aloysius

to everyone was so kind and generous about contributing to my hedgehog aloysius's surgery several months ago, whether by purchasing a book or telling others or sending a get-well card or thinking good thoughts for him:

aloysius passed away this past saturday the 21st. despite all best efforts, the cancer kept coming back. he was six and a half years old. he had a happy last few months, which he wouldn't have been able to have without your help. thank you so much for that. i'm hoping his hedgie spirit is blissfully running on an eternal hedgehog wheel while munching on an endless supply of mealworms (and some salmon now and then). he was loved tremendously and will be missed equally so.

a t e l e r i x * b o o k s is now on etsy.com!

after much turmoil & travail (none of which involved the high seas, jungles, or antarctic climes, alas), i have finally got a small but actual selection of books available over at my etsy shop!

this is exciting news as it means that most of you have received most, if not all, of the books you ordered during the hedgie fundraising drive. also it's lots of fun to have a virtual shop, and i hope you like visiting it. i'd welcome any ideas or suggestions about how to improve it, as well.

****

on the hedgie front, the little guy has fully recovered from his surgery and seems to be functioning pretty darn well, although another lump has shown up. the vet says it's best to leave it be for now, so we're just watching hedgie closely and if he shows signs of discomfort or impaired functioning i'll take him in.

hope you are all enjoying the end of spring/beginning of summer. things are sunny here, which is good for picnics and bicycling, though not so much for one's inner vampire.

making the books ...

not that anyone is necessarily reading this, but in case you are ... sorry for no new posts lately. i've been busily trying to fill everyone's orders, which is taking a little longer than i'd hoped, but which is nevertheless proceeding. onward, onward ... your patience is much appreciated.

once these orders are filled and the books have been united with their new owners, i'll be devoting my energy to stocking my shop at etsy. please check it out in the next few months and let me know how it looks!

and if you're trolling around etsy looking for something to do, you can also look in on my friend shannon's shop, full of wonderful linoleum-block prints and postcards.

hedgie-heros

surly ben, illustrator extraordinaire and apocalypse-aficionado, kindly posted news of hedgie's plight many days ago and also patiently ferried us to and from the vet these past few days. if you're in the portland area, you should check out his show hanging at tiny's coffee over on NE MLK blvd.

the sweet sarah fischer (who makes damn fine pancakes!) and her family and friends, who generously donated to the hedgie-fund without ever having met me (or hedgie).

everyone who has purchased a book or made a donation to the hedgie-fund in the past several weeks. thank you!

thanks for helping me out!

the after-surgery update

aloysius as frankenhedgie

it's been nearly a week since aloysius had his surgery, and he seems to be recovering. he's a little wobbly, and i fear the onset of Wobbly Hedgehog Syndrome, but i might just be projecting my hypochondriac tendencies onto my prickly friend. i hope.

thanks to everyone for rallying to his aid. at last count, we had received $616 in donations and book sales (not to mention lots of good wishes), which means that his surgery cost is covered! all additional income from the hedgie-fund will go toward building aloysius a new and improved "hedge-palace" and any future vet appointments and costs that come up.

(during his surgery, they found a third tumor, which was lodged in his neck and which the surgeon could not remove entirely. tomorrow we should get back the biopsy results, but the likeliest scenario is that it is malignant. so we'll see what happens. as in humans, the fear is that the cancerous mass will metastasize to a vital organ. but for now, he seems to be functioning as well as can be expected.)

aloysius looking rather pensive

now, as for the books: i've gotten a portion of the book orders filled, though realistically, it is going to take me several weeks to get all of them made! if you need your book sooner rather than later, please let me know so that i can put it at the front of the line. in the meantime, i'll contact you as soon as your books are ready. thanks for your patience!

return of the hedgie

he's back!
he's alive!
he's running on his wheel!

and i guess it's a good thing, sort of, that he sprouted those two tumors, because during the surgery the vet called to say they'd found a third tumor. it was only when i got to the office that they told me what it was: in his neck, about the size of a gumball (and he's only the size of my hand, so that's a really big tumor), and well-established. meaning, hard to remove. meaning, they probably didn't get it all out, and it could be highly malignant, and it'll probably come back, or show up elsewhere. ugh.

so, that's the bad news.

but for now, he's all right. a little grumpy, but who wouldn't be, considering?

books #7

i found some wonderful books the other day. here they are!

Magic Chef Cooking, 7.5 x 4.75 x 0.5

$15
SOLD

The Flickering Torch Mystery, 7.5 x 5 x 0.75
$15

Patty Lou of the Golden West, 7.75 x 5.25 x 0.5
$15

Nine Tomorrows: Tales of the Near Future, 8.5 x 5.5 x 0.75
$18

Sending the Word, 8.5 x 6.5 x 0.25
$18

All About Monkeys, 9.25 x 7 x 0.75
$22

Julian's Interest Book, 8 x 5 x 0.25
$15

Gregg Shorthand, 7 x 5 x 0.5
$17

All About Animals and Their Young, 9.25 x 7 x 0.75
$22

The Fantastic Universe Omnibus, 8.5 x 5.75 x 0.75
$18
SOLD

the hedgie-fund

in response to lots of questions about how to make a donation for aloysius's surgery, i've finally figured out how to place a Paypal donation button on the blog. thank you!

anything is much appreciated, of course, and now even more so as the vet just called an hour ago to say that they found a third tumor while he was under anaesthesia. eeeek. it appears aloysius might be in the running for lumpiest hedgehog of the year. i'm glad they found it, and sad it was there, and sad that hedgie's got to go through all this.

but i think it's for the best. and they're going to send him home with pain medication so that he won't be too uncomfortable, i hope.

thanks so much to everyone who's helped! it's comforting to know that people are out there thinking good thoughts for him.

hedgehog in the grass

aloysius was supposed to have had his surgery yesterday, but after dropping him off at the vet at an hour when i am rarely, if ever, awake, they called to say that they would rather do the operation on friday (tomorrow). apparently, the tumor on his head is located in a rather tricky spot, and after explaining something to me about the quill-skin margin, they said they'd rather have an additional surgeon present, one who's got a great deal of experience performing surgeries like this. which is absolutely fine with me, except for the waking up extraordinarily early again ;)

but so it goes. and so tomorrow it is.

anyway, in anticipation of the big day, not to mention the looming absence of quills from one side of hedgie's head, my boyfriend and i took aloysius out for a photo shoot early wednesday morning. these are some of the photos that we took.


you can see the scar from the earlier tumor-removal on his nose pretty easily.


but he's still awfully cute...

aloysius in the grass!

i wish *i* could do this

(roll up in a ball, i mean...)

books #6

more books...

Miss Pickerell on the Moon, 8 x 5.5 x 0.5

$15

I Heard the Owl Call My Name, 8.5 x 5.5 x 0.5
$15

Small Game Hunting, 9.25 x 6 x 0.5
$18
SOLD

Speedwriting: Shorthand, Book 1, 8 x 5.5 x 0.25
$15

Famous Mysteries of the Sea, 8 x 5.5 x 0.5
$18
SOLD

and more books...

Fanfare for 2 Pigeons, 8 x 5.5 x 0.75
$18

Newsreel Man, 9.75 x 7.5 x 0.75
$30

The First Book of Water, 8.75 x 7.5 x 0.25
$15
SOLD

One in a Thousand, 9.25 x 6 x 0.25
$15

Essays: Thomas Carlyle, 5.5 x 3.75 x 0.75
$15
SOLD

My Friend Mac, 9.5 x 7 x 0.25
$15

books #5

and yet more books for your viewing pleasure!

Film and the Director, 8.5 x 5.5 x 0.5

$18
SOLD

All About the Flowering World, 9.25 x 7 x 0.75

$22
SOLD

Grishka and the Bear, 8.5 x 5.5 x 0.5

$18
SOLD

10 Trained Bears, 7.25 x 4.75 x 0.25
$10

Jokes and How to Tell Them, 8.5 x 5.5 x 0.5

$18
SOLD

hedgehog update #1

(aloysius as a little tyke, 2001)

aloysius is scheduled to go in for surgery next wednesday. the vet says they'll have to remove some of the quills on the right side of his head, and they predict that those won't grow back, so he'll have a little bald spot! poor little guy.

i think we've raised nearly three-quarters of the surgery costs between the books that have already been bought and those that people have pledged to buy.

thank you all for your kind & incredibly generous support.

i've got a pile of books ready to be made into journals, and a huffy hedgehog sitting atop them all:

(aloysius as a grumpy old man, 2007)

books #4

thanks for looking...

Perky the Partridge, 10 x 7 x 0.25
$18

The Spell of the Yukon, 7.5 x 5.25 x 0.5
$15
SOLD

A Revelation of the Chinese Revolution, 7.75 x 5.25 x 0.75
$20
SOLD

Casanova's Escape from the Leads, 6.75 x 4.5 x 0.5
$15

Foolin' Around, 7 x 4.5 x 0.25
$12
SOLD

The First Book of Glass, 8.75 x 7.25 x 0.25
$15

British Grub, 5.75 x 5.75 x 0.25
$15
SOLD

All About Prehistoric Cave Men, 9.25 x 7 x 0.75
$22
SOLD

Wir Lernen Deutsch, 8.5 x 6 x 0.75
$20

The Jade Flute, 7.5 x 4.5 x 0.25
$12