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This epic journey started from a casual invitation from Tina for us all to drop by for ice-cream. It soon developed into a marathon of endurance …in more ways than one! It takes the form of a narrative with the participants each adding there own twists, daring exploits, narrow escapes and …thankfully, rescue! TINA I just made a nice sour cream cinnamon streusel pound cake last night and have a freezer full of Breyers ice cream (mint choc. chip, fudge ripple, and Reese's peanut butter cup ice cream - take your pick, but the Reese's is for me and me alone!!!). Let's say 4:00 p.m. today, my place? And I actually cleaned my house (a friend is coming for dinner). Marnie, rev up your little tartan spaceship -- you have to pick everyone up. Y'all might as well stay for supper -- my famous Sicilian minestrone soup and a fancy salad, and sourdough French bread. Sonja can bring some of her vintage wine. Tina
SONJA On the evening news in South Africa : 'There were riots all over the country today when a little tartan spaceship appeared for the second time in under a week in the South African skies. Thousands of swooning woman thought they would once again be treated to the wonderful tribal dancing of Cree dancer, Michael Greyeyes, and climbed on planes, trains, cars, any available transport, in hot pursuit of the space ship, which landed in Bloemfontein. The crowds turned ugly when they realized
that the ship did NOT contain the handsome Indian god this time, but was
touching down on South African soil only to collect Millionairess and patron
of the Arts, Sonja, who was on her way, on special invitation, to the States
to dine with friends. The situation was brought quickly under control by
South African actor Henry Cele, who has been resting up in Bloemfontein
after months of filming
Your roving reporter, Sonja TINA Too bad y'all missed my gourmet dinner last night after Marnie's trusty tartan spaceship crash-landed in the Sahara desert. You all must have been drooling, thinking of all that good, ice-cold, yummy Breyers ice cream going to waste, while you were frying in the scorching desert heat. My friend and I just HAD to eat extra portions of cake and Breyers. I brought in the leftover cake to the office this morning (the vultures here will eat anything), since you all didn't show up. Better luck next time!
SONJA Marni! *hic*. Goo' thing we 'ad sooooooooooo
*hic*' much of my BEST wine, *hic*, along fer the ride *giggle*! Theresssstill
'nother case of the stuff to keep us gooiiing till 'elp arrives. Did ya
get that SOS mssge ta workkk?
MARNIE I sent the SOS.....I sure hope MG gets it soon ....I'd love to see him riding up to the rescue (much as he did for Mary when lost in the outback!!) ....I'm burning to a crisp out here (still have that hat problem ....and it's all YOUR fault!!!). I knew I shouldn't have made out that will leaving all my cyber-art to the list. Here's a new mystery! Who sabotaged the ship and when will Nessie un-dock "The Tartan Prize B" (thank goodness there are so many letters in the alphabet ....almost enough for a syndicated TV series) and beam us all up?!! Pass the wine I'm getting dehydrated ....and though alcohol may not be any good for thirst it makes watching my skin peel off a little more palatable. Oh Lor', there's an 'orrible thought, we may just have to eat each other! Send help fast!!! Marnie
TINA Maybe I will just leave you to roast there a while longer in the Sahara. I will think about it as I pour myself a long, tall, cold, refreshing iced tea, with lots of ice cubes, and serve myself yet another cold, creamy, delicious dish of Breyers peanut butter cup ice cream, and turn up the air conditioning in my new island bungalow ...Feeling any cooler now? Keep dreaming if you think MG is going to ride over the dunes on his camel to rescue you - remember, he is allergic to horses, so I guess that would be extensive to camels as well. His dirt bike wouldn't make it over the endless sands anyway. Clink, clink (pouring myself some more iced tea). Marnie, next time take the tartan spaceship to Jiffy Lube before setting out on such a long jaunt. Signed, Cruella de Ville
MARNIE Ship's Log Day 2 So far the morale is good ....but we have
had to restrain Illeanna again as she said she could see Michael floating
in a shimmery haze on the horizon. A few more mirages like that and we'll
all
be racing into the fiery depths of the Sahara. There are worse ways to
check out I suppose!
We've been here quite some time now. Wait I hear rumbling off in the distance! Is it the rescue ship? Alas, it's only my stomach ....it's getting on for supper time and Darn if Sonja isn't beginning too look pretty tasty. Sam is going to set snares made out of my hair ....which would be a good idea if she didn't have to be quite so ruthless about yanking it out of my head by the handful. Hopefully she'll catch something edible soon. Must conserve strength ...will write ....more later..... Marnie
TINA So enjoyed reading the starship log. Inspiring to see how everyone is handling the privations differently. As I sit down to a sumptuous veggie banquet, I will raise another cool, icy glass to your health. So glad I am not there. It would be a hard decision whether to starve out my vegetarian principles (I repeat I am NOT a good one!), or take a nice big bite out of Lauren and survive...!! Keep us posted, Skipper. Tina
SONJA "... . ................ .......................... ... . .............................. .... .... ... .... ..... ...... .................... .......... .. ... ... .... !!" (Sonja's throat is so parched now with the
wine finished that her voice has gone. Also, now that the effects of the
wine are wearing off she has one hell of a headache, and she doesn't like
the way Marnie and the others are
TINA As I lounged in my jacuzzi (well-accompanied,
by the way) in my cool, air-conditioned rumpus room, CNN flashed a news
bulletin about a 'tartan spaceship' with an odd assortment of very human-looking,
female, alien cannibals that had crash-dived somewhere in the Sahara. It
reported that a group of Bedouin nomads had taken the women on camel-back
as "guests" (hostages?) of their powerful sheik to a tiny remote desert
oasis shaded with date palms. I cannot imagine you ladies dancing the Dance
of the 7 Veils for the sheik, or for anyone, for that matter. Princess
Nessie might be quite fetching. The rest of you are quite dubious, and
ungraceful, candidates for harem girl school. Well, time for my midnight
dip in my cool olympic sized
Tina
SONJA This is Marnie, Sonja, Vicky-Lee, Lauren,
and everyone else (except TINA!! ),
writing from a wonderfully cool oasis in the middle of the Sahara.
Here's what transpired : - The hunger was just about to turn us all into cannibals, when in the distance we saw a thin line of men and camels approaching. Our relief at being rescued - albeit by a group of Bedouin nomads, (Sonja was just rubbing Marnie's teethmarks out of the flabby part of her upper arm - the Bedouins arrived JUST IN TIME!) was such that we greeted them with great joy and as much yelling and singing as our parched throats could muster. Vickey-Lee tried to drum up a little 'concern' as to the nature of our rescue, but the rest of us would have fallen into the arms of a smelly old goat-herd, if it meant getting off that burning sand! We were at least given camels to ride, and soon arrived at a wonderful oasis. After baths, oils, ointments, massages and food, we were ushered into the largest most lavish tent in the middle of the oasis, and there was our rescuer!! Michael HAD heard our SOS, and as he is well known and esteemed as a great actor/dancer even amongst the Bedouins of the Sahara, they readily agreed, upon his request, to rescue us! After he was sure we were all well and taken care of, he headed back to North America, promising to send a rescue craft to get us, and to chastise Tina for being so impervious to our plight!! (We told him to take his time on the first promise - we are having a pretty good time here thanks - but to waste NO time with the second!!) Your roving reporter, Sonja
TINA Sonja, baby, what on EARTH were you smoking? I told you to lay off those hashish brownies for breakfast. Sorry to report that your little oasis respite has ended so quickly. CNN just flashed [during my midmorning repast of cool, juicy, fresh tropical fruits] that a civil war has broken out in the Sahara. The realm of your hospitable sheik has been shaken by a revolution. A rival band of Berber tribesmen destroyed the oasis, its tents and food supplies, carried off your hunky serving-men in one direction, and took you harem girls in the opposite direction, hundreds of miles across the searing sands, to a mud-walled fortress in the Sahel region of North Africa. Water is scarce there in Mali, dust is everywhere, the heat unbearable, the temperatures 120 degrees in the shade. Marnie looks like a boiled lobster (oops, I should not mention food, I know you are famished). I was so worried about your welfare as I poured myself another tall glass of iced mint julep. Sven is here again to minister to my every need, so I will check back with you later. No rush anyway, sounds like y'all are gonna be there a while. Too bad our hero does not know about your plight -- he went off to the Amazon to do research among the Tupinamba and Kaiapo native peoples and there are no satellite phones or fax or EMail there in the jungle. Yes, Sven, I will be right there... Tina
MARNIE Ship's Log Day 3 Well today has certainly been eventful ....we've been kidnapped and feasted, our toe-nails painted and given some dubious dance lessons. I must say Nessie did take well to the belly dancing ....must be the humps that give her a lower centre of gravity and put quite a swivel in her hips. With the latest turn of events it seems we've jumped from the frying pan into the fire ....and as of this moment we are locked into a dank dungeon.... I just wish someone would feed us! Sonja did prove to be a tasty morsel ....well the bit I managed to get out of her upper arm anyway! To keep our spirits up we're taking turns telling stories ...and as Lauren has threatened to make ME into the first Shish Kabob unless I finish of Nof 60, I'd better comply....... It was here that Marnie related her version
of
Nof60
SONJA I ALMOST decided to admit defeat Tina - but, nay! I shall RISE to the challenge! Here goes.................! The Civil war was all Theresa's fault! A
certain Berber from a rival tribe looked EXACTLY like Adrian Paul and poor
Theresa just lost all sense of decorum! Our hosts were so offended at the
apparent 'snub' that they announced to all the nomad tribe that we were
henceforth to be 'The Shunned Ones' and they kicked us out on our *****!
Well Theresa's AP lookalike was mad as a flea-bitten camel and declared
war on our ex-hosts. When the oasis and all in it was destroyed we figured
we'd be OK with the Saharan AP, but he turned out to be
I won't even go INTO the indignity of the slave-market here, suffice to say Marnie is displaying a most courageous countenance, convinced that MG will arrive in the 'Next Generation' little tartan spaceship to rescue us (oh aye, methinks tis a touch too much sun). Theresa is keeping her head low except for an occasional sudden stream of curses in Lakota (which I'm sure are aimed at the AP lookalike). Sam seems to be in denial of our situation and is blatantly flirting with every man in sight. But the worst is Sonja,who has been reduced to a snivelling mess of a shadow of the woman she once was. She spends most of her time grovelling on the ground at the feet of anyman who looks like he may have the means to support her in the manner to which she is accustomed. She cries and wails and pulls her hair out, and in a most cowardly attitude begs for mercy from every passer-by. It is really quite an embarrassing sight so the others in our group tend to keep to the far side of the market, away from any association with her! The situation is grave Tina. Did our hero not give you a good 'talking to' when he returned from the Sahara? He may be away in the farthest reaches of South America right now, but he's gotta come out of there some time, and when he does - your gonna be in trouble!!! Your roving, thirsty, tired, hungry, dirty,
sun-burned, peeling, matted-haired reporter, Sonja
TINA
Dear ladies, So sorry your situation in the dungeon has gotten so desperate. There are some inconsistencies in your story, however. After all my trouble and machinations in transforming Nessie into a beauteous princess, she seems to still sometimes appear in her former monster form. Theresa and Lauren were supposed to be on their respective submarine and yacht, with AP and Pancho, heading to Rarotonga, so what they are doing in the desert, I have no idea. All that aside, I have urgent news to report. As you know I was very, very worried about
your plight, reading Marnie's and Sonja's desperate dispatches from the
desert, and watching CNN updates in my air-conditioned rumpus room. There
I was, at my new, ultra-modern island bungalow, pampered with the tender
ministrations of my faithful personal trainer, masseur and chef Sven (looking
for all the world like a platinum-blond Viking god of yore), when there
came a most urgent summons: I was asked to fly in to the Amazon immediately
to assist a certain researcher of native dance traditions, a person whom
we all know. So, although I was just about to contact the French Foreign
Legion to
Priorities are priorities. Duty calls. Noblesse oblige. Your rescue will have to wait a week or two. Hope you don't mind. I was asked to assist our esteemed researcher
as he travels across the vast, dense Amazon rainforest -- he needed an
interpreter to translate to and from about 30 obscure, complex native languages.
So here we are, in the Brazilian state of Amazonas, near the Venezuelan
border, in a Yanomani Indian village - he flew us in in his bush plane
(sort of like Andy Mooseheart in Firestorm). I had strict orders from him,
"I hate it when people jump outta my plane!!" The villagers have been most
hospitable to us. We are sleeping in the community
It is lush and green here in this vast, endless jungle where it rains every day. Ooops, I forgot you are parched there, as it has not rained in your part of the desert in over 10 years. Here it is water, water everywhere. Paradise. "Himself" is acutely aware of your desperate plight but unfortunately the last battery pack for our laptop PC is just about gone so we have to wait at least a week until we get back to civilization to try to contact the French Foreign Legion. Hope you ladies survive there. Our thoughts are with you. Wow, it is raining cats and dogs here right now. Better get back to the maloca. Your worried friend, Tina (can't you SEE how worried I am???)
SONJA Tina, I hear the South American river leeches are particularly bad this time of year. To clear up a few points for you : - Marnie's visions of 'Roast leg of Nessie' are hallucinations caused by hunger and the poor hygiene conditions in this dungeon. Half the time she wants to EAT Nessie, the other half she expects her to come zooming in to the rescue. Mostly she is muttering away in Gaelic so we can't understand her anyway. Since her (Nessie's) 'kiss' from Y-K-W that
broke the evil and cruel Sassenach warlord's spell, Nessie now has a special
power. She can transform herself at will into the fabled Loch Ness Monster,
and back again to the
Of course both Lauren and Theresa (who THOUGHT
you were their friend!!!) wanted to be included in your dinner invitation
so Marnie very kindly dropped by Rarotonga to collect them in her little
tartan spaceship. It was a touching farewell they gave to both AP and Pancho,
and herein lies the rest of our story (since we cannot rely on a certain
OTHER hero to come to our rescue! Yet shall we never think ill of our favourite
Indian god - it is the unanimous opinion that he has been bewitched by
a certain ex-blond (Sorry Tina, I just COULDN'T resist that one! (don't
hate me!!!)) South American goddess, and is not of sound mind at this moment!)
.......
MARNIE Ship's Log Day 4 Well, the morale is not so good now ....the
air is definitely becoming fetid in here .....I think it's Mary's feet!
Last night I dreamt that MG rode up, leapt from his horse and declared,
"Mary, wash socks!" If that doesn't tell you something I don't know what
will. On the bright side,Cheetah was clawing away at the cell wall and
discovered that the brickwork is crumbling ....a little time and pressure
is all it would take to dig our way out of here (and perhaps an MG poster
to hide our labour's behind). If only we had such a poster!
SONJA Meanwhile along the coast or Rarotonga,
floating peacefully in the clear blue waters, AP had invited Pancho aboard
the Pirate Submarine for a few beers and to watch the football game. The
two were just settling down with pretzels and a beer each, and had started
the ritual 'belching' competition which traditionally keeps menfolk busy
during the pre-game build-up, when the leggy cheerleaders high-kicking
on the screen were suddenly replaced by a stern-faced CNN anchor-man (give
me a hand here, haven't watched CNN in YONKS - anyone know the name of
an anchor-man we can put in here?!!) announcing the ongoing plight of several
female Micheal Greyeyes fans who were seemingly lost, or kidnapped, in
northern Africa. As mugshots of
(*Sonja pauses and wonders if she is perhaps being a little unfair to our fine members of the opposite sex ........................... NAH!!!*) Sonja (who is feeling 'empowered' this evening!)
SONJA Hot, baking mud walls take on a pink hue
from the light slanting through our single window (more of a 2ft square
hole in the wall, situated 12ft up the wall) as the sun sets for yet another
day over the sea to the west. The dungeon has become home. After days of
being dragged out to the slave market every morning our captors finally
realised no one was gonna pay a shekel for any of us, and we have been
left alone. A sloppy gruel is served once a day (reminds Sonja of Pap and
she is the only one who has managed to enjoy it so far!!), but it is barely
enough to sustain life. The growling of our hungry stomachs echoes on the
walls, and Gin, ever the musician, has arranged us into a sort of 'gastric
choir' - we are getting to be quite good!! If we ever get out of here we'll
probably see if we can get a recording contract. Cheetah is really missing
Simunye, but she immediately stopped digging at the mud walls after she
broke a nail! Now she just lies dejectedly with her
Sonja
TINA Although the lot of you deserve to be left
in the mud walled fortress to rot after your uncalled-for comments about
me popping out of a cake in a bikini, I have some news to impart. The researcher
and I are presently in a most remote Indian village in the northern Braziian
state of Roraima. Remote as it is, the village chief somehow has a satellite
dish and a PC and has lent us his extra battery pack. MG, after a rigorous
session of learning the small tribe's intricate dances, while I videotaped,
was sitting around shooting the breeze with the villagers, I ever faithfully
at his side translating the words back and forth. They asked him about
games people play for fun back in his country. We had considerable difficulty
explaining the concept of hockey to people who have never seen an ice cube,
much less a snowflake. But, natural athlete that he is, with my assistance
he rigged up some makeshift lacrosse sticks and taught the enthusiastic
village men this exciting, rough and tumble game which is of Eastern woodland
native origin (the Iroquois have a great national team that has played
around the
All good things must come to an end, however. We heard what hopeless tunnel-diggers you are - actually only Cheetah was doing ANYTHING while the rest of you sat around feeling sorry for your smelly, moth-eaten selves. Poor Cheetah has worn her claws down to raw, bleeding stubs digging away at the wall, only to find that the mud was reinforced with a barrier of solid iron, so all to no avail. You were doomed to remain there. Please note that our esteemed researcher and I still have 14 other villages to visit in the Brazilian states of Para, Amazonas, Rondonia and Maranhao. His research is unique, priceless and of Nobel Peace Prize calibre. However, after considerable consideration, we have decided to cut the work short. We felt it was our moral duty to head to the Sahara at once to mount a search-and-rescue for you. I once worked for 3-1/2 years at an overseas office of the Samoan Navy, and made several calls to several of the former commanders and admirals I used to work with. They have agreed to send a regiment of - Marines - with us to North Africa. Be thankful I did NOT accept the offer of the Bolivian and Paraguayan navies -- those are landlocked countries with only a couple of rusty old river boats and very small armed forces to begin with. Besides, what do you need a navy for in the desert anyway? None of the armies offered to help, so I took what I could get. I hope you ungrateful wenches are appreciative
of this great sacrifice we are making, particularly in light of your reprehensible
behavior of late. He fully understands my reasons for leaving you there
in the desert, knowing I had a split-second decision to make and being
so sincerely grateful for my invaluable linguistic assistance to him. The
one who can await a formidable chastisement is Marnie for splashing semi-nude
photos of Tina in bikinis across the Net, not to mention a certain polemic
portrait of him about which there is no consensus!! Remember that phrase
from the Bible, Marnie, about the wailing and the gnashing of teeth? Better
start covering thyself with sackcloth and ashes and practising thy wails
and gnashes...it ain't gonna be pretty.
Sonja, we and the marines should be there by tomorrow, so you may write the chronicle of your rescue. Your sincere, self-sacrificing rescuer, Tina
MARNIE Ship's Log Day 5 Another uncomfortable night spent with 23 unwashed women ....some people may have fantasies about this sort of thing but I'm not one of them! Cheetah is definitely in need of a manicure and the rest of us could also benefit from some personal grooming. See, I told you my true calling was to be an aesthetician. I should forget this "Art" nonsense....it just gets me into trouble! I dreamt last night that someone sent us a cake ....but instead of the expected file baked into it, horror of horrors a bikini clad Tina leapt out flaunting her weight loss and cochineal hair. I must've screamed for I awoke to the aroma of Mary's socks being waved under my nose ...worked better than smelling salts! Well, ....my fate is sealed ....I had thought
we'd be rescued by now ......!
THERESA Theresa, not to be outdone, and having followed all our adventuring chimed in with her own literary marvel….. << Of course both Lauren and Theresa (who THOUGHT you were their friend!!!) wanted to be included in your dinner invitation so Marnie very kindly dropped by Rarotonga to collect them in her little tartan spaceship >> Addendum: Theresa and Lauren said very fond (and very satisfied) farewells to AP and Panch and unknown to the other MGFans were supposed to meet up at Tina's wonderful dinner. Ap and Pancho had some unfinished "business" they couldn't tell Theresa or Lauren about as it would put them in danger, thus they declined the invite. So still walking on clouds Lauren and Theresa jumped on the space ship in anticipation of meeting up with their warriors in a few days. Suddenly over the desert (all the details already known) the space ship crashed. As the days grew and we all become more
weak and lethargic, Lauren and Theresa secretly discussed that the guys
must have missed us all by now and be wondering where we are. So later
that night when the rest of the group fell into an exhausted sleep, Lauren
helped Theresa get ready for a sacred ceremony to hopefully make a
They built a fire in a circle and Theresa
walked in the center and knelt down looking like she was going to pray.
Lauren was a little concerned not knowing what to expect because Theresa
had warned her, no matter what you hear or see, do not try to stop me or
wake me. So Lauren made herself comfortable as she could in a crevice in
a huge rock and waited. Soon the fires in the circle grew higher and higher.
Lauren could feel the
Theresa never moved a muscle but her body seemed to slightly lift from the sand. From the look on her face Lauren could tell Theresa was really no longer in the desert. It seemed to go on forever. Suddenly the fires all went out. Theresa slowly awoke. 'They know we are here', is all she said.
They walked back to camp to settle for the night.
SONJA
"THE RESCUE " After spending a few more days pondering
the CNN report they had seen, it finally dawned on Pancho and AP, that
they should perhaps at least try to launch a rescue attempt. After all,
the football season was over, the
Later in a corner of the hold, where they had been allocated quarters, Pancho and AP discussed the situation. WHY was the fleet heading in the WRONG DIRECTION! After several hours of mulling this over they figured there was only ONE MAN they could call upon to help them - Shaka Zulu himself! While AP kept watch (brandishing his sword
in good 'Highlander' battle mode), Pancho commandeered the radio room and
sent an urgent call out to Henry Cele in South Africa, who had been feeling
kind of left out after the excitement of filming on a big international
set, and was only too happy to get back into action. On
Early next morning Pancho and AP were greeted on deck by a wondrous sight, the coast of Morocco lay before them. How could that be? Well, seems our brave rescuers were THEMSELVES heading in the wrong direction, and the fleet in the CORRECT direction, when the fates had arranged their opportune meeting! This REALLY puzzled the two, but they decided they ought to find Tina and Michael and offer their assistance in the rescue attempt. And here comes Tina now! But MG appears to be missing! WHERE is Michael? Their puzzlement turned to open mouthed
wonder when out onto the deck, in full military flight gear, burst MG.
He jumped into a Samoan helicopter, just as his South African counterpart's
chopper appeared on the horizon,
It was Mary who first noticed a light flashing through the hole in the mud roof way above our heads, but as she couldn't be too sure she wasn't hallucinating she didn't say anything to the others. But soon we were ALL seeing it - a light
flashing through the hole, accompanied by the unmistakable sound of....
helicopters!! There was a very undignified scramble to the wall containing
the hole. Chris insisted she
THEN the miracle happened!! There before
our eyes was MG, crawling through the window, and lowering a rope down
to us! In our double excitement at seeing our wonderful hero, AND at the
prospect of imminent
What a mistake! The weight of over 20 of us was such that the rope snapped sending MG tumbling down into the dungeon. Fortunately the bodies of 20 odd women (albeit half-starved, mud covered women) formed a soft enough cushions to break his fall, and he arrived at the floor of the dungeon unharmed. He recovered just as HC quickly lowered a rope ladder and in his deep calming voice, commanded us to proceed up the ladder, one ata time. We did as we were told and climbed up the ladder in an orderly fashion, keen to get out of that dungeon! After all, the mud-packs applied to our hair and bodies by our 'beauticians' had given us the most wonderful 'glow', (our skins had never been healthier or more beautiful!) and we were keen to try out the 'new' us on an unsuspecting world! We were all taken to our respective countries
and homes, where we were welcomed by loving families and given the best
'Mother's day' we had ever had. Theresa and Lauren were somewhat disgusted
at what had become of
So, All's Well that Ends Well. I'm exhausted - remind me NOT to take up the next gauntlet that Tina dangles so 'innocently' in our portion of cyber-space!! Your brain-dead home-bound reporter, Sonja THE END
writer’s of the various parts: Sonja, Tina, Marnie, Theresa Pictures by Marnie |
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