Category: My Life

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Six Feet

This car on a iris, I mean carona virus, is a strange thing.  We are still supposed to be sheltering in place and I am still curious about how turtles do this.  I asked Mr. Guy if he would take me to the park so that I could ask a turtle about just how turtles do shelter in place.  Mr. Guy said he could take me, but that we would have to practice “social distancing measures.”  I told Mr. Guy that I would be happy to do that if I had any idea what he was talking about.

Mr. Guy explained to mean that “social distancing” means that we have to stay six feet away from other people.  Six feet?  I don’t have six feet.  How will I know if I am to close?  Mr. Guy and The Lady don’t have six feet.  The only thing I know about that has six feet is a beetle.  So I figured that social distancing must mean that I have to stay a beetle’s length away from other people.  Beetle’s feet aren’t very big so I was sure I could do that.  I was a little worried at first.   If I had to stay six of Mr. Guy’s feet away or six of a big tall basketball player’s feet away I might be a little scared.  I’m just a little monster and I don’t like to get too far away from Mr. Guy and The Lady.  I told Mr. Guy that I thought that I could do well with social distancing, that I promised to stay a beetle’s length away from other people, even him!

Mr. Guy looked very confused.  “A beetle’s length away?” he said.  I explained to him that he had told me about staying six feet away from other people and the only thing that I knew about with six feet were beetles!  He told me that he was not talking about the six feet on a beetle.   He was talking about feet like on a ruler.  A ruler?  A ruler like a king?  I have met lots of people, but ( have never met a king.  And even if I had, I don’t think I would know how big their feet are!  This social distancing thing was getting way too complicated for this little blue and orange furry monster!  Maybe I didn’t really want to go to the park after all!

Mr. Guy tried again to explain to me about the six feet.  He told me that one foot is twelve inches, the length of the kind of ruler we use to draw straight lines, and that makes six rulers equal to six feet, or seventy-two inches.  I had to stay seventy-two inches away from people?!  I’m not sure that this little monster can count that high all by myself.  Mr. Guy finally told me not to worry.  He said that he knew how far six feet or seventy-two inches is; so, if he carried me in the park all I had to worry about was looking for a turtle  He would worry about proper social distancing.  This made me very happy!

The part of the park where we went was not crowded so no one had to worry about beetle feet, or kings feet, or seventy-two inches.  That was a relief!  Mr. Guy said that he would show me how to use his camera so that I could take a picture of my turtle friends…from six feet away…when I found them.

Once I knew which buttons to push, we were off to look for a turtle.

We looked…and looked…and looked.

Apparently turtles don’t shelter in place at the park.  Or maybe they too are confused about this six feet thing!

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May 14 – A Very Strange Week

You may have noticed that I disappeared for a week.  This was not my plan and it was not my fault!  The Lady, Mr. Guy and I were on a roll…not like a cinnamon roll.  We weren’t covered in icing!  It was more like the roll of a roller coaster.   We were going fast and having lots of fun and then all of the sudden, the ride stopped.  I didn’t make it stop.  The Lady didn’t make it stop.  Mr. Guy didn’t make it stop.  Facebook made it stop!

It is the craziest thing!

A week ago, The Lady and I wrote our post together and she tried to share the link to it on Facebook.  (She has to do that because I am not old enough to be on Facebook all by myself.)  When she posted it, Facebook said, “Nope!”  They told her we were violating Community Standards.  I asked the Lady what that meant and she said that she had no idea.  She and Mr. Guy read some stuff on the Internet that sort of explained what that meant, but they said that what they saw didn’t make any sense in our case.  Mr. Guy said that someone somewhwere must not like what I write and told Facebook that I am spam so they won’t let me share my stories anymore.

Mr. Guy sent lots and lots of messages to Facebook hoping they would tell him exactly what the problem was.  They never answered him.  I think that is rude.  I know there is lots and lots of mean stuff that peopole say on Facebook and rude stuff and stuff that little blue and orange furry monsters shouldn’t see.  Facebook doesn’t make them go away.  I don’t undestand why they don’t like me, why they made me go away.  This whole situation makes me so sad.  I haven’t wanted to write anything.  I was afraid that I might say something that wasn’t nice, something that little monsters shouldn’t say.  So I decided to say nothing for awhile.

After doing more research, Mr. Guy said that he doesn’t think that Facebook dislikes me.  He thinks they don’t like the people who hosted my blog.  So, he found a new host for my blog!  He moved all my stuff.  Mr. Guy said some of it looks funny, but it is the best he can do right now.  He’ll keep working on it.  If you are reading this from a link on Facebook, the what he did worked!

I have tried to be kind and not be super mad at Facebook, but this has been really hard for this little monster.  Fortunately, last week when we shopping at the red store with the white circles, I got this new shirt that I am wearing today.  This is an important message for me right now!  I wish I could givre Facebook one of these shirts too!  I don’t think that they are radiating kindness at all.  I also don’t think the red store with the white circles makes a shirt big enough to fit great big Facebook!

On a happier note, last week when I couldn’t talk to any of you, Offspring No. 2 got a little monster of her very own.

He is not furry and blue and orange, but he is little.  The Lady said he is big for a baby monster, but he is a lot smaller than me.  I was going to share my shirts with him, but The Lady said they would be way too big for a couple of years, until this little monster grows.  That’s OK.  Offspring No. 2’s monster doesn’t know about mean people yet, so he doesn’t need a “Radiate Kindness” shirt.  If he needs it when he is bigger, I will be happy to share with him!

The store where Offspring No. 2 got her little monster was great big, much bigger than the store where Mr. Guy and The Lady got me.  This new monster store even had it’s own elevator!  To me, this store seemed more like a hotel!  Offspring No. 2 and Her Guy had to eat and sleep at the store for three days before they could buy their little monster and take him home.  Maybe they wanted to make sure that they didn’t buy a monster that would snore or walk in his sleep or eat all of Offspring No. 2’s peanut butter cookies!  I guess it all worked out and they are going to keep this little monster because they took him home to their house.  Offspring No. 2 said I can come visit him anytime!  I am excited about that!  I’ll be glad when he is big enough for me to share my shirts and play with him!

Today, our celebration flowers bloomed!  I call them celebration flowers because they look like they have party lights or Christmas lights in them.

Do you think the middle looks light a Christmas light?

Some of the flowers also look like they have confetti in them.

I’m so happy that our celebration flowers bloomed today.  We are celebrating the new monster in our family, Mr. Guy getting me a new blog; and, we are celebrating kindness!

Even when it’s hard, I hope that you, like this little blue and orange furry monster, will try to radiate kindness.  It really does make everything better!

Thank you for reading!

My new blog address is:  www.blueperbblueprints.com

Also, if you like reading my stories, will you please like and follow me on Facebook: Blueper B

Thank You!

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#guncontrolnow

Today, unlike yesterday, was a pretty day in Dallas.  Mr. Guy and The Lady had some errands to run. I decided that I would go since I did not spend yesterday with them.  While we were out driving, we spotted a building with lots of orange things in the grass in front of it.  Since I like orange a lot, I asked Mr. Guy if we could stop and look.  


When we got closer, I could see that the orange things were Crosses, Crescents, and Stars of David.

They were in front of a church.


Mr. Guy and The Lady explained to me that there is a convention in our city this weekend of lots of people who believe that guns are an important part of their life.  They think that it is OK for all kinds of people to have all kinds of guns even though everyone knows that people with guns kill lots of other people every single day.  There are 96 symbols in front of this church.  The number 96 represents the number of people who are killed by gun violence every single day in my country.


That is a lot of people!  I don’t even have 96 friends I don’t think.  So this means that in one day, all of my friends plus some more people I don’t even know could all be killed.  That is a crazy thing to have to think about!  I borrowed The Lady’s phone to calculate how many people that means are killed by guns in the United States every year – 35,040!!!  That is more people than live in my city!!!  My whole city could be killed by guns in less than one year!  

I thought yesterday was a sad day because of the funeral that The Lady and Mr. Guy had to go to.  Thinking about gun violence makes me sad too!

Why do people think that guns are a good thing?  I understand that policemen and a few other people need them to help them do their jobs, but I don’t need or want a gun.  Mr. Guy and The Lady don’t need or want them either.  It scares me to think about how many people have guns who don’t need them and won’t use them properly, whatever that means!


It makes me very sad to think about all of the people that these Crosses, Stars of David, and Crescents represent.

For now, I just keep hoping that things in the world will change by the time I grow up to be a big blue and orange furry monster…that’s assuming I even get to grow up and am not shot by someone with a gun.
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Sad and Happy

This morning was dark and rainy.  Mr. Guy and The Lady had to get up early and drive several hours to attend a funeral.  I didn’t go.  Nothing about the day sounded good to me.  I remember when we went to the funeral for The Captain.  I remember it being both a sad time and a happy time.  Sad becasue the Captain wasn’t here with us anymore; but happy because he was not sick and weak anymore either.  I’m still trying to figure out how I can be sad and happy at the same time.

The funeral that The Lady and Mr. Guy went to today was for Ms. Melba.  She has known Mr. Guy since he was a tiny little boy, maybe even tinier than me.  She looked after him for lots of years after his parents went to heaven.  We talked about heaven tonight when Mr. Guy and The Lady got home.  It is not like Lewes, or San Diego, or New York, or Mini-apples, the places I have been.  It is a place that lots of people talk about what it is like there, but no one that I have ever talked to about it has ever been there.  I don’t quite understand that.

And I’m just curious…why does the word funeral begin with FUN?  I’m not sure that there is anything fun about them.

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My Third B-Day

We have been celebrating my b-day for the past few days.  My b-day, June 29th, is really my “bring home day” but we also call it my birthday even though I don’t think it is the day I was actually born.  Since Mr. Guy and The Lady adopted me instead of hatching me like the human offspring, we just wrapped my birthday and bringing home day into one great big celebration.  That’s why it lasts more than one day.

I have lived with Mr. Guy and The Lady for three years.  That seems like a long time.  We have had lots of adventures together.  They asked me what kind of adventure I wanted for my birthday and I couldn’t really think of anything special.  Mr. Guy and The Lady suggested that it might be fun for us to go to our city’s farmers market on Saturday morning.  That sounded fun.  And then it rained and we couldn’t go.  I was not too sad about that because they said that the farmers market happens every Saturday so we can go on another day.

My Saturday turned out to be great anyway.  Do you want to know why?  Because I got a letter!


The mailman usually just brings us his trash.  He puts his trash in the fancy trash box on the curb and then The Lady or Mr. Guy puts it in the big blue trash recycling box and takes it back to the curb.  I don’t know how you get a job driving around all day putting your trash in other people’s trash boxes and then they have to put it out for the real trash man to come and put it in the great big trash collecting truck.  And they pay you to do this!  

And how did my letter get mixed up with the mailman’s trash?

I guess I’m glad that Mr. Guy looks carefully at the mailman’s trash before it puts it in the other trash can.  But this also kind of worries me.  If Mr. Guy likes looking through other people’s trash every day, he might want to start dumpster diving.  This would make him smell really bad!  I have smelled those dumpsters!  I’m not going to worry about that right now.  Let’s get back to happier…and better smelling…things.  My letter!

My friend, Ms. Joni sent me a letter.  Mr. Guy helped me read it.

It was a letter saying happy b-day to me!  I love Ms. Joni!  She always thinks of other people and does nice things for me. And, we have fun together.  It makes me sad that she doesn’t live closer to us, but she told me in my letter that she will see me in September.  We are all going to Denver for a meeting of the people with white fur like The Lady and Ms. Joni have.  That is something for this little monster to look forward to!

The Lady also made a special b-day treat for me.  She made blue berry muffins and got me fizzy orange stuff to drink.  It was a perfect blue and orange meal!


For some reason, The Lady lit my muffins on fire.  I thought they were already cooked when she gave them to me.  This was a little confusing, but then I remembered that on your b-day you get one fire stick for each year that you have been alive.  Then you make a wish and use your breath as a fire extinguisher.  If your fire extinguisher works right and you extinguish all of the fire sticks at once, then your wish will come true.  My extinguisher worked, but supposedly if I tell you my wish then it won’t come true.  Remembering all of these b-day rules is a lot for this little blue and orange furry monster.

It was perfect that I got three muffins, one for each of my three years.  I had one for me.  One for Mr. Guy.  And, one for The Lady.  Next year I will get four.  Maybe Ms. Joni can come visit me for my b-day and she can have my number four muffin!

After I ate my treat, I got a present from Mr. Guy and The Lady.


It was blue and orange just like me!

Inside the blue and orange was…


…new shirts!

This is one of them.


I guess they got me this one to remind me to help get the trash out of our fancy little trash box on the curb and put it in the big blue trash box.  Okay.  I can do that.  Then I looked at the back of my new shirt.


Keep the trash green?  Maybe this is a shirt that a mailman wears.  He keeps his truck clean by putting his trash in everyone else’s boxes and then someone gives him money…which is green.  It’s kind of like keeping your room clean and getting an allowance only instead of hiding all of your trash under your bed, you take it to other people’s houses.  When I asked The Lady and Mr. Guy if they wanted me to become a mailman, they looked at me funny, like they didn’t know what I was talking about.  When I explained why I asked that, they laughed at me…in a nice way.  They said that my new shirt had nothing to do with becoming a mailman.  It was to help remind everyone to keep our earth clean so that all of the plants will stay green and people and little monsters will stay healthy.  I was relieved.  That sounds like a lot more fun than rearranging trash.

I also got another new shirt, but I am not going to show it to you yet.  I want it to be a surprise when I wear it, maybe someplace special.

I had a very happy b-day thanks to lots of people that love me! 

 I hope all of you have a happy day too, even if it’s not your b-day.

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Summertime and The Understanding Isn’t Easy!

Apparently today is the first day of summer, which confuses me a lot.  Back in May, May 12th to be exact, The Lady told me that she was officially on summer vacation.  To me that meant it must be summertime.  But if today is the first day of summer then obviously it was not summertime on May 12th.  Today, when The Lady was trying to explain all of this to me, she said that it was actually still spring back in May.  Oh!  So it was really spring vacation that started back in May.  She said, “No.  Not really.  Spring vacation was the week I had off in March.”  So I asked her when spring started.  She told me that the first day of spring was March 20th.  Hmm…looking back, she had her week off March 13-19.  That was before March 20th.  It wasn’t spring then; that was still winter.  Shouldn’t that have been called winter vacation?  Again she said, “No.  Winter vacation was in December and January, around Christmas.”  I was just getting more and more confused.  I had to ask The Lady when winter actually started.  She said that the first day of winter was December 21st.  I think that her first day of vacation was before then, but this is all too much for this little blue and orange furry monster to get straight.  Maybe from May 12th until today The Lady was just practicing for summer vacation.  All I really know is that everyone says that today is the first day of summer.  I am going to believe them.  You would think that as many falls, winters, springs, and summers that The Lady has seen and for as many years as she went to school, she would know exactly what season to call her vacations by now!  Apparently not.

The first day of summer is a special day because it is the day that we have the most sunlight and the least dark.  That means that there is more time today that people and little monsters can get sunburned.  The Lady has to be very careful that the sun doesn’t burn her skin.  If it does, she turns pink, or maybe red depending how long the sun cooks her.  I’ve never seen her turn pink or red, but she told me that it has happened before.  She doesn’t stay outside in the sun very long and when she is outside, she wears a hat and sunglasses and shirts with long sleeves.  Or sometimes, she puts this white icing stuff all over her.  She says that this is to keep the sun from baking her and turning her pink.  It seems strange that you would put icing on something someone before they are baked.  I will trust her on this, but not on the vacation names! 

Mr. Guy and The Lady got me a hat and sunglasses so that my monster head and eyes don’t get cooked by the sun.  I certainly don’t want my horns to get baked!  They might turn brown or black.  That’s what happens to stuff that The Lady bakes in the oven too long.  I don’t know if The Lady has any icing to keep my horns from turning icky colors.  I think I’d rather wear the hat.

My shirts have short sleeves.  The Lady said that she thought that all of my blue and orange fur would keep the sun from baking my arms.  I hope so because if the sun cooks me like it does The Lady, my fur will turn purple!  The Lady is white.  The sun makes her red.  Red and white mixed together make pink.  I’m blue (with some orange).  If the sun makes some of me red, blue and red mixed together make purple.  My orange would just turn a different color of orange, I think, maybe like the crayon color that is called red-orange.  I would become a furry little purple and red-orange monster.  I wouldn’t like that.  I like being blue!  I really don’t want to turn purple.  And I don’t want to use The Lady’s white icing stuff to keep me from turning purple.  Iced blue fur just sounds very yucky!  I think that I will just not go outside too much during the time when the sun might cook me.  That solves all of my problems, and The Lady’s too.

Oh…Mr. Guy used to teach Spanish and he teaches me how to speak Spanish because where I live here in Texas, lots of people speak Spanish.  I want to be able to talk with the people I meet.  I think it’s cool to be able to speak in two languages!  I like my new shirt that says hello in Spanish.  The Lady doesn’t speak Spanish very well (but she does know the word hola).  She speaks French pretty well, though; Mr. Guy and I don’t know French at all.  If I learn more Spanish with Mr. Guy, we can talk about all of the brown and black stuff that The Lady makes by cooking things too long in the oven and then tries to hide it with some kind of icing stuff.  Since she can’t understand Mr. Guy and me when we talk in Spanish, we won’t hurt her feelings when we say it doesn’t look or taste good.

Happy real first day of summer!

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A Month of Me: Day 31 – Guilty Pleasures

Today is both a happy day and a sad day at the same time.  I am happy that The Lady and I managed to write a post together every day for the whole month of May.  I am sad because this is the last day of May and we probably won’t write every single day in any other month.  At least I know we can do it if we want to.  The Lady and I have a deal…we are going to write at least two posts a week and we are going to keep working on my 100 People Project.  Thank you to everyone who has read my posts this month and sent me messages and comments.  I am a happy little monster most of the time and I want to help put smiles on other people’s faces as well.

About today’s photo…

In some ways, it is a good thing that I don’t have to write a post every night this week because I am a very busy little blue and orange furry monster right now.  I have rehearsals this week for my performances with the Turtle Creek Chorale this weekend.  I need to learn my words and practice my notes.  I also need to get better with my fur brush.  All of the men in the chorale wear fancy clothes and brush their fur so it is nice and neat.  I think I need to try and control my shaggy fur while I’m on stage.  I don’t want to embarrass Mr. Guy, The Lady, and Mr. Stan, who is helping me with my music.

Learning all of those words and music notes is hard for a little monster who has never done this kind of thing before.  This afternoon, The Lady was busy cleaning the bathroom.  I was studying my score and resting a little before tonight’s rehearsal.  Then I realized that all of that studying made me hungry.  I didn’t want to interrupt The Lady’s swishing of the toilet bowls, scouring of the soap scum in the shower, and scrubbing the dried toothpaste out of the sinks so I figured I’d help myself to a little snack.  Ice cream sounded good to me.  Does it sound good to you?  I dragged a stool over to the freezer and found the ice cream.  There was a container of chocolate and one of vanilla.  Chocolate sounded good.  Vanilla sounded boring.  Right as I was pulling the chocolate container from the freezer, here comes The Lady.  Uh oh!  I’m not supposed to help myself to food in the freezer without permission.  I thought that I might get in a lot of trouble, but The Lady didn’t get mad a me.  Whew!  She knew that I was working very hard and that hard works makes little monsters very hungry.  The Lady scooped a ball of ice cream into two bowls, one for each of us.  We ate our ice cream together and talked about how much fun we’ve had this month with my blog.  She also made sure that my fur did not get chocolaty dirty.  Shaggy is one thing.  Chocolaty ice creamy dirty is another!  If I want to be a star, I certainly couldn’t have ice cream in my fur when I went to rehearsal!

So, farewell May and A Month of Me and welcome June and my stage debut…and lots of other special things!

I’ll keep you posted!

Monster hugs,
Blueper B

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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 8 – A Quiet Happy

Today was a quiet day…well, for me.  Mr. Guy did not feel well because of his allergies.  He said that stuff from the plants got in his nose and made his head all clogged up.  Maybe that stuff from the plants in his nose was zucchini seeds and his head is all stuffed up because there are more zucchini growing in there.  Zucchini seem to grow everywhere!

This is The Lady’s last week of school so she is very busy giving exams and grading papers.  She did not have any time to help me write today.  I told her that she should just not give her students all of these tests and then she wouldn’t have to grade them.  I think her students would be happy too if they did not have to take them!

Anyway, with all of that, we just went for a short walk together when everyone got home.  I was a quiet happy little blue and orange furry monster!