The World of A.G.s Home Page

4/16/2006

It is the long since I last wrote to you but this is because Alice insists that I come up with an idea for my blog and this is not so easy for a small bear. However I now want to talk to you about human persons’ reactions to other human persons. This is a confusing topic for this small bear. Stuffies always greet other stuffies with affection but human people seem to be different.

As you know, I always travel with our Alice and, while I was always an outgoing bear eager to share sounds, she didn’t always seem to be pleased to have me do so. She would always bring me with her when she went to eat alone, but she tended to put my tote and me on the floor beside her. Meanwhile other people always seemed to be made uncomfortable by a single diner and displayed emotions ranging from pity to distain. This, of course, did not please me. Alice chooses to travel with me and I am an excellent traveling companion. I was quite sure that it wasn’t a good thing that people looked down on us.

Finally Alice decided to take things into her own paws and, instead of putting me beside her, she placed me on the opposite chair, peeking out of my traveling small bear tote so I could watch her eat. Whenever someone noticed me she would smile, pat me, and say that if you insist on traveling alone, it is important to have a compatible dining companion.

Amazingly enough, this approach has changed everything. Now most people’s emotions seem to be somewhere between envy and amusement, even when we are dining in such an upscale place as the Four Seasons. The only exception seems to be young couples who are either involved in each other or uncomfortable making judgments about anything beyond the conventional. It is clear that they do not know how to react to us.

In any case, I am very proud that Alice now encourages me to meet people and that I have found yet another way to take care of her.

1/22/2006

Greetings and Happy New Year! Yes, I know that we ushered in the New Year a while ago, but we had been busy trying to use Alice’s vacation before she started losing it so there was much left to be done in January. I am one excited bear. 2006 is a big year for us. Alice will turn 60 and your small friend will turn 20. I’m not sure I should count the first year since I wasn’t with Alice yet but she insists that we can celebrate my birthday this year and our anniversary next year. <happy small bear> I am sure that Alice will do something nice to celebrate my day although there was an immediate problem. We do not know, of course, on what day I was created. Fortunately Alice has agreed to share her birthday with me and I look forward to the celebration.

Which brings me to today’s topic. Why is it that human person’s do not want other human person’s to celebrate their birth? It seems like this is a big sign of success and I am very pleased that Alice wants to celebrate my birth. In fact I hope that lots of people will be glad that this small bear was created. Still it seems that even successful people have problems with some birthdays and want to ignore them. Apparently Alice was a bit stunned when she turned thirty since she was still wandering around rather aimlessly. Fortunately a letter from her rather amazing godmother set her right and she has never looked back. We have a friend who just turned 50 who has lived a very successful life. She has children of whom she has a right to be proud and who love her. She has friends and much respect both in the company in which she works and in the field in which she has chosen to work. Still, she was thrown by the 50 thingy and couldn't really enjoy her day. <bewildered small bear>

In any case, apparently the birthdays that end in zero are the ones to which humans react badly so we have been hard are work trying to be sure that this will not happen to Alice. Since 60 is somewhat close to retirement age, this seemed to be the most likely source of discontent. To avoid such a thing we decided to emulate another person about whom we care and to begin planning for a successful retirement. It will be a while until this happens since Alice has no desire to stop working, but at least we have a plan. We are not doing anything as radical as trying to learn Japanese which is one of the things our friend is doing, but we are planning to do something in which we believe and about which we are excited.

We have long been dismayed by the emphasis on negative things which seem to be a constant in this time. We rarely watch the news since it generally focuses only on bad things, most of which we cannot influence. We know that there is much more right with our world than there is wrong and that there are many more good things happening than there are bad things at any given moment so we concentrate on that. When Alice retires, we want to offer this concept to other people. To that end we will start a website that specializes in finding and posting only good news. It will be at newsandsmiles.com and we think this will be a positive way for us to make a contribution. I rather look forward to this since I am never happy when Alice is away from me but Alice is not ready to retire yet.

We hope this finds you smiling and enjoying the new year. As my New Year’s resolution, I resolved to try to insist that Alice help me update my place more frequently. Hopefully this means that more words will be forthcoming in the soon.

10/9/2005

The snuggle and this small bear have been pondering a big question, specifically “what is a family?” I was recently in New York City with Alice who was there for work and one night she went out to dinner with three other people and without me. <sad small bear> When she came home, she said that each of the people with whom she dined was living in a different version of a family:

* Our friend Steve has the most traditional version with one wife and two children (if you disregard the fact that his daughter speaks fluent Mandarin having spent a year in China while Steve was getting settled);

* Our new friend Mike has one wife and three dogs (who can be seen in this month’s Featured Pictured) and they find this to be exactly right for them;

* Our old friend Barbara has two excellent children who enrich her life; and

* Alice, of course, has this small bear and the snuggle.

While all of these families suited the individuals involved most of them do not fit the traditional model which, in the 1950s, was defined as one father, one mother, 2.3 children and a dog, preferably named Spot. Even Steve is missing the .3 child.

This led us to remember other friends including our former friends Ken and Leonard who formed a very loving family of two and our current friends Dory and Kevin who fit the traditional model nicely but who acquired a dog (not named Spot) first to help them determine their probable success as parents.

Alice says that in the old, society tended to push people toward the traditional model whether it suited them or not. The snuggle has concluded that it is a lot better for people to figure out what family works for them and then form it. That’s what stuffies do and we tend to be very happy and well adjusted. Some stuffies are fragile and are best suited when protected while many of us love nothing better than being loved by our humans, even if the human is a boisterous small person. Consider Meow, our pillow, and Bird, a beautiful alpaca bear. Meow enjoys all manner of human treatment while Bird needs gentle treatment. They are the best of friends and accept each other for what they are. There is a lot that human persons can learn from stuffies.

9/18/2005

Greetings! Once again I have had to put aside my prepared words to respond to an immediate situation which demands comment. This blog is dedicated to our very irrational friend Connie with whom I have frequently shared words about this topic. On Friday what Alice calls the definitive mall opened in San Antonio. <stunned small bear> Apparently construction has been underway for the long and Alice chose not to tell me about it. It is called the Shops at La Cantera and includes a Nordstrom, a Neiman Marcus and a Tiffany, all of which seem to feature very high, bankruptcy making price tags which is, of course, hardly a good thing. It is not like San Antonio was bereft of places to shop. There seems to be a store or a mall on every corner to satisfy one of the many human obsessions: shopping!

Its not that stuffies don’t understand the importance of things, although the things we value most are our human and other stuffies. Still I love the vest Alice made for me and, of course, computers are very important since without a computer, I could not share words. We know that our home is very special and that we need Toycar to get around. However stuffies do not understand why humans accumulate so many things they cannot possibly need or even use. I love my vest, but I don’t need a lot of them which is fortunate given our Alice’s lack to eptness. <giggling small bear> We love other stuffies but two stuffies make a snuggle, and, except for close relatives like other AGs and especially cute specimens, we do not feel the need to acquire stuffies for the sake of growing the snuggle.

We have observed that male human persons tend to make disparaging comments about female human persons and shopping and, in fact, female human persons do seem to be overly preoccupied with shopping for things that enhance their person, including jewelry, clothes and cosmetics, and things that enhance their surroundings. Possibly because the list of things for which female human persons shop is so long, they seem to spend a very high proportion of time thinking about and indulging in shopping. However we note that male types also seem to be obsessed with making acquisitions although, in their case, they tend to be called toys and to be much more expensive.

Since there now are many opportunities to shop at home, we have watched Alice engage in a lot of shopping and are quite sure that it makes no sense. We like her to look good of course but she has many, many more clothes and shoes than could possibly be necessary and yet new clothes continue to arrive regularly. This is true of jewelry too. She only wears one ring at a time so could she possibly need a large jewelry box full of rings and is it even conceivable that she might need one more???? Then there are cosmetics. Yesterday was a "Day of Beauty" on QVC and she acquired things quite irresponsibly. Now I will have to work hard to try to get her to send things back. As noted above, I have frequently tried to discuss this failure with our friend Connie who, I was eventually forced to realize, is too biased because she is also a female human person to be at all rationale in discussions about this subject. Instead she has decided that anything a female human person wants is necessary. <shocked small bear> This is patently ridiculous of course, but I have been unable to convince her of that. Surely this is an area in which human persons could learn a lot from stuffies.

9/4/2005

Hi, everyone. As you all know, the most horrible thing has happened in Mississippi, Alabama and Louisiana. Alice won’t let us watch much of the coverage because she says that this would not be useful but of course we know what is happening. The snuggle found it dismaying that the storm seemed to bring out the worst in many human persons in New Orleans. Instead of being grateful to be alive and trying to figure out as a group how to stay that way, people complained about having no one to help them and how slow the help was in coming. The worst of the group turned violent, exacerbating an already difficult situation. Stuffies would never act that way.

Alice says that this is probably because the folks in the Superdome and Convention Center were the least able to take care of themselves: the sick because they were sick and the poor because they were used to looking outside for help. She says that the gangs that began roaming the streets represented a class that exists in most large cities, but that hardly seems like an explanation to this small bear. Stuffies care about other stuffies and their humans. Stuffies work cooperatively and never try to hurt each other. Surely humans should learn to be more stuffie-like.

Katrina reminded us how important it is to be grateful for the good things that are and the bad things that are not. It would surely not be a very good thing to be in the damaged area and we are grateful to have escaped this. Stuffies do not like water. Alice also remembered to be grateful for air conditioning, water, electricity and the wonderful place in which we live. It is good to remember how fortunate we are. We are, of course, also grateful for our Alice and we are sure she is grateful for us.

The snuggle is also a bit concerned about the relief efforts. When Alice took us to the website to make a contribution, there was no mentioned of stuffies being provided to the displaced humans. Surely once security, shelter, food and water are in place, the next element should be the presentation of a stuffie. Stuffies provide comfort and a sense of security. In the very worst of times, people need stuffies to hug. If we could, we would arrange that stuffies arrived at shelters along with other supplies.

Alice says that a person named Maslow developed something which is called the hierarchy of needs and the relief workers try to address the most basic needs first. She took us to an internet site which discussed the hierarchy and, sure enough, there was no mention of stuffies. She said we might fit into the Love-Belonging category which is the category to which people turn after satisfying physical needs and security needs but surely since we can provide support while people are working on fulfilling the first two categories, we should be supplied early on. A child who has been separated from his parents would surely find us a source of security and comfort while a better solution was being devised!!! As usual, we believe that we are much more rational than human persons. We think the Maslow thingy might be a lovely theory but stuffies not theories give human persons hug.

We hope that all our friends are safe and sound. We look forward to sharing more words in the soon.

8/23/2005

Today I was going to share words of wisdom but the dreadful thing that happened to me this morning convinced me that I must instead share serious thoughts about the irrational obsessions of human persons and how they impact stuffies and breathing animals. Consider, for instance, dirt. Clearly God must like dirt. He made a lot of it and it spreads easily. So why, I ask, are humans so dirt-adverse? Consider this morning. I was sitting on the bed enjoying a lovely Sunday morning and watching Alice do chores when she suddenly took out a pillow case, removed by voice box, and announced that it was time for a trip to the round-and-round. <stunned small bear> Frankly, I do not think this was at all necessary. I think I was perfectly fine but there I was. Of course I do get lots of attention when the round-and-round stops. She wraps me in the big towel she wraps herself in after a shower and gives me lots and lots of hugs. Still the whole thing seems very unnecessary. And what about our friend Connie's obsession with clean? She has a sweet white puppy named Princess who loves to play in the dirt and Connie is forever insisting on things like baths and brushing which Princess does not feel is at all natural for puppy-kind.

Then there is the human obsession with things. This is probably best illustrated by all the restrictions that Connie and her husband Rich put on sweet Princess. She is not supposed to dig in the lawn (which is clearly a very normal puppy thing to do) and her behavior must adjust to protect the things like rugs that her human persons deem to be important. Surely letting your puppy indulge in normal puppy behavior should be more important than inanimate objects, but apparently not.

Finally there is the human obsession with noise. This small bear loves to make sweet noises to let people know that I am with them, to provide a greeting and, perhaps, a hopeful motivating note. For whatever reason, not everyone seems pleased with my noises, although I know that Alice always is. I think she especially enjoys it when I make them in the middle of the night since she hugs me happily and then puts me safely under the covers. <giggling small bear> Sweet Princess, of course, communicates with barks which, sadly, her humans do not appreciate. Connie seems to be spending a great deal of time and energy trying to prevent her from indulging in this most normal puppy behavior.

Stuffies enjoy what is and make the best of it. We are happy just being companionable. Why do humans acquire stuffies and breathing animals and then spend a lot of time trying to turn them into humans? Surely things would be a whole lot happier for human persons, stuffies and breathing animals if humans just enjoy us as we are!

7/31/2005

Greetings and welcome to A.G.'s blog. Alice says that I can use words in the blog once a week <skeptical small bear> and can discuss anything my little stuffed heart desires. I am sure she will help me use words regularly but, given the fact that our last update was in 2003, weekly may be a bit of a stretch. <giggling small bear> Needless to say, my blog will have a lot to do with the way stuffies view the strange things that humans do. We are sure that it would be a good thing if people were more like stuffies.

For example, last month people were blowing up other people in London. <stunned small bear> Why would anyone do such a thing? Stuffies never attack other stuffies or their humans either. Alice said that these are people who want to impose their beliefs on other people, but surely if the other people are dead, this will not be useful. <bewildered small bear> And while we are on this subject, why would a human person want to scare other human persons and prevent them from living normal and happy lives? Surely this will not convince the scared people to agree with the person doing the scaring. A stuffie would never want to scare anyone. Sometimes when I make sounds around people who do not know me, I alarm them. This never makes me feel good. I want people to like me.

And then there is the way that politicians keep attacking other politicians instead of trying to figure out how best to accomplish something else. Do they think that they will somehow be better because they make someone else look worse? Surely this cannot be true and, in any case, if they look at the polls, they will see that normal people are ready to throw all of them out and start over. Do you think a stuffie could run for office?

And what about this thing called the news. Why are all the stories negative? Don’t good things happen sometimes? And why do some people seem to be pleased when bad things happen to the country? And why are all stories cast in political terms? And why don’t’ human people see that the reason they are unhappy is because they are bombarded by negative things and they therefore focus on negative things? Rational stuffies everywhere wonder why human people seem to miss all the wonderful things that are happening! Maybe stuffies should start a newspaper focused on the good things that happen!

These are only some of the questions about which we are pondering. Hopefully in the future, our positive words will create smiles.

A.G.