May 30 – Monster Blue and An Orange Blob

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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!

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.

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!


Orange You Glad To See Me In NYC!

This week was both fun and a little strange.  I went on an adventure.  And The Lady went on the adventure.  But, Mr. Guy did not go on this adventure with us.  We went to New York City.  Mr. Guy had important stuff to do here at home.  Plus, he said that he doesn’t really like New York City.  That made me a little nervous.  I was afraid that I wouldn’t like it either, but I decided to be a brave little blue and orange furry monster and go.  I hoped that The Lady, Offspring #2, and The Young Guy would take good care of me.
     


Mr. Guy always carried me in airports and I always sit on his lap on the airplanes.  It felt funny to sit on The Lady’s lap, especially because we had kind of a bumpy ride to New York and I got a little scared.  It all worked out, though.  The Lady did OK but I hope that next time I fly somewhere that Mr. Guy goes too.

We landed in New York and had to take a taxi to our hotel.  

I have never ridden in a taxi before.  It was like the fancy black cars that have picked us up at airports before, the lemonzines, except that it wasn’t fancy and wasn’t black.  It was yellow.  That was all OK.  We crossed some bridges and went in a tunnel and passed lots of big buildings.  Then we got to our hotel.  The Young Guy picked the hotel and made the reservations.  It was called the Mobile Noble Den.  We have a den at our house, but it doesn’t have a bed.  I thought maybe The Lady and I might have to sleep on a couch.  We don’t have a bathroom in our at-home den either.  Maybe that’s because it is just a den, not a noble den.  Hopefully the noble part means that it has a bed and a bathroom in addition to a couch.

The Lady and I shared a room and Offspring #2 and The Young Guy had another room.  The room that The Lady and I had was perfect for us.  It was all orange!!!  Everything was orange.  I didn’t think The Young Guy knew me well enough to know that I love orange, but he did.  I still missed Mr. Guy, but the all orange room did make me happy.

Look at all of the orange!


Our bed was orange…


Our shower was orange…

I guess that you noticed that our den has both a bed and a bathroom.
Our telephone was orange…
Our sink had an orange stripe, though you can’t see it in these pictures.  I think that you can in the one above.  Even without the orange, this was a cool sink!  It was sort of in the middle of our den, but that was OK.  It had a fancy light up mirror.  I had fun looking at my fur in this mirror.  I didn’t even mind brushing it because I could watch for tangles so that I would not pull my fur and hurt my little monster body.

Eben “my office” was orange.  I sat here and made notes about all of the things that I wanted to tell you about.
Can you see my orange chair?
This is the view from my window.  We were staying right between Chinatown and Little Italy, whatever that means.
I really did miss Mr. Guy on this trip, but I have to admit that it was nice to have an entire half of the bed to myself rather than being squished between Mr. Guy and The Lady.
Speaking of having lots of room in the bed…now that I am home, I have my own bed back and I am very tired tonight.  Tomorrow I will tell you all about what we saw in New York.

Bond’s Eye

Last Saturday we were supposed to go to the Farmer’s Market in our city, but we couldn’t go because it was raining.  I thought we might go yesterday; however, we couldn’t go then either because Mr. Guy and The Lady had something else to do.  They were going to a Bond’s Eye class.  They said that I could go with them if I wanted to.   I wasn’t sure that I wanted to, but I decided that I wanted to spend some time with them, so I said I’d go.

I had no idea why Mr. Guy and The Lady wanted to go to a class on learning how to see like a special agent, to learn to use their eyes as a spy like James Bond.  I didn’t even know they liked James Bond.  This little blue and orange furry monster knew almost nothing about Bond, or secret agents, or spies, or how to see like a spy.  I figured this would be a chance for me to learn something new.  They might teach me how to break codes and hunt down criminals and even how to drive a fancy car.  OK, maybe not drive the fancy car…but ride in it as the co-pilot.

Mr. Guy got me dressed to go.  He put on my brown “Dirt Shirt” that Ms. Michele gave me when I was in Delaware.  That sort of made sense.  A blue and orange furry spy might stick out in a crowd.  I was hoping I’d get a cool trench coat and hat, but my brown shirt was good for a beginner secret agent.  

We drove about twenty minutes to the place where the class was being taught.  It was down a gravel drive in a building hidden behind lots of trees and shrubs.  The building had sort of a secret look to it, but there were no fancy cars anywhere, well fancy spy cars.  There were fancy Dallas cars.  I guess that’s how they keep the secret agent training center really a secret.  It just looked like an old house.  Now I was getting excited.

We walked into the Bond’s Eye place.  It was a little weird.  The people didn’t have on secret agent hats and coats and sunglasses; they looked like hippies in their overalls, t-shirts, jeans, and gypsy shirts.  Don’t tell them I said this, but Mr. Guy and The Lady fit right in with this crowd.  I looked around for books about being a spy and magnifying glasses and anything else that reminded me of James Bond.  There was nothing.  This whole secret agent school had nothing but plants everywhere.  Most of them were little, but there were some bigger ones too.  I thought to myself that maybe we were going to develop our Bond’s eye skills by first looking for bugs on plants or something like that.  Surely if I could spy a tiny bug on a tiny plant I could track down a big bad guy or girl.


Mr. Guy and The Lady wandered around looking at all of the plants.  They didn’t say anything about looking for bugs.  They were talking about things like organic dirt and water culture and fertilizer and apexes and old wood and aesthetic balance.  I know I don’t know much about being a secret agent, but even with the little information I did have, I was now pretty sure we were talking about different things.

I finally asked when the real Bond’s eye class was going to start.  Where was all of the secret agent stuff?  Why were we in a place surrounded by happy hippies and plants rather than secret agents in trench coats?

I quickly learned that I was completely confused about the whole experience.  It was not a Bond’s Eye class; it was a bonsai class.  Bonsai is a Japanese art form using miniature trees grown in containers.  The trees and the practice of caring for them is a process of meditation and contemplation for their owner.  Bonsai trees don’t provide shade or food or medicine; they are just to look it.  They make you happy.  Once I understood that, it all made sense that Mr. Guy and The Lady would want to come here.  They like plants.  In fact they already had a couple bonsai trees.  )I didn’t know until yesterday that that is what they are called.)  

So as it turned out, I learned how to take care of these little trees rather than how to be a secret agent. I didn’t get to ride in a fancy car, but I did get to pick out a bonsai tree.  Mr. Guy and I decided to get a ponytail palm.  Mr. Guy said that The Captain had one in Delaware and that he had hoped we could bring it back to Texas, but that didn’t happen.  So, we got our own.  And as it turned out, my dirt shirt was the perfect thing to wear!

I never know what to expect with Mr. Guy and The Lady!  There’s always an adventure.

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.

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!


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.

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.