wondrous-wizteria - Tumblr blog

[wondrous-wizteria]

If you could be any animal, what would you pick?

Well, opposable thumbs are awfully handy, so I think I'd like to be a monkey.

Preferably one of the cute little extra-fluffy ones like I saw illustrated in an encyclopedia years ago.

[wondrous-wizteria]

What would be your first instinct if you found a top (the toy) lying on the ground in an abandoned crypt

First instinct?  “Ooh, free toy!  I bet I can figure out a grandchild who would like this!”

I might get around to wondering about the “why” before I actually picked it up.

[wondrous-wizteria]

Hi there! What do you imagine the worst possible thing happening right now is?

The worst possible thing I can imagine?

The moon falling from the sky and crashing into the land.  It crushes two cities at once.  The world shakes and the tides stop, and nothing is quite the same again.

Have I thought about this before?  Yes.  When Sage was much younger, their teacher asked them to make a model of our continent, so we tried to make a sort of sculpture out of cake.  It had little cities of frosting on one side and a forest on the other, with clouds on top of the forest, and some wooden sticks through those layers to support the moon hanging over everything.  But the sticks broke, and the moon fell.

Sage had nightmares that week.

On a really bad night, I like to look up at the moon and think: well, it could be worse.

[wondrous-wizteria]

What's the strangest smell you've ever concocted while cooking?

I suppose it shouldn't have been a surprising smell, but one time, we found a recipe that called for rosewater.  Roses weren't too hard to get ahold of in season, but we'd never tried cooking with them.  Everyone who came by the kitchen said it smelled nice while we were simmering the petals, and I guess it did.

But years before that, when I was first learning to cast a sleep spell, I used to use rose petals as a component for the spell.  My lab partner and I spent a lot of time practicing it on each other.  We got a good score on the exam, but ever since then, I've associated roses with sleep.

So every time I noticed the rosy smell, I kept reflexively wanting to sit down and brace myself against the wall so that I wouldn't fall asleep from a standing position.  It was enough of a distraction that Rye had to take over and finish making the rosewater and the rest of the pastries without me.

[wondrous-wizteria]

Out of all your outfits, what would you say your absolute favorite was?

Oh dear, choosing a favorite outfit is like choosing a favorite child.  I'll never manage it.  Even a genre.  Glitter and glam?  Elegant and smooth?  Soft and comfy?  There's a time and place for everything.

But I do have awfully fond memories of the caterpillar suit.  The year when Holly was big enough to walk and understand the plan, and Herb was young enough to be present and cooperative, and we got the whole family inside the thing, my husband in front and me in the back and all the kids in the middle.  I lit up the eyes on the front and we joined the holiday parade.

[wondrous-wizteria]

What is the most interesting non-humanoid you've seen?

Ah...I don't know if I should say.  Well, maybe it's less awful if I just describe it instead of showing it.  One of my old professors kept a thing in a jar with a vaguely human-looking face and torso on one end, like a tiny centaur, and then quite too many legs all along the lower body, and then another, larger, face on the other end.

I still don't know if it was a real creature or a sculpture she commissioned to make everyone horrified.  I guess there's something to be said from a wizarding perspective for learning to concentrate with a thing like that watching over you all through the lecture.

But I made an illusionary image of it once in the middle of a tavern, after a few too many beers.

That tavern isn't in business anymore.

This is why I don't get drunk anymore.

[wondrous-wizteria]

If you could meet anyone, dead or alive, and ask them any one question, who would you meet, and what would you ask?

I'd love to meet Estrella Vives, the author of 1001 Illusionist Party Tricks, and ask how the one about the hundred dancing monkeys is supposed to work.  I can't manage more than two or three monkeys at once, tops, unless they're all moving in sync.  And even if I make it a static image, I can't figure out how to fit an entire hundred into the range of the spell without just stacking them on top of each other's heads.  Did she use really tiny monkeys that all did the same movements at once?  Did she actually just mean "several monkeys" and not a hundred?  Was the dance she chose just a little head bob?  Did she throw in an incredibly advanced illusion to the book by mistake?  Am I just missing something really obvious?

I know it sounds silly, but this has been bothering me for twenty years.

[wondrous-wizteria]

What do you think is the greatest invention by mortals?

The greatest invention by mortals, hmm?  

I've always been really impressed by a good souffle.  Who figured out you could do that, anyway?  You'd never stumble across it by pure accident.  Whoops, just accidentally broke some eggs and separated out the whites and whipped them for just the right amount of time?  No, somewhere along the way, that took an adventuresome cook who was also a scholar.

[wondrous-wizteria]

What is one of the weirdest things you used to do as a teenager?

I don’t know if this is weird, exactly, but I’m sure my family would have thought so back then.

When I was a teenager, I lived in a little town called Shruboria.  It was a pretty quiet place.  The most excitement we had was a few families trying to outdo each other's gardens, and a couple of annual festivals involving flowers.  

It was just close enough to a major road that we did get a few travelers stopping by now and then.  There was an older couple with an extra room who offered bed and board, and a couple times I remember my aunt rented out space in her barn for a bigger group.

As a teenager, I was bored, and I thought we were boring.  I'd go talk to the travelers, and they'd have stories about the world, and I had stories about dirt.  So I started making up more interesting stories to tell to strangers.

Eventually I settled on a favorite, and I told it to every visitor for a couple of years in a row: our entire village was descended from a legendary hero, and every one of us was sworn to protect a sacred place nearby, where we kept hidden, holy artifacts.  Then I pointed out a path and said it was forbidden to strangers.

Actually, the path just went into to the hills and the little ditch full of brambles where folks sometimes went to throw out bits of junk that couldn't be fixed or reused.

Twenty years later, I was still getting letters from my mother about strangers going around poking in the trash pile and taking things away with them.  She always sounded vaguely offended, and I don't really see why.  You'd think everyone would appreciate having a free trash removal service.

[wondrous-wizteria]

Hi Wiz! Can you tell me about your family?

Oh, you want me to talk about my kids?  Twist my arm, why don't you.

My oldest is Herb.  He's a baker, like his father (Yggdrasil keep him).  Moved out and started up his own bakery in another city just about as soon as he was grown.

Sage is a scholar.  Picked up a bit of magic from me, but really passionate about history more than anything.  We've had some nice times visiting libraries together.  The rest of the family thinks we're weird.

My third child is Gladiolus.  He got the wandering feet well before I did, I guess, and he went off to work as a caravan guard to see the world.  He's still doing it, but he only takes routes based out of Wheelton these days, where his wife and her girlfriend and their kids live.

Youngest is Holly.  She's an artist, does some sculptures and murals for smaller towns at cost, and makes ends meet by doing portraits for rich folks.  She's humble about her work, which she didn't get from me, but don't listen to her.  Everything she does is lovely.

All four of them have kids of their own, now, too.  Holly just had her first a couple years ago, little Thyme.  Herb's oldest, Violet, must have just turned twenty.  Herb's last letter told me she was looking for some excitement, and I hope she ended up finding her uncle to try out the caravan work, instead of trying to get into anything like this gladiator business.  Or the army, Yggdrasil forfend.

If I try to list all of my grandchildren without consulting my notes, I'm going to forget one, or mix up their ages, or some other grandmotherly crime.  I adore every one of them, but I'm getting old, you know?