, it’s perfect.

While perusing them, we found two photos that divided the household.  While one faction insisted on the cuteness of one of the photos, another faction insisted on the cuteness of the other and the weakness of cuteness judgment skills of certain family members.  This resulted in a disagreement that we need you, the Internet, to resolve…  There is a thing that the web-visionary types who give TED talks used to like to talk about a few years back called “The Wisdom of Crowds,” which meant that if you ask a lots of people about something, they’ll be right.  It’s worked amazingly well in always choosing the best presidents and other elected officials, so obviously it’s a great idea for making all choices.

So we bring you, the Internet, a new poll.  Or we do in a second.  First we need to introduce you to the two photos at the center of the disagreement.  Since this poll is part of the important democratic duties of the Internet, we will be as fair, neutral, detached, objective, disinterested, unbiased, evenhanded, equitable, and every other related synonym as possible in presenting these photos.

First, look at the incredibly cute photograph A:

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Note the adorable expression, the heart-melting adorableness of the pose, and general cuteness of this sweet, lovely hedgehog.  Also the general brightness of the photo, and color tones that bring out a light and happy mood, that silly and amusing pose, and all the other factors that make this an incredibly cute photo that you plan to vote for as a more discriminating connoisseur of cuteness.

Next, look at photograph B, which while admittedly well photographed by a skilled photographer, still isn’t as sharp or clear as the former.  The covered eyes, while cute, also keep you from seeing the expression of Princess, while the color temperature seems a bit too warm.  Obviously cute, but in our evenhanded, equitable, neutral, and unbiased opinion, as well as in the opinion of those who are among the better and brighter types like you, still lacking.

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So, Internet, we present you with this poll so that the wisdom of your crowds can solve this question for us:

Princess Pricklepants, Blogger, Procrastinator

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Princess Pricklepants was sitting around not writing blog posts.  She got the internet working on her semi-new laptop, braced herself to write something, then checked Wikipedia to look up something about procrastination, to maybe understand it better.  Four hours later she had finished many Wikipedia articles, culminating with methods of weaving with a loom.  It was really surprisingly interesting.

She had to write.  Write, write, write.  Something.  Something original.  Worth reading.  Fun.  Engaging.  Witty.  Clever.  The Great American Novel of blog posts.  Better punctuated than this.  And, ideally, with more verbs and fewer sentence fragments.  Maybe a little less self-referential.  Maybe not.

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She decided to go for a little walk.  On her walk, she discovered something truly remarkable.  Behind the place where her desk was, at the very spot where she’d once peed on the floor, there was a mysterious doorway.  The sign said it led to a secret garden, though you could read that yourself.

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She hurried through to the other side.  No photos were taken in order to protect the mystery.

The other side was truly mysterious.  Amid IKEA furnishings stood whimsical fantasy elements, seemingly put together haphazardly.  This was very puzzling.  Also why was the radio up where she couldn’t reach it?  Why was it playing Enya songs?  Why did the door look the same on both sides?  Why did it have a sign up saying it led to a secret place?  Wouldn’t that very sign mean it wasn’t secret?  Curiouser and curiouser.

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Then she realized, this would make a great blog post!

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A really great one!

Zoing!

 

But first she had to find the hidden treasure.

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Treasure!

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She decided she would read a Wikipedia article on narrative structure, perhaps there was a way to give her post a clear beginning, middle, and end.

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Hedgehogs and humans don’t always react the same way to things.  Reading an article on narrative structure was so incredibly exciting for a hedgehog.  When she found tvtropes, it was so exciting to a budding hedgehog blogger that she peed a little on the floor.

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And then she woke up in her favorite green blanket.  It was all just a dream.

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But wait, waking up in the green blanket was all a dream too.  She woke up, peeked out of her cuddle bag, and planned for her real blog post, rather than the dream one.

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And, dear readers, we’re very sorry that we had that brief hiatus.  Princess would like you to know that she loves you this much:

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Happy Hedgehog Day!

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Happy Hedgehog Day!  The ancient Romans would watch hedgehogs on Feb. 2 so see if they spotted their shadow (by moonlight).  In America the holiday was reinvented with a hibernating animal native to the continent.

http://www.hedgehogcentral.com/hedgehogday.shtml

When we tested Punxsutawney Pricklepants using her new bucket wheel (a scientifically valid cave substitute) she won in the Christmas contest, she did not react to her shadow.  It might be the battle towers and mayhem of battle were a distraction, though.

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Poll: Is This Creepy?

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First off, look at this shirt.

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Okay, now that you’ve seen it, does it make you think of a hedgehog crawling out of the chest like a chestburster from Aliens, like you’ll have a prickly spiky feeling in your chest, look down, and bam!  There’s a hedgehog burrowing out of your chest, having just eaten your vital organs like they were crickets or mealworms or something, then burrowed out through your breastbone, your last sight before you pass away a cute hedgehog who has just murdered you.  Your last thought, “well that really hurts, but aww, what a cute hedge…” before slipping away.

Or is it harmless and just kind of cute?

We offer this poll to settle the matter:

This is not a product endorsement, or a product disendorsement, rather it’s just a poll, we are in no way affiliated with themoutain other than in that we were briefly disturbed by the imagery in the shirt, though it you want one for some reason to scare children, or because you like it, you can find one here:

http://shop.themountain.me/big-face-hedgehog-t-shirt/

The Battle of Castle Fischer-Price

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Princess Pricklepants’ kingdom of Quillonia was a peaceful and prosperous place, ruled by the benevolent Princess along with the kind regent Sir Sandwich.

Sadly, the jealousy of the neighboring kingdoms (and perhaps some indiscrete raids by Princess Pricklepants in her younger days) brought war to the land.  The Redvian siege towers, ballistas, catapults, and other well constructed siege equipment rambled up to Castle Fischer-Price, cruel weapons of war brought forth the dread of dark doom.  The enemy called forth demanding a tribute of treasure and that nice chalice looking thing on the roof of the castle.

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Princess came forth and taunted the enemy cruelly, telling them that their mothers were hamsters.

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Anger swelled in the hearts of the cruel warriors, who while knowing very well that their mothers were not actually hamsters, still took that kind of thing very personally.  Princess added further insult by showing them her back side.

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Sir Cowflinger, leader of the Redvians cried back, “I am not angry, just very disappointed.  That was incredibly rude.  We now demand both a tribute, and an apology for that hurtful taunt.”

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“You want rude?  You don’t frighten us you red-sworded cotton headed ninny-mugginses.  Now go away, or you just might find your feelings will get hurt again!”  (Due to their unique evolution, Hedgehog taunts are a little odd.)

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Unfortunately just after she finished her rousing speech, she slipped, which took a lot of the impact away, as the Redvians laughed.  This made her feel very embarrassed.

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She quickly righted herself, composed herself, and smiled, and pretended that the slip didn’t actually happen.  The smile was helped by the fact that she knew about her secret weapon.

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Will war tear the kingdom apart?  Will cows fly?  Will we get a better lighting setup? Will we iron the sky? Some of these questions will probably be answered in Part II.

Are You Smart Enough To Guess This One Weird Fact That Will Change The Way You Think About Our Hedgehog Blog Forever?

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Sorry, we read on the internet that using hyperbole, including questions, and referring directly to the reader are ways to get read, so we were trying it out.  Look, it worked on you.

So, can you guess what amazing things been going on lately?  Oh, sorry, doing it again…

Anyway, we now have our own domain – http://princesspricklepants.com

Very exciting.

You might have noticed fewer things going on the blog lately.  Princess has been a little grumpy lately.  Many pictures look something like:

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That’s her “I would like to stab you” look.

She warmed up a little tonight:

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Then fell asleep on me:

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Princess Sophie took a selfie with me and both princesses in it.  Princess Sophie’s selfie is very fragmentary.

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Then Princess Pricklepants fell asleep on my shoulder.

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Oh, hey, the new domain also means that we have some fancy email addreses:

One for Princess Pricklpants:

theprincess at princesspricklepants.com

One for Haley:

fancy at princesspricklepants.com

One for the old guy:

sirsandwich at princesspricklepants.com

One for Sir Maxwell:

sirmaxwell at princesspricklepants.com

And one for Princess Sophie

princesssophie at princesspricklepants.com

So there’s that.

Penelope Pricklepants Plays at the Park

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On Sunday one of our readers, Megan, called to see if we wanted to meet at Zilker Park to visit Barton Creek Trail.  Well, when half your readers want to meet up, it’s hard to say no.  As it turns out, the other half of our readership was also able to join us too, more about that later!  So we took Princess for an outing to the park to see a really nice trail.

Once we arrived, we let Princess take a walk in the park.  She loved it.  This is what her loving taking a walk in the park looks like head on.

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And this is what her loving taking a walk in the park looks like from above.

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Since we were playing with a hedgehog in a busy park, people noticed.  Mostly little people.  We introduced Princess Pricklepants to potential readers.  She was pleased to meet them.

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“That’s princesspricklepants.com, yes, um, we registered a domain for our pet… No, I mean, no it’s, it’s normal…  Really, people do this all the time…  No, I’m not from a different country…  Well, no, but I just think it’s normal for me.”

Here is Megan’s little one Bridget, also known as BB, but who we will call Fred, saying hi to Princess.  Hi Fred!

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Here’s Ron below, Megan’s very precocious progeny with Princess Pricklepants.  He explained to me that he is a mercenary who would work for good food.  We talked about owls a lot.

Also, if you look carefully at the photo below, you’ll see that there are actually two people in the photo.  The person in the back is the kind and gentle Swarley, another reader who came along.  Swarley is Princess Sophie’s pal and the other half of our readership.  She is also awesome. Hi Swarley!  Hi Ron!

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We packed Princess in a personal Princess pack, and proceeded to port her on our peregrination on the path in the park.

Editor’s note: Actually we put Princess in a ‘baby sling’ fashioned from a long scarf. Perhaps we should purchase a purse in Purple Punch from Vera Bradley, for the potential purpose of private princess portage in a personal pack.

It was very lovely.

Editor again: What was lovely? The purse, the path, the park?

It was all very lovely.

There were coots and gadwalls in the creek.  I explained to someone that coots were not ducks, but a kind of rail, with a very interesting foot adaption that I couldn’t go into much detail about since they walked away.  And the gadwalls, well those are one of my favorite ducks.  From a distance they look rather plain, but up close their plumage is fantastic.  Here’s a gadwall dabbling.

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I took a lot of pictures of coots and gadwalls, also some cormorants, and a few other birds.  But this isn’t a bird watching blog, it’s a hedgehog blog.  So we’ll leave it at that.

We wandered and talked about things, and looked at lovely things, and went over a precarious bridge, and sat on a bench and took photos that didn’t come out.  We also saw fish and turtles, and I never said I wouldn’t post more pictures of those, so look, isn’t this painted turtle lovely?

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That’s really what it looks like – no Photoshopping.  The water in the creek has a really lovely hue due to the lighting, the light limestone creek bed, and probably some algae too.  We eventually finished our walk, and hung out in the park.

We took out Princess P. P., who had been really patient, and let Fred and everyone visit with Princess.  Fred was pleased to pet Princess Pricklepants.

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So pleased that she pet Princess repeatedly.

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We set up a small circle to let Princess play in the park.  She tubed.  It’s what a hedgehog does.

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We set up a picnic for her.

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She preferred tubing.

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Princess played with Megan and was pleased to play with one of her fans.

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Megan and Fred both seemed to have a warm spot in their hearts for the pygmy hedgehog.

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And there was much holding.

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Then something really exiting happened that forces me to briefly return to the topic of birds, because it was so cool!  We (Editor’s note: he) spotted Monk Parakeets flying in nearby.  Monk Parakeets are a species of parrot that can live in much colder climates than most, so there’s a breeding population in Austin.  We (Editor’s note: he) could easily spill a few hundred words about may things related to Monk Parakeets, but will spare you.

Here’s one in a tree eating seeds:

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Here are a pair grazing.  Who knew parrots ate grass?

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And here is one doing a precarious looking flyover.  Fear not, there was no parrot poop pelting photographers.

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After that we got dinner, which was very good.  Thanks to Megan and Swarley, it was pure pleasure to have plentiful Princess pals present in one place.