Sunday, November 11, 2018

The War to End All Wars

The War to End all Wars that ended 100 years ago today did not end my grandfather's war. As Tsarist Russia collapsed into revolution and civil war, my grandfather, Vasilly, a Tsarist Cavalry Captain of Engineers, joined up with the anti-Bolshevik White Army to continue fighting for another two long years.


Grandfather is the dapper officer right front with the cavalry boots. The rather tall man in the center of the first photo is Baron Pyotr Wrangel, the last White Army general.


Grandfather right front again. Presumably these officers are Baron Wrangel's command staff.


Wounded in combat in the Crimea on the southern front grandfather found himself in a field hospital. There he met a charming White Army nurse named Maria. The rest, as they say, is history.

With the collapse of Baron Wrangel's army in 1920, Vasilly and Maria fled with their baby daughter Vera, my aunt, to Constantinople. As the War for Independence engulfed Turkey they fled again to Belgrade in the new Kingdom of Yugoslavia, where my dad, Vasilly Junior, was born in 1922.

Tuesday, November 6, 2018

GO VOTE!

GO VOTE GAWDDAMN IT! Just how many opportunities during your lifetime do you think you get to help save your country! Our Hyacinth Macaw Parrot Princess Tara wants to remind you to be sure to vote Blue! Just like Princess Tara. Deliver some karma. You going to argue with that beak!

Thursday, November 1, 2018

She Was Not Quite What You Would Call Unrefined


The Princess Tara Chronicles. The continuing saga of a coven of witches comprised of a pandemonium of parrots and one black cat who fall in with a couple of history professors to take down narcissistic megalomaniacal monsters determined to destroy our world. Available in eBook and dead tree editions from Smashwords and Amazon.

Love is a smoke raised with the fume of sighs;
Being purged, a fire sparkling in lovers' eyes;
Being vexed, a sea nourished with loving tears.
What is it else? A madness most discreet,
A choking gall, and a preserving sweet.

Romeo. Romeo and Juliet, Act One, Scene One

A Tale of Love. And Love Lost. Book Five of the Princess Tara Chronicles, Part Two of the Kālarātri or Black Night Trilogy.

Coming 2019!



Tuesday, October 30, 2018

Halloween


Our Hyacinth Macaw Parrot Princess Tara can bend stainless steel bars with her beak. She can also delicately scrape the orange icing off a Halloween pumpkin cookie!






Saturday, October 20, 2018

There is a Tide in the Affairs of Men

There is a tide in the affairs of men, Which taken at the flood, leads on to fortune. Omitted, all the voyage of their life is bound in shallows and in miseries. On such a full sea are we now afloat. And we must take the current when it serves, or lose our ventures. William Shakespeare

Fuck Trump

Fuck Trump! Get yours now:

Monday, October 1, 2018

Hexes By Princess Tara

Custom hexes by our Hyacinth Macaw Parrot and resident Witch Princess Tara. Princess Tara also bestows blessings on people who deserve them. Buy Princess Tara a cup of coffee, or other gratuity, via her blog The Zen Parrot: Of Parrots, Politics, and Coffee, and send her the full name and location of the recipient, along with the reason for the curse or blessing. Leave the rest to her!