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!

Pun Times!

What do you call a person rabid with wordplay? An energizer punny. 

Mr. guy is an energizer punny.  That means that he likes to say silly things by using words in funny ways.  I think that this is why I have a hard time using the right words sometimes.  

A pun is a joke made by a play on words.  I can think of a lot better things to play with than words, but apparently Mr. Guy likes to play with words.  He doesn't like Lego or Tinker Toys.  He would rather build things with letters and words.  Words are just too confusing for me.  

Since today was Fathers Day and Mr. Guy is my dad, I let him read to me and tell me his silly puns.  Just between you and me, this little blue and orange furry monster does not understand all of these jokes, but I laughed to make Mr. Guy feel good.  That was my Fathers Day gift to him.

In case you want top know what I am talking about, here are some of his puns:

• Santa’s helpers are known as subordinate Clauses.

• She had a photographic memory but never developed it.

• The two pianists had a good marriage. They always were in a chord.

• I was struggling to figure out how lightning works then it struck me.

• I really wanted a camouflage shirt, but I couldn't find one.

• The grammarian was very logical. He had a lot of comma sense.

• A chicken farmer's favorite car is a coupe.

• I've been to the dentist many times so I know the drill. 

• What did one plant say to another? What's stomata?

• The other day I held the door open for a clown. I thought it was a nice jester.

• A chicken crossing the road is truly poultry in motion.

• The politician is not one for Indian food. But he's good at currying favors.

• How do construction workers party? They raise the roof.

• A boiled egg every morning is hard to beat

• When a woman returns new clothing, that's post traumatic dress syndrome.

• After hours of waiting for the bowling alley to open, we finally got the ball rolling.

• Two antennas met on a roof, fell in love and got married. The ceremony wasn't much, but the reception was brilliant!

• Always trust a glue salesman. They tend to stick to their word.

• Where do you find giant snails? On the ends of giants’ fingers.

• Guerrilla warfare is more than just throwing a banana.

• The cartoon animator felt imprisoned by his job. He could not free himself from his cell.

• I thought Santa was going to be late, but he arrived in the Nick of time.

• With her marriage, she got a new name and a dress

• Every calendar's days are numbered.

• A bicycle can't stand on its own because it is two-tired.

• No matter how much you push the envelope, it will still be stationery.

• A dog gave birth to puppies near the road and was cited for littering.

• If you don't pay your exorcist, you will get repossessed.

• Being struck by lightning is really a shocking experience!

• A pessimist's blood type is always B-negative.

• Dockyard: A physician's garden.

• I went to a seafood disco last week... and pulled a mussel.

• Two peanuts walk into a bar, and one was a-salted.

• Reading while sunbathing makes you well red.

• The lights were too bright at the Chinese restaurant so the manager decided to dim sum.

I hope you smiled at least a little.

Happy Fathers Day to all of you guys out there!

Maker, Fixer, and Friend

I am working hard on my 100 People Project!

Mr. Paul came to our house today.  Actually, Mr. Paul comes to our house lots of days.  He makes stuff and fixes all the stuff that Mr. Guy and The Lady break.

Mr. Guy and The Lady have known Mr. Paul longer than they have known me!  Mr. Paul remodeled their house before they knew they were going have a little blue and orange furry monster.  He tore down walls and built new ones.  The Lady said that this was a good thing because some of the walls were kind of ugly pink.  I'm happy that Mr. Paul got rid of them and made blue walls for us!  He also made our kitchen.  Mr. Paul also built all of our cabinets.  He made showers and closets and tile floors and new lights.  And, he is the one who built all of the shelves in our new library.  I think that Mr. Paul can build anything!

He can also fix almost anything.  Today Mr. Paul came to our house because he fixed a wall hanging that The Lady knocked off the wall and broke.  If I had done that, I probably would have gotten in trouble!  Now I know that Mr. Paul's phone number is on our white board.  If I break anything, I will call him and I bet he can fix it before The Lady even notices that it is broken.  Mr. Paul also hangs all of the pictures on the wall for The Lady.  He does a much better job than she does.  Mr. Paul uses this metal strip with lots of numbers on it to tell him where the pictures should go.  He said it is called a tape measure, but it doesn't measure tape.  It measures the wall where pictures go.  Maybe it should be called a wall measure or a picture measure.   I have never seen The Lady use anything like this, whatever you want to call it, when she puts stuff on the wall.  She just bangs a nail in the wall and hopes that it is in the right place.  Most of the time its not.  That's probably why the wall hanging that Mr. Paul fixed fell off of the wall in the first place...The Lady is the one who put it on the wall.

Mr. Paul also comes and monster sits with me, the feline, and the canine monsters when Mr. Guy and The Lady are gone for a long time.  He takes good care of all of us!

When Mr. Paul is not making us new stuff or fixing our broken stuff, he makes cars.  Not the kind of cars that people and monsters ride in to go places...he makes little cars that people collect.  Mr. Paul is known by people all over the world because of the little cars that he makes.

I'm happy that Mr. Paul can make stuff and fix stuff for us, but more importantly, I am thankful that he is our friend.  Thank you Mr. Paul for everything.  I will try to keep Mr. Guy and The Lady from breaking things so you can have a rest!

Oh...thanks for wearing that bright orange shirt so that you would match me today!

Albus and Caeruleus

It has been busy, busy, busy at my house lately!  Our friend. Mr. Paul, finished building the shelves in our library which meant that The Lady had to put all of the books away on the new shelves.  That was a lot of work and I couldn't help much because I can only reach the second shelf.  She got everything cleaned up and now we can find all of our books and Mr. Guy and The Lady can read me lots of stories!  It's also a good thing that the library is neat and clean because we have had company!

My friend, Ms. Joni, came all the way from Wisconsin to visit me us!  I think she may like me best, but Ms. Joni is very nice and doesn't let Mr. Guy and The Lady know that.  She also came to help celebrate Mr. Guy's birthday.  Actually, lots of Mr. Guy's friends came to our house to celebrate his birthday. We all had fun.  I hope he did!

My b-day is coming up soon too!   My celebration is a little different though.  We don't know my exact birthday, so we celebrate my b-ringing home-day.  That day we know for sure, June 29!

After Mr. Guy's party, The Lady and Ms. Joni spent lots of time playing with their sticks and string.  They seemed to have lots of fun.  I think their sticks may be magic just like Mr. Sean's that he waved at the Turtle Creek Chorale.  Ms. Joni kept twisting her sticks and her string and like magic, a sock appeared!  The Lady's sticks and string magically made a baby blanket.  I hope there is not magically a baby to go with that blanket.  The canines at my house and I don't think that we need one of those!!!  I'm sure that The Lady is giving that blanket away.

The Lady and Ms. Joni also celebrated International Albinism Awareness Day  yesterday, June 13th.  They explained to me that it is a day to share awareness and educate people about albinism, the genetic condition that both The Lady and Ms. Joni have.  It is what makes their fur white and their eyes work not so well.  Apparently sometimes people tease and make fun of people with albinism because their fur and eyes make them stick out in a crowd and people think their are weird or scary.  I have met lots of The Lady's friends with white fur.  They aren't scary at all!  They are all friendly.  When Mr. Guy and I are with them, we stick out and maybe look weird because we have the differently colored fur!  I really don't think it matters what color your fur is.  I like my blue and orange fur, but I also like The Lady's and Ms. Joni's white fur, and Mr. Guy's gray fur.  But, I think I would like them all just as much if they had red fur or green fur or yellow fur or rainbow fur.  It is what is underneath people's and little monster's fur that is important.  It is what is in our hearts that says the most about all of us, not the color of our fur.

I'm happy that The Lady, Ms. Joni, and all of the white-furred people have a special day to tell people about albinism.  And I'm really happy that that day was one of the reasons that Ms. Joni came to visit us!

The word albinism comes from the Latin word albus, which means white.  I wonder if there is a special day for blue and orange-furred little monsters?  Maybe it would be called International Caerilism Awareness Day or maybe it would just be easier to say International Blue Fur Awareness Day.  Actually, it would just be easier to not have to have special days for people and monsters with all of the different colors of fur.  Do you think that that will ever happen?

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!