I lose things in January.
Two years ago I wrote about my laundry-chute-cum-wormhole; two years before that I wrote about losing a friend's charitable contribution. So maybe I only lose things in January of even-numbered years. But it makes some sense to me that I'd lose things in January: all of the Christmas gifts need new homes, and at the beginning of the year I am usually resolving to Organize All The Things. Putting things away in whirling dervish mode is an excellent way to ensure that some of your family's belongings will end up in Secret Hiding Places.
My husband gave me a pair of black yoga pants for Christmas. They were perfect -- not too snug and not too loose. I tried them on in the downstairs bathroom, and then I...
...I've been trying to finish that sentence for the past three weeks. At last, I think I have an answer.
At my 12yo's urging, I read His Majesty's Dragon right after I finished my Crazy Shakespeare Project. It was so much fun that I galloped through the rest of the series. (Recommended, by the way. Uneven -- she's no Patrick O'Brian -- but laugh-out-loud funny and an interesting jaunt through alternate history. I've been dreaming of dragons.) In the sixth book they travel across Australia, where they have repeated and alarming encounters with creatures called bunyips.
The bunyips engineer underground streams to create water holes, and then lurk nearby to snatch their unsuspecting prey. At first the novel's characters have no idea why the members of their party are vanishing; later, they can hardly credit the speed and rapacity of the bunyip they observe in action.
Obviously, that's my problem.
I put an important piece of paper in a sensible place, like the file labeled "Taxes 2011," but the bunyip tunnels through the back of the file cabinet. Sluuurrrrp! I go back in search of that paper, but there is only a telltale trace of bunyip drool. I toss that pair of hand-knit socks in the washing machine, but the bunyip is hungry and only one appears in the laundry basket. And my yoga pants? Imagine the stealthy bunyip, disappearing into the ductwork with black Lycra trailing from his greedy jaws.
I suppose I should be grateful he's not the man-eating variety, but I'd like my yoga pants back all the same.
Not only do I get waves of Organize ALL the THINGS...but as a teacher, I get to a certain point in the semester, and I start charging wide-eyed down the hall, hollering, "Teach ALL the LATIN!" Then I look at how many weeks I have left, and say, "Teach ALL the Latin??"
(We also suffer from bunyips here. Ours tend to eat the one Lego that holds the whole construction together. And the TV remote. And all the things I put in a safe place, so as not to forget where I put them.)
Posted by: Kristin | January 22, 2012 at 06:29 PM
Bunyip! I just love saying "bunyip." Bonus: Flashbacks to my childhood and the 600 times I watched the HBO animated feature "Dot and the Kangaroo."
Posted by: bearing | January 22, 2012 at 11:22 PM
I like His Majesty's Dragon. I read the latest one back in November. Napoleonic wars PLUS DRAGONS! always wonderful.
We also have bunyips. They generally either turn out to be me organizing or our littlest one. My husband's been playing Minecraft, and there's a creature called and Enderman, who comes out at night and rearranges everything. We call our littlest the Enderman. Anything we can't find he's tidied away.
Posted by: Kyra | January 23, 2012 at 05:50 AM
I will look forward to hearing that your wonderful black yoga pants turned up! Maybe it will happen on a day that really, really needs to have something good happen. I like thinking that they'll get to be a double gift to you in that manner.
Posted by: Celeste | January 23, 2012 at 01:35 PM
I'm sorry about all your disappearances and the evil bunyip that comes to your house every even year in January. :(
I hope you can find what you're looking for!
Posted by: Lilian | January 23, 2012 at 03:42 PM
Bah on the bunyips! But I love that name for them.
My husband is in love with the Naomi Novik series; but I haven't been able to get into it. Perhaps the problem was I had just finished reading O'Brien and was in the mood for more of the same when I picked up His Majesty's Dragon. There was some infelicitous piece of dialogue or description on the first page that just set me off and I decided there was no way I could finish the book if it was going to mean putting up with writing like that. But I should probably go try again sometime because I am intrigued by the concept of the books.
Posted by: Melanie B | January 28, 2012 at 12:30 PM