Title: Cousins: "Events, Mysterious And Otherwise" (1/1)
Author: Bonnie, Cousinly Receptionist
Date: Wednesday, 10 November 2004
Time: early afternoon
After: "Cousins Just Wanna Have Fun"
Before: "Cousin on the Loose"
Disclaimers: All participants used with permission.


It wasn't like she didn't have an entire 'To Do List' of things to do,
because she did -- quite a long one, actually.  It was just that she knew
how to prioritize and was a self-motivator, so it was only natural that
Bonnie, the Cousinly Receptionist, would be sitting on the floor of the CERK
lobby with multi-colored permanent markers, a yardstick, and an
industrial-size pad of oyster-colored Post-It notes.

Carefully, she drew out the grid.  Five squares by seven squares.  Above the
top row she penned the following titles: "Sunday" "Monday" "Tuesday"
"Wednesday" "Thursday" "Friday" "Saturday," corresponding to each of the top
seven square.  Above that, in much larger, loopier letters, she wrote,
"November."  Finally, she filled in numbers, beginning with the third square
on the top row where she drew a "1" in the upper right-hand corner and
continuing on in succession through the number "30."  To the square now
labeled "23" she drew a birthday cake with yellow roses and pink trim.  And
to the square labeled "25" she drew a little turkey with odd-looking feet
and molty-looking feathers.

She then peeled off the Post-It note and carried it over to the wall behind
the reception desk.  There -- over the slight imperfection in the plaster of
the wall that remained after the necessary repair two Christmases ago after
Screed pulled a faux-Santa act by sliding down a faux-chimney and out a
faux-fireplace creating a very real fireplace-sized hole where, by all
rights, there should have been a solid, impenetrable wall -- there, Bonnie
hung the newly-made Calendar Of Events.  The wall was at such an angle to
the front door of the lobby that the calendar would be readily visible to
herself and the rest of the cousins, but would go undetected by any and all
visitors to CERK.

In the square representing Monday, November 8th, she wrote, "Cousin Will
gives interested cousins the infamous Tour Of Toronto. (3pm-7pm)"

In the Tuesday, November 9th square, she wrote "UF Hive Party for Janette et
al. (10pm-2am)"

In the Wednesday, November 10th square, she wrote, "Cousins attack the DP,
because we can. (3pm)"  As soon as she realized what she'd done, Bonnie
snatched up the White-Out and erased the latter half of the sentence, before
anyone noticed her lapse.

Then she stood back and admired her handy work, hoping someone beside
herself would find the Calendar of Events helpful.

It was then, during her prolonged admiration, that Bonnie heard the familiar
tone from her computer that signaled the receipt of an instant message.

She turned, dropped efficiently into her chair, and read the screen:


     FIZZYIST:  You around?


It was from her ex boyfriend, Alan Anders, a physicist (with a sooper
seekrit lab) at the University of Toronto.  They'd broken up at the end of
the last war, after the bizarre incident with Vachon-in-Nick's-body and
herself at the "impromptu, completely unscripted and unrehearsed" NA bar
fight.  (Of course, Alan having developed a mild crush on Natalie during the
events of the last war hadn't played a role in their break up; yeah, right!)
Anyway, despite having both been in Toronto for the past three years, they
had neither seen nor communicated with each other.  Until now.

Bonnie looked over at her snoozing dog Brandon for just a moment before
typing the following:


     BRANDDAWG: Yeah, I'm around.  What's up?


An answer was quick in coming.


     FIZZYIST:  Is there a war on?
     BRANDDAWG: Why do you ask?
     FIZZYIST:  Because after months and months of struggling to
                get a new piece of experimental equipment to work,
                it just suddenly works, for no fathomable reason.
     FIZZYIST:  Also, I think I saw that weird, rattish woman
                Libby, but she scurried away so quickly that I
                couldn't be certain.


Bonnie pondered what her response should be.  Did she really want Alan
involved in this war?  Did she really want to put herself in a position of
possibly having the past dredged up again?  Did she really care if Alan's
experimental equipment was suddenly working or not?


     BRANDDAWG: What is the experimental equipment that you're
                working on?
     FIZZYIST:  Oscillation Underthruster.  It's to test my theory
                that alternate dimensions exist (which we know, based
                on previous wars) and they exist *between* the molecules
                of seemingly solid matter, like rocks and such.


Rocks?  Hmmm.  Alan's experiments have, in the past, been closely tied to
war plot-lines.  (It was almost as if he were entirely fictitious and Bonnie
were making this all up to suit her various needs and whims.)  Could this
new experiment be somehow connected to the mysterious rock spoken of in the
mysterious Mississauga letters on the not so mysterious Blackwing Treaty
that Vachon had mysteriously signed on the side of the Mississaugans some
hundred-odd years ago?  Could Bonnie run the risk of turning Alan away, when
his new experimental equipment might very well be needed to solve this
mysterious puzzle?  More over, could she run the risk of his equipment
falling into the wrong hands and being used for nefarious purposes
unsanctioned by LaCroix, the one she owed and owed big?


     BRANDDAWG: Yeah, there's war on.
     FIZZYIST:  Thought so.  Anything I can do to help?
     BRANDDAWG: You say your new machine is working?  Have
                you tested it?
     FIZZYIST:  No.  I don't have a test pilot.  I'd do it myself, but I
                need to monitor the flux output readings during the trail.
     BRANDDAWG: So, what you're saying is, you could really use
                a lab rat right about now?
     FIZZYIST:  A human-sized one, yeah.  Why?  You know someone
                willing to volunteer?


The hamster wheel inside Bonnie's head kicked into overdrive and pretty soon
was generating enough energy to light up a bulb ... a really small,
mini-Christmas-tree-light-sized bulb (blue), but a bulb nonetheless.


     BRANDDAWG: I wouldn't be surprised.  I'll get back to you.


Bonnie logged off her AIM session, then dug through her very neat and highly
organized piles and piles of Post-It notes until she found her
ever-important 'To Do List' written on a yellow, ruled Post-It note tablet.
Using a red pen, she crossed off "Make really big Calendar Of Events for the
benefit of all and sundry Cousins" and then, switching to black ink, she
added at the bottom, "Contact Libby, Johnsie, or similar."

---

Bonnie, Cousinly Receptionist
(callalily at lmi dot net)