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.

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?

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...)

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)

thanks to the two gyrlz

please click on over to two gyrlz quarterly, where the wonderful tiffany lee brown — writer, editor, performance artist, musician, and lover of all things Rattus rattus — has posted my plea for hedgehog-help!

(aloysius never thought he'd be mentioned in a blog, let alone two. he is blushing beneath his quills as we speak.)

buy a book, help a hedgehog

if you've found this blog, you're most likely a friend or a friend of a friend. thanks for considering helping me fund aloysius's pending surgery by purchasing one of my books. we are both very grateful. below you'll find the original e-mail i sent out to announce the atelerix books hedgehog benefit. i'll be posting images of available books here so that you can see if one might work for you.

thanks!
-allison & aloysius

********


hello friends!

as some of you may know, my hedgehog, aloysius (see photo above taken by my friend, photographer serena davidson), has cancer again. he's had several surgeries in the past few years to remove malignant tumors from his nose. now, unfortunately, there are new tumors on his head and on his leg that need to be removed so that he can, i hope, live comfortably for a good while longer. i got aloysius when he was a little hoglet, and he's accompanied me through countless moves and jobs over the past six years. he's not the most sociable creature, but as those of you who've met him know, he's adorable and charming in his own grumpy fashion. in the background of the photo you can see the purple ribbons on the wall from when he won Best in Show at the 2001 Hedgehogs Northwest Show in Tacoma, Washington (yes, really): he's a special little hedgehog.

i'm telling you all this because, for the next few months, i'll be putting any and all profits from my handbound books (which i sell under the name "atelerix books," after the latin name for "hedgehog": atelerix albiventris) toward funding aloysius's surgery. the tumor removal will cost over six hundred dollars, which is rather steep, though entirely worth it when considering that it could mean he'll get to live for another year, or even more. i'm hoping funds from selling atelerix books will help offset some of the cost.

soon, i will have an Internet shop set up at etsy.com (check it out if you've never been there, it's a wealth of handmade fun), but it hasn't happened yet, so, for now, if you or anyone you know is interested in purchasing one of my books, please contact me directly at atelerixbooks at yahoo dot com.

oh! but the books, you ask? what are these books i'm pushing on you? well, i find old hardcovers with interesting covers and rebind them into blank journals. the result is an entirely unique, sturdy and durable "stealth" journal or sketchbook. i say "stealth" because no one needs ever know it's a journal. i use blank paper to fill them; sorry, no lined paper. i'm also happy to do custom orders. pricing ranges from $15-$30 depending on the size of the book.

(the books below have already been sold; they're offered as examples only)


in the past i've sold them at Reading Frenzy and Q is for Choir here in Portland, Oregon; they always sell out. i've made custom orders for customers in Portland (of course) and sent books to people in St. Louis, England, and Japan. which is not to brag but to say: the atelerix books are good books! you will like them. if you live in Portland, you can even come over and dig through my boxes of old hardcovers in search of the perfect one for you (or your mom, or your brother — you get the idea). if you don't live in Portland, shipping is extra.

thanks for reading this. please forward it on to anyone and everyone you think might be interested. you can e-mail us at atelerixbooks at yahoo dot com. aloysius says thank you, too.

in the meantime:
please buy a book! or two! help the hedgie!