Have Yourself A "Beary" Little Christmas

Hi, friends!

It's officially the most wonderful time of the year! That's right: IT'S CHRISTMAS TIME!!!

Okay, okay. Katie told me that some of you might yell at me for saying that, but let me explain.
It's only officially College Christmas time. Real Christmas doesn't start until December, but because Katie and my other friends will only get to see each other for a few days in December, she decided that they needed to decorate now, AND SHE LET ME HELP!

I love spending Christmas with Katie, because she always has so much to do: shopping for presents and baking cookies and decorating the dorm and making ornaments and taking pictures; she basically IS Christmas spirit. When you're around her, you can't help but get excited, too!

Katie's Freshman Year
ornament

Katie's Sophomore Year
ornament--a snow princess!

So this weekend, Katie (and I helped, too!) decorated the dorm room for Christmas!! It was a lot of work--we had to move furniture and build a Christmas tree and unpack boxes--but it was SO worth it! Katie and Katie's Mom even made new Christmas ornaments for all of Katie's friends. Katie makes them a new ornament every year so they'll always remember all the fun they had in college. The first year was a little red cup with a lime wedge on it that says, "Baby's First Christmas" on it. (She made these ones before I knew her!! That's so weird to think about!) Then last year's was a snow-filled ornament with a snowman on it that was themed around her friends' favorite things. Tall Girl's snowman was holding mallets, because she plays marimba, and Glasses Boy's snowman was wearing a fez and a funny scarf, because he really likes this TV show called Dr. Who, and Short Girl's snowman was carrying lots of books, because she likes history, and Curly-Haired Boy's snowman was wearing a teeny tiny replica of his favorite tie, and Bearded Boy's snowman had a beard! And now this year, Katie and Katie's Mom painted little canvases and put pretty Christmas stickers on them. Tall Girl says they're fancy!! All of her friends really like their ornaments, and I know that Katie likes making them for them and making her friends feel special.

Katie's Junior Year ornaments!

"Don't get your tinsel in a tangle!"

They put allllllll those ornaments on the tree, plus more! Katie kind of has a thing for tinsel (because it's like glitter but less messy), so their Christmas tree is ALL silver tinsel! I think it's pretty cool. But they put MORE tinsel on it! Red and gold tinsel! Plus red and gold jingle bells and fake candy canes (you CANNOT eat these!! I tried!!) and a blue crab covered in Christmas lights and a cat with reindeer antlers and a nativity scene and a Santa head and all of Tall Girl's ornaments that she made! They're called "sat dough ornaments," and you kind of make them like you would make cookies, only the dough isn't yummy, and then you let them dry and paint them. Tall Girl has one that's shaped like a sloth, and it's really cute!

"The stockings were hung by the futon with care...."

Even Johnny Depp is in the Christmas spirit!

And Legolas, too! He's wearing an elf hat....
get it?

Besides the Christmas tree, Katie put out lots of Christmas signs, and she put tinsel around the lamps and TV, and she hung their stockings over the futon, and she even has ornaments that she's going to hang from the ceiling later!! Our dorm room is super Christmas-y, and I'm so excited about it!!

Christmas is my favorite time of year, because I get to send extra special time with my extra special friends! For a few days, we can all put aside our really busy schedules and have fun as a little family. They all make me and Katie feel so loved, and I'm so glad they stole me out of the trash can two and a half years ago.

"Welcome to the Island of Misfit Toys"

I know it's a little early for "Real Christmas time," but I just wanted to wish all of my friends a Merry Christmas and a Happy Hanukkah and a Merry Kwanzaa and a Happy/Merry/Wonderful/Fun/Whatever-Holiday-or-Holidays-you-celebrate right now!

~Trash Bear (and Katie)~ 

The 2016 Election as Told by a Bear

Hiya, friends,

Today's a special day in American history (according to Katie)! It's election day, which means America is going to pick a new person to be in charge of the country! Right now, Mr. Obama is in charge of America, but he's been the president as long as he's allowed to be, so now it's someone else's turn. And because this is America, the people who live here get to choose the new president. That's called a "democracy." It was set up by the Founding Fathers when they started America in 1776.

Katie got to vote because she's a person. But she didn't vote for
Mickey Mouse. That would be weird. She even got a cool
sticker for voting! It makes me wish I had thumbs! I love
stickers!!

But this year is a little different. People have been really mean about this election. Some people like the man who's running, and some people like the woman. (Side note: they're not actually running. That would be exhausting. But they are getting on TV and going to big rallies and talking to news people, and that sounds pretty exhausting, too!) And some of the things the man says are really mean, and some of the things the woman does aren't very nice, and the people who support them get really mad at the people who support the other one, and some people don't support either of them, and, instead, they support this other guy or this other lady, and it's all very confusing to my fluff-filled head.
I wish people would just be nice.
Because I'm a bear.
I don't care about politics. I care about happy things: friendship and snacks and movies and cat videos.
And it makes me sad when Katie gets on Facebook to show me a video about my BFF Lil Bub and all I see are people yelling at each other about Mr. Maybe President and Mrs. Maybe President.
Now, maybe I don't understand how politics works, but maybe we should just accept that some people have different opinions.
Like, I like Fritos. They're my favorite. But Katie's favorite are Cheetos. And that's ok. We're allowed to have different favorites. And she's still my friend, and I'm still her friend.
It's a little different with picking a president, I guess. But, like Katie tells me when we play Harry Potter Trivial Pursuit together, "You can't always win."
I guess it could be worse. At least we live in America. And it has some problems, yeah--like people who try to throw away their bear friends just because they broke up--but it doesn't have as many problems as some other places.
Come tomorrow, America is going to have a new president. And lots of people won't be happy. And that makes me sad, too. I guess you can't make everyone happy, but I'm afraid that people will be mad at each other, and I'll never get to watch my Lil Bub videos in peace again!
So, maybe we should all just be nice to each other, no matter what happens tomorrow. We're all people (and bears!) after all. And we all want the same things in the end: friendship and snacks and movies and cat videos and to feel safe and to be happy.
I don't think the Founding Fathers would be very happy if they saw how America is handling the 2016 election. In fact, Katie says this may be the craziest election since the election of 1800! You can see how that went down in this song from Hamilton. Katie likes this musical a lot. She's been playing it all day long. And it's about politics, so I guess that counts.

(Katie's Note:  Hamilton is fantastic! But there are some explicit lyrics. Go check it out if you haven't already, and really consider what people went through to set up the democracy we have today. America has never been perfect, but sometimes you just have to accept that and keep going.)

 ~Trash Bear (and Katie)~

These Shining {Bear} Lives

Hi, friends!

I'm feeling much better! Thanks for asking! And Katie's getting better, too. I didn't MEAN to get her sick, but...........whoops.

But tonight was a good night! Katie went to see These Shining Lives. It's the first play of JSU's Drama Department's season, and Short Girl and Glasses Boy are both part of it, so of course Katie had to go support them.

Short Girl is the costume designer. Over the summer, she drew pictures of EVERY costume that the actors are going to wear! And then she colored them, and then she MADE THEM! Because not only is Short Girl a costume designer, but she's also a costume maker! (I think they're called stitchers or sewers or manual laborers or something.) And she didn't just come up with these ideas out of nowhere. She had to do research and talk to the director and then redraw some stuff and talk to the director again! But she finally came up with lots of really, really good costumes. And when she got back to college, she got to pick out the fabrics for them! (Katie's favorite is the polka dotted one, but I kind of like the orange plaid one the best!) Then she and some other people put the costumes together, and now BOOM they're done! Which is good, because the show opened last night! I think Short Girl is kind of amazing! She can design and draw AND sew! I can't do ANY of those things! I don't have thumbs! And she's put so much hard work into this show! I know Katie must be really, really proud of her, because I'M really, really proud of her. She's only a Junior (like Katie), and this is the second show that she's designed all by herself. She's, like, really talented, guys. Katie says that you should go see the show and see for yourself.

"Glasses Boy" is spelled "A-A-R-O-N" 

And then there's Glasses Boy. As you may recall, Glasses Boy is one of Katie's really good friends, and he's Tall Girl's boyfriend. He's also an actor. These Shining Lives is the first show he's been at at JSU, but he did a lot of acting when he was in high school. Glasses Boy plays THREE different characters in this show! One of them is really nice, but the other two are kind of mean. I don't like them much. I don't know how he remembers all those lines! I can't even remember his real name!! Glasses Boy is really good, though, because he can play ALL those characters and make you believe them! I think he was kind of nervous about being in his first play, but he's done so well! Katie is so proud of him that she made him a poster (also because she's nuts, but in a nice way). He's been working on this play since September, and sometimes he's out really late at rehearsal learning lines and wear to stand onstage and making sure his costume fits and stuff. Apparently, acting isn't as easy as it seems on TV. He's also made a lot of new friends, because, even though his characters aren't very nice, Glasses Boy is pretty cool, and everyone likes him. (Tbh, Katie was  a little worried that he wouldn't make friends and that he would be scared and lonely and never do theatre again, but she's overdramatic. He's fine.)

Apparently, the show was amazing, and Katie cried the whole time (but we really should have expected that!). But Glasses Boy acted amazing, and Short Girl's costumes were beautiful. Katie and I are lucky to have such amazing friends, and we're both really, really, really proud of them.

Look at them all!! From L to R, that's Roommate, Big Friend, The Baby, Tall Girl, Glasses Boy, Bearded Boy, and Curly Haired Boy! (And Katie in the front, of course!)

Ok, I told Katie not to type this part, but she has the thumbs and is doing the actual typing so it doesn't look like I can stop her, but you should check out the article she wrote for The Chanticleer about the play. Katie really likes theatre, guys, so she's really excited about this article:

Katie's These Shining Lives Article

And the Drama Department made a video about Short Girl that you can watch here!









You can still see These Shining Lives this weekend, and you should totally go!!

~Trash Bear (and Katie)~

Take Your Bear to Work Because He's Sick Day

Hi *cough*, friends, *sniffle*,

I've been a little sick recently. Tall Girl says it's the "Band Plague," and I blame her for it, because she's in the band. Band Plague is just an icky, sniffly sickness that happens every year. One person in band gets sick, and then they get someone else sick, and then their whole section gets sick, and the whole band gets sick, and then everyone's roommates get sick. Katie and Short Girl didn't get sick, BUT I DID!
I'm so sniffly that Katie told me I could come to work with her so she could take care of me. (Really, I don't think I'm that sick, but Katie
worries a lot, and I don't feel like doing anything, so I let her bring me to work.) She didn't even make me put on real clothes! I got to wear my new unicorn jammies!
But, as it turns out, there's not much to do in the Chanticleer office...and Katie wouldn't even play with me because she had to "work." So I found some other things to do...






I climbed a tree! (Katie wasn't very happy with me for that. She said I'm not very good at being sick, and I told her that I was feeling better, and she didn't believe me. Sometimes she's such a mom.....)













So then I climbed on some old newspapers! Bears like to climb things, you know! (They're much lower to the ground, and Katie was more okay with that, but she still said she wished I would take it easy...)











It's really, really, REALLY cold in the Chanticleer office, but, thankfully, Katie is always prepared, and she let me borrow her Inside Out blanket! I was so warm and happy! (And Katie was happy, too, because it meant that I had to sit still for once.)











But then I got hot, so I took a nap on some newspapers. I was starting to feel stuffy and generally sickish again, so I figured it was a good idea.








Not too much later, Katie woke me up!! She said it was "time for class" and that I had to come with her! Needless to say, I was not a happy bear. In fact, you could say I was a grumpy bear. And I know Grumpy Bear. He's a distant cousin, and he's not very nice. No one likes it when I act like Grumpy Bear.






But I didn't want to stay in the cold office by myself, so I went with Katie to class. It was her Internet Production class (the class she has to write my blog for!), so I didn't really understand anything that was being said, but I did get to sit in a spinny chair, so that by itself was worth waking up from my nap for. And I got to meet all of Katie's friends in that class. Two of the other editors--Mr. Assistant and Mr. Sports--are in that class, so we all walked down the hall together. And I got to meet Katie's teacher, Ms. Communication. She's very nice and fun...but also very loud. I was still a little sleepy when I came into her class, but I was really awake when I left!

Katie did some work (including working on this blog!), and then it was finally time to get dinner and go home. It was a long day of being bored and sick, and I've decided that I'm never going to be sick again, because it's no fun! So if any of you guys know how not to be sick, I could really use that advice. Thanks, friends!

~Trash Bear (and Katie)~

(Katie's note: Not long after this blog was published, I also got sick. Thanks a lot, Trash Bear!!)

First Day of Preschool!

Guess what, friends?

I went to school the other day! And not Katie's school, either! I went to the pre-school where Katie's Mom teaches. It's at JSU, too, between the music building and the scary purple building where kids used to live...and then it got closed...and now kids live there again.

I can't read, but preschool has fancy headphones so I can
LISTEN to stories!

Preschool is a school for little kids who are 3 or 4 or 5. I'm not 3 or 4 or 5, but I am pretty little. Most of the kids were my size! At preschool, you read stories and do arts and crafts and eat snacks and play games and go to the playground and see your friends! I even got to play in a cave!! Bears like caves, you know!

I drew Katie an awesome picture!

A bear in its natural habitat.

I made lots of new friends at preschool, too! (I make new friends everywhere I go, and I love it!) The day I went was a special day, because it was Teddy Bear Picnic Day! So there were other bears there, too: big bears and small bears and floppy bears and tall bears and brown bears and blue bears!

It was such a pretty day to have snacks with friends!

Katie's Mom told me that they had been studying bears ALL WEEK at preschool, and this was a special party! (The kids call her "Ms. Brenda," and that's weird to me, because her name is obviously "Katie's Mom." And they all called me "TB," because they couldn't remember "Trash Bear!" Silly kids!)We got to go outside and have snack time on a picnic blanket! It was so much fun! We ate chips and had juice boxes to drink. I learned that juice boxes are hard for bears to open (and even hard for some of the little kids!) But it was ok. Katie's Mom and the other teachers helped us open things. That's what teachers are for.

Here I am in Katie/Little E's locker! This is what you call
"coming full circle!"

I also learned lots of fun things about Katie's Mom's preschool. This is the SAME preschool that Katie went to when she was 4 years old. I'm not very good at math, but Katie told me that that was almost 17 years ago! I may not know how old I am, but I know I'm not THAT old! Katie's Mom let me sit in the locker that Katie had when she was in preschool, and that was pretty cool. Technically, it's not Katie's locker anymore; it belongs to my new friend Little E, but Little E was nice enough to let me take a picture. Katie's Mom got a little emotional about it when she took my picture; something about how her little girl was all grown up and stuff. (I can see where Katie gets all her emotions and picture taking from.)

I had so much fun at preschool with Katie's Mom and all my new friends. I think I want to go back to school someday. But maybe not EVERY day. You have to wake up really early to go to preschool, and, next to juice boxes and chips and friendship, sleeping is my favorite thing. Maybe if I can go to school only in the afternoon........

~Trash Bear (and Katie)~

Sportsing Is Fun...Except When It's Stressful

Hiya, friends!

I got to go tailgating this weekend! And, full disclosure, tailgating does NOT involve slamming your tail in a gate. Because that's what I thought it was.

As it turns out, tailgating is all about eating food and playing games and hanging out with your friends before a football game! And eating food and playing games and hanging out with my friends are, like, my 3 favorite things!!

Book Boy made cookies, and they were delicious!

I EVEN GOT TO MAKE NEW FRIENDS AT TAILGATING!

That's because Short Girl's family came allllllllll the way from this place called Georgia to see JSU play in their football game on Saturday. So, naturally, Short Girl was going to tailgate with them, AND THEN MRS. SHORT GIRL INVITED ME AND KATIE AND CURLY-HAIRED BOY TO COME, TOO! I got to meet Short Girl's parents, Mr. and Mrs. Short Girl, and 2 of her brothers: Book Boy and Z. Book Boy likes to read books everywhere he goes, and Z likes to play sports. Z and Mr. Short girl even played a sport where you throw balls at each other and catch them with nets on sticks! I'd be terrible at the sport, because I don't have thumbs. (Katie's Note: They were playing lacrosse.) 

After tailgating, you're supposed to go to the real sports game. JSU was playing Coastal Carolina University. Don't get confused here, but CCU's mascot is The Chanticleer. This is NOT--I repeat, NOT!!--Katie's newspaper.That confused me at first, but then Katie explained that her newspaper is good at writing about football but not at playing it. Apparently, "Chanticleer" is the name of a rooster in a really old story, and more than one person is allowed to use it.

The football game was really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really stressful!!! Katie screamed so much. She has a happy scream and a scared scream and a confused scream, and those are all the emotions that she feels during a football game, so she basically screamed the whole time,..it was a lot.

BUT IT'S OKAY, BECAUSE THE GAMECOCKS WON!!!

There were a lot of penalties called, and the refs were really bad and biased, and the Gamecocks did some pretty sloppy sportsing at times, but in the end it was all okay! (Except that Katie nearly died, and that might have been bad.)

Tall Girl is playing the marimba again! Yay, Tall Girl!!

And after the game, the Southerners played!! The Southerners are always my favorite part, and this time we were really close to the field! I could see Tall Girl from the bleachers!

This year's show is all about heroes--but not like Superman and Batman. This show is about "everyday heroes" and, especially, the military heroes that have died so that America can still be America. It's a really good show (because everything the Southerners do is really good!), and it has lots of fun music and costumes and pretty flags! I can't really explain it, but I'll make Katie out in a fancy video link to it here.

The Ballerinas always have a special kickline in the show.

The Southerners are going to go to Hawaii in December to play this show at the 75th Anniversary of Pearl Harbor. Katie was telling me that 75 years ago some people in Japan didn't like America, so they sent some people in airplanes to bomb the Pearl Harbor military base in Hawaii. A lot of people died, and that's how America got involved in World War II. So the Southerners wanted to honor all of those people with their show.

The pretty flags are my favorite part!

Overall, I think my first tailgating experience was pretty darn fun! And even though I didn't know what was going on during the game, I had fun. Nothing will ever beat spending time with Katie and her friends and watching JSU win and listening to the Southerners play music and sing "I'll Fly Away." Those are the best parts of college, and I'm really happy that I get to experience them.

~Trash Bear (and Katie)~

You Know What I Did Last Summer

Hi, friends!

Awww dorm, sweet dorm! 

I'm so glad to be back! I've really missed all of you! (I'm sorry I haven't been posting, but I'll explain that in a second.) Katie and I are back at JSU, and Katie's a JUNIOR now! (She says that she's really old and that the world is falling apart around her and that she has a lot of big, grown up decisions to make...but she's always been dramatic, so I'm not too concerned about it right now.)

This is Katie's newest newspaper! Available now through Sept. 22!

 I'm not a junior.
 I'm a bear.
She's also editor of The Chanticleer. (That's pronounced "Shant-i-kleer," she told me.) The Chanticleer is JSU's newspaper. And she's in charge! She has 3 other editors and a lot of writers that she can boss around!
(Oh...she said I should say that nicer. She doesn't want to be a mean boss. She wants to be a cool boss. A fun boss. But she wants to get stuff done. She has to be strict, but reasonable. She wants to make a super cool newspaper every week, and she wants all her writers and editors to be her friends. She likes friends. And she's a pretty good one to have.)
So while Katie was doing all that, Susan and Maxx and I went to Summer Camp! Summer Camp isn't too far from the dorm where I live with Katie during the school year, so I wasn't too scared or lonely.
It was a really hot summer. I think that's partly because I'm a bear all covered with fur, though.

Me and my BFF Johnny Depp

Summer Camp was really fun. We saw lots of animals: wasps and bugs and even a skink! We could take nature hikes without leaving the room! Susan and Maxx and I all lived in the same room with a lot of other friends--like Johnny Depp! Sometimes Katie would come to visit all of us, too! Those were great days!
Summer Camp ended on August 20th, and then I moved back to JSU with Katie. She's been really, really busy already this year (I didn't think that she could be busier than she was last year, but she IS!), but I'm excited for her to blog about be again! I'm going to go on so many adventures this year, and I can't wait to share them with you!

P.S: Don't forget to read Katie's newspaper, The Chanticleer!


Katie's Note: Okay, just to clarify some things that Trash Bear said. "Summer Camp" is a storage unit. (Yes, I kept Trash Bear in a storage unit this summer. I was working. I had a lot going on. I didn't have time to be a good parent. But he was well taken care of. I promise. I checked in on him every time I needed something from the storage unit. Please don't judge me.) "Johnny Depp" is...actually Johnny Depp. Well, a life size cutout of him dressed as the Mad Hatter. My drama teacher gave him to me when she retired in May. And there really were wasps and bugs and a lizard in the storage unit, but it's cool. They didn't ruin my stuff. And, yes, you should totally read The Chanticleer!

All the "Summer Camp Kidz" got moved back in. On the bar L to R: Susan, Eugene, and Maxx.
On the bed (back row L to R): Sitting Raccoon, Bearis Karloff, Jack, Myrtle, and me.
front row L to R: Coco, Tortuga, Steve, Sassy, Jax, Baby Cocky, Bob the Minion, and Bing Bong

~Trash Bear (and Katie)~