quote:

---

Originally posted by Islandexile:
They told me at the Post Office that (for reasons I don’t understand) priority mail is taking “3-7 days” to go from Hawai‘i to the US mainland so Sven might not make it until Monday.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Siegfried:
I had occasion to order a couple of Hawaiian shirts online about 2 weeks back.

---

u needed two???

Why the *hell* would anybody need even *one* Hawaiian shirt, let alone two? For heaven's sake, don't broadcast this sort of thing on the Internet. You never know who will be watching.

I am happy to report that Sven has arrived in Coloradooo. {hick} ooops. Shorry. A few too many oooos there. We schelebrated Skven's arrival.

Ackshully, Sven arrived while I was picking up shipmate Louise from the airport. My son called me on my mobile just as we were leaving the airport. Conversation went something like this:

"Hi, Dad!" {tentative voice}

"Hi, Mark. What's up?"

"Uh, well, this package was delivered. It's from Hawaii."

"Oh great! It's Sven the Moose!" (Louise begins to bray.)

Mark: "Huh? What are you talking about?"

"Sven. Sven the Moose. You know..."

"Uh, no." (When I got home, Mark confessed he was afraid someone was sending us Anthrax.)

My wife liked that idea. "First Tom Daschiel, then Tom Brokaw. Now my Tom. It's a Tom thing!"

(She doesn't respect me very much.)

Anyway, now that Sven is here, Mark is going to take him on his Colorado Mountain Club Wilderness Trekking School climb up Long Scraggy Peak. (It's too late in the season for a climb of a 14er like Bierstadt. Too much snow, though the Elk have finished rutting, thank God.)

In the meantime, Sven and I are hoping to take in a symposium that Louise is moderating on Scottish witches at the Denver Marriott and perhaps hear her paper on the Covenanters. I can hardly wait; Sven looks a little less enthusiastic, courtesy, no doubt, of the bottle of beer that was packed up with him. (Katie, it was empty, alas, when the box arrived.)

Louise, her friend Julian, and I all drank a Sapphire gin toast to Sven at the hotel before I had to leave. When I got home tonight (after spending the evening singing Palestrina), I protected Sven from the rest of the gin by putting it inside myself. It was a noble gesture I may regret latter.

Sven looks glum and exhausted. We must find some nice entertaining things to Cheer Him Up.

More later. I will break out the digital camera tomorrow and begin documenting Sven's Colorado adventures.

Yee haw!

I hope that you head has not fallen of in the middle of the night, and we all really appreciate your kindness is safeguarding the Bombay Saff. What a hero you are!

Please keep in touch abuot all Sven's adventures.

bb

We had a terrible quarrel this evening over gin. I got some; he didn't. He's dehydrated quite enough without the additional affect of alcohol at 6,000 ft.

I got a call today from City Hall. It seems they're all in a tizzy over a British Moose being in town. They had that local one come down from the mountains last week and
chase a cop.

It was terrible, and they don't want Sven going crazy on them, too. Livestock are so undependable these days.

Well, I explained to the cranky woman at the city that Sven was a Good Will Ambassador from the United Kingdom. She didn't believe me and said that someone would Be In Touch. It didn't exactly sound like the sort of "in touch" that greeting card companies advertise.

Pretty soon I had this good ole boy on my doorstep. "Ah hear you gotta Moose livin' wichyou." I just knew he had little piggy eyes behind those mirrored sunglasses.

"I have a moose visiting me," I replied.

"Ah gotta meet hiyum," the cop said.

So I invited him in, and he and Sven hit it off right away. "Ah need to have a little Prah-vut convursashun with mah good buddy here," said the cop.

"I don't think so," I replied hotly. "This is a British subject legally in this country!" (Just about then, I remembered that Sven had arrived in a Box and didn't have a passport. I wondered if I were harboring an Illegal Alien.)

And then I remembered from the Urban Myths thread that the British Royal Family were really 7-foot high lizards in disguise and I just knew my boat was sunk. What if Sven were one, too? What if all British were really lizards? We're having enough difficulty in this country being tolerant right now. I couldn't imagine the Powers that Be putting up with any more fuss.

The cop insisted on having "a littul tawk" with Sven, so I left the room for a while. When I came back, the cop was flushed with excitement and said that he was going to (actually, he said "gonna") recommend that Sven be given the keys to the city and have a special (speshul) sign erected in his honor.

I'll believe it when I see it. The cop finally left, and Sven was quiet for the rest of the day (except for getting in a snit when he didn't get any gin). He refused to tell me what had gone on in the conversation.

If the rest of the week is like this, I don't know what I'm going to do. I'm meeting entirely too many peculiar neighbors.

While he was here, he was a perfect gentlemoose! Had not one drink and loved meeting all kinds of new people-THEN, he travels to California and Colorado and he becomes a changed moose!

quote:

---

How'ya gonna keep 'em
Down on the farm
After they've seen Paree?

How'ya gonna keep 'em
Away from Broadway
Prancin' around
And paintin' the town?

How'ya gonna keep 'em
Away from harm?
That's the mystery....

---

Dana, that song was written right after WWI. To quote the Preacher, "there's nothing new under the sun."

Poor Sven. He'll find his true Moose one of these days.

quote:

---

How'ya gonna keep 'em
Down on the farm
After they've seen Paree?

How'ya gonna keep 'em
Away from Broadway
Prancin' around
And paintin' the town?

How'ya gonna keep 'em
Away from harm?
That's the mystery....

---

Dana, that song was written right after WWI. To quote the Preacher, "there's nothing new under the sun."

Poor Sven. He'll find his true Moose one of these days.

quote:

---

Originally posted by tomb:
Why the *hell* would anybody need even *one* Hawaiian shirt, let alone two? For heaven's sake, don't broadcast this sort of thing on the Internet. You never know who will be watching.

---

To wear with my ferret fursuit, of course!

Btw, I notice Sven is now sporting a rather nice lei. What other goodies has he acquired since he left the Bay Area? Does he still have his coyote mask?

Seig, don't tell us any more, please.

SIEG!! YOU DRESS UP AS A FERRET IN A HAWAIIAN SHIRT!!

Err. sorry. Got a bit

Anyway, noticed Sven has yet another different T-Shirt and a hawaiian flower garland this time. Blimey.

Tomb, Sieg, I was having a bad day, but frankly, this has just made it

Well, Sven has survived his second day in Colorado.

The above link is to Sven's Colorado Adventures home page, and it will take you to his Day Two adventures if you scroll down and hit the link.

There is a lurid subtext to all this, but quite frankly, I'm too tired to try to sort it out right now.

Off to a meeting (and some rest) for me!

If we can manage to get together with Louise for dinner, we will certainly bring Sven.

Anyway, Renee, I've PMd and e-mailed you that I'm picking up Louise and Julian Saturday at 6:30 p.m. at their hotel. If I hear from you before then, and you're amenable, we'll head up the freeway in your direction. If you're silent, Julie and I will take them to El Rancho for prime rib and a view of the Continental Divide. Mark is taking Sven climbing tomorrow (in hopes of coaxing him out of his Moosefunk). If the two of them are back in time, we'll feed them beef too.

Renee: call me on my cell phone. You have the number. I'll be practicing, but I'll have the phone on "vibrate" so I'll take the call even in the midst of Bach or Verlain.

I do have pictures. I hope to get them scanned in the next week or so.

I wanted to get Sven a little Hawaii print shirt to wear, but I couldn't find one. Instead he settled for the USS Missouri souvenir shirt.

(The lei around his neck is a traditional Hawaii thing, given to guests when they arrive, to celebrate a birthday, for lu‘aus (parties on the beach frequently featuring roast pig and hula dancing) and for almost any other occasion (and worn by both males and females).)

Puns like that make life worthwhile.

I'll be off to live in Hamburg (work reasons) by the end of the year so I'll have to, sadly, relinquish my position on the rota of Sven's alcholic tours of the world.

Keep the stories coming; they're a riot.

I can't believe it.

I can't BELIEVE IT!

Sven has run away.

He's been mopy these past few days, but I though it was just trying to adjust to the altitude and recovering from his 20 mile hike up Long Scraggy Peak. And my son tried to teach him to Ice Climb. You ever see a moose with crampons?

And I must admit that the Bible study, not to mention the tapes that I lent him, did not go over well.

Then I confided to him the other day that I was going to be sending him on to JB very soon, because I was going to be leaving for Rome. He got very excited.

"Take me with you," he said.

I snorted. "I'm not even taking my wife. I'm certainly not taking you."

He almost sobbed. "Oh you must take me! I suppose you're going to see the Pope?"

"Well, yes. Part of the plan is to have an audience with His Holiness."

"Well," said Sven, "I want to get blessed by the Pope."

"Oh, Sven," I said, "that's impossible. It would be terribly embarassing to whip you out of my pocket, dressed in a lei, a USS Missouri shirt, and a mask, and ask the Pope to put some juju on you.

"Besides, Wood's a Baptist. It would be a terrible scandal to have you show up back in Swansea having converted to the One True Church."

Sven pouted. "I promise I won't tell him if you don't. I won't pray rosary beads or anything like that. I'll count rocks instead."

"That's hardly the point," I replied.

"I need to find my true Moose. I need to become self-actualized."

"Wherever did you learn a term like "self-actualization?" I asked. "Certainly not in this anglo-catholic household.

He leaned over and whispered to me, "I've been reading things."

"What things?" I whispered back.

"Oh, just things," he said. End of confidences.

"Well, anyway, my wife is sending you priority mail to New Mexico on Monday," I said.

"Omighosh," he said, "not another friggin' foreign country."

"New Mexico is part of the United States of America," I replied with some acerbity.

"Do they have weird water there? I don't think I could stand any more weird water."

"It's just like water in Colorado," I said. "You adjusted to that well enough after those two Unpleasant Incidents."

Sven hung his head, and his antlers scraped the antique furniture. "I'm still embarassed about that. You brought it up to make me feel bad."

"I did no such thing. I meant it as encouragement."

"Well, I'm not encouraged," he snarled. I was surprised that ungulates could snarl. "You're denying me the possibility of personal development."

"Sven," I sighed, "If you're set on becoming a Roman Catholic moose, you don't need to go to Rome to convert. Any priest will be able to help you."

"Who said anything about becoming Roman Catholic?" he snorted. "I just want to get blessed?"

"I don't understand," I said.

"Well," he explained slowly, as if I were a slow child, "If the Pope lays some juju on me, then Wood can set me up on the mantle with a yellow votive candle burning next to me. Yellow's the papal color, you know."

"I know," I said.

"Then, he can charge people a quid to come see me and be close to my holiness. It will be a great boost to Wood's exchequer."

"Now I know I'm not taking you to Rome. You're nothing but a simoniac."

"Oh, not at all. I prefer female moose."

Well, the conversation degenerated after that and endedup with a blazing row.

This morning, Sven was gone.

And so was the gin.

I am devastated.

Tomb, I hold you responsible for his well being.

Go forth and FIND THAT MOOSE!

quote:

---

Originally posted by Islandexile:
Milkman-
Did you get the Sven pics from Hawaii?
I sent them last week to the sventhemoose@btinternet.com address.

---

I did... but I've been away for the last week. Promise I'll get them up in the next 24 hours.

As far as I know, your Moosie is fine. There wasn't that much gin left (I had drunk most of it), so I can't imagine that he's lying passed out in a ditch. Even with the mile-high altitude here, Sven tolerates the juice pretty well.

It's just that he isn't *here.* I feel sure, however, that he will come back once he's over his Moosesnit.

And I have this horrible feeling that something spooky is going on. Some Psycho has Sven.

Made me wonder where Sven would be for Christmas.

After a week eating my way through Italy and making the country safe for American choirs, I logged on in hopes that the dear, dear moose would have appeared and forgiven me.

But I must say, I am SHOCKED. SHOCKED do you hear?

I'm sitting in front of my computer, jet-lagged out of my mind and weeping, weeping for the moose.

And might I interject a bitter complaint--hellish though it might be--against Gatwick Airport--undoubtedly the Last Place God Made? And if the Almighty ever needs to give the world an enema, I know where He will Stick The Hose.

But end of rant. I'm just so worried since Sven has fallen in among undesireable company. And I feel so guilty (I've been in a catholic country, and it's rubbed off). What if I were the one who sent Sven over the edge.

I really thought he'd be moved by Jonathan Edwards' "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God."

How was I to know?

I must not have taken him climbing enough.