Category: outings

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Friends, Roomies, and Crafts(wo)men

So what have I learned lately?  Vacations are fun!  I have been new places, seen new things, and met new people.  All of this has been very exciting for a little blue and orange furry monster!

After our day of painting on Saturday, we had a “cabin day” on Sunday.  We stayed at home and slept a little later, had a relaxed breakfast on the deck, read, colored, played games, went for a walk, and just enjoyed the mountain air.  I thought that I might be a bored little monster, but nope; it was a very peaceful and refreshing day.

Yesterday, The Lady’s college roommate and her husband came to spend the night with us.  The Lady and Ms. Linda have been friends for 36 years.  That is more years than I have monster toes and fingers so it must be a very, very long time!  They had lots to talk about.  Mr. Guy and Ms. Linda’s Guy teach the same stuff to middle school monsters kids, so they had a lot to talk about too.  Ms. Linda had told The Lady that she was excited to meet me.  That made me smile.   The Lady has some really nice friends!

Last night,  Ms. Linda’s Guy went down to the pond to throw a string in the water.  He said that there were critters in the water and that they would bite his string and then he would use the stick that the string was attached to to pull them out of the water.

Ms. Linda’s Guy tried to teach me how to play with the stick and string, but I was not very good at it, so we all just sat and watched while he kept throwing the string in the pond.  I never saw any critters bite it.  That seemed to be okay with him.  We all enjoyed our evening down by the pond.

This morning there was lots of rain and thunder.  We were going to go for a long ride to see the mountains, but plans were changed because of the stormy weather.   We went to the Folk Art Center instead.  I saw lots of things that people made with their hands – furniture, quilts, musical instruments, jewelry, toys, clothing, pottery, all kinds of stuff.  The artists there were very talented.

I met two of the artists, Susan and Debbie.  Debbie makes serigraphs and linoprints.  Her works are very pretty.  Debbie let me hold one of the brushes that she uses for her work.  She also agreed to be part of my 100 People Project.

The Lady and Mr. Guy bought two if her prints.  This one is my favorite because it has lots of blue!

If you would like to see more of Debbie’s beautiful works of art, visit her website.

I also got to talk to Susan.  Susan is a basket weaver.  She had a very cool backpack basket that would have been perfect for Mr. Guy to carry this blue and orange furry monster around, but Mr. Guy and The Lady would not buy it for me.  That made me a little sad, but then I decided that I like it when people carry me in their arms.  Ms. Linda carried me a lot today.  Anyway, Mr. Guy and The Lady decided that they would buy a different basket, but when they went back to get it, it was gone.  Someone else bought it.  The Lady was disappointed, but Susan said that she would make one special for The Lady.  and maybe it could even have some blue in it.  It is very nice of Susan to make a special basket for us.  Once she is done, she will mail it to us in Texas.  A package in the mail!  I like to get packages in the mail.  I promise that I will show you our basket when it gets to Texas.

Susan also had her picture taken with me!

Ms. Linda’s Guy drove us today along the Blue Ridge Parkway.  That was nice of him.  It gave Mr. Guy and The Lady a chance to just look out the windows.  We stopped along the way.  I had to have a picture with Ms. Linda and her Guy.  They may be old friends of The Lady, but they are new friends of me.

I have been a little confused about how to number the people in my project when there are two people in one photo.  The Lady and I have talked about this.  She told me that when people get married, there is something said like “two shall become one.”  It sounds strange to me, but that is what The Lady said and I trust her.  So, I decided that Ms. Linda and her Guy are just one number.  All of this is so confusing for a little monster!  The Lady told me that I just have to trust the process.  I don’t really know what that means, but I said “OK” just to make her feel good.

It was a busy day for me in front of the camera.  Thank you to all of my new friends for helping me with my 100 People Project!

Oh, and Mr. Guy, Ms. Linda, and The Lady worked hard to find me an Asheville T-shirt today while we were out.  It is hard to find orange shirts here so I am getting some new colors.

I am looking forward to more adventures in the next couple of days!

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Plastic Eyes


Mister Guy and The Lady like to take me out to see new places, new things, and new people.  Today, I went with them to the eye doctor.   This doctor has been taking care of Mr. Guy’s eyes for over forty years.  That is a long time!  


I learned that people have to take care of their eyes so that they can always see all of these new things as well as possible.  I also learned that my whole family has plastic eyes, but they are all different kinds of plastic eyes!  This was a little confusing to me at first, but I think I understand now.

I have plastic eyes.  I was made that way and my eyes work just fine.  The lady at the eye doctor’s office let me look into a strange machine where she could see my eyes.  


She told me that I have perfect monster eyes.  That’s good!  But, we weren’t at the doctor for me; we were there for Mr. Guy.

A couple of years ago, Mr Guy got his plastic eyes.  He had something called Cadillacs…no wait, cataracts.  Mr. Guy said that when he looked at things everything was cloudy because of the cadillacs on the lenses in his eyes.  He told me that the doctor took out his cloudy lenses and put nice clean new plastic ones in his eyes so that everything would be clear again.  But lately, Mr. Guy said that things have been kind of blurry  That’s why we were at the doctor.  Just so you don’t worry, everything is good now.

The doctor told us that there are some web things that grew in his eyes to hold the new plastic lenses in place, but too much of them grew in Mr. Guy’s eye and covered places that they shouldn’t; so, the doctor used a machine with a laser to get rid of them.   It sounded scary, but Mr. Guy said that it was not scary.   He held me so that I could look at the machine.  At first I wasn’t sure that I wanted to get too close…


…but then I decided that I could be a brave blue and orange furry monster.


This lady came in before the doctor and put lots of drops in Mr. Guy’s eyes. 


Then the doctor came in and used the machine to get rid of Mr Guy’s over grown eye weeds webs..  


 It only took about 45 seconds and he said that it did not hurt.   I’m happy that the doctor did not hurt Mr. Guy.  That would have made me feel sad.  I hope that his blurry eyes are fixed.

The people at the eye doctor’s office were very nice to Mr. Guy, and that is what is important for today.  I don’t think that they have ever had a blue and orange monster with great big plastic eyes in their office before.  They weren’t sure how to treat me.  I had hoped that one of them might want to have a picture taken with me and join my 100 People project, but nope.  They were very serious about their work, which I guess is a good thing if you are there to have your eyes fixed.


I learned today that The Lady also has plastic lenses, but hers are not held in her eyes by overgrown webs; The Lady’s plastic lenses go on her eyes and she puts them in and takes them out every day.  She called them contact lenses.  There sure are a lot of “c” lens words to learn when it comes to understanding eyes!  I hope that because I already have plastic eyes that I won’t have to ever deal with cadillacs, contacts, or cataracts!

All of this new information about the different kinds of plastic eyes today got me thinking…

Like I said earlier, everyone in my family has plastic eyes, but they are all different yet they all do the same thing.  They make it so we each can see.  What is more important, the things that we all have in common, or the things that make us different from one another?  That seems to be an important question about a lot of things these days.  For example, I have blue and orange fur, The Lady has white fur, and Mr. Guy has gray fur.  We all look different, but we aren’t really that different.  We all feel the same things.  Most of the time we all feel happy, but sometimes we are sad.  Sometimes we all feel hungry, or sleepy, or hot, or scared, or full of joy.   Most importantly we all want to feel loved.  It doesn’t matter what color fur we have on the outside, we all have the same feelings on the inside.  I think those inside things that are the same for everybody are much more important than those outside things like fur color and plastic eye type that are different.

What do you think?