Category: 100 People

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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 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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Friday Guy Day in Denver

Last Friday when we were in Denver…

The Lady and some of her friends with white fur – Ms. Joni, Ms. Becca, and Ms. Cindy -wanted to go shopping at a special store where you buy the fancy sticks and string that they like to use to make stuff.  Ms. Becca is just learning how to play with sticks and strings.  She went along to look at all of the pretty string and because she likes to hang around with The Lady, Ms. Cindy, and Ms. Joni.

Mr. Guy, Mr. Scott F (Ms. Joni’s brother) and Mr. Scott G (Ms. Cindy’s Mr. Guy) don’t know how to play with sticks and string and they don’t have any interest in learning. The boys would all much rather play with trains. Since I am a boy, I spent my day with them.  I think that a little blue and orange furry monster with sticks and string might be a disaster.  I like it when Ms. Joni and The Lady work their magic with the string and I end up with sweaters and hats that are already made!

I knew a little bit about trains. I had been on the light rail train at home in Dallas. It was a big train, not the size of a toy.  When Mr. Guy told me that we were going to go see trains, I thought they were going to be too big for this little monster to play with. Mr. Guy explained that he and the Mr. Scotts like to play with model trains. Model trains are trains that look just like the big trains but are much smaller.  Mr. Guy says he doesn’t have any of these little model trains anymore. He did when he was younger. The Mr. Scotts told me that they belong to model railroad clubs where they live. I got a bit confused.  Railroads?  I thought that we were talking about trains!  Mr Guy explained that trains are the individual cars and the railroad is everything having to do with trains – all the train cars and the track put together in one big package. He said its like when the ladies play with their sticks and strings it is called knitting. Knitting means the sticks, the string, the pattern, and the playing with the sticks and strings!  I think I now understand.

So while the ladies looked at string, we guys went to the Colorado Railroad Museum.  I was a little confused again. I didn’t have my dictionary to look up words and I wasn’t sure what a museum was. So Mr. Guy told me that a museum is a place where people keep special things that they don’t want to be damaged, or that they want lots of people to be able to see. The museum is a place where things are kept safe when they get old or can’t be used anymore.

An art museum has art in it and a science museum has science things in it. I asked if that meant our house was a museum because we have lots of art and things on the walls and The Lady says that there are science experiments in the refrigerator. Mr. Guy said not really because we do not preserve our stuff so that lots of people can come see it. He said that our house may be kind of a private museum for us and our friends.  But, not a science museum.  No one wants to see the experiments in our refrigerator.

Mr Guy told me that the railroad museum has lots of train cars – old ones and newer ones – and special ones that people might not get to see unless they visit the museum. I understand better now…things in a museum are there so that lots and lots of people can see them, even little blue and orange monsters!

W were on our way!  Mr. Guy, the Mr. Scotts and I headed to the train museum. The first thing we did was walk to find the bus that would take us to the station to wait for a real train that we rode to the museum! That was a lot of ways of transportation already!


I have to say that Mr Guy is not as good at picture taking as The Lady but he did his best.

The Lady and her girlfriends were shopping in Denver.  We went all the way to another city. It is called Golden. Golden did not look very golden to me, but Mr Guy said it got its name because they dig up lots of gold there. I wondered if we would get any gold.  In case you are wondering…we did not.

When we got off of the train, Mr Scott G thought there was a button we could push to get us to the museum. He said someone had told him about this button.  I wasn’t sure about that…a magic button? Mr Guy explained that it was supposed to be a button to let someone know that we were there to visit the museum.  I sort of understood this idea to be like our doorbell at home, but we never found any button, magic or otherwise. We did, however, see a green van and the man inside agreed to take us to the Visitors Center, for free!  I thought that maybe this was a  magic man driving a magic van.  Nothing is ever free!  Nope.  Our train tickets allowed us to ride in the magic green van.  Though I guess that means that the van was not really free because we had to buy tickets to ride the train.  It just felt free and maybe a little bit magic.


The van took us to the Golden Visitor’s center…not a golden visitor’s center, and not the train museum. We looked around there a little. There was a big statue of a bear.


Mr Guy told me that there are lots of bears in the woods near Golden, but that the bears rarely ever come into town. I was glad to hear that because this was a very big statue of a very scary looking bear.  Mr Guy said that the real bears are the same size as the statue!  I did not want to meet one of them!

We also saw a dragon!  Well, it was a statue too.   I asked Mr. Guy if dragons and bears were friends and if there were dragons in the woods too.  He assured me that I did not have to worry about meeting a real dragon.


Mr Guy said this dragon was made to honor the president of a special club.  I wondered what kind of president would make people think of a dragon.  I kept that thought to myself.

I was beginning to think that the only train we were going to see was the one that we rode to Golden. Fortunately, Mr Scott F used his phone to call someone named Ooh Bear, who he said would come and give us a ride to the museum. Mr. Guy had just said that bears didn’t come into the city and he also said that bears are big and scary.  I wasn’t sure why Mr. Scott F called one of them on his cellphone to come get us!  As it turned out, we were lucky.  The Ooh Bear that he called was not a real bear.  He was a man.  I wonder why his mom named him Ooh Bear. Oh well, the Ooh Bear man seemed very nice, though his car was a little small for all five of us. But, he got us to the Colorado Railroad Museum and that was what was important!

When we got there, I saw all of these big boxes and things I did not know about all around.   Mr Guy said that they are trains and that they once carried lots of people and lots of things all over the place. They are what we came to see.


I was very excited because the first thing we did at the museum was buy a new shirt for me!  Ms. Roz sold us my shirt and she agreed to be one of the people in my 100 people project.  She sells tickets and other things at the museum too.


We then headed downstairs. A model railroad club keeps their special train stuff there.  I wasn’t really sure what I was going to see. And then…Wow!  They have a whole set up of small trains, just like Mr. Guy and The Mr. Scotts said there would be. I had never seen trains like these before. They were small but looked just like the big ones that were all over outside. Mr Guy told me that the big ones worked just like these little ones except that the little ones were for people who had to pretend with trains rather than work with the big real ones. He said these are the kind of trains that the Mr. Scotts have. Mr Scott G was looking carefully at all the details of the trains.


When we were done inside, we went outside where there were more train cars to see. Mr Guy showed me how some of the cars were for carrying people and some were carrying things. There were also special trains called engines.  The engine is was what makes the train cars full of people and things go. The person who drives the engine is called an engineer.  I pretended that I was the engineer!


There were so many cars to see that Mr Guy and the Mr Scotts just couldn’t get pictures of all of them.  Mr Guy tried to take a picture of the two of us outside a caboose, but it didn’t really work. He told me that the last car on a train was called a caboose and it was a place for the people who worked on the train to eat and sleep when they were on long trips.


Mr Guy also told me that when he was a little monster like me, his dad worked for the railroad. Mr. Guy’s dad did not drive the trains.  He was a lawyer who worked with people who had been hurt while working for the railroad or who had had an accident with a train.  I don’t think I would want to be one of those people!

Mr Guy shared that he too had worked on the railroad one summer. He fixed train tracks. Mr. Guy showed me how the train cars at the museum were sitting on metal rails. The rails then sit on a metal plate and that plate sits on a big piece of wood. Mr Guy said those big pieces of wood are called ties. I thought ties were something that you wore around your neck. I certainly wouldn’t want to wear one of those ties. They look heavy.  I bet they would choke me!  Mr Guy explained that they are called ties because they tie the rails together. Big nails, called spikes, hold the plate and the rail on the tie. The rails, ties, and plates are called tracks. Mr Guy told me to look at where the tracks ran off into the distance so I could see how they looked like a path for the train to follow.

The last thing we saw at the museum was called a garden railroad. This was sort of like the little trains inside, but the train was bigger and ran outside in a real garden with pretty plants and flowers.  Mr. Guy explained that trains come in all sizes, from tiny model ones all the way up to the great big real ones. He said there are even some that are little blue and orange monster sized like me! I asked him if we cold get one of those  He said we would not have a place for one that big.  That made me a little sad.  I thought it would be fun to be the engineer on my very own train.


After we had seen everything at the museum, Mr. Scott F called our friend Ooh Bear again to take us back to the visitor center.  The guy who came to get us this time was a different person and in a different car than the first Mr. Ooh Bear!  There are two mothers that named their children Ooh Bear???  I guess it is a Colorado thing. I need to remember to ask Mr Guy or The Lady about that.

After we got back to the visitor center, everyone wanted lunch before we loaded back in the not-so-magic green van, and then the train, and then the bus, and then walked back to the hotel.


Mr Guy told me he was sorry he did not get more pictures. I told him that was ok. I had lots of fun and was glad he and the Mr Scotts took me along. I think I had more fun with them than I would have had looking at string with the ladies.

I sure was a tired little monster when we got back to the hotel. I went right to bed and slept all night long.

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An Afternoon of Happy People!

We just got home from a weekend trip to Denver.  Before we even left Dallas, I knew it would be a good trip because I met all kinds of happy people in the airport!

Mr. Guy and The Lady wanted some holy donuts for a snack on the airplane.  I’m not exactly sure what makes a donut holy, but they went into a store and asked for holy donuts and the nice lady behind the counter filled a bag with them and gave it to Mr. Guy.  Then the cheerful lady behind the counter asked all about me.  Mr. Guy and The Lady told her about how we travel and meet new people and about my 100 People Project.  She said that sounded like fun and was happy to be #37 of my 100 People!

Ms. Lashanna shared her holy donuts and her smile with us.  What a great start to our trip!  I still don’t understand the whole holy donut thing, but if they make everyone cheerful, I guess that’s all I need to understand.

After we met Ms. Lashanna, we went to sit at our gate to wait for our airplane.  There we met more happy people!  Ms. Shelby was sitting across from us.  She asked what my name was.  Mr. Guy told her that I was his little blue and orange furry monster, Blueper B.  She said that she had a little monster too.  His name was Baby Ivan.  He didn’t look like a monster to me. He was a cute little boy. Ms. Shelby told us that she liked to call him her little monster.  We talked to Ms. Shelby for a long time while she and Baby Ivan ate their lunch and we ate some of our donuts.  Even though Ms. Shelby had some sad things happening in her life, she was still cheerful and smiling.  That made me smile too!

Ms. Shelby said she and Baby Ivan would also love to have their picture taken with me!  I was excited about that, but Baby Ivan wasn’t too sure that he wanted me to be that close to his mommy…or maybe it was that close to his chicken nugget.  I think he thought that I might try to eat his chicken nugget.  I wouldn’t do that!  Most of the time Mr. Guy and The Lady feed me well.  I don’t have to take food from sweet little babies!

There are lots of terrible things going on in the world and sometimes it is hard to smile.  We were lucky to meet all of these nice people.  There was also another lady sitting beside us while we were talking to Ms. Shelby.  That Lady had to leave her house in Florida because of Hurricane Irma, which was on its way close to her home. Her family wanted her way far away from Florida so that she would be safe.  Even though she was facing the unknown of this great big storm, this lady too was cheerful.  I didn’t have time to have my picture taken with her.  I do keep thinking about her, hoping that her home is safe and that she is still smiling.

I will probably never see Ms. Lashanna, Ms. Shelby, Baby Ivan, or the nice lady that was sitting next to us ever again, but I will always remember the smiles and happy conversations that we shared for a few minutes in the airport on that day.  The world would be a much better place if everyone made a point to share smiles and kind words every day!

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Play-ing in NYC


I bet you are wondering why I went to New York…

Offspring #2 and The Lady have a friend, Ms. Mandy, they said that she plays right in New York City and they wanted to go visit her.  That sounded fun.  I like to play.  When I asked The Lady where we were going to play  – at Ms. Mandy’s apartment? a park? a pool? a beach? – she said it was not that kind of play.  Ms. Many writes the kind of plays that you see on stage at the theater.  She is a playwright; she doesn’t play right.  Well, I bet she does play right, but that is not what was happening on this trip.  We were going to see the play From A to Double D that she wrote and Ms. Mandy was also acting in her play.  I like the theater so this plan was OK with me.

The title of Ms. Mandy’s play sounded like it was a story about the dictionary, but only a little bit of the dictionary, since it only talked about the the first three letters and part of the fourth.  I thought about it and that makes sense.  That is job security for Ms. Mandy.  At this rate, she can write six sequels to her play before she gets all the way to the letters ZZ!  I did think that it was a little strange that she stopped with “DD.”  I had to go look at the dictionary and see what words even started with two d’s.  All the words that I found were either abbreviations or acronyms.  I didn’t really understand Ms. Mandy’s thinking on this one, but she is the professional playwright so I guess she knows what she is doing.  When I asked The Lady about this, she explained that the play was not about the dictionary, it was about bras.  Bras??  The Lady explained that little (boy) blue and orange furry monsters don’t need to know or think about bras.  They are for grown-up ladies.  She showed me hers.  Boy was that a confusing contraption!!  It was even more strange than my vest!  Not only did it not have any sleeves, it didn’t have much of a front or back either.  I can see why the grown-up ladies wear these weird things under their clothes.  They are funny looking!  The Lady said that grown-up ladies wear bras to keep their breasts in place.  Breasts?  Where is Mr. Guy when I need him?  I needed a boy to explain all this girl stuff to me! 

As it turned out, I learned a lot about bras and boobs breasts and girls while watching From A to Double D.  I don’t think I understood everything, but I am pretty sure that I am glad that I only have to worry about my t-shirts and not trainers, underwires, and sports bras!  There are definite advantages to be a little blue and orange furry boy monster!  

I was happy to be at the play because The Lady, Offspring #2, and The Young Guy were very excited to be there.  Offspring #2 has been friends with Ms. Mandy for a long time, since when she was kind of a little girl and not famous, maybe since after the trainer time and before the double D time.  


And, Ms. Mandy was happy that they were there.  We had breakfast with her the next day.  She  agreed to have her picture taken with me!  Maybe some day we will both be really famous!

During the day before Ms. Mandy’s play, The Young Guy, Offspring #2, and I walked around New York City.  Well…they all walked and The Lady carried me.  Mr. Guy does a little better carrying me. The Lady didn’t do so well trying to hold me and her camera.  She didn’t take very many pictures on this trip.

The first place that we walked was to the World Trade Center and 9/11 Memorial.  Offspring #2 and The Lady explained that sixteen years ago, two buildings called the twin towers, were hit by airplanes that had been taken over by people who did not like our country.  Lots and lots of people died and lots were hurt.  I was not born when this happened and Offspring #2 was only eight years old.  The Lady remembered it very well.  There is a memorial where these two towers stood.  It is a fountain and a reflecting pool with the names of all those who lost their lives on that day.


There were so many names on the memorial.  So many people died.  This made me very sad.


A new building has been built in the area.


It is called Freedom Tower and is the tallest building in the western hemisphere.


It hurts my heart to think about that day in 2001.  I wasn’t even alive back then and seeing this memorial sends chills down my furry spine.  I can’t even imagine what it must have been like for all the people who were right here in New York City or even those, like The Lady, Offspring #2, and Mr. Guy, who watched it all on television.  The people who’s names I read on the memorial here and their families now have a place in my heart forever.

After we visited the 9/11 Memorial we walked some more and then decided to take the subway.  I have ridden the trains in Dallas, where I live, but they are above the ground.  In New York the trains go under the ground through tunnels.  The Lady told be that that is why they are called subways, because sub means below.  I should have figured that out by myself.

We bought our tickets and then walked through this gate that looked like we were going into a sideways jail.

The good thing was that the bars kept moving so it didn’t feel like we were in jail!

Once we were inside the not-jail, I saw the tracks and watched for the train we needed.  Offspring #2 told me which one to look for.


We got on…rode for a few minutes in the dark…got off and walked up some stairs…and we were right where we wanted to be.  It sort of felt like magic.  I guess the same thing happens on the airplane, but since it is usually not dark in the sky when we fly, it doesn’t feel so much like magic.


I wish we had more pictures from our trip. I thought that Offspring #2 and The Lady might be taking lots of pictures with their phones because they were in their hands all the time.  When I asked to see their pictures they said that there weren’t many.  I was confused until they told me that they were using their phones so that we knew where to go.  The phones had a map on them and gave them walking directions.  I wondered how they always seemed to know where they were going!

We weren’t in New York very long.  I wish we could have seen a little bit more of the city, but I was also glad to come home because I missed Mr. Guy.  Hopefully Ms. Mandy will do another play right and we will get to go see her and one of her plays again!


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Maker, Fixer, and Friend

I am working hard on my 100 People Project!

Mr. Paul came to our house today.  Actually, Mr. Paul comes to our house lots of days.  He makes stuff and fixes all the stuff that Mr. Guy and The Lady break.

Mr. Guy and The Lady have known Mr. Paul longer than they have known me!  Mr. Paul remodeled their house before they knew they were going have a little blue and orange furry monster.  He tore down walls and built new ones.  The Lady said that this was a good thing because some of the walls were kind of ugly pink.  I’m happy that Mr. Paul got rid of them and made blue walls for us!  He also made our kitchen.  Mr. Paul also built all of our cabinets.  He made showers and closets and tile floors and new lights.  And, he is the one who built all of the shelves in our new library.  I think that Mr. Paul can build anything!

He can also fix almost anything.  Today Mr. Paul came to our house because he fixed a wall hanging that The Lady knocked off the wall and broke.  If I had done that, I probably would have gotten in trouble!  Now I know that Mr. Paul’s phone number is on our white board.  If I break anything, I will call him and I bet he can fix it before The Lady even notices that it is broken.  Mr. Paul also hangs all of the pictures on the wall for The Lady.  He does a much better job than she does.  Mr. Paul uses this metal strip with lots of numbers on it to tell him where the pictures should go.  He said it is called a tape measure, but it doesn’t measure tape.  It measures the wall where pictures go.  Maybe it should be called a wall measure or a picture measure.   I have never seen The Lady use anything like this, whatever you want to call it, when she puts stuff on the wall.  She just bangs a nail in the wall and hopes that it is in the right place.  Most of the time its not.  That’s probably why the wall hanging that Mr. Paul fixed fell off of the wall in the first place…The Lady is the one who put it on the wall.

Mr. Paul also comes and monster sits with me, the feline, and the canine monsters when Mr. Guy and The Lady are gone for a long time.  He takes good care of all of us!

When Mr. Paul is not making us new stuff or fixing our broken stuff, he makes cars.  Not the kind of cars that people and monsters ride in to go places…he makes little cars that people collect.  Mr. Paul is known by people all over the world because of the little cars that he makes.

I’m happy that Mr. Paul can make stuff and fix stuff for us, but more importantly, I am thankful that he is our friend.  Thank you Mr. Paul for everything.  I will try to keep Mr. Guy and The Lady from breaking things so you can have a rest!

Oh…thanks for wearing that bright orange shirt so that you would match me today!

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Me With the TCC

I did it!  This was my weekend to perform with the Turtle Creek Chorale.  I was a little nervous…well, maybe I was a lot nervous, but all of the guys in the chorale were very nice to me and helped me with my stage fright.  They said something about imagining all of the people in the audience sitting out there in their underwear.  I think that was supposed to help make me less nervous, but that thought just scared me even more!

Mr. Stan was in charge of me.  He helped me with all of my lines and my music and he held me and kept me safe, like Mr. Guy usually does, even when we were on stage.  

Mr. Guy and The Lady came today to our last performance of the three.  I hoped that The Lady would take some pictures that I could put in my monster memory book, but they don’t allow picture taking boxes to be used in the concert hall.  That was kind of disappointing!  Something else that was disappointing is that Mr. Guy’s and The Lady’s seats were up high in the hall, way over my head.  (I couldn’t have seen them in their underwear if I had wanted to, but I’m pretty sure that I didn’t want to see that!)  They bought their tickets before they knew that I was going to be a part of the concert.  

After today’s concert, Mr. Stan took me to the lobby to find Mr. Guy and The Lady so that I could go home with them. The Lady showed us some pictures that she tried to take with her phone.  I’m not sure she should have done that; she might be detested arrested.  The pictures aren’t very good at all, but they will remind me of my first time on a stage, my first time learning the right things to say at the right time, my first time learning music, and my first time away from Mr. Guy and The Lady.  I sang For Now from the musical, Avenue Q.  I saw that musical a few years ago and I got to meet Nicky who was in that show.  Nicky is kind of like me!



After the concert, when I could finally relax and let my fur be shaggy, I remembered my 100 People Project.  Mr. Stan agreed to be in a picture with me.  He asked Mr. Sean, The Turtle Creek Chorale artistic director, to be in the picture with us so I got a two for one today!  

Mr. Sean does not sing.  He stands up in front of the chorale and waves his arms around.  I think his arms are magic wands because when he waves them, things happen.  All the singers make music together.  Or. the instruments start playing.  He can wave his magic arms and everyone will stop singing, or sometimes only some people stop singing.  He can make people sing louder or softer.  I wish I had magic arms like Mr. Sean’s.  I would wave my magic arms and make everyone happy.  I’d put a genuine smile on everyone’s face!  

Now that my weekend is over, the little blue and orange furry monster is going to get some rest!


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Day 21: My 100 People Project #30-33!

After sleeping in a little on Sunday morning, we got up and had breakfast with the picture taking people who were staying at our hotel.  I was sad to have to say good-bye to them already, but they were already talking about someplace where they will meet again to take more pictures.  That made for happier good-byes.


After we finished eating. but before everyone left the hotel, I remembered that I hadn’t taken any photos for my 100 People Project during the weekend.  When I among all the fun people, I forget that I should be taking pictures of them.  Maybe I picked the wrong kind of project for myself.  Anyway, I did take a couple this morning.

Ms. Peggy was one of the first of The Lady’s picture taking friends that I ever met.  She lives in Delaware.  When The Captain was sick, Ms. Peggy and another picture taking friend, Ms. Michele, came to visit The Lady so she had some friends to do fun things with while she was taking care of The Captain.  Ms. Peggy brought two of her friends, Ms. Karen and Ms. Wendy, with her to Leesburg for the weekend.  Ms. Karen and Ms. Wendy live in Lewes, DE, the same town where The Captain lived and where Mr. Guy and The Lady adopted me!  It is a small world!

We haven’t been back to Delaware now that The Captain is gone and The Lady sold his house, but since we now have lots of new friends in Lewes, maybe we will go back and visit sometime soon.  I think that I would like that.  I could go back to Kids’ Ketch, the store on Second Street in Lewes where Mr. Guy and The Lady found me, and tell them how happy I am to have been adopted by Mr. Guy and The Lady even though I had to move from Delaware to Texas.

Even though I met Ms. Peggy a few years ago, I did not have a good picture with her because I had not started my 100 People Project back then.  She and her friends agreed to help me!  I like taking pictures with people who are friends.  And, I got three new numbers in one picture!


I am thankful that these pretty ladies were willing to have their picture taken with a little shaggy blue and orange monster!  

After we said good-bye to the Delaware Ladies, we had to go pack our suitcase and get ready to head to the airport.  On our way back in to the hotel, The Lady stopped at the front desk to make a reservation for the hotel shuttle to take us.  The man behind the desk was very cheerful and helpful.  He made our reservation and he told Mr. Guy where he could get more coffee.  Since this man was so nice, and I was on a roll with my project, I asked him if he would have his picture taken with me.  He said, Yes!  Thank you, Mr. Eric!


We were staying at the Courtyard by Marriott at Dulles Town Center.  If you ever go to Leesburg, or Dull as Dulles, or Sterling Virginia, you should go see Mr. Eric at his hotel.

I did have one concern about Mr. Eric’s hotel though…they had some crazy art in the hallway!

I like the colors in this painting, but it made me feel like I was in the middle of a Texas tornado.  Well…I’ve never really been in the middle of a Texas tornado, but if I ever am, I think it would feel the way this painting looks – twirly and dizzy-making!  I wonder if the inside of a tornado would be blue and orange?

After we packed our bags, we loaded into the shuttle and were on our way back to the airport.  We had a couple hours to wait for our plane so Mr. Guy went to get us something to drink.  For a minute I was confused about this place, Five Mr. Guys…there aren’t five Mr. Guy’s; there is on one real Mr. Guy!  Then I read more closely. It is just Five Guys, not Five Mr. Guys.  I felt much better!


We had an uneventful airplane ride home.  I slept the whole way.  I didn’t even wake up to eat any nuts.  When we got home the canines and the felines were glad to see us.  I wanted to catch up on my blog as soon as we got home, but I was still a tired little monster.  Having fun is hard work!

Thank you again to all of the picture taking people who made me feel a part of the group and to Ms. Peggy, Ms. Karen, Ms. Wendy, and Mr. Eric for agreeing to be part of my project.

I am a happy and grateful little blue and orange furry monster!

Monster hugs to everyone!

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A Month of Me: Day 10 – Back On Track!

 

Today was a great day for this little blue and orange furry monster!  I got to go work…or is it school…or maybe it’s both…with The Lady.  She has gone to this school almost every day for a long time and I have never gotten to go with her.  I’m glad that she said that I could go today because I am curious about what she does at school/work that keeps her so busy all the time.

She was giving final exams at school today.  That sounds so serious.  While her class was taking their test, I sat in The Lady’s office and played games on her computer.  There wasn’t much else for to do in there.  I couldn’t read any of her books because none of them had words.  They just had dots and lines and more dots and more lines.  And they were all black and white.  They must have been in some foreign language.  None of these books even had any pretty pictures to look at.  Bejewelled on the computer was much more interesting, and colorful, to me!

After her class finished their test, I got to meet them.  They were all very nice to me.  Now I understand why The Lady likes her job.  She gets to spend her days teaching nice people like Mr. Eric, Mr. Carlos, and Mr. Sovanarith.  They even let The Lady take their picture with me!  I like these guys!  

Then I remembered my 100 People Project.  Almost two years ago, I said that I was going to try to have my picture taken with 100 different people in a year.  Well…that didn’t happen.  We would get busy.  And then we’d forget.  And then we’d get busy again…I was kind of sad that i didn’t finish my project like I had hoped.  I only made it to #25.  Today, because the people that The Lady teaches were so nice to me, I decided that maybe it was time to start again where I left off…with #26.  I have learned that I just have to keep trying.  Mr. Guy and The Lady told me that if I work hard and keep going, I will eventually make it to 100 people in my 100 People Project.  I asked The Lady’s students if they would take pictures with me.  They all said yes!

So here are #26, #27, and #28!




Look at all these smiles!  I thought these guys were smiling because they got to meet me and we had our pictures taken together, but maybe they were smiling was because they were all done with their tests.

I also got to meet another person that The Lady works with, Ms. Sarah.  She works in the office and helps the students and the teachers all day long.  I think that she is way busier than The Lady!  I have heard about absent-minded professors like The Lady!  Ms. Sarah and The Lady are good friends.  They spend a lot of time sharing stories about their canine furry monsters.  

Ms. Sarah agreed to have her picture taken with me too!  #29! Now  I think that I can accomplish my 100 people project maybe before I turn 100 years old!

It makes me happy to know that if The Lady can’t spend her days at home with me and Mr. Guy, at least she gets to be at school/work with lots of super nice people!

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Seeing Seattle

It is trip time again!  I never even finished sharing all of my adventures from our trip to England and now I have another adventure to write about!  We just got home at 10 o’clock tonight, but The Lady said we should stay up and write about our trip to Seattle now.  She said something about it really doesn’t seem so late since we are still on Seattle time and that is different from Dallas time.  I don’t quite know how that works.  All I know is that I am a sleepy blue and orange monster. but I want to tell you all about our trip, so here goes…

We left on Thursday after The Lady taught her classes.  Mr. Guy helped me pack my things while she was at school.  He told me that we were going to Seattle so that The Lady could learn new stuff about picture taking.  I thought she knew about picture taking, but apparently there is lots more stuff that she needs to learn.  Mr. Guy and I picked The Lady up at school and we went to the airport.  After we got checked in, we had some lunch.


We don’t eat the “M” meals very often.  It is special airport food.  I sure do like those french fries!  While we were eating our lunch, Mr. Guy got a message saying that they had changed the gate for our airplane.  We had to go to a whole different terminal.  I was afraid that we would have to walk, but Mr. Guy said that there was a thing called SkyLink that would take us.  He said it was kind of like a train.  A train at an airport seemed a little strange to me, but as long as I didn’t have to walk, I was okay with strange.


We didn’t have to wait too long for the train.


I was happy to see Seattle on the sign when we got to our new gate.  I didn’t want to have to move again.  Really, I didn’t have to walk at all.  Mr. Guy is always a good sport and carries me.  Oh!  I got a new shirt for this trip!


It’s perfect, don’t you think?

When we finally got on the plane, I put my little monster head down and went to sleep.  I don’t remember any of the trip.  I didn’t even have a snack.  I guess all of that moving from terminal to terminal tired me out!  Next thing I knew we were picking up our luggage and getting in a fancy black car to go to our hotel in Seattle.  I went right back to sleep.  The Lady said that it wasn’t as late in Seattle as it was in Dallas because we gained two hours.  Here’s that time thing again!  I just wanted to go to bed.  So, I did!

I was nice and rested when I woke up on Friday.  Friday was the day that The Lady’s picture taking classes started.  The event was called Click Away.  I like that name.  It makes sense to me since I always hear The Lady’s camera go click, click, click when Mr. Guy and I are around.


Mr. Guy and I looked around while The Lady was in her morning class.  When she was done, I asked what her class was about.  She said, “Boudoir photography.”  I said, “Boo what?”  She explained that it was a special kind of picture taking where ladies wear the kind of clothes that people don’t see them in most of the time.  I asked her if she meant pajamas.  She told me that that wasn’t it.  I must have looked confused because she finally explained that the ladies wore fancy underwear.  I don’t know why anyone would want their picture taken in their underwear!  The Lady explained that this kind of picture taking helps ladies feel pretty and helps them to accept how they look even if they may not always feel pretty.  I thought about that and wondered if anyone wanted to take a picture of a blue and orange furry monster in his underwear.  Then I changed my mind.  I think I’ll stick to just letting The Lady take pictures of me in my t-shirts!

The Lady also took some classes in taking wedding pictures.  I guess I won’t be in any of those pictures either.  I am too young to get married.  But even when I’m older, I don’t want to get married.  I don’t think that there is a girl monster out there who would love me as much or take care of me as well as Mr. Guy and The Lady.  I think that I will live with them forever.  Besides, the closet with all of my t-shirts is at their house.  

This was The Lady’s favorite place at the conference.


The Lady got a new camera there.  I asked her if you had to have a special camera to take pictures of people in their underwear and wedding people.  She said, “No.”  She told me that she could use her new camera to take pictures of me and Mr. Guy too.  So far, she hasn’t taken any pictures with it yet.  She said that she wanted it to stay packed in its box so it could travel home safely.  I bet she will take some pictures of me this week…I will be wearing a t-shirt, not just my underwear!

On Saturday night, Mr. Guy, The Lady, and I went to The Seattle Space Needle.  We had to walk almost a mile from our hotel to get there.  That wasn’t so bad, but it was raining.  The Lady said that it rains a lot in Seattle and that she likes the rainy weather.  I don’t mind the rain, but I sure wish I had had a raincoat!  Mr. Guy did his best to keep my warm and dry.


When we got to the Space Needle to buy our tickets, they said it would be two hours before we could ride up the elevator.  That is how you get up high so you can see the city.  While we waited, Mr. Guy and The Lady took me to the Chihuly Gardens.  I asked them what  grew in the Chihuly garden.  The Lady said it was a glass garden.  They grow glass?, I thought.  That sounded a little strange to me.   The Lady told me that it is a glass sculpture garden.  Dale Chihuly, the glass artist, makes all kinds of beautiful shapes with colored glass.  I was a little nervous to go to a place where everything is glass.  I am a careful monster, but I was still worried that I might break something.  Mr. Guy said that it would be fine as long as I didn’t touch anything. He held me very close so that I wouldn’t trip and fall and break something accidentally.


Some of the glass looked like Christmas trees.  They were brightly colored and had lights shining through them  They were beautiful!

The light bouncing all around through the glass was really neat looking.  I liked the place where the glass was on the ceiling.  I knew that I could not break anything if the sculptures were up high!


While we were looking at the glass on the ceiling, I met a really nice girl named Lindsay.  She was from California and she wanted to be my friend.  Though I have done a terrible job with my Hundred People Project, Lindsay made me want to get back to it because she asked to have her picture taken with me.  That made me a happy little monster.  Her mister friend took a picture of us and The Lady took one too.  Now I have twenty-five people!  I will make it to a hundred.  I will.

After I had my picture taken with Lindsay, I saw something that looked like a big glass bowl.  Mr. Guy said that they should put Chex Mix in it.  I don’t think that is what it was for!


It was a very pretty blue bowl!  I liked Mr. Chihuly’s glass because he used a lot of blue and orange, the best colors for almost anything!  I was nervous being this close to Mr. Chihuly’s big blue bowl.  I didn’t want to stay in this spot for very long!

Next we saw more glass sculptures up on the ceiling. More orange glass!


This part was in a great big glass building, but it was just plain building glass not the cool kind of glass used for the sculptures. 

There were also lots more glass sculptures outside.  I don’t understand how they don’t get broken.


Mr. Guy got mad at The Lady because she let me sit on the wet rain covered bench.  I didn’t mind, but  my monster underwear did get a little wet.  That was OK because nobody was going to take pictures of my underwear!   I do definitely need a raincoat before we again visit any place with lots of rain.

After we finished touring the garden, we still had an hour before our elevator time.  We went and had a snack, fried cheese curds.


The words “curds” is kind of an ugly sounding word.  I was pretty sure that I didn’t want to eat anything called “curds.”  Mr. Guy said that they were good and that I should try them.  I did and they were, but the word curds still does not sound appetizing!

Finally it was time to get in the elevator line to ride to the top of the Space Needle.  The Space Needle is 605 feet tall.  That is like 600 hundred of me standing on top of each other!


I was a little scared, but not too much so.  We got in line with lots of other people.

The elevator ride to the top was super quick!  It took us longer to ride the hotel elevator to the twelfth floor where our room was than it did to ride all the way to the top of the Space Needle.  When we got off of the elevator, I felt like I was in a giant spaceship.
We then went outside to walk around the outside of the spaceship Space Needle.  It was rainy and cold and SO WINDY!  I was a frigid little monster.  Not only did I need that raincoat, I also needed my orange sweater that Ms. Joni made for me. 
I didn’t even think about bringing my sweater because when I was packing in Dallas, it was almost too hot for a t-shirt, forget a sweater!  If I had my own cellphone with all of those fancy app things, I could have checked the weather in Seattle while I was packing.  I mentioned this to Mr. Guy.  He said no phone for me.
Back inside, there was a great big map that showed all of the places where people have traveled from that have visited the Space Needle.
Mr. Guy added our names to the map.
One of those yellow dots is me!

After Mr. Guy signed our names, we walked back to our hotel.  It was still raining, but it was not nearly as cold and windy on the ground as it was 605 feet up in the air!  We needed to get back and pack.  The Lady got lots of new picture taking stuff and Mr. Guy was not sure where it was all going to go.  I got a new t-shirt and the Space Needle, but it did not take up much room in our suitcase.

When we got up on Sunday morning, it wasn’t raining anymore.  We took a short walk around our hotel.  There were lots of pretty orange flowers, and the leaves on the trees were also turning orange.  The trees in Texas do not have orange leaves.

We took a few pictures and then it was time to leave for the airport and our trip home.

When we got to the airport, I was hungry.  Mr. Guy bought me a sandwich on funny a bread.  It had a hole in the middle of it.  That seemed strange.  I was worried that Mr. Guy got defective bread.  He told me that it was supposed to be that way.  The bread was called a beagle, or a bugle, or something like that.  


It tasted good, but I still don’t know why all of the sandwich insides didn’t fall out of the hole in the middle of my bread.  I like un-holy bread better.  Is that right?  Well, you know what I mean.

When we finally got on the airplane, I fell asleep in Mr. Guy’s lap.  I didn’t wake up until we were almost back in Dallas and the flight attendant starting talking to me.  

She wanted to know my name and where I had been.  I got excited because I thought that maybe I could have my picture taken with her and I would be up to person #26, but nope.  She said that she was not allowed to have her picture taken while in her working clothes, something about 7-eleven, or costing nine dollars and eleven cents, or something.  I didn’t want to get her in trouble, so I will have to find another person #26.

Finally we were back in Dallas.  We waited for our suitcase to come around the racetrack.


Once we had our bag, we headed home and I started writing.  And that is my story about Seattle.

THE END!