Author: Kris Baker

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May 30 – Monster Blue and An Orange Blob

I got a new shirt today!  We went to my favorite store, the red store with the white circles.  At first Mr. Guy and The Lady said that I could not get any shirts because I have already gotten four new ones this month.  I really wanted to go just look, though.  Sometimes it’s fun to look at stuff even when we are not going to buy one.

Most of the shirts I saw were there when I got my others…except this one!  It is different from all the other shirts I have because it has lines all around it.  All of my shirts have letters and pictures but no lines.  And, the lines match my fur exactly.  It has monster orange and monster blue lines!  The Lady said that my blue fur is a specific blue called cerulean blue.  We talked about this once before, but I think cerulean is a very strange word so I don’t use it.  Monster blue works just fine for me!

The Lady agreed that the colors in the shirt were perfect for me so she said that we could get it.  Yay!   But, when we held it up to make sure that it was the right size, I noticed that it had a big orange blob on it!  How did it get an orange blob?  If anything, I would think that the shirts might get white circles on them at this store, not orange blobs that look almost like squares.  If I am going to have a shirt with blobs on it, I want to have fun putting them on it myself!

I said to The Lady, “I guess I can’t get this new shirt since it has a blig orange blob on it.”

She said, “A big blob?  I don’t see anything on it.”

I know that The Lady’s eyes don’t work very well, but surely she can see the big orange almost square blob on the front of the shirt.  I didn’t want to be rude so I pointed and said nicely, “It’s right there.”

The Lady said, “That is supposed to be there.  It’s a pocket.  You can put things in it to carry around with you.”

None of my other shirts have pockets.  I’ve never needed a pocket to carry things around.  I have Mr. Guy and The Lady and lots of nice friends who carry my things when my things need carrying.  I was glad to know that the blob was supposed to be there, though.   I now have a new shirt with lines and a pocket!

When we got home, I asked The Lady about her picture for today.  She said that she needed to take a picture of a blue flower.  I was hoping that she needed to take a picture of a furry little cerulean blue and orange monster in his new shirt with matching lines and a pocket.

Then I had a big idea for a little monster!  I decided I could put blue flowers in my orange pocket!  It is there to hold stuff.  Today it can hold flowers.  It can be a vase.  I went out to the yard to search for blue flowers.  The only blue ones that I could find were the ones we already used in a photo this week.  The Lady said that she didn’t want to use them again.  I don’t think that they would have fit in my pocket vase anyway.

Then I found some little flowers that aren’t quite blue.  They are…quite purple, but they are the best that I could do.  Purple is blue with red mixed in, so technically they blue.  My monster blue fur has yellow mixed in with it.  That’s what makes it cerulean and why my fur and the flowers I found look so different even though they both have blue in them.

I was surprised that The Lady said that my purple flowers would work for her picture.  I put them in my orange pocket and she pushed the button on her picture taking box and we were done.

Now I need to find something else to put in my new pocket!

 

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May 27 – Feeling Blue

Someone asked me if I was feeling blue.  I happily replied that I feel blue every single day.  They looked surprised and said, “I’m sorry.”   I should feel blue., shouldn’t I?   I am blue.  I’m a furry blue monster!  Then this person said, “It is no fun being sad all the time.”

I’m not sad all of the time!  I am hardly ever really sad.  Sometimes little things make me sad for a minute or two, but I am a happy little furry blue and orange monster almost all the time.

The Lady told me that when people are sad, sometimes they say that they are feeling blue.  Why blue, I wondered?  I think maybe black or brown or gray are sad colors.  Not blue!  The sky is blue when it is happy!  It is gray when it is stormy and unhappy.

The ocean and lakes are blue when they are  happy.

I pretty sure blueberries are happy.

The Lady said that blue also makes people think about trust, loyalty, wisdom, confidence, faith, and intelligence.  I like these things more than sadness.  It is strange how one color can mean so many different feelings.

When someone wins first place in a contest or a race, they get a blue ribbon and they are happy about that.  They are feeling blue but not blue, winner’s blue but definitely not sad blue.

I have heard people say that something happened “out of the blue.”  Does that mean that whatever happened fell out of the big blue sky?

What about a true blue friend?  I don’t have any friends who have blue fur like me, so I guess you could so that I have no true blue friends, but the Lady says that a true blue friend is one that is loyal and trustworthy.  If that is true, then I have lots of true blue friends.  I am a true blue friend no matter how you think about the word blue!

Words are funny things.  I don’t know if I will ever understand them all.

I am happy that I am blue every day!  Blue with a little orange…

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May 25 – What’s for Dinner?

I thought today would be an all-day fun day since it is Saturday and because The Lady wasn’t at school during the week, she could have gotten her chores done on Monday or Tuesday or Wednesday or Thursday, or Friday.  Well, I was a very wrong little monster about that.  Today was an all-day chore day!  Mr. Guy and I worked in the greenhouse and the yard while The Lady collected canine fur from all over the house.  Part of what Mr. Guy and I did was collect “other stuff” that the canines left out in the yard.  What I don’t understand is while we were all picking up stuff that the canines left everywhere, they were all snoring on the couch.  Something isn’t right here.

I thought doing chores was all about getting rid of dirt, but Mr. Guy and I filled all of the clean plant pots with dirt and moved plants into these new pots.  When we were done with that, Mr. Guy said we needed to go work on the flower beds.  We had just put all of the plants and flowers in clean new pots and now we had to make their beds too?  The flowers are beginning to sound like the canines…they too just sit around and look pretty while this little monster does all the work.

And if all that work wasn’t enough, Mr. Guy and I also had to make dinner.  Well, the truth is that Mr. Guy said he wanted to make dinner and he asked me to help.  He said that it would be something nice that we could do for The Lady since she makes dinner for us most other nights.  I don’t know much about cooking, but I said, “OK.  I’ll help.”  I asked Mr. Guy what we were having for dinner.  He said stakes and cold straw.  That sounded…interesting.

We put tall skinny stakes in some of the pots for our plants.  I thought they were there so the plants didn’t fall over.  I guess they are food too and keep the plants from falling over because they are so hungry.  I didn’t know that plants, humans, and little monsters all ate the same thing.  We pulled the stakes out of the bags and fed them to the plants just as they came.  They must be plant fast food.  I assumed we would eat them raw too.  Good choice to have stakes for dinner, I guess…no real work for us!

I told Mr. Guy that I would go get the straw from the compost bin and take it to the refrigerator.  He looked a little confused and asked my why I was going to do that.  I told him, “Because you said we were having cold straw for dinner and it is ninety degrees outside and our straw is hot.  He then explained that we were not having cold straw.  We are having cole slaw, a salad made from cabbage.  That makes a lot more sense and sounds a lot tastier, especially with the raw stakes.  Mr. Guy and I made the cole slaw together and put it in the fridge so that it became cold cole slaw with NO straw.

Then it was time to get ready to eat dinner.  Mr. Guy said that we were going to cook outside on the grill.  What were we cooking?  The cole slaw was cold and the stakes were raw.  Mr. Guy said that we were going to cook the stakes.  I think that is why The Lady makes Mr. Guy cook outside.  Cooking the wood stakes sounded more like he was  going to make a bonfire, which would make lots of smoke, rather than dinner.  Smoke in the house is not good.  It makes the smoke detector go off and that is an awful sound.

Mr. Guy let me turn the grill on.  It has a big lid.  I guess that keeps all the smoke from the bonfire in.  Ouside we have smoke deflectors instead of smoke detectors!

I asked Mr. Guy if he wanted me to go to the greenhouse to get the stakes.  He said that they were in the fridge with the cole slaw.  How did the stakes get in the fridge with the cole slaw?  I went to get them.  I didn’t see any stakes.  Mr. Guy went and got them himself.  He couldn’t find them either because he came out with two pieces of meat instead of the stakes.

I asked, “Why do you have meat?  I thought you were cooking the stakes.”

He said, “This is them.”

“Those don’t look like stakes.,” I said.

“Why not?” Mr. Guy asked.

I said, “Because stakes are long skinny pieces of wood and those are short fat pieces of meat.”

“S-T-E-A-K-S not S-T-A-K-E-S,” Mr. Guy said.

“Hmm.  And how was I supposed to know that?” I asked.

“Good question,” he said.  And we cooked our s-t-e-a-k-s.

Mr. Guy and I make pretty good steaks and cole slaw…

…probably much better than our stakes and cold straw would have been.

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May 23 -Keep Going

Today was a great day for this little monster!  Not only did I get to go on an adventure, I also met lots of new people who were super friendly to me.  And because I met lots of nice people, I made some serious progress on my 100 People Project.

Mr. Guy and The Lady wanted to go to a bookstore and hear a guy who writes books talk about what he writes in his books.  I don’t know why, if they have read the books, they wanted to hear the writer tell them what he says in his books. Maybe he forgot to put some of the important words in his books.  I asked if the books were grown-up books or little monster books.  The Lady said that they were for grown-ups, but she thought I might learn something if I went and listened.

 

The book writer’s name is Austin Kleon.

 

He writes books about creativity.  The Lady said that creativity is what we need when we write our stories together.  I thought we just needed to go do fun stuff so we have adventures to write about and then we have to find the best words to tell you about our adventures, but The Lady said that it is not quite that easy.  I guess that is true.  Sometimes it is hard for me to make my words and my thoughts match.  It’s like my thoughts are striped and the words that come out are polka dotted.

The Lady and Mr. Guy have read almost all of Mr. Kleon’s books.  They like what he says and the way he says it.  His newest book is called Keep Going.  I like that title a lot.  The Lady and I need to keep going even though sometimes we are both tired and don’t think that we have much to say and don’t want to write any words.

Mr. Guy and The Lady were right!  Mr. Kleon was a cool guy!  I didn’t understand everything that he talked about, but I liked that he talked about his two little boys and how they inspire him.  That made me think that I can inspire The Lady and Mr. Guy when they need creativity.

After Mr. Kleon talked about his book, people stood in a line so that he would sign his name in their books.  It seemed a little funny to me that he put his name in our books.  We bought our books with our own money; this book place was not a no bills book barn like where we went earlier this week.  Now if our book gets lost, it will get returned to Mr. Kleon because he put his name in it.  I guess if people don’t take good care of his books and they get lost, those books will get back to Mr. Kleon.  He will take good care of them because they are full of his words.  If I had a book with my words in it, I know I would take good care of it!

I did get to help when Mr. Kleon signed a book for Mr. Guy.

Because Mr. Kleon is such a a nice guy, the people who read his books are also nice people.  I was surprised and happy because so many peoplethere listening talked to me and wanted to know my name and hear my story.  Not everyone we see is open to talking to a little furry blue and orange monster!

 

Ms. Christy and Mr. Garry sat near us.  They drove all the way from Oklahoma to hear Mr. Kleon talk.  That is a long drive!  Ms. Christy is a copy editor and her husband, Mr. Garry, is and artist.

Then I talked to Ms. Zee.  She writes a blog about artist’s and travel.

Look at her smile!  I bet she would be a fun travel companion!  I am looking forward to reading her blog posts and learning about different artists and places that I want to visit some day.

Mr. Eric also has a friendly smile.

I am a lucky little monster to get to meet so many interesting, talented, and most importantly, kind people.  I think that the world has more kind people than mean people, but it feels like most of the time we only hear about the mean people.  Tonight was an evening filled with all nice people.  That made my smile as big as Mr. Eric’s smile.  Really, I am smiling, but my fur covers it up sometimes.

Mr. Tom works at Interabang Books.  That is where we went to listen to Mr. Kleon talk and it’s where we met all of the friendly people.  The last person I talked to was Mr. Tom.  He is the Events Coordinator at Interabang Books.

He worked hard tonight making sure that all of the happy people stayed happy.  I think he might have been smiling because this event was almost over and he was going to get to go home and rest soon!

So, I added six people to my 100 People Project.  That is exciting for this little monster.  I am now up to fifty-one.  I have passed the halfway point.  I can do this!

Like Mr. Kleon says, “Keep Going!”

 

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May 21 – Barns, Books, and Bills

Today we went to Barns and No Bills.  I wasn’t sure why we were going to visit barns.  Mr. Guy always say that he feels like he lives in a zoo at our house, especially when the canines are being wild.  It would not have surprised me if we were going to a zoo with no bills.  He might have been looking for a place to send the canines for summer camp or something.  I guess they could go to a barn too.  Barns are on farms and farms have canines on them.  A zoo or a barn where Mr. Guy doesn’t have bills for the canines’ to go to summer camp would be great!

When we got to the place where the barns were supposed to be, I didn’t see any animals.  I didn’t see any fences or pastures…or barns.  Mr. Guy carried me into the first barn and it was full of books!  It was a book barn!  All of the books had their own special corrals just like the animals have in an animal barn.  A barn full of books and no bills is far better than a canine summer camp with no bills!

This barn had a special corral just for little monsters.  All of the books in it were written just for me!

All of the tables and chairs in this special corral were the perfect size for me, too!

There was also a grownup size chair where Mr. Guy could sit and tell me a story.  I felt like I was at school, not in a barn.

Not only were there books here, there were also toys!  The Lady likes to play with the Lego toys.

Mr. Guy likes trains.  There were trains that he and I played with for a little while.

I think that The Lady has Lego trains at our house.  Maybe this summer she will put her trains together and Mr. Guy and I can play with them!  Mr. Guy doesn’t like to put Lego together and my claws were not made to play with Lego.  But, I can play with the trains once The Lady has them all put together!

After we got done with looking at books and trains in the little monster corral, Mr. Guy had to go to another corral to look at books for him.  Once he found what he wanted, he said that we had to go pay for our things.  That didn’t make any sense!  Why did we have to pay for stuff at the No Bills Barn?  Mr. Guy told me that I was unclear on the whole concept here.  Apparently so.  We don’t usually have to pay for our books.  The library lets us read them for free.  Mr. Guy said that that was true, but the library doesn’t let you keep the books.  You have to read them and then give them back.  These books he gets to read and then keep in case he wants to read them again.  That makes sense.  This must be how we got all the books in our library at home.  Mr. Guy and The Lady paid for them, but now they share them with other people who get to read them for free.

I still don’t completely understand the whole Barn and No Bills part of this place we went today, but I had fun so that makes it another good day for this furry little blue and orange monster!

I hope you had a good day!

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May 19 – A Smiley Sunshiny Day

Today was a sunshiny day both outside and in my heart!  After church, I got to go out for lunch with Mr. Guy, The Lady, and a couple of their best friends.  We went to a place called Potbelly’s.  The name makes me laugh.  They serve delicious sandwiches there.

When we sat down to eat, all of the sudden my 100 People Project popped into my head.  A couple years ago, I decided that I was going to try to have my picture taken with 100 different people, some who I know and some who were strangers.  I haven’t taken any of these pictures since I was in Alaska last year, and I haven’t even posted those yet.  I have been a super lazy little monster.  But, The Lady always tells me to begin again where you are; so, that’s what I did today.  I am beginning where I am, with #45/100, Ms. Wendy.

Ms. Wendy is one of Mr. Guy and The Lady’s best friends.  She is part of “our village,” a group of nine friends, and this furry little blue and orange monster, who all go to church together, share a meal every Sunday, and look after each other.  Ms. Wendy is also a musician like The Lady, but Ms. Wendy blows into a silver tube to make music and The Lady blows into a black tube.  Sometimes they blow into their tubes at the same time and make pretty music together.  I was surprised that I didn’t already have a picture with Ms. Wendy, but I didn’t.  Today I fixed that and I am a happy little monster who, like my shirt says, is feelin’ awesome!

The Lady needed to take a picture “With Words” today for her picture taking group.  I offered to write her some words, but she said that we had to find already written words on a sign or something.  That could be kind of fun.

While Mr. Guy, The Lady, Ms. Wendy and Mr. Todd went to order their food, I decided to be a helpful monster and got napkins for our table.  When I put them down, I noticed that they had words on them.  The words made me laugh a little.  Then I had a great idea…I could surprise The Lady and use her cell phone and take a picture of me with the napkin and its words.  I think when you do this it is called a Cell Fee.

I see people all the time taking pictures of themselves with their cell phones.  I wonder what they do with them.  Do you have to pay for them and that is why they are called Cell Fees?  Or do the people that you give them to have to pay for them?   I could take my picture and sell it to the Lady for a fee to earn money to buy a new t-shirt…except that my picture would be on The Lady’s cell phone and she already buys my shirts for me.  What do others do with their Cell Fees?

This Cell Fee thing is hard!  First I only got half of the words, which were the important part of my picture.  Then I only got half of me.  I couldn’t figure out how to get all of the words and all of me.  I think my monster arms may be too short.  This is the best that I could do.  Maybe Cell Fees are not for me.  Mine are more like Cell Frees!  No money will be exchanged.  Despite all that, I do clean up nicely, just like the napkin says!

Mr. Guy cleans up nicely too!

When we went to fill up Mr. Guy’s cup, we found the perfect sign for The Lady’s picture for today.

The people at Potbelly like to make people smile and so do I!  This sign made me smile.  Another thing that made me smile is that The Lady took this picture instead of Mr. Guy or me trying to take another Cell Fee!

I had a lot to smile about today.  I hope that you had smiles in your day too!

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May 18 – A Rainy Day

Today was a very stormy day at my house.  There was wind and rain and thunder and lightening.  It was sort of scary but also fun to watch.  I watched mostly from the front porch.  I have a yellow raincoat, but it was raining so hard that I don’t think that raincoat would have kept my fur dry so I stayed where I knew I would be dry.  Having wet fur makes me sad.

It rained hard like this for two hours!  That is a lot of rain.  My yard almost looked like it was a bay, almost like the bay in Delaware!  I thought I might see boats and fish at any minute.  When the rain stopped for a little bit, I went outside with the canines to see if there really were any fish.

When I looked in the water I saw something!  I didn’t look like a fish.  It looked like a monster!  Maybe it was the Loch Ness Monster that is on my shirt that Ms. Rene gave me!  How did Nessie get all the way from Scotland to Texas???

Mr. Guy explained that I was not seeing the Loch Ness monster in our yard.  I was looking at a reflection of myself.  Do I look like the Loch Ness monster?  Does anyone really know what it looks like?

While I was outside looking for fish and finding monsters, it started to rain again.  I ran to keep dry under the garden frog’s umbrella.

He was very kind to share with me, but I was still getting wet.  My horns are like water slides for rain drops!  I decided to run as fast as I could back into the house.  That is where I stayed for most of the day.

Once I was sure that the rain had stopped for good, I went back outside, again with the canines.  The big canine likes to play ball outside!  I looked around at all of our flowers.

They looked very sad.  We had so much hard rain that they were all bent over.  Some were even broken off and lying on the ground.  I thought the rain was supposed to nourish the plants, make them happy and healthy.  Our flowers didn’t look healthy or happy.  Maybe too much rain for the flowers is like too much pizza and cake for me.  Food is supposed to make me strong and healthy, but if I have too much of it, I don’t feel good either.  I just want to lay down just like the flowers.

I think tomorrow is going to be a nuce sunny day here in Texas.  We’ll see what kind adventure awaits this little furry blue and orange monster!

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May 17 – Sort Of Confusing Italians

After my confusion the other night with Mr. Fibonacci and Mr. Pisa and wanting pizza, Mr. Guy and The Lady said we could go out for pizza tonight for dinner.  Usually we make pizza at home, so this was a real treat.  Acually, I think Mr. Guy and The Lady did not want to cook.  That was OK with me.  I like to go on adventures.

We drove to the pizza place.  I could see that their sign was orange.  That made me happy!  When I got close enough to read it, though, it said Bay  34th St.  We don’t have any bays near our house.  Where I came from in Delaware, there was a bay.  The food at that bay was fish not pizza.  I sure hope we are not having fish pizza!  Then I read the rest of the sign…New York style pizza.  I’ve been to New York and I ate pizza there and it was not fish pizza.  But still New York pizza in Texas?  Mr. Guy said that the people who make the pizza are probably from New York and they brought their recipes with them to make pizza here in Texas.

I got to go look through a window at all the pizzas and tell the pizza maker guy which one I wanted.  There was a funny looking moon-shaped thing in the window that did not look at all like a pizza.  I asked Mr. Guy what it was.  He told me that it was a Cow Zone.  Ooooh!  That didn’t sound good!  I live in Texas.  I know about cows and what cows leave in cow zones.  These people from New York must not know about cows or they wouldn’t make food from stuff in the Cow Zones!!!  That makes even fish pizza sound pretty good.  I didn’t order a Cow Zone!

Not only did the pizza makers from New York bring their recipes, they also brought some signs from New York too.  I rode the Subway when I was in New York.  I remember signs that look exactly like this.  It was fun to think back to my trip while we waited for our pizza.

Then the pizza came!  I have been whining, and wanting, and waiting for pizza for a long time.  Well, for a couple days.  That is a long time to a furry little blue and orange monster.  Boy was it worth the wait!  My pizza had lots of stuff on it – sausage and pepperoni and olives and onions and peppers and probably some other stuff, but definitely not fish or stuff from the cow zone!

This pizza was delicious!!!  It was worth the wait!

After we finished eating and were ready to go home, Mr. Guy showed me a sign that was behind where I was sitting.

I think I owe Mr. Guy five cents for whining about wanting pizza.  That’s OK.  This pizza was worth way more than five cents!  It might even be worth ten cents to whine doubly for pizza again soon!

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May 16 – Time to Commence Again

Today is one of my favorite days of the year.  It is The Lady’s last day of school, which means we’ll have lots more time together after today.  It’s also the day that she has to go commence, which, after all these years, I now know means to begin even though it happens at the end of the school year.  I like the idea that it is commencing with summer vacation!  What I don’t like is when The Lady commences, she always wears those ridiculous looking clothes!

That big black robe thing that The Lady wears makes me think that she should be on daytime TV  as the next Judge Judy.  Shhh…don’t tell Mr. Guy and The Lady that I watch that stuff when they are not home!  A new show Judge The Lady…that doesn’t sound good.  Maybe The Lady Judge…better, but…I don’t need to worry about The Lady’s TV career.  She is happy as a teacher.  I bet that is because she only has to wear these weird clothes a couple times a year!

And then there is that hood thing.  I still don’t know why it is called a hood.  Hoods go on your head.  The Lady wears this thing like a cape.  It should give her some kind of super powers, but it doesn’t.  You know why it doesn’t give her superpowers?  Because it is ugly!  Pink and green?  Who puts pink and green together?  I know, I know.  She didn’t pick the colors.  They have something to do with the special color for her school and the fact that she studied those weird dots and lines and  squiggles at that school .  If she had asked me, I would have told her that she should have made different choices.  Like she always tells me, choices have consequences and sometimes those consuquences are with you your whole life!

She should have gone to a school with prettier colors and studied something that didn’t make you wear pink!  If The Lady had been an engineer instead of someone who reads dots and squiggles and lines, then her cape hood would have been orange.  That would have been a much better choice – as far as the hood color.  But I don’t think The Lady would be a very good engineer.  We shouldn’t tell her that either.

When The Lady was getting ready to leave, part of me wanted to go with her and part of me didn’t.  She had to go early so that she could rehearse with the orchestra.  That’s where she and her friends all practice reading their dots and lines and squiggles together.  Every person has different looking books to read and they all use something different to make sounds.  The Lady blows on a black tube.  Some people blow on silver tubes and others on gold curly tubes.  Other people saw on big pieces of wood with strings.  And some people use sticks to bang on circles.  I have no idea how all these people doing different things sounds good together, but it does.  I should mention that almost all of these people wear pink hoods so they too have gone to school to learn to read dot, line, and squiggle language.

All that to say that the commencing night takes a long time.  The orchestra plays, lots of people talk and then lots of people have their names called and they walk across they stage and shake lots of hand and get a fancy folder and have lots of pictures taken.  It is kind of boring for a furry little blue and orange monster.  Don’t tell The Lady I said that either!

I did notice something after The Lady got her weird clothes on.

The Lady’s hood looked like a perfectly-sized monster hammock!  I could crawl right inside it, go to the commencing night with The Lady, and sleep through the whole thing!  This was a great plan!

When I shared my plan, The Lady disagreed with it.  She said that first of all I would get squished when she sat back in her chair.  She had to sit back in her chair so that she would be comfortable during all of the boring parts.  And secondly, she said that she did not want to look like a confused kangaroo whose pocket was on the wrong side of her body.  I don’t think I look at all like a baby kangaroo!  Have you ever seen a blue and orange kangaroo?

I stayed home.  That was really OK because that green and pink does nothing for my pretty blue and orange fur.

And I got to catch up on Judge Judy reruns!