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

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!

A Month of Me: Day 29 - Memorial Day

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I think I am going to be a very busy little blue and orange furry monster this summer!

A Month of Me: Day 27 - ORANGE!

Did you know that I LOVE the color ORANGE??  Oh, and I like BLUE, too.  I bet that you didn't know that either.

A Month of Me: Day 26 - Matching Colors

A Month of Me: Day 25 - Red Nose Day

Red Nose Day

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.

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.

Day 21: My 100 People Project #30-33!

After sleeping in a little on Sunday morning, we got up and had breakfast with the picture taking people who were staying at our hotel.  I was sad to have to say good-bye to them already, but they were already talking about someplace where they will meet again to take more pictures.  That made for happier good-byes.

After we finished eating. but before everyone left the hotel, I remembered that I hadn't taken any photos for my 100 People Project during the weekend.  When I among all the fun people, I forget that I should be taking pictures of them.  Maybe I picked the wrong kind of project for myself.  Anyway, I did take a couple this morning.

Ms. Peggy was one of the first of The Lady's picture taking friends that I ever met.  She lives in Delaware.  When The Captain was sick, Ms. Peggy and another picture taking friend, Ms. Michele, came to visit The Lady so she had some friends to do fun things with while she was taking care of The Captain.  Ms. Peggy brought two of her friends, Ms. Karen and Ms. Wendy, with her to Leesburg for the weekend.  Ms. Karen and Ms. Wendy live in Lewes, DE, the same town where The Captain lived and where Mr. Guy and The Lady adopted me!  It is a small world!

We haven't been back to Delaware now that The Captain is gone and The Lady sold his house, but since we now have lots of new friends in Lewes, maybe we will go back and visit sometime soon.  I think that I would like that.  I could go back to Kids' Ketch, the store on Second Street in Lewes where Mr. Guy and The Lady found me, and tell them how happy I am to have been adopted by Mr. Guy and The Lady even though I had to move from Delaware to Texas.

Even though I met Ms. Peggy a few years ago, I did not have a good picture with her because I had not started my 100 People Project back then.  She and her friends agreed to help me!  I like taking pictures with people who are friends.  And, I got three new numbers in one picture!

I am thankful that these pretty ladies were willing to have their picture taken with a little shaggy blue and orange monster!  

After we said good-bye to the Delaware Ladies, we had to go pack our suitcase and get ready to head to the airport.  On our way back in to the hotel, The Lady stopped at the front desk to make a reservation for the hotel shuttle to take us.  The man behind the desk was very cheerful and helpful.  He made our reservation and he told Mr. Guy where he could get more coffee.  Since this man was so nice, and I was on a roll with my project, I asked him if he would have his picture taken with me.  He said, Yes!  Thank you, Mr. Eric!

We were staying at the Courtyard by Marriott at Dulles Town Center.  If you ever go to Leesburg, or Dull as Dulles, or Sterling Virginia, you should go see Mr. Eric at his hotel.

I did have one concern about Mr. Eric's hotel though...they had some crazy art in the hallway!

I like the colors in this painting, but it made me feel like I was in the middle of a Texas tornado.  Well...I've never really been in the middle of a Texas tornado, but if I ever am, I think it would feel the way this painting looks - twirly and dizzy-making!  I wonder if the inside of a tornado would be blue and orange?

After we packed our bags, we loaded into the shuttle and were on our way back to the airport.  We had a couple hours to wait for our plane so Mr. Guy went to get us something to drink.  For a minute I was confused about this place, Five Mr. Guys...there aren't five Mr. Guy's; there is on one real Mr. Guy!  Then I read more closely. It is just Five Guys, not Five Mr. Guys.  I felt much better!

We had an uneventful airplane ride home.  I slept the whole way.  I didn't even wake up to eat any nuts.  When we got home the canines and the felines were glad to see us.  I wanted to catch up on my blog as soon as we got home, but I was still a tired little monster.  Having fun is hard work!

Thank you again to all of the picture taking people who made me feel a part of the group and to Ms. Peggy, Ms. Karen, Ms. Wendy, and Mr. Eric for agreeing to be part of my project.

I am a happy and grateful little blue and orange furry monster!

Monster hugs to everyone!

A Month of Me: Day 20 - Lens Friends Photowalk

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A Month of Me: Day 19 - In the Air Again

Friday seems like a long time ago now!  I could not post from The Lady's iPad while we were gone to Virginia so I had to try and remember for three days everything that I wanted to write!  That is hard for a little monster with limited storage space!

We got up early, but not too early, to go to the airport.  The Lady told me that we were flying to a new place in Virginia called Dull as.  

Dull as...?  Dull as what, I asked.  

The Lady looked confused.  What do you mean dull as what?, she asked.

She said we were going someplace dull as...  Maybe this was some kind of game and I was supposed to fill in the blank, kind of like a Knock-Knock joke.  Dull as ice cream with no chocolate sauce?  Dull as a story with no pictures?  Dull as blue without orange?  

She said, "No!  No!!  No!!!  Dull is!

Oh!   Dull is...  Dull is a pencil with no lead.  Dull is people who take themselves too seriously.  Dull is watching golf on TV.

"Dull es...D-U-L-L-E-S," she said in a rather frustrated way.  

Why are we using Spanish verbs?, I asked.  Is, es...what's the deal?

Sometimes The Lady loses her patience with me when it comes to conversations like this.  When that happens, she sends me to Mr. Guy to straighten me out.  He told me that Dulles is one word, not two,  and it is the name of a place.  Finally it all made sense.  I was happy to hear that we were not going to a dull as or dull is kind of place!

We had a nice uneventful flight, nothing like our last flight to Virginia!

When we landed at DULLES, we went to our hotel.  We had a few hours before we were supposed to meet the picture taking people.  Mr. Guy and I continued the nap that we had started on the plane and The Lady did some work.

Then it was time to go on our first adventure.  We met just a few of the picture taking people and went to Great Falls Park.  I didn't know there was such a thing as great falls.  I always thought falls were bad things because when people and monsters fall, they break bones, and scrape elbows, and get stitches.  Mr. Guy explained that falls is also a word that describes water flowing over a precipice.  I had no idea what he was saying, but I did get that we were talking about water and not people or monsters so I figured it would be OK.

The falls looked pretty and I liked the sound of the water.

Mr. Guy and I sat and listened while The Lady took pictures.

Except for the no hair and blue fur part, we kind of look a like, don't you think?  Oh, and Mr. Guy hides his horns a little better than I do.

It was very hot while we were watching the water fall.  And then it started to rain.  We did what everyone does in less than ideal circumstances; we went to Starbucks.  Then we went to dinner with a few more of the picture taking people.  And finally we went back to the hotel and went to bed because the picture taking people wanted to start taking pictures at 6:30 in the morning!  I was going to have to be awake and dressed very early for a second day in a row!  I wasn't sure that this was a good thing.

A Month of Me: Day 18 - Boxes, Bags, and Suitcases

Today was a busy day t my house.  I just found out that we are going on a trip tomorrow!  We are going to Virginia to see The Lady's picture raking friends.  This will be our third trip to see them and every time that we go we fly to a different place.  I will get to see lots of different parts of the state of Virginia if this keeps up.  The Lady also said that I will get to meet some new friends on this trip.  I am an excited furry little blue and orange monster!

This afternoon I had to find some shirts for the trip and find my monster hairbrush.  I don't really use the brush much, but The Lady always makes me take it when we travel so that I don't look like a shaggy monster.  I like looking like a shaggy monster!  I put my things in the suitcase.  Now I am all ready to go.

One thing is different about this trip.  The Lady got t-shirts for all of the picture taking people and their friends who aren't picture takers but hang out with the picture takers, like Mr. Guy and Mr. Ray.  I helped The Lady put everyone's shirt in a bag with their name on it so that when we get off of the airplane tomorrow, we can give everyone a shirt.  T-shirts are the best!  Maybe The Lady will let me push some buttons on her camera and maybe I can take a picture of all of the picture taking people not taking pictures!  Instead they could all be in the picture.

We have to get up very early tomorrow so I suppose I should go to bed so that I am well rested for our super fun weekend!

Tomorrow I will be writing from Virginia!

Good night, everyone.

A Month of Me: Day 17 - Every Day

Just a simple reminder today...

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!

A Month of Me: Day 15 - Time, More or Less

The Lady's picture taking assignment today was to photograph timeless.  I thought that this was the perfect prompt for her because she is always timeless; she never has enough time for all of the things that she needs and wants to do.  That makes her timeless, right?  Just like a monster without horns is hornless and a monster without a t-shirt is t-shirtless and a Mr. Guy without a blue and orange furry monster is monsterless.  Mr. Guy explained that that was not quite right.  Timeless,  he said,  is something that is not affected by the passage of time.  Hmm...that is not The Lady then; she is very affected by the passage of time.  She gets frustrated and grouchy when time passes too quickly and she still has work to get done.

I know that there are machines that tell you about your time.  Mr. Guy wears a little one of these on his arm.  As the day goes on, his time gets bigger.  His arm machine must collect time for him.  The Lady doesn't have one of those machines.  That must be why she never has any time.  She doesn't have a machine to collect it for her.  Again Mr. Guy said that that is not quite how time works.

Mr. Guy told me that everyone has exactly the same amount of time every day - 24 hours or 1440 minutes, or 86, 400 seconds.  He said that days feel long or short depending on what you are doing or not doing.  Sometimes there really is not enough time in a day to accomplish everything that you want to do.  But sometimes, it just feels that way because people waste their time.  They don't use it for important or meaningful things.  The time machines like Mr. Guy has are called wrist watches.  I guess this is because you have to watch your wrist to see how the time is moving.  Mr. Guy told me that a wrist watch is a kind of clock and that there are lots of other kinds too.  They can be big or small, inside or outside, on the wall or on the floor.  We looked at all of the clocks at our house.  I was surprised by how many we have.  We definitely are not timeless!!! 

We have a great big clock in our dining room.  It is called a grandfather clock.  We don't have a grandmother clock or a grandchild clock.  I wonder if the grandfather clock gets lonely just sitting in the corner all day every day just counting the seconds, minutes, and hours .  That clock has been at our house for a long time, longer than me and also longer than The Lady.  It's been here since Mr. Guy was a little monster like me.  Mr. Guy said that our grandfather clock was given to his father by his grandmother...that is all very confusing!  Why is it not a grandmother clock, then?  Or maybe a grandchild clock since Mr. Guy is the grandchild and now the clock is his?  Oh well, I guess it doesn't really matter what you call it.  All I know is that it is a great big clock and I like to watch how it counts the time by swinging its pendulum back and forth.

Right now, the grandfather clock and The Lady are telling me that it is past my bedtime.

Good night!

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!  

A Month of Me: Day 13 - To the Moon and Back!

I love Mr. Guy and The Lady and my family and all my friends and all of their friends and all the friends of friends to the moon and back!

A Month of Me: Day 12 - Cookie Monster For A Day

When I am out and about in the world, people always mistake me for some monster named Cookie Monster.  When I tell them that I am not Cookie Monster, I am Blueper B, they always seem a little disappointed.  I finally had to figure out who this Cookie Monster monster is. 

Mr. Guy helped me find a picture of the Cookie Monster on the Internet.  He and I have the same color of fur and sort of the same eyes, but Cookie Monster does not have orange horns, or claws, or orange fur on his belly, or orange stripes on his arms.  In fact, Mr. Cookie Monster doesn't have anything orange on him.  Why do people get us confused?

Mr. Guy said that sometimes people will lump all monsters with one similar characteristic into a big group even though they may be very different in lots of other ways.  He said that this happens with humans too.  I don't think that this is a good thing.  Every monster and every person is unique and special.  Just because we may look like or be like another person on the outside doesn't mean that we are like them on the inside too.  We probably don't like the same things, feel the same things, want the same things, or need the same things.  I think people and monsters need to look more than fur-deep before they come to conclusions about others.  I don't look like Mr. Guy or The Lady, be we are all alike in lots of ways that others can't see.

So, since i am always mistaken for this Cookie Monster monster, I decided to try to learn a little about him.  

Wow!  This Cookie Monster monster is famous!  He has been on television for almost fifty years.  And, he likes to eat, especially cookies.  Cookie Monster is a lot older than me.  I am only three.  Yet, we still look a like.  Does that mean that monsters don't get gray fur or that their fur doesn't fall out when they get older?  Mr. Guy's hair used to be brown and now it is gray.  I have wondered what color my fur will be when I get as old as Mr. Guy.  Will it be gray?  Or purple? Or a darker or lighter blue?  I don't know.  Now that I see Mr. Cookie Monster monster, I think that maybe my fur will stay blue and orange for ever and ever.  That sounds good to me.

I told The Lady that I wanted to eat cookies so that I would know what it feels like to be Mr. Cookie Monster.  She said that we could work on that because she had to make cookies today for her food blog, Sifted Together, that she writes with her friend Ms. Tracey.  Ms. Tracey and The Lady send messages to each other about food all the time.  They make the food, take pictures of it, eat it, and write about it on their blog.  They are kind of like Mr. Cookie Monster, especially today since they were making cookies.

The Lady told me that we were going to make Animal Cookies.  I wondered why we were making animal cookies.  Why weren't we making monster cookies or human cookies?  The animals at our house did not ask for cookies.  The Lady explained that animal cookies have nothing to do with who is going to eat them.  They are called animal cookies because they are shaped like animals.  Okay..I wondered how that was going to happen.  We are going to make cookies shaped like animals?  This could be interesting.

We began by gathering all of the ingredients.

We put them all together in the big blue mixing machine.

When we did that, the eight ingredients mushed together and became one big blob of ingredient.  The Lady called it dough.  When we got it all mixed up, we had to put it in the refrigerator to chill before we could make the animals.  This was strange to me because we took the butter, one of the ingredients, out of the refrigerator first and we had to put it in the melting machine even though we didn't want to melt it; we just wanted to make it a little soft.  Then after we made our blob dough, we put it back in the refrigerator to make it cold.  I did what The Lady told me to do, but it all didn't make much sense to me.

After the dough got cold again, we took it out of the refrigerator and rolled it so it was one great big cookie.  I bet Cookie Monster would really like our great big cookie!  Then The Lady told me that we had to cut all of the little animal cookies out of our great big cookie using special plastic pieces with a button.

They worked like magic!  I pushed it in the dough, pressed the button, and out feel a dough animal.  We put them in the oven and they turned into animal cookies.  We made lions,  zebras, giraffes, and elephants!

Then we ate them!

I liked being Cookie Monster for a day, but I am most happy as me, Blueper B, a little furry blue and orange monster who is not on TV.

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!

A Month of Me: Day 9 - Bubbles!

This afternoon when The Lady got home from school and before she had to leave again, Mr. Guy and The Lady took me outside to teach me how to blow bubbles.  I have watched Mr. Guy blow bubbles before, but I have never done it myself.  Mr. Guy gave me a great big bottle of funny smelling water and a stick with a big hole in the end.  He told me to stick dip the stick in the funny smelling water until the hole was filled in and then blow in the hole.  It all sounded easy enough.

But it wasn't.

My big monster claws had a hard time holding the stick with the hole in it.

The water stuff was all drippy and made my fur feel sticky.

And, my mouth isn't shaped right to blow in a little hole on a stick.

It took me a lot of tries to make this whole bubble blowing thing work.  

I was starting to become a very frustrated little blue and orange furry monster, but then I mde it work!

An I was a happy little monster.

Today was not a quiet happy like yesterday.