Author: Kris Baker

That is all for today.

This furry little blue and orange monster is very unhappy about this week of black and white photography!   I like blue and orange so much more than black and white!   The good news is three days down only three more to go!  Happy Hump Day!

I was not  really willing to have my picture taken today, but The Lady got a new guitar this afternoon and she told me that our photo would be more about her guitar and less about me so I agreed.  But, this picture still makes me sad.  Not only do I look much better in color, so does The Lady’s guitar.  It  is made from a maple tree and a spruce tree so it has interesting tree markings, kind of like my stripes that you can’t see because of this black and white stuff.

I’ll try to be a better sport about our photo and story tomorrow.

I learned a new word today:

Quintessential – representing the most perfect or typical example of a quality or class.

Mr. Guy told me that when he was a teacher and he was helping his students to learn new words, he would have them use their new words in sentences.  That sounded kind of fun.  Then I heard The Lady and Mr. Guy talking about poems.  I wasn’t exactly sure what a poem was so I looked it up.  A poem is “a composition in verse, usually characterized by concentrated and heightened language in which words are chosen for their sound and suggestive power as well as for their sense, and using such techniques as metre, rhyme, and alliteration.”  I still don’t think I know what a poem is!  Mr. Guy tried to explain this to me in a way that I could understand.  I was curious about these poem things.  I decided that I was not going to use my new word, quintessential, just in a sentence, I decided to use it in a poem, my very first poem.  I hope you like it.

Quintessential Me

In case we’ve not officially met,
I’ll share a bit about me.
I’m a furry little monster,
And I use the pronoun “he.”

My horns and claws are orange,
Some of my fur is too;
But most of me is a vibrant
Deep cerulean blue.

I live in the state of Texas
With The Lady and Mr. Guy
They adopted me in Delaware
Though I don’t know exactly why.

That doesn’t really matter
Because I’m as happy as can be
amidst all the crazy people
That I now call family.

We’ve visited many places
Both near and far away –
England, Iceland, Alaska,
Virginia, Milwaukee, L.A.

Seattle and Philadelphia
Minneapolis, Asheville, and KC.
I’ve met hundreds of nice people
I’m so lucky to be me!

I buy myself a t-shirt
To remind me where I’ve been.
I have a great big drawer full,
It’s hard to fit them in.

The Lady takes my picture
Every place  I go
And then I write my stories
About traveling to and fro.

I tell about the fun trips
About the sad times too.
I speak of all the things I learn
And moments gone askew.

Sometimes I  make mistakes.
I do not see things right.
The Lady says this is how we learn,
That experience brings insight.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this simple poem
About quintessential me.
A furry little monster
Who goes by Blueper B!

-Blueper B
5/2/2023

 

Hi, Everyone!  It is me, Blueper B!

It is my favorite time of the year, My Month of Me!  I look forward to the month of May all year long.  I get to go lots of places and do lots of things with Mr. Guy and The Lady and we get to write stories about the the lots of things that we do and then share the, with you!

I do stuff during other times of the year, but I’m not very good about writing about them during those other months.  I always think that I will be better about that and then those other months come and go and I’m not any better about writing.  That makes me a little sad.  In the eleven months since last May and this May, things have been busy at my house.  I got a new room and more space to store my t-shirts.  That is exciting!

And being back for this year’s My Month of Me is also exciting…but today is not  quite as exciting as I had hoped.  In fact, it is more disappointing than I had hoped.  

At my house, we always start the day talking about what The Lady’s picture taking prompt is.  That gives me lots of time to think about our photo while she is at school teaching.  This morning, she told me that our prompt for the day is Opt To Mall.  I got all excited with this!

Opt To Mall…that means we get to choose to go to the mall!  I haven’t been to the mall in a long, long time.  In fact, I haven’t done any shopping anywhere in a long, long time.  I can’t even remember the last time I got a new shirt.   Next to doing stuff with The Lady and Mr. Guy, and our friends, getting a new shirt makes me the happiest!  So, I thought all day about going to the mall when The Lady got home and I got happy and happier.

When The Lady walked in the door, I said, “Are we going now?  I’m ready!  I have been thinking all day about what color shirt I want to shop for!”  

The Lady looked at me with a very confused expression and asked, “Where are we going?”  

“To the mall!!!  Remember?!  I’ve been thinking about our word, our choice to opt to mall, all day!”

The Lady got an even stranger look on her face.  She picked me up and held me on her lap and gently broke the news to me that we were not opting for the mall, that I had condused her words this morning.  (Not really a surprise.)  She explained the word O-P-T-I-M-A-L to me.  In case you are wondering, it means “most desirable or satisfactory.”  Well, in this furry little blue and orange monster’s heart and mind, not going to the mall to shop for a new shirt was neither desirable nor satisfactory!  The Lady could tell that I was very sad.  She offered me a cookie that Mr. Guy had made earlier in the day.  I didn’t know he made cookies today.  Actually, I didn’t even know that he knew how to make cookies.  He must have made them while I was daydreaming about the Opt To Mall Adventure that now was not going to happen.  I guess that makes it less than O-P-T-I-M-A-L.   Did I use that word correctly?

After my cookie, I told The Lady that I would go find an OLD shirt in a pretty color so that she could take her O-P-T-I-M-A-L photo of me.  She told me that the color didn’t matter.  What?  When you are a furry little blue and orange monster, color always matters!  Some colors clash terribly with my fur.  Why did she even say this to me?

I calmly asked her why she said such a terrible thing.  She told me that the color of my shirt didn’t matter because our photo today would be in black and white.  Ugh!  I remember this black and white photo stuff from other years.  I don’t like it!  Black and white photos of this furry little blue and orange monster are waaaay less than O-P-T-I-M-A-L!!!  I tried not to show how disappointed I was.  I told The Lady that I would try to find a black and white shirt for today and I’d save my pretty color shirt for tomorrow.  I thought she would be happy that I was trying to be an understanding monster, but she still didn’t seem happy.

She then said, “I hate to tell you this, but this whole week is going to be black and white photos.”

I might have cried a little when I heard those words.  I don’t know that I have learned anything about O-P-T-I-M-A-L today, but I sure have learned a lot about less than O-P-T-I-M-A-L!  The Lady understood why I was sad and she was very kind to me.  She promised me that we would go shopping for a new shirt this week and on Sunday, when we don’t have to have black and white photos anymore, we can take an OPTIMAL photo in a brand new shirt.  Yay! Something to look forward to.  But, this is going to be a very long week for this colorful little monster.

For today I decided on a shirt that even photographed in black and white still has a bright and cheerful message.  I hope I have enough shirts like this to get through the whole week.

Happy May, everyone!  Share some kindness.  Kindness will make all your days optimal!

 

 

Boy has it been a hard, sad, crazy few weeks at our house.  I have learned that even when I have the best intentions, like wanting to write every day, sometimes life happens and we just can’t do all of the things that we hope to do.

Last week we had to say good-bye to our canine, Harley.  Harley lived with Mr. Guy and The Lady a lot longer than I have.  We were all sad, but Harley was very old and her body was not strong anymore.  We all worked hard to keep her happy and comfortable as long as we could.  She was kind of furry like me except that her fur was gold not blue and orange.  She didn’t have horns like mine, but her ears stuck up and kind of looked like my horns.

The Lady told me that Harley crossed The Rainbow Bridge and met her big brother, Adidas.  We miss her, but I know she is happy and feels much better now.

Then The Lady and I went and spent several days with Offspring #2 and her babies.  We thought we might have some fun taking pictures with those little guys, but that didn’t happen.  Those little people don’t stay still long enough for pictures!  They are busy all the time.  This furry little blue and orange monster got tired just watching them play!  The Lady and I decided that it was more important for her to help Offspring #2 take care of the boys than it was for us to take pictures and write.  I hid in our room and napped and watched HGTV on The Lady’s ipad.  I kind of enjoyed my monster alone time.

Then a most terrible thing happened.  There was a school shooting here in Texas and nineteen children and two teachers were killed.  We all got very sad again.  I wrote about guns four years ago.  It seems not good that guns are still killing too many people all these years later.  The students who were shot are just a little bit older than me.  That is awful.  I am still little.  I want to grow up to be a big monster, to learn more things, to go more places, to get new t-shirts, to make new friends, to maybe someday have my own little monsters like Offspring #2.  None of those children will ever get to do those things.  I cried a lot for their families.

When Mr. Guy and The Lady were still going to school every day and teaching, I used to think it would be fun to go with them.  Now I am glad that none of us has to go to school.  I think that schools are scary places.  I hope that Mr. Guy or The Lady can teach me all the things that I want to learn at home.

Even though I am not a very happy monster, I am trying not to be so sad all of the time.  

We’ll see how that goes.

I hope you all can find something to chase away some of the clouds in your world.

Oh, and hug everyone you love as often as you can.  You never know when they won’t be there to hug anymore. 🙁

Enough said for today…

Whew!  It’s been a hectic few days.  Well, not really for me, but for The Lady.  She spent the weekend helping Offspring No. 2 with her little people.  Those little people were very busy!  That made The Lady and Offspring No. 2 very busy too.  Because of all that busy-ness, The Lady didn’t have time to help me write.  That’s OK.  I had a relaxing weekend even if she didn’t.  

Yesterday, The Lady wanted to rest.  That seemed fair to me since she had been busy for two days I had rested rested for two days.  Mr. Guy and I did guy things while she was gone, like napping, and reading, and watching HGTV.  I missed The Lady, but I also like it when just Mr. Guy and I have time together.

Anyway, yesterday The Lady needed a picture with bubbles, but we couldn’t find our bubble blowing stuff.  (I bet Offspring No. 2’s little people had bubble blowing stuff they would have shared with me.)  I told The Lady I would  take a picture for her.

I thought the hard part would be figuring out how to make bubbles without any bubble blowing stuff.  That was the easy part!  The Internet told me that I could make a different kind of bubbles by mixing oil and water.  I knew we would have both of those things so off to the kitchen I went.  I had to ask Mr. Guy for a little help getting a big pan out of the pantry in which to mix the oil and water.  

Then the really hard part came!  How was I going to take a picture of me and the bubbles without spilling my oily bubble stuff all over me?!

I got The Lady’s camera and played for a little while.  This was WAY harder than I thought it would be.  Have you ever noticed how some things look easy and are really hard and how other things look really hard and are actually easy?  I wonder why that is.  Maybe it’s that some people make easy things look hard and others make hard things look easy.   I asked Mr. Guy and The Lady about this.

They said that everyone has different skills and different talents.  That’s what makes us all unique.  They also said that I was right that something could be easy for someone and difficult for someone else, and that is OK.  The world needs everyone’s skills.   I had a hard time taking a picture of me and my weird bubble stuff, but usually I have an easy time making people smile.  Mr. Guy said that making people smile is my talent and it is an important one.  Making people smile makes the world a better place.  That made me smile!  

Speaking of smiles, I didn’t get my smile in my picture I took for The Lady.  All I got was my belly fur.  The Lady said it looks like abstract art.  I wondered if that was a good thing.  I went back to the Internet and looked up abstract art.

art that does not attempt to represent external reality, but seeks to achieve its effect using shapes, forms, colors, and textures.

I don’t really know what all of that means, but I do see shapes and colors in my picture.  And, this furry little blue and orange monster fur has kind of a cool texture.  I’ll  just trust that The Lady understands what this definition of abstract art means and that she thinks that abstract art is a good thing.

Happy Monday, everyone!  I hope your day brings you some smiles.

Every Wednesday, we get a big pink box of food delivered on our front porch.  The box says, “Imperfect Foods.”  I thought I knew what imperfect meant, but I asked Mr. Guy just to be sure.  He explained that imperfect usually means that something has flaws.  I thought about that for a minute.  I wondered how we know if our food has flaws.  The Lady has found some food in our refrigerator that she says is a “science experiment” and we cannot eat it.  But, she never called any of it flawed or imperfect.  We always eat the food that comes in the pink box.

Maybe the food in the box is imperfect imperfect food.  That makes it not flawed, right?  I asked Mr. Guy about this.  He said this was not the case, that the food is indeed somehow flawed.  Of course my next question was “how is it flawed?”  Mr. Guy explained that some of it is considered flawed because someone made too much of that food and so that it did not go to waste, Imperfect Foods got it to give people who would use it.  Then there also are foods that have gotten a new package, but the food already in the old package is still good.  Mr. Guy showed me that most of what we get is fruit and vegetables whose shape, size, or color are “somehow flawed.”  This concerned me.  Who determines if something’s…or someone’s…shape, size, or color is imperfect?  And, if there are things that are imperfect, there must also be things that are perfect.  I looked up a definition for perfect: “having all the required or desirable elements, qualities, or characteristics; as good as it is possible to be.”

Who decides what is perfect?

I’m pretty sure that Mr. Guy and The Lady think that I am perfect.  They adopted me so I must be desireable.  I don’t know what elements, qualities or characteristics are required of a furry little blue and orange monster, but I think I have at least some of them…but perhaps not all of them.

Maybe I am imperfect.  My size, shape, and certainly my colors are not the same as other monsters that I’ve met, which is not many, but still… Who can tell me if I’m imperfect?

Should I even worry about being imperfect?  Or perfect?

I looked at the oranges and apples in our Imperfect Foods box.  They looked fine to me.  Maybe because they were a little smaller than some of the ones that we have gotten at the market.  To me the Imperfect Foods apples and oranges were perfect because they fit into my little monster mitts.  But, someone else thought that they were imperfect.

The blueberries were also small.  Again, to me this is a good thing.  When The Lady made blueberry muffins, it seemed like there was more blueberry flavor in each muffin.  The little blueberries seemed to swom around and fill up the muffin cups better..  It is kind of like the difference between  making cookies with chocolate chips or a whole chocolate bar.  In my opinion, there were no flaws in my blueberry muffins!  The little blueberries seemed perfect to me.

We also got some flowers in our imperfect pink box.  The Lady let me put them in the vase.  My flower arranging skills may be flawed, but I thought the flowers were pretty perfect.  They made me and The Lady smile.

I looked at the flowers carefully.  Some were small.  Some were not all the way open or were missing a few petals.  Some had broken stems.  But I thought they were all beautiful.

Mr. Guy explained that different people have different ideas about what, or who, is perfect and what, or who, is flawed.  It is one thing when you are talking about apples, oranges, and blueberries, but it is another thing when you are talking about people and monsters.  He said that maybe imperfect and imperfect are not the best words for us to use to describe people or things.

I’ll have to think more about that, but right now I think he may be flawlessly correct.

Maybe the people delivering the pink boxes of food should consider changing their name.

The Lady and I were talking about our claws today.  She has to take special care of her claws so that she can play her guitar.  Sometimes she goes to a place where they stick fake claws on her fingers.  She says that fake claws sort of help her play the guitar better, but she really doesn’t like them.  So, she does all this stuff to make her real claws more like the fake claws.  It all seems like a lot of work to me.  My claws grow with no problem.  They stay clean and don’t break and are always a pretty orange…except for the time I asked The Lady to put that drippy shiny stuff on them.

That drippy shiny stuff was kind of was fun…once…I don’t think I’ll do that again.  I think that I prefer my natural orange claws just like The Lady prefers her natural pink (much shorter than mine) claws.

The Lady eats these gummy things every day to help her hair and nails grow strong. I don’t think I need those.  Look at my fur!  It grows just fine.  And, look at my claws.  They grow fine too.  I did try one of her gummy things, though, and it tasted really good.  I wonder how long my fur and hair would get if I ate them every day like The Lady does.  It’s funny – she also has to sand her claws and she also puts this stuff for horse feet on her fingers.  I don’t undertand why she eats stuff to make her claws grow and be strong and then she cuts them shorter and puts the horse feet stuff on them to make them softer.

It is much easier to take care of furry little blue and orange monster fur and claws than it is to take care of guitar playing lady claws!

 

It has been a busy weekend for my people.  Yesterday was Offspring #2″s Little Offspring #1’s birthday.  We had a fun time celebrating.  And today is Mother’s Day.  It makes me happy that I have The Lady to mother me.

Mr. Guy and I worked together to get The Lady a special gift for Mother’s Day.  He knew that a lot of mothers like flowers and chocolate and maybe to go out to eat to celebrate Mother’s Day, but The Lady is not like most mothers.  (I don’t mean that in a bad way!)  She likes Lego.  Mr. Guy told me that the construction at our house is because she needs a big room so that The Lady has a place for all of her Lego stuff.  Some Lego stuff is big and some is small.  Since our new room is not done yet and we don’t have any space for big Lego, we decided to get her some Lego minifigures.  I wasn’t sure exactly what that meant, but Mr. Guy knew that The Lady would like them a lot.  He told me that there was a new series of minifigures called The Muppets.  They were just released so Mr. Guy knew that The Lady didn’t have any of them and that she would want them.

I didn’t know who The Muppets were so I looked them up on the computer.  The Muppets look kind of like me!  Lots, of furry little monsters.  There is also one that looks like Mr. Guy; his name is Statler.  Statler has a friend named Waldorf.  (That sounds like a salad but he doesn’t look like a salad.)  Then there is a frog, a dog, a prawn, a rat, a chicken, and a pig.  I may have forgotten some of them.  These Muppets have been on television and in movies.  They are kind of famous.  I would like to meet the real Muppets some day.  Maybe I can be on TV or in a movie with them.  That would be exciting!

Mr. Guy was right.  The Lady loved the Lego Muppet minifigures that we got for her.  I learned there are twelve Muppet characters in the series..  Mr. Guy bought eighteen packages.  That seemed strange to me.  He explained that he bought extras because you can’t see in the packages so you don’t know which Muppets you are buying.  He thought he’d have a better chance of getting the whole series for The Lady if he bought the extras.  That didn’t seem right to me, but he knows more about Lego than I do.  Mr. Guy knew what he was doing!  He got all twelve of the Muppet characters in the series.  And The Lady also has a few extras to share.  I think Mother’s Day was good day at our house!

The Lady’s picture taking group was supposed to photograph something pink today.  I suggested that we take a picture of with one of her new Muppet minifigures, Miss Piggy, because she is pink.

I read more about Miss Piggy on the Internet.  I’m not sure I really understand her, but I liked this quotes of hers:

I plan to write more books whenever I can find the appropriate writing attire and color-coordinated pen.

I plan to write more!  And I like to find t-shirts appropriate for everything that I do!  Of course I would like to have a blue and orange pen!  Maybe I understand her more than I thought.

I asked if we can watch these Muppets on TV one day soon.  Mr. Guy said that he would watch them with me.  That makes this furry little blue and orange monster happy.

Speaking of happy, Happy Mother’s Day to all of the mothers and mother figures out there.  I’m sending each of you a big monster hug.