Tag Archives: Princess Penelope Pricklepants

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:

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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.

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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.

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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!

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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, Farmer, etc.

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Dear readers, we’ve made a few small changes thanks to your feedback.  We’ve made images smaller and lower quality to load faster (you’re welcome, reader H), are using simpler vocabulary (you’re welcome reader Quentin), and we’ve added more characters to stories (can’t remember who mentioned that).  We also will digress less, since someone mentioned that digressions are distracting and don’t add to the narrative form we work so hard to perfect.

Enough preamble, here’s the first picture with some words under it (see Quentin, simple words):

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Princess Pricklepants was very busy working on her farm, but even with more cows than she could count (anything more than four is really hard), she wasn’t making a lot of money selling milk.  She held a council with the cows, and asked for ideas.  Bessie the cow spoke up, “I think if we got more animals we’d ultimately benefit from increased production.  Also, Quentin needs a dictionary.  Cows have large vocabularies, it’s the way we are.  Deal with it.”  So Princess went to the place where you get animals and got some more.

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The new crocodiles were happy in their pond.  The cows seemed moderately concerned but were hopeful that crocodile eggs would fetch a good profit.  Jane, the cow accountant ran the numbers, but even after a few hours there was still no new money coming in.  Strange.  She said some technical things about taxes and capital investment we don’t need to repeat.  She complained that she got a CPA, and we really should go into those details, but we ignored her.  While Jane complained that it would add to the believability and richness of detail to the story if we talked about tax benefits from depreciations of capital something-or-others, Princess went to the place where you get animals to get some more.

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The cows weren’t so sure about the bear.  Bessie, the generic cow, said something very inappropriate that we can’t repeat.  Other cows mentioned that the bear didn’t seem as polite as the crocodiles.  Jane, the cow accountant, noted that bears don’t actually produce anything that farms need.  Christine, the cow safety officer, mentioned that bears were potentially dangerous.  Bessie, the generic cow, also mentioned that the bear looked angry.

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“Rawr,” said the bear (whose name was Boris, and who was offended that nobody had really given any proper introductions, so impolite – he was Canadian, and was upset at how rude these animals were).  Princess and the cows decided to spend some time far from the bear whose name and nationality they didn’t know.

They had another meeting.  “Princess, you need to do something about the bear.”  Jane, the cow accountant, mentioned that there were some concerns about accounts, but maybe they could wait for the bear situation to be handled.

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They had a farm to run, so Princess bravely introduced herself to the bear formally and used her impeccable manners to make friends.  But still even with cows, crocodiles, and a bear, Jane, the cow accountant, was insistent about the fact that the farm still wasn’t earning enough money.  In fact it seemed like they somehow had less money, which she tried to explain in a long drawn out explanation.  While Jane was rambling, Princess left to go to the place where you get animals to get some more.

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In retrospect, it probably wasn’t a good idea to get a Spinosaurus.  The Spinosaurus was terribly rude as well as terrifyingly dangerous.  The cows all insisted that a Spinosaurus was not a farm animal.  Boris mentioned that he thought that Spinosauruses were extinct, though obviously he wasn’t a well educated bear.

Christine, the cow safety officer, mentioned that bears ate berries, roots, and honey, cows ate grass, crocodiles didn’t eat, but she was pretty sure that the Spinosaurus ate hedgehogs, cows, and bears.

The crocodiles were happy, though, as they basked in the sun at the pond.

idea

“I have an idea, eh,” said Boris, stepping forth with great gravitas and bearing.  “Things are getting complex.  It’s especially challenging with that hoser Quentin limiting our prodigious vocabularies.  I am a very erudite bear with a Masters degree in Comparative Mythology, so this is killing me.  Let’s check the internet to see what it says about hedgehog-run farms with cows, bears, crocodiles, and Spinosauruses.  There’s probably tons of web page site whatevers about that topic.”  So Princess searched websites, and finally went to a hedgehog farmer’s web forum (hedgehogfarmercentral.com) to try to figure things out.  The other hedgehogs on the Internet suggested she go to hedgehogfarmsupply.com to order some automated assistants.  One helpful forum member mentioned that if she used her Ink credit card she would earn points that might be useful to offset farm expenses. There was something else about how it would code as office supplies, but the post was too long to finish reading. Princess had online farm shopping to do. So she ordered some automated farm assistants.

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The helper robots were very good at teaching the Spinosaurus manners.  The cows liked the robots, they worked with the bear to overcome his irrational fear of Spinosauruses, and the crocodiles liked the robots, bonding over the fact that they had a lot in common.

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The farm started making a profit, they were producing milk, crocodile eggs, the robots taught the bear to collect a lot of honey to sell, and the dinosaur did an incredibly nice job at being a dinosaur.  The only problem was that the robots did such a wonderful job at running the farm that there wasn’t a need for Princess to even be there any longer.

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So, with all her farm business humming along nicely, Princess decided to take a trip to the outer reaches of interstellar space to pursue her real passion – space exploration.

Next: Princess Pricklepants and the Planet of the Dinosaurs

Princess Pricklepants and the Planet of the Dinosaurs

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One day, while out looking for a nice bakery that carried some good macarons, her poor sense of direction left her exploring the outer reaches of interstellar space.  Due to poor spatial sense and a mistaken impression that she’d found a nice looking pâtisserie, she inadvertently made an unplanned landing of her ship, the Atelerix, on the surface of a mysterious planet in the middle of a theater of a primitive species of dinosaur dramatists.  Fortunately it was a surprisingly soft theater so there were no injuries or damages besides the theater being a bit askew.

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“Rawr” said an offended lead actor dinosaur, who appeared to have briefly forgotten his manners.  Princess took a moment to compose herself.

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She glared the best prima donna glare she could muster.  The occasionally appearing director on a stick began to attempt to direct the scene.  “Rawr!”

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“I must think of a clever, yet plausible solution to this strange predicament,” thought Princess.  She briefly wondered how her life had somehow reached the point that she was a royal hedgehog princess sitting in a spacecraft in the middle of an alien theatrical production being yelled at by a director on a stick, surrounded by strange alien relics of an ancient past that still practiced live dramatic arts.  She remembered that this was no the time for that kind of meandering reflection – it was time to act.

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She called out to her trusty translator droid, 2BORNOT2B, “Quick, translate those lines the director said.”  The droid used its highly advanced compu-matic circuits to produce a translation – “Rawr.”

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Unfortunately, there are subtle inflections in dino-speak, so she wound up saying, “Your mother is a hamster,” to a Spinosaurus supporting actor.  This was not taken well on a planet where, due to monitoring the distant radiation transmissions from Earth, the dinosaurs were all too aware that in millions of years hamsters would evolve into sophisticated talking apes with iPhones, while their descendants would be sparrows, chickens, and parakeets enslaved by the evil ape-overlords.

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The droid translated the dino-alien’s reply, “Gosh, that’s really impolite, space tourist hedgehog, you’ve hurt my feelings, also crashing space-ships into our theater is highly inappropriate.”  Princess was mortified.  She was an expert on manners, yet as the first emissary to the planet of the Thespisaurs she’d managed to make a faux pas.  More than one, really, but she didn’t know how to pluralize that word.

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She roused up her most dramatic pose, and recited a majestic soliloquy in dino-speak.  Her dialogue and delivery were so rousing, wonderful, polite, moving, and dramatic that the dinosaurs forgave her disruption to their production of Othellosaurus and also forgave her previous hamster-related insult.  They were so moved at her theatrical talents and refined manners that they declared her Princess Pricklepants, Queen of the Dino Planet, Prima Donna par excellence, and also said she was remarkably nice for a mammal.  They began the revels.

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“Wait, please, these revels are full of wonderful frolicking delight, and are truly extraordinary, but my noble bearing requires a level of seriousness, artfulness, and subtlety.  Perhaps we could play Scrabble?”  The dino-dramatists agreed, and she scored 128 points with ZLOTIES on a triple word score with the Z on a double letter, and they lived delightfully and politely ever after.

Next: Princess Pricklepants and the Surprising Set of Events

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

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

Hello again!  We should really have waited a month or two before posting again, since it’s impolite to post to your blog too often, but several readers had emailed in to express their gratitude for our practical and helpful guide to manners, but wondered about manners and politeness in other common situations that could arise besides tea parties.  For instance, they wondered about manners on buses, and in supermarket lines, and when family visited and things along those lines.  Unfortunately hedgehog princesses aren’t the types to ride buses, and the hand servants take care of trips to the market, so she doesn’t have a lot of advice to offer on all of the topics that inquiries were made about, but here she volunteers to you, our gentle readers, a guide to several common social circumstances where questions of manners, politeness, grace, and social grace often come up, with tips, advice, and pointers for navigating the complexities of day-to-day social life with others that were inquired about.

Lesson 1: Catapults

“Dear Princess, I throw tea parties regularly since it is the polite thing to do, but I have become very concerned with the actions of my husband Humperdink.  During these parties he will load our catapult with sugar bowls, cups, small animals and other items and fling them around.  The costs in lost china have begun to really rack up, and I am afraid the ASPCA might show up!  What should I do?”

-Big Trouble With A Little China

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Dear Big Trouble,

At times you might have a guest over (perhaps at a tea party, though perhaps in some other circumstance, for readers who don’t throw tea parties regularly, please ignore any tea party related references, these lessons are still generically valuable) who wishes to test their catapult in your home using your fine china (or other things).

What do you do?

Explain to them that catapulting is an outdoors activity, and recommend they take the catapult and your china outside where it’s appropriate and delightful to fling household objects through the air.  Have fun with it, try suggesting that if they take the catapult outside that they could fling jewel encrusted antiques, rare glasswork, a cat, or other items that would be fun to watch fly, so they are more motivated to move it outside. Please note that cats belong indoors, since outdoor cats can cause environmental harm, injuring and eating native species, so after you’re done flinging the cat, it’s good manners to bring it back in.

-Princess

Lesson 2: Cows on the Couch

“Dear Princess.  I try to be as classy as a lady as I can manage, but I’ve run into something that’s burning me up.  My husband Vern has started bringing his cows inside the darned house!  They even have managed to climb onto the couch!  It’s driving me insane.  What should I do?”

-Flustered With The Cows

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Dear Flustered,

Unfortunately, time and again, we all run into the situation of visitors bringing cattle into our homes, with the cows peacefully grazing atop a couch.

What do you do?

Politely but firmly explain that animals are not permitted on the couch (unless they are hedgehogs), and that it would really be best to leave the cows on the floor.

-Princess

Lesson 3: Passages to Secret Gardens

“Dear Princess P. P., recently my children have started to claim that they’ve discovered a secret door that leads to a magical garden, and go on and on about their fantasy life, neglecting chores, failing to do their homework.  I’ve tried to talk some sense into them, but their odd obsession has started to take over their life.  What do I do?”

-Mom Of The Delusional

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Dear Delusional Mom,

Time and again, youngsters will become very excited at the discovery of a secret door that leads to a mysterious and wonderful secret garden full of mystery and wonder, and excitedly try to enter.

What do you do?

Explain politely, but firmly, that the time for entering into the magical alternate universe full of adventure, wonder, and talking animals (not parrots or hedgehogs, but ones that don’t normally speak) is after one has finished eating all the food on one’s plate, taking care of chores, and completing other responsibilities, and not before.  This will ensure that the important things are done before one wanders off into a realm of infinite possibility and delight.

-Princess

Lesson 4: Witch Accusations

“Dear Princess, I have a tough one.  My daughter, Zenobia, has gotten out of control.  It started with things like pointing out my weight, and has moved to to her angrily ranting.  What do you do with an out of control child? She even called me a witch!”

-Frazzled

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Dear Fraggled,

It’s a sign of our times that it’s become commonplace to find that over a cup of tea, in a spirited debate, or while playing cards, someone will insist that you are a witch.

What do you do?

Find a Witch Scale and weigh the accused to see if they weigh more than a duck.  If you don’t have a duck handy, find something that’s roughly duck-weight, for instance a sugar bowl, and put them to the test.  Since ducks float, this is a very scientific as well as practical way to sort out the answer.

-Princess

Lesson 5: Pirate Treasure Maps

“Dear Princess, my husband works on a cargo ship that’s been traveling through Indonesia and around the Horn of Africa.  There is a lot of piracy in those areas.  I’ve told him that I want to take out insurance, for fear of something terrible happening, but he’s fought it, saying that I should trust him to be able to handle the situation.  I even showed him a web site on the internet with maps of piracy and pointed out how his routes intersect on the map, but he’ll have nothing to do with it.  What should I do?”

-Dreading Pirates Robbing

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Dear Dread Pirate Roberts,

Very often in day to day life, we all run into the situation of having a pirate or two drop by to visit bringing with them a treasure map that leads to untold fortunes in gold and gems.

What do you do?

Remember this simple principle – sharing is caring.  Be sure to arrange to have the booty evenly divided among the survivors of the treasure quest.

Lesson 5.1: Climbing under the table and knocking over the treasure map and some guests.

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It’s considered polite to climb under tables at tea parties, but in pirate negotiations things are a little different.

What do you do if you climb under the table and knock over the map and perhaps a guest?

Say, “excuse me, so sorry to knock over that map (and/or guest), I really didn’t mean to.  I apologize.”  That’s typically all it takes to sooth the feelings of pirate treasure negotiators whose precious map/colleague has been flung to the floor.

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Lesson 5.2: Pirate Treasure Negotiators Fainting

Very often when making deals over treasure, one party might get over-excited and faint/be knocked over to the ground.  This is a very delicate situation.

What do you do?

Offer the fainting/falling party a nice cup of tea, and gently help them back up.  Do not bring up their clumsiness or criticize them for falling just because a table knocked into them.  This is not polite.

Lesson 6: Annoying Photographers

“Dear Princess, I’ve been looking at your photos, and I’ve noticed a few things that I’d like to offer as a helpful critique.

Lighting: It looks like you’re using normal indoor lighting for your photos.  That warm directional lighting is fine for day-to-day life, but photos tend to work better with somewhat cooler color temperatures and more diffused light.  Also having a few sources from different directions can fill shadows nicely.

Perspective: Your photos are often shot from odd and jarring angles.  It’s best to try to get down to the point of view of your subject.

Depth of Field: Many of your photos have a very deep depth of field.  If you shoot with a fast prime you can gather more light in lower light situations and also have attractive blurring (“bokeh”) in your photos.

Sets: You use a lot of pieces for sets in your shots, but they look like you picked toys up from Goodwill.   A few higher quality props and a backdrop would make for much more effective photos, keeping distracting elements out, and making sure that the elements in the frame were compelling.

These are just some constructive tips to help you on your photographic journey.”

-Camera Man

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Dear Photography Male,

There’s little in life that’s more insufferable than some relative/friend/visitor whose gotten a new DSLR or other fancy camera to gush on and on about photography, yammering on about f-stops, trying to show you pictures of birds they’ve taken, and being generally dull and droning about their little hobby. They may also criticize your photos and criticizing your equipment for not being fancy/expensive enough.

What do you do?

Politely but firmly explain that they should find other camera-nerds to ramble on with, since bringing up cameras and photography in polite company is something of a faux-pas. If they keep yammering on, kick them out. Nobody needs a know-it-all photographer being a party-pooper.

Lesson 6.1: Crying Photographers

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After helping photographers learn that they shouldn’t keep going on, and on, and on about their pictures and cameras and lenses and fancy lights and tripods and speed lights and so on they may burst into tears, deeply upset at not being able to drone on autistically about their prime obsession.

What do you do?

Give them a hug, and tell them that it’s OK.  You can also them know that their OCD is probably biological, and there’s little hope for them, but that they have families that care about them, so perhaps they could go off and find them now.  Suggest that people with their afflictions might benefit from a comfort animal.  Also recommend some other hobby, like coin collecting, that highly obsessive anti-social nerds like them might enjoy in the quiet of their home so long as they don’t inflict it on everyone all the time.  Be sure to be polite.

Lesson 7: Pirate Maps

“Dear Princess, I got your reply, but I feel that you didn’t quite understand my question.  I was talking about life insurance, not pirate maps.  I only brought up maps to make the point that the routes my husband was traveling on were areas where modern piracy is a serious issue.”

-Misunderstood

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Dear Misunderstood, Hedgehogs have very poor eyesight, which makes reading much harder for them.  Sorry if there were any misunderstandings.  Due to their poor eyesight, they rely on their sense of smell to guide them.  It smells like you like pirate maps a lot, which is great!  I didn’t exactly have a lesson to offer here, but wanted to show you this lovely and delightful pirate treasure map that I skillfully negotiated away from the others.  Please ignore the dead cow (and the Witch Scale) in the background, the poor lighting, the distracting elements in the scene, and the other things that annoying photographers might bring up.

Relating to your other question smells, here are a few more helpful lessons.

Lesson 7.1: Pirate Map Sharing

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Sometimes when you have a treasure map, others might become interested in it, and interested in joining your grand adventure to seek out the lost treasure of Captain Quillbeard.

What do you do?

Remember that sharing is caring.  Let them join you in the quest, making sure to explain that treasure is only divided among the survivors of the adventure, and cows have been known to have some very unfortunate mishaps on past treasure quests, but that they really are welcome.  Once you’ve formed a team, be sure that you’ve got a strong friendship, and consider mentioning to the cow that they can be kind of passive aggressive, but then don’t.

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Pals.  Good.

Lesson 7.2: Pirate Maps and Crocodiles

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How many times has this happened to you?  You and your cow friend have a treasure map and are getting ready to set off on a grand adventure, when a pair of crocodiles show up and one leaps on you in attack!

What do you do?

Remember the words or Gandhi, MLK, and Thoreau, and suggest that you all go get some ice cream to settle your differences.
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Mmm.  Ice Cream.

Lesson 8: Guests Crocodile Wrestling

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A common event when you have crocodiles at ice cream parties is that a youngster will get a little too excited and begin crocodile wrestling.

What do you do?

Remind the guest of the following:
Alligators and crocodiles are rather different, and generally it’s more dangerous to wrestle with a crocodile.
Explain that while it’s good practice to heavily feed ice cream to either before wrestling them so they are less aggressive, both should be trained before such activities.
Note that it takes a lot of training to be able to safely wrestle them, and that many people are injured by these prehistoric death machines.
Firmly but politely note that like flinging your fine china with a catapult, crocodile wrestling is definitely not an indoor activity.
You should also remind the guest that both crocodile wrestling and alligator wrestling are rather barbaric activities, so while their enthusiasm is understandable, that it is not at all polite to engage in crocodile (or alligator) wrestling at a tea party.
Finally, remind them of the words or Gandhi, MLK, and/or Thoreau, and suggest that they learn to peacefully coexist with the crocodiles.

Here is a helpful illustration of Princess explaining these things to the young crocodile wrestler:
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“Be the change you want to see in the world.”

Lesson 9: Weird Guests/Uncles Talking About Ways To Get Many Air Miles and That Sort of Thing

“Dear Princess, my husband is obsessed with collecting air miles and other bonus points.  If I use the wrong credit card to buy some gas, I’ll hear all about it.  He’s starting to use all kinds of weird code words like vanilla, dollar coins, fungibles, 3x, and other things where they are referring to some arcane way to get points.  I do like vacations, but it sometimes feels like the obsession with gathering these points isn’t about getting a cheaper vacation, but just showing off a point balance to other people who are obsessed with this kind of thing.  And advice?”

-Points Widow

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Dear Window,

Sometimes a guest or weird uncle or other person may show up and start rambling on and on about personal finances, and how to get a lot of air mile points, or mention some credit card or another that they can use to get some reward or another. It’s very strange and confusing. They may even try to show you their credit cards, when everyone know one doesn’t do such things in polite company.

What do you do?

Tell them to find some internet forum where weirdos gather to discuss such things. Under no circumstances should you ever engage them, it only encourages them.

Lesson 10: The Call To Adventure

“Dear Princess, I wrote earlier and tried to explain that my kids are spending too much time in a fantasy world.  There is no real secret garden, they just imagine it, I think as some kind of escapism.  It’s concerning.  Also, my pen name was ‘Mom Of The Delusional’, not ‘Delusional Mom.’  I don’t think it’s very polite to get people’s names wrong.”

-Now Kind of Annoyed Mom Of The Delusional

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Dear Annoying Delusional Mom,

It smells like you’re having some trouble with manners!  At times a guest or relative might show up with a space ship/time machine/magical portal/interesting magical or technological item that brings one into a new world of adventure, mystery, and wonder.

What do you do?

Agree.  Even if you try to say no, the author will figure out a way to force you on the adventure, and it’s not polite to disagree with or interrupt story tellers.

Manners - 20Adventure ho!

That concludes this simple guide to etiquette in common social circumstances.  We hope that the next time you encounter a guest crocodile wrestling at your ice cream party, encounter a crying photographer, have to figure out how to deal with cows on the couch politely, or manage any of these other common social situations that our guide will have given you pointers to navigate them with grace and politeness.

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.

 

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.

A Florid Adventure

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The internet is full of cute photos of hedgehogs with flowers.  I found one years ago and thought, “oh, what a cute photo of a hedgehog with a flower.”  Here it is:

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I made it my AOL Instant Messenger icon.  This was many years ago.  I cropped it some so it was mostly the little face and flower.  You don’t need to know all these details.  It was the beginning of me wanting a hedgehog, though.  Interestingly Princess Pricklepants does bear a striking resemblance to that mystery flower-bearing hedgehog of yore.

Anyway, we were excited to have the opportunity to take pictures of our hedgehog with a flower.  I was, anyway.  Ideally we’d get a picture with a little yellow dandelion stuck behind her ear, with her standing in a cute little pose. Perhaps I could use it as my Facebook icon for a while…

She wasn’t feeling cooperative.

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Princess Sophie’s help didn’t exactly help.

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We tried adding in a toy truck so it would be more fun.

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She didn’t find it fun.  On the plus side, we got a flower behind her ear.

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Soon thereafter she assaulted the truck.

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OK, no truck, just heap the flowers, and put her near them?  Still not a happy camper.

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How can a hedgie be so grumpy about flowers?

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Somehow shoving flowers in her face was considered an affront.

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She definitely did not like this.

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She worked on an escape plan.

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Her escape plans got more elaborate.

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Then she taunted us by posing with a flower under her face.  She stood half off the green cloth to ensure my inner picky photo critic would be extra annoyed.

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Posing near a pile, would that do?  With bad lighting that’s way too warm and the whites partly blown out by the exposure?

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Finally we got this one.  It’s not the hedgehog with a flower behind its ear that got us started on this quest, but it was late, and it was close enough.  Fine.

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Photos of hedgehogs with flowers behind their ears are really kind of overrated.

Princess Pricklepants, Nature Photographer

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It was Princess Sophie’s birthday, so we got Princess Pricklepants a nice present, a new camera.  Say cheese!

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She decided to photograph a lovely flower.  She posted it to 500px.com.  431 people said “nice capture, v&f, please take a look at my photos.”  How exciting!  She did not look at their photos, though.

 

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She went for a hike out in nature to see what might be found on her walk.  Amazingly, she found a very rare Mountain Mallard.  

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She carefully set up her f/stop, thought about the optimal lighting settings, set her metering, fiddled with the ISO, and then switched to ‘auto.’

 

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She took a few shots of the rare Mountain Mallard.  It stood remarkably still.

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She posted the new photo to 500px.com, got 315 likes, 220 faves, and 933 comments.  Whoo!

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Unfortunately National Geographic did not respond.

A Few Recent Photos of Note

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We were visiting our friend Victoria recently, and so of course I had to wander away from people and lie on my stomach to take photos of the hedgehog walking around.  I have the mad social skillz.

Groundling

Guess what? Princess butt.

Handy

A hand full of hedgehog head on.

low

Low angle, low key.

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When she curls up on you and sleeps it hits quantum adorableness and tears into the space-time fabric. We try to keep her awake.