Wanda Pedersen > Recent Status Updates

They came in all sizes and shapes; tall, short, bulky, slender, some young, some older, but all of them ridiculously fit. They looked healthy, strong, athletic, and ready to spring into action. It was like walking into a medieval version of one of those firemen pet-charity calendars, except that everyone kept their clothes on and there was a distressing lack of kittens.

I was doing my best not to gawk. It was weirdness. So much wonderful weirdness. Magic amulets, odd trinkets, a stall that sold colorful powders that might have been dyes or spices, jewelry, glass sun catchers, bizarre-looking knives...It was like a dozen books from an epic fantasy list had gotten together with some dungeon master manuals, had a drunken party, and thrown up on a flea market.

"There is no soap like this anywhere in the city. If we brought this bar into the soap guild, all the soap makers would bow to it."
"I've finally found my true calling," I announced. "I shall be Maggie the Soap Queen of Kair Toren. I will rule this city with my clean, soft hands..."
Reynald laughed.
"You should take a rest," Shana told me. "The fumes are getting to you."

"Once news of Von Hilsing's death is known, the press will descend like vultures. Our British newspapers are bad enough, but just consider, dearest--"
"The Americans," he said hoarsely. His face had gone very white, and he slumped into a chair. "It will be awful. They will accuse us of terrible things and they shall do so ungrammatically."

"I ought to eat it, it may be my last meal. I shall have to live on stale crusts and cheese stolen from mousetraps. I will be forced into degrading work like prostitution or standing for Parliament."

"Can he breathe?" Cal asks.
"Who gives a shite?" Trey says.
"Gonna be a lot more paperwork if he can't," Cal says. Trey tilts her head, acknowledging this.

Eugene favors his mama more than his daddy; he's middle height and narrow all over, with dark hair and a face that's good-looking as long as you get it at the right angle and don't have high expectations in the way of chins.

Shara does not bother to hide her relief. One of the things she values most about her "secretary" is how little he cares for the intricacy of obfuscation: Sigrud is a hammer in a world of nails, and he is satisfied knowing only that.

Toby wonders if pigs get sunburn.

As a hog farmer's daughter, I can tell you that they do and it makes them miserable. We would make a mud puddle for them to roll in. It was soothing & prevented more sun damage if they were mud coated.

The first hole is not a difficult hole, and this is the way, Gary believes, a golf game should start. Like life. In a manner most likely to give you a false sense of hope and potential. Indeed, Gary imagines that life is very much like the first hole at Victoria Glen.
Take out your driver, look down the fairway, safe in the knowledge that nothing has gone wrong.
Yet.

"It's copycat mentality," says Bria's father. "You hit one priest with a rosary and, suddenly, everyone wants to hit a priest with a rosary."
"Fox News is blaming the aliens on the moon," says Bria's mother.
"Priests versus aliens," says Bria's father. "That's a cage match I'd watch."

Thea hasn't spent much time wondering about the aliens and how they look. She's more concerned about getting out of Autumn Leaves and back into her own house.
"I can tell you," says Joan, "I'd rather see them on television."
"Maybe they're beautiful."
"No," says Joan. "If they were beautiful, they would have already shown themselves. The reason we haven't seen them is that they're hideous and probably smell bad."

He's heard of Vrbo and Airbnb.....The more he thinks about people prowling about in his condo, the more he sympathizes with Miranda. He wouldn't care to see the Lagoon turned into a short-term rental with unwashed guests roaming the hallways like a troupe of baboons.

"Do you think the U.S. and Russia are really going to attack the moon?"
"Without proper supervision," says Nico, "there's no telling what those two lug nuts will do."

Gossip was the greatest form of currency in the royal court: like cigarettes in prisons, as she had once been reliably informed by a wayward young aristocrat with experience of both.

Mrs. Sedge, who had come to England twenty years ago from Vienna, had apparently retained little knowledge of her country's cuisine, if she had ever possessed it. Dulcie was always surprised at the thoroughness with which she had acquired all the worst traits of English cooking.

Dulcie keeps a copy of Some Tame Gazelle in the bathroom! 😃