Tag Archives: flivvervaats

Yesterday was a stormy day in Brooklyn; the sky was dark and foreboding for much of the day, and the air was heavy with the coming rain. The dragons, suffering from some sort of seasonal molting process, were flitting about the garden as though in a frenzy. And after a full day of recovering from Cousin Cate’s mushroom “vodka”, I was ready to post here in my journal.

Until the power went out.

We initially assumed it was from the storm. But we were the only ones without power. And then I heard the tell-tale sounds of flivvervaats in the walls. It appears juvenile flivvervaats are like squirrels – they adore crawling through walls and ceilings and chewing through electricity wires. Fabulous. These creatures gestate in the womb for approximately 4 months and then require an additional 2 years to be able to live without their mothers. That means 2 years of suffering through chewed bookshelves, destroyed power cords, and an odd and pervasive odor that mimics nutmeg on a good day and Valerian root on a bad day.

It also means that we are all acclimating to the sounds of flivvervaats in the house. This includes an increasingly robust encyclopedia of sounds. Which brings me to today’s word.

Whish is a noun meaning to move with a soft, rushing sound; whiz; swish; the whirring or whizzing sound of rapid motion.

First used in the 1500s, whish is an echoic and imitative word. This sound became the word used to describe it. Like woosh, bloop, or peep.

Though the power is back on in this old house, and the garden has been cleaned of detritus from the family equinox festivities, there are still whishes from within the walls, keeping the human inhabitants a bit on edge. Perhaps once this storm system passes the flivvervaats will calm down.

Or perhaps I’ll have another belt of this mushroom vodka and be unaware of things for another 20 hours.

Last night’s sudden windstorm blew papers all over the parlor. The flivvervaats took the opportunity to chew the curtains. Apparently, sudden windstorms do not sit well with them. Or they really like those curtains.

Six am found me explaining the difference between my house and a bed and breakfast to some very frustrated travelers. What I found so interesting was their fierce belief that I was somehow putting them on and that this WAS the bed and breakfast they were looking for.

At what point would you, as a traveler, realize that perhaps you were off your path? Would it be after the walk through the graveyard of lost pets, the climb up the steps onto my (admittedly) rickety front porch, or upon meeting yours truly in a dressing gown at the front door? Would it be whilst listening to the cacophony emanating from the third floor (the specimens in the laboratory loathe the doorbell)? Or perhaps when the pygmy yeti took it upon itself to retch across the parlor after eating a bowl of plain, dry Cheerios cereal? I would have thought Bubo tearing up a rat in the front window or Mordecai playing his sitar from the Widow’s Walk would have done it. I underestimated these folk.

These intrepid travelers only turned back towards the street (after my incredibly simple and succint directions, I might add), when one of the gargoyles relieved itself directly onto the porch.

A hail of pebbles is disconcerting. As is the stone gargoyle above you moving across the house east, into the sun. They left quickly.
I have thus been cleaning the parlor rug. Between the flivvervaats and the yeti, baking soda and vinegar may not be enough. It might take petrol and a match.

Apparently, flivvervaat juveniles love this weather. And muddy leather boots. I never thought I’d say dragons make better house guests.