Seacoast of Bohemia

I spent the morning and early afternoon pretending to be:

• a surf-happy, Californiaphile, ice-cream-loving polar bear
  
• a frou-frou panda who will only eat certain colors of bamboo
  
• and a very clueless King.

As the King, I

• was repeatedly tied up
  
  
• was imprisoned for "firing somebody and setting them on fire"
  
  
• was frequently put to bed, during which naps I had dreams about being a polar bear
  
  
• was given wings twice and flew above the whole world
  
  
• had my palace burn down twice
  
  
• was given a new palace featuring a fireplace made of flowers, eighty-five televisions, and a ceiling with real fairies on it
  
  
• told the story about how my parents, the old king and old queen met
  
  
  
  • the old king never stopped travling. He hated so much to stay in one place that as soon as he got there, he started to leave again. This made it hard to meet people, as you might imagine, since if you wanted to talk to him, you'd have to be on the go. But then, one day, he met a woman -- a wonderful woman. The most wonderful woman he'd ever met in his life, because this woman, she had wings! So she could be on the go just as much as he was! And that woman was my mother, the old queen.
  
  
  
• Was surrounded by ghosts, both friendly and unfriendly
  
  
• Was both befriended and menaced by tigers and lions
  
  
• Was turned to solid gold, and
  
  
• Heard the terribly sad story of the daughter of a huge giant made of fire and a woman who has the power to make people grow old very fast. Her father makes buildings burn up whenever he goes in them, and he is very scary and mean -- maybe because everything he touches burns. Her mother is shrouded in white and never shows her face.

And the daughter -- what's her power? I asked her and she told me: she has the power to stay five and a half years old forever.

Labels: kids