"Chiana?"

The gray-skinned woman turned towards me, and gave me an odd look. "How do you know my name?"

"You're on TV every Friday at ten. You must be Gigi Edgley. Are you in town for a con?"

"What the frell are you talking about? What planet is this?"

"Okay, I'll play along. This is Earth, you know, John Crichton's home sweet home. You live on a ship, a living ship named Moya, along with Ka D'Argo and Aeryn Sun and that little slug..."

"That's Dominar Rygel XVI to you, scum," came a low voice as a small figure appeared out of the fog. It was a puppet of a slug, sitting on a chair hover a few feet off the ground, except that Ididn't see any puppeteer. "Chiana, we can't stand here dilly-dallying with these moronic locals. We need to find the others, and get off this forsaken rock." He turned and began to move away, with the woman in tow.

"But Rygel, he said this was Earth, Crichton's home. He knew all about us..."

"You silly girl, you can't believe everything that strangers tell you. He could be mad as Stark..." They continued, and soon vanished into the fog.

I went back into the bar, grabbed a bottle of bourbon out of my private stash, and poured myself a double.

I was all set to leave the apartment-- hair in sleek tiny Ironic Pigtails, new shiny clompy boots bought for the occasion. Standing next to the door I checked my bag to make sure my cellphone was set to ring loud over the shouts of the celebrants, when I heard a knock.

I opened the door to see a young woman with pale white skin, red hair, and miles of black leather. Nothing out of the ordinary in Sang Sacre; but I wasn't expecting anybody.

I lean on the doorframe. "Can I help you?" She was looking nervous.

"Hi, I'm back," she said, and walked right through the door and into my living room, almost tripping over her shoes but catching herself.

"Hello?" I call after her. "Are you sure you have the right house?"

"Yep, I did," she says, almost to herself.

You don't question Providence when it drops its fruit into your lap. I set my bag back down by the door. I'm not going out tonight after all.

"GIR! Ride the Pig!"

A giant flying pig zooms by overhead, carrying what looks like a little blue robot with an enormous head and a green-skinned boy, also with an enormous head.

Pete and I exchange A Look, then look at my Devilbunny.

"Clovis? Did you invite the Irken invaders?"

"noooo. my planet to conquer, not zim's!"

We shrug and keep walking.

(I love the devilbunny.)

(I love the devilbunny.)

Anyone know Veggie tales? Kid's cartoons featuring vegetables by some Christian outfit. They have one ep which recasts the story of Nebuchadnezzar and Daniel's three friends in a chocolate bunny factory. It has, quite seriously, a song called "I love the bunny". And it's evil and wrong, because it's a DEVIL bunny! (Well, more or less.)

Just sharing the images that flashed through my head from Steph's post.

Granted, this is Sang Sacre, home of the odd and bizarre--hi, guys!--but even my elastic sense of acceptance is having trouble with seeing Edward Woodward as the Equalizer chatting with Derek Jacobi as Brother Cadfael. Chatting in character, at that. I pause to study the cobblestones and try to shut my ears against the insidious allure of English accents of a certain generation. My midnight visitor is the only English accent I'm allowed to listen to--ah, it's one of his plots to drive me batty, so that I'll be in a particular mood the next time he appears at the window that opens onto the air shaft. So like him.

A draft of moving air goes by and I hear the flap of heavy wings above. Lady, now what--oh, wait, no, they're real. The gargoyles from the Folly's roof are coming to watch the festivities.

I'm not from around here. A tourist, but not the dumb kind.I've been hearing things about this place. I step into Milo's, get a drink, and sense someone watching appreciatively.

You know, coming back from the celebrations, my coat mysteriously in tatters, with small animated fragments flitting about my head...

I suddenly have the urge to watch television. Except, well, confined in the little glass box.

There's a bump at my leg and I look down to find cat stropping himself, doing figure-eights against one calf, the other shin. Very sweet, very homebody-like. But cat never stoops to the sweet and ordinary. I look for the wolf, but she's gone.

Or perhaps just hiding in the fog. Beyond which now rises a series of attentuated sparks like ground-born lightning, and a few explosions. I think I hear, over the pyrotechnics, a man's voice in a ragged, sustained shout. I glance down and meet an unfathomable green gaze. Should we investigate..?

Well, the Phoenix party has been a bust. The fog rolled in, and weirdness ensued, so the usual crowd appears to have decided either to investigate or to call it a night. Right now there's only two customers in the bar. One is an attractive woman that I've never seen before, a tourist by the look of her (the camera she carries is a dead giveaway). She and Phred are listening to a somewhat agitated Sgt. Major Chopper, who's going on about what happened to him in the fog...

"'Twas passing strange, I'll tell ya. When that fog rolled in, it felt wrong, ya know, so Captain Charpe thought it'd be a good idea to send out some patrols, just in case. Anyway, he and I were walking near the city hall in Blackwood when we thought saw another group of militia. The Captain was ready to raise hell with 'em for patrolling the wrong part of town, when we realize that these fellas weren't orcs. They were men!

"The Captain ordered them to halt, and demanded to know who they were. Then their leader steps forward into the light, and hand to Krell, he looks and sounds just like the Captain, ya know, if the Captain was human. They just looked at each other for a second, and then the human starts demanding to know who the hell WE are. Well, the two of them start arguing, and then the sergeant that was with them aimed a big gun at us, so we backed off. They moved off into the fog, and we tried to trail them, but they just vanished. The Captain's off reporting to the Mayor to see what's to be done."

I take another glance out the window, and notice the penguin, out dancing under a streetlight... With Gene Kelly... And Snoopy...

I give Phred the signal to pour another round for the house.