What Happens in Katmandu
They liked their dandelion tea in Katmandu.
What they would do is go out in the yard in the morning, pick a few dandelions from the otherwise immaculate lawn, bring them inside, stamp them all down in a giant tea kettle that looked suspiciously like an old fashioned laundry tub, fill the tub with hot water, and let it steep. In the afternoon they'd dip their tea cups into the tub and pull out a cup or two of dandelion tea. Whether they did this earlier or later in the afternoon depended on how strong they liked their tea.
The dandelions and lawn were carefully cultivated by a very special goat, who was trained to eat the grass to a certain height that was pleasing to the eye, pick out and eat the weeds, with the exception of the dandelions. Not that you'd get anyone in Katmandu (the name of the complex, moreso than an accurate name for the place they were, not that Kathmandu wasn't close by (and a couple hundred feet or so lower)) ever daring to call dandelions weeds. "Tea leaves," is how they referred to dandelions, sometimes, though they'd do it somewhat sheepishly, as they were all fully aware that calling something with a flower-like head and a straw-like stem "leaves" was stretching it. For the most part, when they had to talk about dandelions they said, "them things" and pointed at the dandelions growing on the lawn. This had the dual purpose of being explicit about their conversational point and drawing attention to the finely manicured lawns. The people of Katmandu were very proud of their lawns.
Which is why when the local goat went missing there was a great panic amongst the Katmundians.
Two of the villagers were chosen to go out and find the goat. Since Katmandu was situated on the peak of one of the smaller ranges in the Himalayas and was only serviced by one road, they figured their best bet was to head off down the road to see if they could find the goat.
Before they left the village, one of the elders stopped by the house of the man of the chosen two (a man and a woman, as dictated by legend, were to venture off in pursuit, should the goat ever go missing). The man was packing a small valise while the woman sat on his bed and watched and occasionally kicked the legs of a chair just within reach.
"I have some wisdom to impart to you before you head off," said the elder.
The man looked up from his packing (a shirt that was going into the valise more wrinkled than if he were stuffing the laundry down a hedgehog hole). "What is it, sir?" asked the woman.
"Don't come back without that damn goat." And with that, the elder left.
To be continued next week...
disclaimer:
So as you may have guessed... I don't know how, but you may have, people do all sorts of crazy things, but the statute of limitations has been reached and Sane Magazine is returning to New England (the country just to the northeast of the United States of America) in the next two weeks for the first time in nine years.
Not as part of a tour stop, but as an office relocation. So if you're living in New England and fear your property value may dip as a result of our move, well, time to get out now. I hear Canada's nice.
As part of an ongoing year long celebration, the founder of Sane Magazine will be reading, yet again, at a Fenway Fiction event, May 18th in Arlington, Massachusetts. You'll get bugged in this space more as the date gets closer. For a reference as to how much you'll get bugged, see this (and about four or so issue prior to that) for an example. You may find us a bit more mellow, though, as the recent sighting of actual baseball players playing actual baseball down in Florida seems to have helped Fenway Fiction's sales, because we're in the ninety thousands... not quite the top ten, but it's a lot closer to it than it was around Christmas-time. So, in closing, and in summary, Fenway Fiction. Fenway Fiction, Fenway Fiction , Fenway Fiction. There's an excellent chance I've just bumped us up into the top one hundred, by sheer number of chances someone has to click and get through to the book on Amazon.com. Accidentally or otherwise.
So pardon our dust, and all that stuff, we're moving. And we can't wait to show you what we have in store for 2006.
Oh, and thank you to our muse for this week's issue.
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See you next week.
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