Category: A Month of Me

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A Month of Me: Day 30 – Bedtime Buddy

The Lady spent a lot of today playing with her sticks and string.  It is amazing to me how all those sticks and string that looks jumbled like spaghetti noodles can come out to be a bear.  I kept asking The Lady what she was making and she kept telling me that it was a bear, but I didn’t believe her.  First it looked like a leg warmer.  Then it looked a sock for some hoofed animal.  Then it looked like a toe sock for someone with only two toes.  Then it got stuffed and looked like some knitted representation of bacteria.  Finally when it got a face and ears, the supposed bear really did look like a bear.  It was almost like magic.

The Lady told me that she would probably not finish the bear today.  That made me sad.  I wanted her to finish it so that I could sleep with it tonight.  She kept twisting her string around and around her needles trying to finish making the bear.  I even got to stay up and watch.  I did fall asleep while the news was on the TV.  It was nothing but yucky stories about guns and politics.  Neither of those things interests this little monster.  I woke up in time to watch Jimmy Fallon.  The Lady kept knitting.  Right before midnight, she finished the bear!!!

I hurried to write this so that I could cuddle up with it and go to sleep!

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A Month of Me: Day 29 – Memorial Day

Today is Memorial Day.  I didn’t know that when I woke up this morning, but I know it now.  Memorial Day is a special day when, as a country, we honor all of those men and women who have given their lives in service protecting the freedoms of all people.  Mr. Guy told me how many Americans have died during all of the wars in which America has been involved…about 660,000 battle deaths.  That is a lot of people!  It makes me sad.  I don’t like wars.  I don’t like people killing people.  Supposedly sometimes wars are necessary, but I don’t really understand why that is.  Maybe when I am a grown-up monster I will understand this better.

This evening The Lady and Mr. Guy took me to a park in our city.  It is called Liberty Plaza.  It is where we can go to say thank you to all those that have died in the service of our country.  There is a great big flag pole, some plaques, and some statues in the park.  The statue above is The Lady’s favorite.  She explained that when a serviceman or service woman has dies and is buried, their casket is draped with an American flag.  At the end of the service, the flag is folded and presented to the family.  The Lady got a flag like this at The Captainb’s funeral and Mr. Guy got one at his father’s funeral too.  They keep their folded flags in special triangle shaped boxes.

Even though this is just a statue, it makes me cry thinking about all of the little boys and girls whose moms and dads are killed during wars.  I hope that some day there will be no more wars and children whose parents serve in the armed forces won’t have to be scared that their moms and dads won’t ever come home again.

I do want to say “THANK YOU” to all of those men and women who serve our country and also to their families.  The sacrifices that they all make are tremendous, the breadth of these sacrifices is unimaginable for most people.

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A Month of Me: Day 28 – Shelves, Books, and Words

Wow!  It looks like there was an explosion at my house!  All of the books that were on the shelves in the library are now in big stacks in the middle of the floor.  Mr. Paul is building us new shelves that are attached to the wall and that have more linear feet than we had before.  I don’t know why we need shelves with more feet.  It seems kind of silly to give the shelves feet and then attach them to the wall so that they can’t walk away.  If they didn’t have feet then they couldn’t walk.  And if they couldn’t walk, then they wouldn’t have to be attached to the wall.  I guess Mr. Paul, The Lady, and Mr. Guy know what they’re doing, but it sure makes no sense to me.

And another thing that doesn’t make sense to me…why do The Lady and Mr. Guy need all of those books in the first place?  The dictionary that they make me look at all the time has all of  the words in it.   So, having all the other books seem a little redundant.  (Redundant…I like that word!). Mr.  Guy said that the dictionary is just a list of all of the words, that it is different from all of the other books  The other books use those words to tell stories, write poems, and explain all kinds of things.  Now I get it!  Those other books are collages made from the pages in the dictionary!  That could be a fun thing to try!  I bet I could make a book!  I wonder if The Lady will let me borrow some scissors so that I can cut out my words from the dictionary .  

Should I use the words for a story?  Or a poem?  Or maybe I could explain something.  Maybe I make a book that explains why shelves don’t need feet!

I think I am going to be a very busy little blue and orange furry monster this summer!
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A Month of Me: Day 24 – Milk, Mugs, and Memories Shared


Today Mr. Guy told me all about his dad, mostly about how he worked for the Missouri Pacific Railroad as a claims attorney.  Mr. Guy explained that whenever there was wreck center that involved a train, his dad would go investigate how it happened.  When Mr. Guy was a little boy he rode the trains with his dad…not the wrecked trains, the good trains.  When he was on the train, he drank his milk out of a little glass milk bottle and his dad used the coffee mug.  Now Mr. Guy uses the coffee mug and I get to drink my milk out of the same glass milk bottle that he used when he was a little monster boy.

I liked learning about Mr. Guy’s dad and I like that The Lady took a picture of us with the railroad mug and bottle, but I don’t like her picture AT ALL!  She made me a little furry gray and grayer monster, not the little furry blue and orange monster that I am.  Monsters who were born gray should be gray in their pictures.  Monsters who were born blue and orange should always be blue and orange in their pictures!  Mr. Guy said that his fur used to be brown but turned gray when he grew up so he looks OK in The Lady’s picture.  If my fur turns gray when I grow up, then pictures of me can be gray and grayer.  Right now, I want them to be blue and orange!

The Lady told me that she made the picture gray and grayer because Mr. Guy and I were too colorful.  With my blue and orange fur and his green plaid shirt, the red train logos were barely noticeable and they are the most important part of the picture.  I guess I understand that, but I don’t like it.  I hope this is the last gray picture that The Lady wants to take of me…until my fur is gray like Mr. Guy’s.

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A Month of Me: Day 23: – I Could Be A Star!

I was having a nice relaxing day at home today.  I didn’t have to brush my fur because I wasn’t going anywhere, or hang up my laundry because it is all still dirty from our trip,  or read a dictionary because I didn’t want o learn anything new, or do anything with The Lady’s ticklish iPad because it is just frustrating.  I was just relaxing and thinking about maybe coloring, or eating monster crackers, or maybe even having a nap. And then The Lady got a text message.

A local singing group needs little monsters for an upcoming performance and they wanted me to come and audition.   Well, I said I wasn’t going to read the dictionary today, but I had to get it out because I didn’t know what the word audition meant.  Once I looked it up, I got very nervous.  I was going to go audition with the Turtle Creek Chorale.  They are are a very prestigious men’s singing group.  I’m just a little monster.  I don’t know if I can sing well enough to sing with them.  Mr. Guy and The Lady told me to just do my best.  The scariest part for this little monster was that Mr. Guy and The Lady couldn’t go with me to the audition.  I went with one of the singers who is already in the chorale.  I tried to be a brave little monster and do the best that I could when it was my turn to sing.  Mr. Stan, the singer who took me to the audition, helped me a lot with the words and the notes.


And guess what…I passed my audition and I get to perform with the Turtle Creek Chorale the first weekend in June!  My calm life just got very busy all of the sudden!  Starting next Tuesday, I have to go to rehearsals every night.  Then I will have three performances!  Now I am a very excited furry little blue and orange monster!

I could be a star!  I could become famous!

Or, I could perform three concerts and then come home and hang out as I always have with Mr. Guy and The Lady and wait for our next adventure together. 

If you want to see me and the Turtle Creek Chorale, you can buy tickets here.

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A Month of Me: Day 22 – Out of Touch

After our busy weekend, we just stayed home yesterday.  The Lady gave me her iPad so that I could look at all of the pictures that she and the other picture taking people took.  It was interesting to see how everyone saw things a little differently.  Maybe some day I can have my own picture taking machine.  I’m sure I would see things in my own unique way, in a way that only a furry little blue and orange monster can see!  My b-day (Brought Home Day) is coming up soon.  Maybe I might get one as a present!

The Lady’s iPad is a hard thing for a little monster to use.  It has this thing called a touch screen.  That is how you are supposed to make the iPad do things.  Well, apparently the way humans touch and monsters touch is not the same.  The Lady would tap on it and it would do exactly what she wanted it to do.  I would touch it with my claws and it would do crazy things.  It acted like I was tickling it rather than just touching it.  The whole experience was crazy making for this little monster!

Somehow in all of the button pushing, I managed to take a picture of me.  The Lady thought that I was intentionally trying to take a selfie.  Nope!  It was an accident!

Maybe I was still just too tired to deal with this technology stuff.  I wonder if a picture taking machine is easier to use than The Lady’s iPad.

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A Month of Me: Day 20 – Lens Friends Photowalk

I just went to bed, rolled over once, and then it was time to get up again.  My fur didn’t even have a chance to get messy.  That’s a good thing.  I didn’t have to use that brush thing that The Lady made me bring along.  The only good thing about having to be up and dressed before 6am is that The Lady and Mr. Guy had a surprise for me.  They ordered one of the cool t-shirts that we brought for the picture taking people for me!  It was a special monster-sized one and it was orange!  The Lady’s was pink, but Mr. Guy and I, well all of the guys, got orange ones!  How perfect is that?!  It made me feel like part of the group even though I didn’t have one of those picture taking things around my neck.

 Just like the picture of Mr. Guy and me at the falls, we look alike here, too!  And its not just because of the orange shirts.  It must be our handsomeness!

We went to Meadowlark Gardens at 6:30 in the morning.  The picture taking people wanted to take pictures of flowers and other stuff that grows outside.  All the bright colors of the flowers woke me up.  Mr. Guy did not have enough coffee before we left the hotel so I’m not sure that he was completely awake.

I did not see any blue flowers on our walk through the garden, but I did see these pretty purple ones that looked like a great big ball.


They are called alliums.  I told Mr. Guy and The Lady that we need to grow some of these in our garden at home.

Then I saw pretty orange flowers.  The remind me of my horns.  I’m not sure what these are called.


It think it may be something like echo rojo.   Maybe this is why The Lady was using Spanish, sort of, yesterday!  Echo rojo means red hot poker, I think.

The gardens also had a jangseung.  Jangseung is a Korean word meaning a totem.  In Korean villages, these poles were placed at the edges of villages to scare off demons.


If Mr. Guy was wearing his fancy black hat, he would look sort of like the man on the jangseung.  Mr. Guy only looks frightening enough to scare off demons before he has had his coffee in the morning!


Saturday was a special day at the garden.  They were celebrating the 5th anniversary of the Korean Bell Garden so there were speakers, and microphones, and a podium set up for the people who were going to talk.  We did not stay at Meadowlark Gardens long enough to hear the presentation.  I did take a minute to see what it would feel like to stand at the podium and pretend like I was talking to a whole crowd of people.  Maybe someday, I will become a politician.  If I do, I will be an honest one who does good things for all people…and monsters, even the monsters who have different colors of fur than I do.

We were all hungry when we left the gardens.  We headed to downtown Leesburg, Virginia, which is where the picture taking people were going to spend a big part of their day.  Though before they started taking pictures, we got some doughnuts!


 Mr. Guy picked me up so that I could see all of the different kinds.  Yummy!

And then it was time to walk around the town.  There was so much to look at.


The Lady took lots of pictures in downtown Leesburg, but I was not in very many of them.  I do like this one she took of Ms. Sherri as a photobomber!  Ms. Sherri is one of the first of The Lady’s picture taking friends that I ever met.



Some of the other picture taking people took photos of me.  Maybe they will share them with Mr. Guy and The Lady.

 Mr. Guy carried me around all day and pointed out things that he thought might interest me.


We went to a cemetery and looked at headstones.  Mr. Guy explained that these are markers that show where people who have died are buried.  We looked at the names of the people and their birth and death dates.  Some of them lived and died over two hundred years ago!  Though I didn’t know any of the people who were buried here, it made me happy to think about them and say a prayer for them and let them know that they are not forgotten.

After we had walked around Leesburg a little more, we were tired and getting hungry again. 


Once all of the picture taking people were also tired and hungry, we went to lunch.  

After lunch we went to this place where there were lots of tents and lots of people.  Some of the people were selling weird stuff like old furniture and car parts and signs.  Mr. Guy said it was called a flea market.  I’m glad that we were already there before he told me what it was called.  I sure wouldn’t want to think that we were going to go someplace where all you can do is buy and sell fleas!  I don’t even want to go someplace where they give you fleas for free!  Fleas would be a disaster in my fur.  And I wouldn’t want to share them with the canines and feline when I got home.


Again, after spending the afternoon wandering around and looking at all of the unusual stuff at the market, we were hungry again.  Ms. Kay, one of the picture taking people invited all of us to her house for dinner.  We had pizza and salad and wings and a fancy cake with ice cream on top.  

And, she took a picture of all of the picture taking people and all of their friends and significant others.  They let me be in the picture too!  I think I kind of hid Mr. Guy.  Oops!


It made me a very happy little blue and orange furry monster that everyone was so nice to me.  I thought they might think that I was too silly to come along on their photowalk.  Nope!  They made me feel like one of them…but with just a shirt and no picture taking machine. 

By the time we got back to our hotel.  I was very, very sleepy.  This was a long, but super fun, day for this little monster.


And in the morning, we planned to meet our friends for breakfast at 8:00, before everyone was ready to head home.  After getting up at 4:30 on Friday and 5:30 on Saturday, 7:15 on Sunday felt like sleeping in!