THE STORIES ARE DELETED!!!

i CANNOT BELIEVE THAT lilly AND rose WOULD LEAVE MY PRODUCT DESCRIPTION OFF OF THE SHOP WEBSITE! spit. I HAVE DELETED ALL THE STORIES UNTIL THEY FIX THIS. spit. THE END. spit. 

Except you can read the wonderful story about me as was told by The Purple Grandmother in her letters to her darling little grandchildren. 

Sincerely, Lilac.

21 June

A NOTICE APPEARS ON THE GOLD POT:

NOTICE TO THE WRETCHED, WICKED GRANDMOTHER

With the Grandmother it is nothing but Lilly, Lilly, Lilly. Spit.  Is it ever Tulip, Tulip, Tulip?  Is it ever Lilac, Lilac, Lilac?  No, it is not. Spit.  Therefore, Dear Horrid Grandmother, we are leaving home, you old thing.  We will no longer suffer your stinky old feet, and your awful purple hair, you human person you!

We will find the BABA YAGA!  When we return she will eat you, fat old Grandmother.  She will chew the bone old bones of the ugly old Grandfather.  She will chomp up all the little children, the juicy, juicy children.  That is how it will be. Spit. There is nothing more to say.

Very Sincerely, Your Friends Lilac and Tulip Cherry

P.S. Please leave a map on the hall table.  Lilac and Tulip Cherry.

P.S.  Have cookies ready for us when we leave. L. and T. C.

Spit.

Oh, for Pity sake!  The BABA YAGA will eat THEM! 

Sincerely, the Dear Grandmother

21 June

A letter from the Dear Grandfather to the Dear Children

Dear Children:

Grandmother has gone to bed with a cold compress on her head.  She has directed me to put the Cherry “things” naughty notice on the gold pot for their father, Prosperos, to read.  In the meantime, they have borrowed the Fairy brothers 21 gear mountain bikes without asking and headed north.  When they left they were wearing Walkmans and singing, “Ah one choo, bab eee, dom, dom de dom.” 

I say if the “things” want to go, let ‘em.  They are like flies in your food.  If the Baba Yaga wants to eat them, let her.

From Grandfather (dear)

23 June

THEY WERE ARRESTED! 

Well, My Darlings,

Lilac and Tulip were arrested by Prosperos on the corner of Woodruff Way and 9th South Circle just as I hoped they would be.  This is precisely why I had the dear Grandfather put their sinful little note on the gold pot.  Prosperos was upon them in an instant.  He caught them each by the seat of her biker tights which is hard to do there being so little pinch room.  He smacked their little backsides, and plopped them on the bough of an Austrian pine in Mrs. Ellen Fergis’ front yard (I greatly regret that she did not see this as she is a woman of depth and would have appreciated it, I know.)  He declared their behavior abominably UNCIVIL ICE for the following reasons:

1. They had written a shameful note to the Grandmother which did nothing but invite trouble, and trouble would surely come of it.

2. They had taken the property of others without permission which is a trespass of the first order.

3. They bounced out of the house to junk music on borrowed Walkmans.

4. And they rode off without helmets, a clear violation of human and fairy law.

Prosperos explained that they must apologize to the darling Grandmother who had loved them so dearly and had made them more Quaker Oat Chocolate Chip cookies than there are stars in the heavens above, and who never in her wildest dreams meant to squish them under her stinky old bare feet or vacuum them up in her ratty old Hoover with the dust spewing bag.

He then informed them that all the Cherries would be going to the Gnarled Tree Retreat for Midsummer’s Eve.  Cousin Esme (meaning highly esteemed) would be there from Paris, France to sing for the company.  Cousin Esme is renowned in Europe not only for her voice, but for her porcelain beauty, and her charming manners.  As he was a good father, Prosperos wished them to be present to observe Esme’s lovely behavior.

And so Lilac and Tulip are now home where they have been sitting on chairs for an infinite amount of time—a good five or ten minutes.  And, oh, my dears, they are penitent.  Their little voices are so teeny tiny as to be almost non-existent.  Poor little creatures.  I am waiting now for their apologies which I am positive are shortcoming.  I am also happy to report that I am now up and about, the little twerps having returned, but I have had to lend my cold compress to Naillil, their dear mother, who has gone to bed herself over this.  I hope this is all that will come of this. (That the Baba Yaga should want to eat me, or the dear Grandfather, or the dear children!)

The Purple Grandmother

23 June

A letter from the Dear Grandfather to the Dear Children

Dear Children and Others:  It is my opinion that the Baba Yaga, as fierce as she may be, as sharp as her iron teeth are, as great as her appetite is, she had NEVER eaten anybody. EVER.  She just talks big.

Grandfather

P. S. What women will make of things! 

23 June

AN APOLOGY COMES.

Dear Grandmother, Old Thing:

Roses are red,

Violets are blue,

We can go to the Retreat

If we say sorry to you.

Sorry.

From Your Friends,

Lilac and Tulip Cherry Fairy

P.S.  Make us some cookies and leave them on the window sill.  The last cookies you made us were left in that tree at Mrs. Fergis’ house, and the magpies have got them. 

Sincerely, 

Lilac and Tulip Cherry.  That is all we have to say.

24 June

MIDSUMMER’S EVE. 

Oh, Darlings:

What a scene of joy!  Slippers, gowns, cloaks, crowns, kilts, dress suits with swords and silver buttons, tennis rackets and tennis shorts, swim suits, wood garb, bee nets, and flower presses from one end of the living room to the other.  The creatures packed for the trip to the Gnarled Tree half the night.

Just before dawn they were on their way.  This was precisely somewhere between 4:30 A.M.  I say “precisely somewhere” as I have yet to distinguish the wood-note that opens this early morning symphony, it begins so gracefully.  Then, too, the procession starts in the same graceful way, with the lead fairies rising like milkweed on the breeze, the watermelon bubble and the mountain bikes following.

Reaching the first light from a sun yet unseen, the troupe became a shimmering spray on the horizon.  So lovely.  Even the dear Grandfather was struck with it. “Good,” he said pulling his pillow over his head, “I hope the things don’t come back.”  Well, I hoped so, too, knowing how irksome it is to begin a trip having forgotten something.

Well, the joy upon arrival at the Gnarled Tree Retreat, the dear things falling into the arms of each friend and family member with a thousand kisses, little gifts and remembrances!  Lillykins pinched her dear sisters repeatedly to see if they were real, for which she missed time-out by a breath-- fortunately so, since Frederick had only momentarily arrived from Spain.  His brothers pummeled him, while Rose, Lilac, Tulip, and Lilly ran out of hankies, wiping their noses on their sleeves and hems until they had to be sent to their rooms to change.

But, then, everyone had to dress to gather the seed of the Midsummer fern, for which they were to receive their baskets at Presentation from Majebechanda, a Queen who knows the sins of wayward fairies.  That is why, that very evening, and with the entire assembly present, Lilac and Tulip approached her with such fearful trepidation. They were afraid, my dears, they knew Majebechanda knew about their wicked, wicked note to the dear Grandmother about the wicked, wicked you know who with her glinty teeth and her stinky breath and her flying tub and her feisty broom. 

At their turn for presentation, they walked toward the Queen on very cautious feet, looking all the while at the polished floor of the Great Hall.  “My dear children,” Majebechanda said, lifting their trembling chins, “There is not a soul here who does not know what you have done.  You must learn that you may dictate your behavior, but you cannot dictate the consequences.”  This simply means that we may decide for ourselves what we will do, but what happens because of what we do is out of our control.  Things can go quite badly, you know.  Lilac and Tulip understood her perfectly, which shouldn’t surprise us knowing the many languages the fairies understand and speak, the language of the heart not the least of these.  “I hope,” said the Queen, “that your repentance will be the end of it, but we shall see.”

She gave them their baskets, which they really had feared they might not get, and a kiss, which they rather felt they did not deserve, and sent them to the gathering which would occur at midnight in the moonlight, this being the most magical of all summer’s eves.  After the gathering of the fern seed would come the feasts and the lovely cousin Esme from Europe who would sing.  All hearts were, to some degree, at peace.  Into the woods they went, a thousand harmonious voices chanting,

O, golden ribbons of the sun

O, silver ribbons of the moon,

Go my child,

And gather, gather

That which passes 

All too soon.

Some moments in life are, after all, rather sweet.  From the Purple Grandmother

25 June

SOMETHING TERRIBLE HAS HAPPENED

Dear Children:

I have been asked why the dear creatures were gathering the fern seed.* I believe it is so they can reforest the wild wood with fern especially in the groves near the Gnarled Tree Retreat.  The only moment to do this is Midsummer’s Eve, and this has been true as far back as any living soul can remember. Some persons insist there is no such thing as fern seed which only shows what they know.

But the fact is that it hardly matters because the moment the fairykin had finished their lovely, lovely task a terrible thing happened.  As the creatures assembled for their late, late supper, dressed in their rustling silks and delicate crowns, their handsome vests, buckles, and silver buttons-- bowing and curtseying to one another and so pleased about it--they entered the banquet hall arm on arm where they were shocked to see the silverware had been stolen!  Stolen right off the tables, out of the chests, furthermore, several red-gold goblets, gold rimmed plates, and several large pots and kettles were missing.

The tables were laden with roast beef de Burgoyne al la béarnaise, ham with raspberry glaze, pickle stuffed roulade, vegetables de crisp sauté, potatoes with wine gravy, sugared berries, Bel Paese and Port du Salute cheese, cider and berry mead that I would not let you drink, and cucumbers stuffed with their precious pearls, and not a knife, fork, spoon or serving ladle to be seen.  The kitchen staff was bereft, the fairies themselves were quaking with fear and eating little French hors d’oeuvres, with their fingers, of course.

Even as they asked one another why and how such a thing had happened—the men folk thinking of getting up a posse—the thing they feared most, the Baba Yaga, would you believe it, dropped through the ceiling in her cauldron, waving her scraggly broom, cackling a storm, and chomping her glinty iron teeth, and plaster flying everywhere! Oh, the terror of it!  The thing was like a bad dream where you want to run but your feet are frozen in place.

The Baba Yaga jumped from her cauldron—which was filled with silverware, of course, and several very expensive dishes—to the very spot where Lilac and Tulip were quivering, too frightened to jump behind a single potted plant of which there were not a few.  “Ah, my little pretties,” she croaked—it was a line she got at a witches convention—“silverware is used for eating, and I shall begin my little supper with you!”  You see, this was all just as I feared—the Baba Yaga had read the wicked little notice from Lilac and Tulip in her many ways mirror, and there she was for the execution of it.  The hall was instantly silent except for her frightful, “Eee hee hee hee hee,” so terribly off key and crackly.   

Now, my dears, I would here ask you a very simple question.  Why would the Baba Yaga want to eat the dear grandmother who is about as sweet as mothballs, and why would she want to chew on the dear grandfather who is made of leather? Now, really, she never had any such intentions.  But two pretty little fairykin who are sweeter than berries and sugar in cream are a lovely little delicacy, really the piece de resistance which is the final and most ravishing little detail in a lovely dinner.  She might have waited until the supper was over, but with the Baba Yaga it really is a matter of desert first. 

But the fairykin are not without tricks of their own.  The whole Fairy company just up and vanished.  Except, my dears, for Lilac and Tulip who only had the presences of mind to keep breathing, besides which their feet were glued to the lovely marble floor.  Baba Yaga snatched a kitchen kettle from her cauldron and plunked it on the table.  Then this ghastly witch, her nose and chin nearly touching, stretched out her two boney old claws ready to grasp two shivering darlings who were wrapped together like a ball of string. 

It appeared Lilac and Tulip were to go down her gullet in one plump juicy lump.  It was a most perilous moment indeed, and just as her boney old fingers were about to grasp our two little darlings, yes, just at this perilous moment other hands appeared from somewhere unseen, and pulled our little shivering pair into oblivion, which means, of course, that Lilac and Tulip also suddenly disappeared.

This left, of course, a very ugly, confused old woman with warts and a long nose almost touching her chin, alone with her cauldron and broom and a lot of silverware in a decorated hall.  But not for long.  The fool thing did the next best thing and began eating everything in sight, constantly reaching for a new utensil from her cauldron and tossing the dirty one into her checkered apron’s pouch.  She devoured everything in the hall and drank all the mead, yes, all of it.  She gorged herself, my dears, and I am sorry to say she was drunk as a lord (a saying from the old country), and I am even more sorry to say that with this the horrid thing passed out. Completely out, my dears. Kerplunk. With dirty silverware spilling out of her apron all over the floor.  It was all disgusting.  And at this, of course, the entire company reappeared.  They circled her with whispers and they each took opportunity in turn to poke her, and, yes, she was absolutely OUT.

No one knew what to do with her, her boney old legs sticking up in the air and her belly like a weather balloon.  It was suggested they pour water on her to see if she would melt.  Others felt that having so gorged herself this solution might not apply.  King Standard Certification who always knows what to do in situations like this had her hauled off in this state by Sheriff Hayward from Oakley--along with several other deputies who had to pull and lift her into their wagon and it truly was a most engrossing chore.  The old thing is, even as we write, in jail.  Fern spores have been planted in her cauldron, and her broom was used to help clean up the mess, though some of the children wanted to see if it could play the piano as the brooms of other witches they had heard of.  

Majebechanda assigned Lilac and Tulip to wash the silverware, as you would expect. It wasn’t really so bad since the entire company assembled in the Gnarled Tree kitchen with them where they made Bisquick pancakes till four in the morning.  What a charm!  Pancakes and Cherry syrup!  This Midsummer’s Eve was declared the finest ever held, and we had not yet heard Cousin Esme sing, but that is another tale to be told, one we will not forget, but this is already more than enough. That is all I have to say.  At least for the moment.

 Love, the Purple Grandmother

 *spores are something else again. Grandmother