Cleopatra and the Attack of the Gummy Asp

One of life's little pleasures is receiving an unexpected gift (an expected one is pretty cool too, of course).   Imagine, then, my delight when I opened an envelope from my editor, Cheryl Klein, at Arthur A. Levine Books (http://www.arthuralevinebooks.com), and discovered this:

Cleopatra Gummy Worms.

Score!

I immediately pulled out another gift she sent me many moons ago--a Cleopatra action-figure.

You read that right: a Cleopatra action figure.

The two inspired me to experiment with how to recreate her famous death scene. And, no, you can't call me crazy because you know you'd do the same thing if you received a package of wiggly candy snakes fit for an Egyptian queen.

After much trial and error (namely, how to get her hand to hold the gummy that almost outweighed her and caused her to repeatedly fall on her face), I found out that the glue gun really is magic.

So, behold! The death of Cleopatra as you've never seen it before--by Royal Gummy!

Look at the fierceness! The attitude! The cool dress! (But please don't look too closely at the queen's face because then you'll realize it's actually a GI JOE action head with BLUE EYESHADOW! Yeah, I know, once you see it, you can't unsee it.)

Still. How cool is that?

So now I'm thinking I should bring my Cleopatra action figure wherever I go--kind of like my friend, Cathy C. Hall's (http://cathychall.blogspot.com) "Cathy on a stick." It might be fun to get little Cleo in on some action. Meanwhile, if you have any suggestions for drag-queen-Cleo photo shoots, let me know!

And thanks again to my brilliant editor who, without even trying (and who I suspect is not even aware of this), always leaves a trail of glittery rainbows and unicorns in her wake.