trying to reason with hurricane season

So, I wasn't going to blog tonight. I was going to curl up in bed with a nice beverage and read about the wonder and mystery that is the human brain. But I get into bed and who do I find but my little companion Barnabas. Barnabas is a magic bear and he comes alive but I'm the only one who knows. To everyone else, he just looks lazy and like he needs to lie down a lot.

Sometimes I feel that I shouldn't mention my bear too much and how he and I just have the longest conversations about whatever we are doing. But luckily I have at least one other friend who is as willing to talk to stuffed animals as much as I am, and that person is my friend Adam. Recently I hosted Adam in my apartment when he had to evacuate from New Orleans due to a hurricane. I kept saying, "I am kind of like the Superdome, but better!" but I don't know if it's too soon for that kind of humor.

I guess the real noteworthy thing about Adam's visit is that we were in close vicinity to TWO car-jackings. Unfortunately the second one involved Adam. The first night, we were eating when someone ran in and said, "whoever drives such and such a car, it just got broken into!" Adam and I talked about how much that sucked. Then the next night we were at a bar on the very same street when Adam's car got broken into. But please don't worry about my safety. I live over a mile from where the carjackings took place, and while that might not seem like very much, believe me when I tell you it is a world away.

But back to the creatures. Adam has two creatures, a cat and a squirrel. And I have Barnabas. Adam and I treat these things like real people. We spent a bit of time discussing what our commitment to these creatures meant. Did our overwhelming fondness for these things make us selfish or shallow? Were we bad people for finding our creatures far superior to children or even living pets? Would this ever change, or would we be old people with stuffed playthings? And if so, would that be better or worse than becoming an old lady/man with an inordinate number of cats?

After awhile, though, we decided to stop worrying about it and just take adorable pictures of all the things our creatures did. And here are those pictures. Barnabas is glad I am finally taking the time to put them up.

From left to right: Squirrel, Cat, Barnabas. Barnabas was glad to have so much company, since I had left him home alone for 10 days while I went on vacation.


Barnabas sharing the only food I had in my apartment, pretzels:


Gossiping in the bathroom:


Barnabas playing some sweet tunes for his new friends:


Plotting something, no doubt:


Turns out they were plotting a hide-out in the laundry room. Barnabas likes to perch on that thing in the washing machine and ride it around and around. That's how he gets clean.


Adam is real conservative, and I started to worry that his rantings would influence Barnabas, so here I am reading Barnabas some things about Barack Obama:


Meanwhile, Cat and Squirrel check weather reports online to figure out when they can go back home:


Then Barnabas read everyone a bedtime story:


Then he tucked them in on the couch where they slept:


If this is the first entry of my blog that you read, please know that I'm not insane. I just really like this little bear.