how do you solve a problem like maria would?

Dearest Pippy B,

Thank you ever so much for your kind letter! It filled me with such wonder to think that I with my cropped hair and irritatingly bubbly personality could offer advice! Well, I’m so delighted I can barely write! But with a song in my heart I shall, and now, let’s start at the very beginning.

1. Sew clothes made from curtains my dear, not venetian blinds.
2. For matters of the heart I’m afraid you’ll have to away to seek advice from mother superior.
3. Yes, the term “I’m there with bells on” does endorse the use of doorbells and sleigh bells.
4. No, the line “Lusty and clear from the goatherd’s throat heard” has never been surpassed either in its excellent rhyming nor innocent double entendre.
5. Of course schnitzel with noodles  constitutes all your dietry requirements! What a question!
6. Use brown paper bags tied up with string as cocaine tends to keep much better in paper. And do try to avoid getting any on your nose and eyelashes.

I can hear Georg whistling for me, I wish you terribly good luck with everything,

Maria.

in for a penny

With little money, mounting pressure from parents, and far too much time on my hands I am seeking inspiration from others in their successful pursuit of that elusive mistress, income. Perhaps I could write a novel, no wait, a sanitising series of novels that pander to the fantasies (and disposable income) of the world’s middle aged women and tweenage girls (why do they love the same guys? it’s just too creepy) 

Or I suppose I could begin behaving like an utter bastard; it seems to work for many successful business people, celebrities and dictators across the globe.  Who needs compassion for their fellow man anyway right? Hmm, my Jiminy Cricket does not approve. And I’m forgetting adventure and excitement! Call me old-fashioned but I can’t go past a diamond heist, they always looked so damn glamorous, and there is of course the Cary Grant factor*. Oh he can dress in black and chase me across rooftops any time.** I think that’s just about made up my mind…goodbye boredom, hello criminal record.

*a well documented and validated factor that guarantees charm and smoulders ahoy 

**I understand Grant is a long dead actor however he is still about 10 billion times more admirable than a fictional 110 year old vampire man-child.