Rabbits at Work

Detour! go to http://musashiguide.blogspot.com for your funny today.

Rabbit Line--Do Not Cross!

Doktr Woof...Russ

Musashi Sez:

I sat ther in the unnergroun bunkr of the ol KGB’s aminal divizhn an stayrd at Myshov the moussee agent from Rusha orijinallee, but now heer in Grrranada, Spayn. An I stayrd at M, mai beluvd leedr, whu caym all the wae from Inglund to halp me sort out my nex moov.

I akskd, “So whu this Doktr Woof? Whut we noe about him?”

M and Myshov egschanjd glansis (this meen they lukt at eetch othr). Myshov sigd drmatiklee. M shuk her hed. “Sorry, Eight. What we’ve told yu is what we know.”

“Huh,” sez I. “Ther alwaez mor. Do he has lotsa technikl weppnz? Do he has compyootrz? Do he has, whut that werd… minions?”

“Oh that,” said M. “Well, er, strictly speaking: probably, yes, and definitely.”

“Yah. That kinda mayk a diffruns, M.”

“Sorry, Eight. I’m so used to taking those things for granted.”

“Huh. I don’t tayk nothin fer granit egsept stonz. In mai limited egspeeryens, mos peeples not have the minions. Compyootrz, shur. Technikl wepponz, wull, that depenz on yer difinishun.”

“Sorry there, Eight. You’re quite right. Your perspective as a relative newcomer to the scene is quite valuable.”

“I shud thingk so. Altho so far I hasn’t met any relativz. Sabaka an Perro, yah, but they’r doggeez. Gato, but I’m pertee shur we not relaytid. An thoz crazee kats at that ol shryn… Did Alek sen yu messijz about them?”

“Heavens, yes. Mysiz had assumed for years that they were a myth, or at most, a dying-out cult.”

“Nope. They’r akshual a buntch of seeryus weerdoez. Serifyabul.”

Myshov sed somthin. I turnd on my LingwaTron collr jus in tim to get the tranzlayshun: “Whut do font hav to do wift the feline cult members?”

M sed qwiklee, “Never mind those details, the question is, what are we going to do to stop Dr. Woof?”

Maykin Contakt Unegspektidlee

Mom Says:

(Yeah, long blog = go to litterbox. Get used to it. We’re not going to tell you from now on.)

Agent Octavian quite liked his new friend Picotero Paco, the Brussels sprouts farmer and flamenco singer, but honestly! The beautiful mouse dancer was nice, but it felt like Paco had been singing for a whole week.

Ya no sufro! Noooooo!
Ahora yoy a dar mi corazòn,
mi corazòn sangrante,
sóloooooo a la lunaaa….

(No longer will I suffer! No!
Now I shall give my heart,
my bleeding heart,
only to the moon….)

“Huh!” Octavian thought to himself. “Suffr, suffr, moon, moon. Enugf alreddee! Is tim fer som disco!” But just as he was thinking this, Paco ended with a flourish. Timidora bowed. The guitaristas stood and bowed. Paco shook himself as if he were coming out of a dream. The crowd stomped and whistled and shouted, “Olé! PicoPaco! Olé!”

Musashi Sez:

So old Paco went off, mutterin that he had ben hijackd by “duende,” whutevr that is, an got himself a dringk. I assoom he got som likyoooor de sprowt de Bursels or like that, but I din’t talk to him again aftr.

An that wuz moslee cuz the pertee mousee laydee com to our taybul to talk to us. Malena pickt up the strugglin Gato and givd him to that othr gy, sayin, “Javier, tenemos camarones extra? Alimentan a este gato con la puerta cerrada. Entendido?”

“Si,” sed Haveeyayr, tryin to keep Gato wift jus 2 arms, but akshul he do okay.

The mousee lookd onlee a littul happier aftr Gato left. She kept givn me the hairy eyball. I tried purrin, but that not seem to halp.

Alek manidjd to calm her down by talking about her dansin as if he nu stuff. Huh. He spoktid in a mix of Spannish an Inglish, an somtimz Malena tranzlaytid an somtimz Perro did. I wuz not folloin the conversayshun until Alek did somthin to mai collr that he calld “chaynjin the freekwensee.” At ferst, I wuz insultd, thingkin he wer callin me a freek, but wen whut he did werkd, I figgrd it had somthin to do wift the mousee laydee’s reellee high vois.

Mom Says:

After making Señora Timidora comfortable with small-talk, Alek said, “You know, I think your husband and I, and my friend Octavian here, have a mutual friend in London, with his initials…”

Timidora squeaked, “O?”

And Alek said, “No. M.”

And Timidora said, “O! What U wan?”

“We’d like to meet with him, if we could.”

“Y?”

“It’s…complex. But his former employer is up to old tricks, and we are hoping to avoid a big mess. Entendido?”

“Ah…C…”

“Could you arrange it?”

“Ah… May B…C… Ah... I tell M. Mmmmm. Huh! C! Com wif Mee!”

And before any of them had planned to move, they were following her out of the bar and into the darkened city streets of Grrrranada.

Wae Up Ther on Byootifulest List

Mom Says:

It wasn’t even midnight when Octavian and his friends sat down with Malena, the bar owner/flamenco dancer, so it wasn’t a big surprise that, as they talked, customers—new (no bruises) and old (lots of Band-Aids)—came to the Vista Granada and began (or resumed) their eating, drinking, and listening to the music. Because of course, Paco, that old trouper, just kept on singing out the pain of all the cats of southern Spain, the human gypsies of Andalucia, and all those of every species and every region whose love had ever been betrayed, whose hearts had ever been shredded.

La luuuuuna es fría, pero honestoo.
Aaaay yaaaa yi yi yi yi yai!
La luuuuuna se ve mi dooolooor,
el suuufrimentooo que me causaste.

(The moon is cold, but honest.
Ouch! Ow! Ow! Owww!
The moon sees my pain,
the suffering you caused me.)

Octavian sat next to Malena in the corner booth, one front paw on her leg, and listened adoringly as she described the history of flamenco music and dance.

“You see,” she said. “The gypsies heeer have been mistreated, spat upon, called outsiders, and pushed out, overrr and overrr. So when the gypsy stamps the foot in the flamenco, he is saying, ‘Heer, thees my home, wherre I stand!’ So, you know, next time other peeeples make heem move on, well, the land is deefferent, yes, but hees feet are the same, and he can always claim the place he stand as hees home. You see?”

Octavian and Gato purred. Alek nodded quite seriously, saying, “Señorita—“

But Malena’s attention had shifted to her feet. She looked down and said, “Si, dígale a Javier para configurarlo para usted.”

The Spaniard who had helped clean up dragged a table in front of the musicians and wiped it down with a rag. Nodding to the guitarists (because Paco was in a world of his own), he stepped away again. Octavian and Gato, who saw the flash of white and red move from the floor to the table, flexed to leap at it, but Malena’s strong hands fell on their collars and restrained them. “You no attack Señora Timidora. Sheee eeez one of our best dancers. You heer mee?”

And the cats purred penitently, but Malena did not let go.

They watched breathlessly as a tiny white mouse, in a scarlet dress and a lacy black veil, began to dance. If Octavian had been impressed by Malena’s easy human gracefulness, he was absolutely floored by the natural elegance of the little mouse.

“Wow!” said Octavian, betraying his American roots. “She the bomb! Whu is she?”

Malena let go his collar (while still holding onto Gato’s). “Shee eez called Timidora, because she marreed a Russhian whu did not approoov of her Christian name: Maria de los Gatos Timidoro Garcia.”

Octavian said, “So her husbun, the Russhin, is a Garcia? That don’t sound rigt.”

“No, no. Her mother was Garcia. Her father was Timidoro. What does her husband have to do weeeth eet?”

Alek turned to Octavian, saying, “It’s cultural, old man. I’ll explain it later.”

The little white mouse, Timidora, danced with her tiny eyes closed, passionately,

Poooodré amar de nuevoooo,
después de suuuuuu traicióooon
espiadada? De la luuunaaa
brillaaaa de nuevooooo,
después de que ha disminuidooo?

(Shall I ever love again,
after your heartless betrayal?
Shall the moon shine again,
after it has waned?)

“Wow,” Octavia said again. “Whut’s her husbnd’s naym?”

“Heem?” said Malena disparagingly. “Oh, hee neverrr com heeer. Heees naym is Mysh Medvyedovich Myshov…”

Alek sat up very straight. “Really,” he said. “What a fantastic dancer she is. Do you think we could express our admiration to her later?”

Malena said, “Si, right after thees song.”

Mai Ferst Flamenco, O Mai!

Musashi Sez:

This a long one. Yu gyz shud probabul jus mayk shur to goez to littrbox befor yu reeds mai blog fer the nex cuppul of daez. OK?

Mom Says:

Picotero Paco led Agent Eight through the Barrio de los Animales, weaving slightly, but still keeping up a constant commentary in Spanish that the LingwaTron was having an increasingly harder time understanding. After a while, Octavian simply turned it off. How important was communication, really, under such circumstances?

They entered yet another tapas bar. This one sported brick walls with landscape paintings warmly lit by yellow light. Humans as well as dogs and cats moved through the place, dancing, sitting in corners, munching tapas and drinking sangria.

The guitar music was rough and emotional, and at first Octavian thought, “Huh. Jazz is betterer than this!” But as they moved through the crowd and he inhaled the passion as it zigged and zagged invisibly through the room, he admitted silently to himself that he might—just possibly—be wrong. Maybe. Perhaps. And he had clearly intended it all along. Huh.

Suddenly, a tall human woman in a very fancy long red dress stood before them and picked up Paco. Quickly Octavian turned the LingwaTron back on, just in case this was one of those situations where it would be best to run to get away from some messy love affair gone wrong. (Humans get very fussed when suddenly there are kittens in their home as well as cats…)

“Picotero! ¡Por fin! Debes cantar para nosotros esta noche!” (Chatterbox! Finally! You must sing for us tonight!)

“Sí,” said Paco. “Por supuesto. Tal vez más tarde.” (Yes, of course. Maybe later.)

“Ahora!” (Now!)

Octavian couldn’t hear Paco’s purring, but he recognized the signs. The tall lady carried Paco to a table near the guitarist and turned the microphone toward him.He licked his paw and washed his face reflectively, then murmured something to the guitarists. Then he began to sing.

For Octavian, who had only ever heard fence-singing in America when he was very, very young, the electrifying performance of Paco that night forever changed his view of the artistic abilities of his species. Paco sang with a voice like broken glass. Octavian’s eyes watered from the sheer beauty of it.

Aay yaaa yi yi yi yi yi yai!
Oooo doloo-ooo-ooor miaouu!
Luuuuuuna (aay yaiii!) miiiaouuu,
La luna miaou luna ayaa-yi-yiii!

(Outch!!! Outch!!! O! My pain!
My--ouch!--moon,
The moon, my moon, O! Ouch! Ow! Ow!)

Musashi Sez:

Meanwhile, back wift mai othr buddeez…

Now, of cors, I onlee fyndid this stuff out laytrer, but whil I wuz havin a big old cultchurl epifunnee, mai buddeez Alek, Gato an Perro wer in mortul danjr. Cuz the reellee gud thin about GPS is that yu kin fynds wher yu want to go. But the bad thin is, if yer emenmies hear yu tell sombodee wher yu want to go, they kin yooz their GPS to fynd the saym plays.

This migt seem obveeyus to all yu jentul reedrz in yer ergonomic armchayrz bak hom in the Stayts, but when yu’r out in the feeld, an yer adrenalenalin iz pumpin awae, is hard to remembembr stuff lik this. An also, yu has to figgr that Alek (lik me) is kinda nu at all this spyin, an PyG, tho they ben runnin their listenin post in Marrakech fer a long tim, hasn’t got the feeld egspeereeyens that wud mayk them mor smartypants.

So they didn’t egzaktlee leed thoz darn ninjas to the Vista Grrranada. Of cors not. But them ninjas found it jus the saym.

Doez I Onlee Do Eskaypin?

Musashi Sez:

Aftr I raysd ovr the wall of the shryn, I raysd down the big roed until mai tong wuz hangin out an I wus reddee to jus drop. But luckee, rigt about then, a littul truk pull up to wher I wuz jus bayrlee skraypin along. I lookt up, an ther wuz this tabbee kittee drivin the truk.

The kittee rolld down his windo an akskt, “Donde esta…?”

Mai collr told me that he wuz askin wher I wuz goin in such a hurree. So I sed, “Voy a Granada.”

Som doggee wuz barkin in the bakgroun. The dryvr kittee sed, “Ah, Granada! También se va a Granada.”

So I sed, “Gran! ¿Puedo ir contigo?”

An he sed, “Si, si!” an laugft lik mebbe he had had jus a littul too mutch of the ‘Nip. But I wuz a furrinr ther, so I jumpt in an kept mai mouft shut.