Today was a calm and quiet day at our house. I had a lot of time to enjoy being with Mr. Guy and The Lady and to think about things. I like to think, but sometimes I think I think too much. This morning, The Lady told me that our picture-taking prompt for the day is sought after. I wondered if she was confused and meant to say after-thought. Nope. She meant what she said, sought-after. I had to give that some forethought before I had an idea for our picture.
First I had to figure out what “sought after” means. Did you know that “sought” is the past tense of “seek?” And, sought-after is a derivative participle? (Whatever that means.). The best I can do with understanding this is that sought-after means something that I was seeking for yesterday…or the day before…or maybe two years ago. I’m not sure how long ago I was supposed to be seeking for something before it becomes sought-after instead of still seeking.
After thinking about all of this for awhile, I decided that I don’t really seek things. I just let things happen. I go places with Mr. Guy and The Lady and other people, but they are never places that I decided that I wanted to go. (I’m not complaining.) I do things and I eat things and I experience all kinds of fun things, mostly things that I had never thought about seeking. That is what makes them so much fun. I do shop for t-shirts when I go, do, and have fun, but this is not because I want the t-shirts but because when I pull the shirts from my drawer and put them on I want to remember all that I experienced and all of the people with whom I shared those experiences.
When I opened my drawer today to get dressed, several of the shirts right on the top of my stacks all reminded me of special times and special places. And, I noticed that they were given to me as gifts by special people in The Lady’s picture taking group!
One of my favorite memory shirts is my Dirt Shirt. It was given to me by Ms. Michele when we spent a day with her and Ms. Peggy, both picture takers, when we were visiting Delaware back when The Captain was sick. I wrote about my visit with my friends that day here.
One of the other memory shirts on the top of my stacks today was given to me by Ms. Rene Mac Donald. I traveled a long way to meet her. She lives in Scotland but she came all the way to Bristol, England to visit me and The Lady when The Lady was there singing. This shirt has The Loch Ness Monster on it. Ms. Rene thought I would like it because I am a monster too, but not the same kind of monster. This monster hides in the water. I don’t do that because, well, because water does funny things to my fur. Also, there are not pictures of The Loch Ness Monster. Some people don’t believe that this monster is even real. There are lots of pictures of me. I am very real!!!
I have lots of fun memories with The Lady’s friend, Ms. Joni., too She and The Lady do lots of things together with sticks and string and stuff that looks like clothes but doesn’t have any arm or head holes. Even though Ms. Joni doesn’t live close to us, she and The Lady talk a lot. Ms. Joni gave me another of my shirts on the top of my shirt piles that I saw today. She also made me a sweater and my very own quilt! She went to Alaska with us. And one year, I got to be on her Christmas card picture with her! The Lady told me that Ms. Joni is coming to visit us in Texas this summer! Once we are done with these black and white photos, I will show you my quilt. Guess what colors it is. HINT: It is not black and white!
Only one more day of black and white photos. I can’t wait!
Anyway… back to this idea of “sought-after.” I like to think about things that I have done and may do sometime, but mostly I like to think about today. I like to be happy with the people that I am with right now even if sometimes we are together because something sad has happened. I like to have as much fun as I can doing whatever it is that we are doing. I like to make people smile. Mostly I like to be a happy furry little blue and orange monster.