Category: The Lady

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May 16 – Time to Commence Again

Today is one of my favorite days of the year.  It is The Lady’s last day of school, which means we’ll have lots more time together after today.  It’s also the day that she has to go commence, which, after all these years, I now know means to begin even though it happens at the end of the school year.  I like the idea that it is commencing with summer vacation!  What I don’t like is when The Lady commences, she always wears those ridiculous looking clothes!

That big black robe thing that The Lady wears makes me think that she should be on daytime TV  as the next Judge Judy.  Shhh…don’t tell Mr. Guy and The Lady that I watch that stuff when they are not home!  A new show Judge The Lady…that doesn’t sound good.  Maybe The Lady Judge…better, but…I don’t need to worry about The Lady’s TV career.  She is happy as a teacher.  I bet that is because she only has to wear these weird clothes a couple times a year!

And then there is that hood thing.  I still don’t know why it is called a hood.  Hoods go on your head.  The Lady wears this thing like a cape.  It should give her some kind of super powers, but it doesn’t.  You know why it doesn’t give her superpowers?  Because it is ugly!  Pink and green?  Who puts pink and green together?  I know, I know.  She didn’t pick the colors.  They have something to do with the special color for her school and the fact that she studied those weird dots and lines and  squiggles at that school .  If she had asked me, I would have told her that she should have made different choices.  Like she always tells me, choices have consequences and sometimes those consuquences are with you your whole life!

She should have gone to a school with prettier colors and studied something that didn’t make you wear pink!  If The Lady had been an engineer instead of someone who reads dots and squiggles and lines, then her cape hood would have been orange.  That would have been a much better choice – as far as the hood color.  But I don’t think The Lady would be a very good engineer.  We shouldn’t tell her that either.

When The Lady was getting ready to leave, part of me wanted to go with her and part of me didn’t.  She had to go early so that she could rehearse with the orchestra.  That’s where she and her friends all practice reading their dots and lines and squiggles together.  Every person has different looking books to read and they all use something different to make sounds.  The Lady blows on a black tube.  Some people blow on silver tubes and others on gold curly tubes.  Other people saw on big pieces of wood with strings.  And some people use sticks to bang on circles.  I have no idea how all these people doing different things sounds good together, but it does.  I should mention that almost all of these people wear pink hoods so they too have gone to school to learn to read dot, line, and squiggle language.

All that to say that the commencing night takes a long time.  The orchestra plays, lots of people talk and then lots of people have their names called and they walk across they stage and shake lots of hand and get a fancy folder and have lots of pictures taken.  It is kind of boring for a furry little blue and orange monster.  Don’t tell The Lady I said that either!

I did notice something after The Lady got her weird clothes on.

The Lady’s hood looked like a perfectly-sized monster hammock!  I could crawl right inside it, go to the commencing night with The Lady, and sleep through the whole thing!  This was a great plan!

When I shared my plan, The Lady disagreed with it.  She said that first of all I would get squished when she sat back in her chair.  She had to sit back in her chair so that she would be comfortable during all of the boring parts.  And secondly, she said that she did not want to look like a confused kangaroo whose pocket was on the wrong side of her body.  I don’t think I look at all like a baby kangaroo!  Have you ever seen a blue and orange kangaroo?

I stayed home.  That was really OK because that green and pink does nothing for my pretty blue and orange fur.

And I got to catch up on Judge Judy reruns!

 

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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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Play-ing in NYC


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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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


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


A new building has been built in the area.


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


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

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

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

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

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


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


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

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


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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 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 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 16 – T-Shirts

 

I learned something about The Lady today.  She likes t-shirts just like me!  Now that she doesn’t have to go to school everyday, she is wearing her t-shirts instead of her teacher clothes.  Mr. Guy wears t-shirts a lot too since he is retired and doesn’t have to go to school anymore.
I get a new t-shirt every time I visit someplace new.  I also have some that have been given to me by my friends.  And, I have a few that are for special days.  I don’t have one like The Lady’s, though.  Hers has her shopping list on it.  Coffee and cameras.  She and Mr. Guy always have coffee on their shopping list.  They drink A Lot of coffee!  The Lady putt cameras on the list because she really likes to take pictures.  
Today, The Lady was in the picture with me instead of taking the picture of just me.  I don’t think we have many pictures of the two of us together..  Usually Mr. Guy is in pictures with me.  The Lady likes it best that way.  She says that Mr. Guy and I are quite handsome and make her pictures look nice.  
I like seeing The Lady in pictures, but we need to find her a t-shirt with something other than a shopping list on it!
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A Month of Me: May 14 – Mothers Day

The two human offspring and I spent the afternoon telling The Lady how much we appreciate her having taken care of all of us.  We all want to wish The Lady and all moms and mom figures a happy Mothers Day.  We know that being a mom is not an easy job, but someone has to do it!  

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

 

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

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

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

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

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




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

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

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

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

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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!