Sad and Happy

This morning was dark and rainy.  Mr. Guy and The Lady had to get up early and drive several hours to attend a funeral.  I didn't go.  Nothing about the day sounded good to me.  I remember when we went to the funeral for The Captain.  I remember it being both a sad time and a happy time.  Sad becasue the Captain wasn't here with us anymore; but happy because he was not sick and weak anymore either.  I'm still trying to figure out how I can be sad and happy at the same time.

The funeral that The Lady and Mr. Guy went to today was for Ms. Melba.  She has known Mr. Guy since he was a tiny little boy, maybe even tinier than me.  She looked after him for lots of years after his parents went to heaven.  We talked about heaven tonight when Mr. Guy and The Lady got home.  It is not like Lewes, or San Diego, or New York, or Mini-apples, the places I have been.  It is a place that lots of people talk about what it is like there, but no one that I have ever talked to about it has ever been there.  I don't quite understand that.

And I'm just curious...why does the word funeral begin with FUN?  I'm not sure that there is anything fun about them.

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!

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?

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 7 - A New Word, Or Two

I learned a new word today.  Well, actually I learned two new words, but I only meant to learn one.  

Mr. Guy and The Lady made me use that big fat book of words called a dictionary to look up what the word texture means.

Texture - the visual and especially tactile quality of a surface

Tactile???  

Sometimes that dictionary book is not very helpful.  It uses more words that I don't know to try to explain to me what the word that I didn't know the meaning of in the first place means.

Tactile sounds like what you walk on when you spill the thumbtacks from The Lady and Mr. Guy's bulletin board all over the floor.  So, Texture - the visual and especially painful feeling of a walking on a surface covered in thumbtacks.  Hmm...I don't think that is right.  At least texture and  tactile both start with "t" so I only have to go back a few pages in this dictionary book to find out what tactile really means.

Tactile - pertaining to or affecting the sense of touch

Let me see if I understand this...Texture - the visual and especially the quality affecting the sense of touch of a surface.   Maybe I get it.  Walking on thumbtacks on the floor would definitely have a texture that affects my sense of the quality of touch on my monster feet.  I wonder if all texture is painful.  I had to ask The Lady about that.

The Lady told me that not all textures are painful.  She said that texture is just a general word used to group all the different words used to describe the way things feel.  Smooth, rough, prickly, scratchy, are all words that can be used to describe texture.  I asked her if thumbtacky was a texture word.  She and Mr. Guy said that maybe it could be if that was the best way to describe how something felt to me.

We went on a scavenger hunt for different kinds of textures.

My fur is soft.  My claws and my horns are hard.  Mr. Guy's bald head is smooth but his face fur is prickly.  The sidewalk is rough.  The floor where I was playing is lego-y.

We went outside and looked at the bark on the trees in our yard.  My favorite one is the river birch tree.  It's bark is shaggy.  In case you don't know what shaggy means,  it means having long, thick, unkempt hair or fur.  Sometimes The Lady tells Mr. Guy and me that our fur looks shaggy.  When that happens, Mr. Guy gets his trimmed.  I tell The Lady that my shaggy fur is part of my character and I don't want it to get trimmed.  I don't even really want it to get brushed!   So far, that has worked!  I think that now I understand this whole idea of texture a little better.

I do have one more question, though.  How can we have a river birch tree in our front yard when we don't have a river?  I want to know the answer to this question, but I'm afraid that if I ask, Mr. Guy will make me go get another big book with lots of words that I don't know.  The brain of this little blue and orange furry monster is too full to hold anything else new today.  The answer to this question will have to wait until another day.

A Month of Me: May 5 - Give Me Five

The Lady's picture taking word for today was "five."  Since she is taking a picture of me every single day this month because it A Month of Me...Me, Blueper B, I tried to help her think of something fun we could do together today.  I discovered that five is a very hard number for little blue and orange furry monsters.  I have one head and one mouth and one tongue and one  orange belly, I have two eyes and two horns and two teeths and two arms.  I have four claws on each of my two arms. 

I have one Mr. Guy and one The Lady.  I have one Offspring One and one Offspring Two. Well, technically, they are The Lady's offsprings. Anyway, that makes Two Offsprings.  I live with two canine furry monsters and one feline furry monster 

 I don't have five of anything!

The Lady and I thought some more.

The Lady got excited when she remembered a game called Yahtzee.  She said it would be perfect for today's picture taking because it has lots of fives.  I asked her what kind of fives.  She told me that it is a game that is played with five dies.

FIVE DIES!!!!

This sounded worse than the wreck center to me.  I got very upset and told The Lady that I did not want to play her game!  She seemed surprised since I usually like to play games with her.  She asked me why I did not want to learn to play a new game.  She said that it was a game that she loved to play when she was very young and she thought that I would like it too.  I told her that she was wrong!  I did not want to play any game that meant that five humans or monsters would have to die.  The Lady starting laughing at me.  That made me mad and sad at the same time.  She said, "Not five dies, five dice.  D-I-C-E, not D-I-E-S!"   Well, I'm glad she didn't mean five dies, but I had no idea what d-i-c-e were.

The Lady found the box with the game and showed me the things called dice.  To me, they looked kind of like square ladybugs without any antennas.  These dice things had black dots all over them.  The lady showed me that each one had six sides.  Each of the six sides had a different number of dots from one to six.  I bet that is so you can tell how old each square ladybug is.  Hmmm...I thought we were looking for fives.  Oh wait, there are five dice.  

The Lady explained that playing Yahtzee would help me to learn to count and to add and to multiply because I would have to count all of those dots of the ladybugs dies dice.  We went over the rules and then started to play the game.  The Lady said that we would stop and take a picture when I dumped the dice out of the cup and we could see lots of dice with five dots.

I think that I like this game especially because I get to play with The Lady.  Mr. Guy doesn't;t like to play games, so Yahtzee will be something special that The Lady and I can do together.  Mr. Guy will keep reading stories to me.  I don't have to count the letters or words or pages in the books when we read together, but he does make me read the words sometimes.

I had fun and I learned new things today.  It makes me happy to  be able to help The Lady with her projects!

My B-Day

A few days ago I celebrated my b-day!  It wasn't really my birthday since is was not the day that I was born (or made); it was the day that Mr. Guy and The Lady brought me home to live with them.  So, it is still my "b-day" but the "b" stands for "brought home" day rather than birthday.  I don't know when I was born, but I do know that I was a very young and lonely little blue and orange furry monster when The Lady and Mr. Guy found me.  Now I am a grown up and loved very big blue and orange furry monster!

Because it was my b-day, we celebrated with lots of things that began with the letter "b"...

Like bubbles...

Mr. Guy blew the water from a magic jar and the bubbles floated all around me!  It was fun to look through them.  It made the world look all crazy and then they were gone!  Some floated way up in the sky.  I don't know where they landed.  And some of them just disappeared.  The bubbles made me smile even though they didn't stay close for very long.

The Lady also gave me a bag, another "b" word.  She said that the bag had a present for me because of this being my brought home day.  I hoped that it would be a new t-shirt,  but I didn't say that out loud in case that there wasn't a new shirt in the bag.  I didn't want to hurt The Lady's feelings.  I knew that even if it wasn't a shirt, it would be something nice because The Lady knows what kinds of things I like and what kinds of things that I don't like!

She told me to go ahead and open my present.

I was a little confused when I pulled my present from the bag.  It sort of looked like a t-shirt, but not quite.  Then I remembered that we were celebrating my b-day with things that began with the letter "b."    That's why I did not get a t-shirt.  T-shirt starts with "t."  My new shirt had no sleeves.  It was a broken shirt.  Broken starts with "b!"  I thanked Mr. Guy and The Lady for the broken shirt.  They smiled and told me that it is not a broken shirt; it is a tank top.  It is not supposed to have sleeves.  I thought shirts without sleeves were called vests.  This clothing thing is getting very complicated!  The Lady explained that tank tops really are just t-shirts without sleeves.  She thought it might not be quite as hot for me to wear in the Texas summer since I have all this fur.  She also told me that she thought the words on the front were perfect for my b-day.  It says, "Have fun all day."  I like to have fun all day every day!

And, my new not broken shirt has blue and orange on it!  I think maybe I might learn to like this shirt with no sleeves.  It shows my pretty orange arm stripes!

After I opened my present, we went inside for more fun.  I got balloons...blue and orange ones...and a brought home cake!

We had my brought home cake inside because there were bugs outside.  And even though bugs start with "b," they were not a good thing that starts with "b."

My cake had a "2" on it because of the two years that I have lived with Mr. Guy and The Lady.  I guess the longer you live with somebody, the bigger your cake gets.   It will take a big cake to hold F-O-R-E-V-E-R and that's how long I am going to live with Mr. Guy and The Lady!

Mr. Guy told me that he would light the candle and I should make a wish and then blow it out.

I wanted to tell him that I wished that we would all live together forever and ever, but before I could say all the words, he told me that my wish had to be a secret or it won't come true.  I hope he knows that I want to live with him and The Lady forever and ever!

I cut my cake into four pieces - one for me, one for The Lady, one for Mr. Guy, and one for me.  Did I say me twice?  It was too hard to cut the cake into three pieces.  Four was much easier because all I had to do was bisect the cake twice.  Bisect??  Why does that big book, that dictionary, keep coming back to haunt my words?

I cut my cake all by myself because Mr. Guy said that The Lady was not allowed to use knives because she used one to cut her finger.  That sounded to me like it would hurt!  I was very careful not to cut my claws.

I was glad to share my cake.  I don't think The Lady and Mr. Guy noticed that I had two pieces!

My brought home day with bubbles and bags and balloons and broken shirts and bisected cake was a lot of fun and made me a happy monster.  Mr. Guy and The Lady told me that we are going on lots of trips in July and that would be part of my brought home celebration too.  We are going to Pittsburgh where I will get to see some old friends and meet some new ones and we are going to England.  I am excited about the adventures that I am going to have during my third year with Mr. Guy and The Lady.

A Month of Me - Day 26

Usually the first thing that Mr. Guy does when he gets home from school is checks for the mail.  The second thing he does is put the mail in the recycling bin.  This happens every day.   I don't know why the mailman keeps bringing the recycling back after Mr. Guy puts it in the big blue bin.  Maybe Mr. Guy needs to color over his address on his recycling so the mailman doesn't know where to deliver it.

Today Mr. Guy asked if I wanted to go with him to check the mail.  I opened the mailbox and there it was again...all of that recycling.  Mr. guy said that I should look carefully before I just put everything in the big blue bin.  

On the bottom of the stack was a puffy white plastic envelope with green letters.

It said, "It's here!"  I asked Mr. Guy what was here.  He told me to look at the name on the envelope.  It was for me!  I got mail!  I had no idea what it was.  Then I remembered that a few days ago Mr. Guy told me that he had ordered me a present.  I had already forgotten that so I was super surprised that the envelope was a present for me!

I asked Mr. Guy if it was OK to open it right now.  He said, "Sure!"  I stood right there at the mail box and tore open the envelope.  

"It's a brand new shirt!!!  And it's blue!  And it has lots of other colors too!"

Mr. Guy said that he ordered it for me last week after The Lady had frosted my claws and then the colors crashed with my fur and my shirts.  He thought this one would match almost any color that my claws might be.  I like all of the different colors, but I wasn't sure about the design.  It has all those different colors of pizza where the pieces are not cut evenly.  Someone is going to get a great big piece and someone else is going to get a little tiny piece.  They seemed like very unfair pizzas to me.  

Mr. Guy explained that they are not unfair pizzas, but rather, they are peace signs.  I know what peace is, sort of, but I don't think I have seen a peace sign.  I have only seen Stop signs and Stop signs are fair signs.  All of their pieces are equal.  I would think that a peace sign would have equal pieces.  Hey...those two peace/piece words sound the same but their letters are different.   I am glad that The Lady helped me use the right letters in the right words.

Mr. Guy and The Lady tried to explain to me why this shape is called a peace sign.  It involved a lot of history going back to 1958.  That is a long time ago!!!  Mr. Guy said it was not THAT long ago, only 58 years.  He told me that he has one more year of history than the peace sign.  Anyway, I didn't understand most of the history stuff they were telling me.  All I need to know is that this sign is now a symbol of piece peace.  It means good things.

A Month of Me - Day 25

Today was a special day for a couple of reasons.  First,  Mr. Guy said that he and lots of people other than me were wearing orange shirts today for a special reason.  He told me that there are many places in the world where women and girls are treated very badly. Sometimes they are even beaten! I told him that I think treating women and girls like this is terrible! I can't believe it. I can never see Mr Guy hitting The Lady, or Offspring 1 or 2, or the girl four-legged monsters at our house, or any other girls.  And if he ever wanted to hurt any of them,  I wouldn’t let him!  I know that that would never happen in our family, but that is not true in other places.

Mr Guy explained to me that the United Nations set up a group called “Just Say NO” where people could get information about how to help  stop these terrible things from happening. (http://www.unwomen.org/en/what-we-do/ending-violence-against-women/take-action/say-no)

As part of what they do they set aside one day each month as “Wear Orange Day”. http://www.unwomen.org/en/what-we-do/ending-violence-against-women/take-action?utm_source=Say+NO+%E2%80%93+UNiTE+to+End+Violence+against+Women&utm_campaign=f0374f1cdc-&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_713f7be9fc-f0374f1cdc-71144005

On that day everyone wears orange to show that they do not like violence against women and girls. So Mr Guy and I wore our orange shirts all day long to show that we do not think anyone should be violent with women, or anyone else for that matter. I don't understand why anyone wants to hurt someone else.  We should all be kind to each other!

The second reason that today was special is because I got to go visit Mr. Guy at school.  He usually teaches about computers, but now he is a school librarian until he retires.  I like his old classroom with all of the computers, but I like the library better.  It has lots and lots of books!

Mr. Guy showed me the great big dictionary.  It is a book that has lots and lots of words but it doesn't tell a whole story.  It just tells the story of all the words.  Sometimes I get my words confused.  Mr. Guy said that the dictionary will help me to figure out how to use words correctly and it will also help me to learn new words.  

A dictionary is advantageous if an individual wishes to ameliorate and optimize his proficiencies regarding the avoidance of improper and erroneous locutions.

Using the dictionary is a lot of work for a blue and orange furry monster!

Mr. Guy also showed me another big book called an atlas.  It didn't have as many words as the dictionary.  It had pictures of places all over the world.  Mr. Guy told me that there are seven continents in the world.  I asked what a continent was.  He told me to go look it up in the dictionary.

"A continent is any of the world's main continuous expanses of land (Africa, Antarctica, Asia, Australia, Europe, North America, South America)."

We live in North America.  Mr. Guy told me today that this summer we are going to visit another continent.  We are going to England, which is on the continent called Europe.  

This is all too much for my little monster brain.  No wonder Mr. Guy and The Lady are always so tired when they get home from school.  All of this learning stuff overburdens my the capacity of my cerebral function.

After all of this new stuff, I just wanted to find a comfortable cathedra in which to read a gratuitous periodical.

Get me away from this dictionary!!!

Finally I had to just go sit in Mr. Guy's lap and let my brain rest.  I always like it best when Mr. Guy holds me and I can be his little monster and he can be the smart one.