I wish people would pay attention to this sign!

It seems EVERY TIME I run, which is basically every day, I see the remnants of a careless dog owner's apathy or the actual deed in the making. It is amazing to me how many people use the PUBLIC trail system in my area and don't see the FREE pick up bags for THEIR dogs!

I mean, come on, do you really think it is going to EVAPORATE or more likely you think someone else should take care of it because YOU ARE ENTITLED!

I carry a bag with me for my dog so no HYPOCRITE here.

Today was the THIRD TIME just this spring that I had to spray off the bottom of my running shoes because of dog owners who don't care to share... THE PATH...

Okay, I vented...

Helping some people move, but thought you should know....

There was another doggone squirrel in the trap this morning.... There are starting to make me a slave to critter counting. I have retired the trap for the rest of the day...

NUGGETS! NUGGETS! NUGGETS! I said NUGGETS!

Here is the amazing power of the internet: yesterday I twittered that I would donate 100 books to a charity for 2 tix to the Nuggets/Lakers playoff and within four hours I had two tix and the books will go to a good cause!

My son and I are going to the Nuggets Playoff against the Lakers tonight!
Thank you Terra!

What a great time we will have!
Nuggets are PURE GOLD, but what the heck is a Laker anyway?

WOW! WACKY WALKING WARRIOR WORDS WILL WEIRD-OUT WARY WATCHERS

After our jog today, coming home to the SQUIRREL!

Tootsie aka Batman Matott (named thus by my son) got the scent of a squirrel in the trap. SHE WENT NUTS! Then we spotted a mother robin, who swooped both Toots and me on the way to her nest on MY drainspout on MY house, but that did not stop her from swooping low to make sure we didn't get too close...





The Toots found a great place to take a nap. Yeah, easy for her. I am the squirrel's school bus, carting them to and fro, mostly fro...

Bob Ross, the old network television painter is the one pictured. It is amazing what you can find when you google... get it FRO???

Critter Count Summer 09, 4 Squirrels, make that 5, NO WAIT 6! 1 Raccoon, 1 Bird

This dude or dudette seems to be mooning me...

MORNING NEWS: Squirrel # 4
So, no kidding, when I let this dude or dudette go in the open space he or she sprinted toward a huge blue spruce and as my eyes followed him or her I saw that he or she was joining two other squirrels foraging beneath the tree for pine cones. With peanut butter and apple breath he or she joined them. Bet they are jealous.

Here is something that strikes me odd: everyone that has talked to me about my little squirrel relocation process (adults) have been perplexed that I would take the time to move them. I have heard very creative and brutal methods of dispatching them and I am curious to know what you, my reader thinks about this. Would you relocate or ahem... remove them?
Is it a coincidence that this dude or dudette had a greeting party? Are they playing me? Spying on me? Setting a bigger trap for me?

Trivia Question: In my Go Ask Mom series, who is the villainess that gets her corn stomped down by Gabe and his friends?


LATE MORNING NEWS: Squirrel # 5Now I am just plain lazy. I am putting a little peanut butter on a disposable plastic fork. No more bread for these critters! WHERE ARE THEY ALL COMING FROM???? WE BETTER HAVE A TON OF PEACHES THIS YEAR! I am supposed to be writing, not relocating varmints!!!!! By the way, is this interesting to anyone other than me? Is Critter Count something I should be blogging about? You tell me, but I will tell you that in book 4 of the Go Ask Mom you will see squirrels and bees... inspired by real life events!

NOON NEWS: Squirrel # 6

Okay, I surrender. Wife says, "Well, you don't have to keep setting it!"
I say, "But, if I don't think of the peaches..."
Wife says, nothing, just an eye roll.
I say, "You wanna go with me to let this one go?"
Wife says, nothing again, death stare.
I say, "Be back in a few..."

Could it BEE?

Well, after such an eventful critter catching day yesterday, I must say I was a bit disappointed that my quarter of a red apple attracted no one but a handful of small ants to the trap. I think a peanut or almond butter smear on it might bring some company. Just when I thought the morning would remain uneventful, a run, a quick trip to the gym and Starbucks and back for a session on my laptop with my new book I saw something I haven't seen before on the "trail"...

Amazing things you see in a pair of running shoes, itunes on the ipod, an Italian Greyhound at your side and a trusty little camera in your pocket...

Coming back from a nice, spring run, I was nearing my house when something caught my eye. From a distance this looked like there was a canvas bag hanging in the tree. I am always on the lookout for something unique so I kept my eye on the prize. As I neared the "bag" it seemed to be moving and so I crept up into the neighbor's front yard to get a better look.

WOW! There must be a thousand bees there. They were diving in and buzzing out and swarming. It was cool because of the overnight rain so they were huddled in together to keep warm and didn't seem to mind me standing there at all. I wonder what the homeowner thought if they saw me through the window snapping pics of her front yard?

All of my followers will get...

There's A Fly On My Toast! on CD if they
1. Send me their address by this Friday at noon to justin@justinmatott.com
2. Make a comment about one of my May blog post (yes another one)
and 3. If at all possible tweet it to gain more followers of course.


(This includes anyone who starts to follow me as of today...) ahem, ladies and gentlemen, let them know...

Thank you to those of you who follow my silly blog and I hope you are enjoying it.

Let's do summer WRITE!

Okay, we are extending the contest with a bit of clarification. The winner of the contest will have his or her poem published in the fourth book in the series in the same format as one of these journal entries by the narrator of the series, Gabriel Peters. He is 10 1/2 years old in the fourth book and he and his friends have a GROSS ERIE STORE dare-off.

For the entire chapter read my earlier entry. For those of you who don't want to read the whole chapter, here is the segment specific to the GROSS OFF!

This is the passage that YOUR poem (if you win) will appear in:

(GABRIEL SPEAKING, 10 1/2 year old boy)
We talked about staging a grocery store dare-off soon when we were up in the tree house last, but never decided on when. We called it a GROSS-RIE STORE DARE OFF since the ideas we had were so disgusting.
The way it works is you would walk down the aisle and choose something the other guy had to eat AND he had to pay for it, but your turn was coming so you had to decide if you were going to be brutal which meant the next time you were in for it or if you just picked stuff that wasn’t so bad, but not what a normal person would choose. The rule of the game was that you had to eat every bite of the items chosen for you either until it was gone or until it made you puke.
Everyone put their name in a hat, and one by one the names were pulled out and the person holding your name would be choosing your lunch. Andy and I always prayed we would get each other because we were best friends and would go easy on each other. We knew what the other liked and we would make combinations that might sound gross to some people but we knew each other well enough to know it would be okay.
Like the time I made Andy eat beef jerky and marshmallows. He was supposed to smash them up together according to the game, but by the time he opened up his bags everyone was so focused on their own junk they didn’t even notice that he was eating them separately. That is the best part about being best friends, you know what your buddy likes most and Beef Jerky and Marshmallows were what Andy liked most. He picked fried chicken gizzards and wintergreen Certs for me. Butch started to complain because he also knew that I always got chicken gizzards when we went to Safeway, but eating them with Wintergreen Certs wasn’t something I did and the bad thing was Butch watched me like a hawk, so I had to mix them and it was pretty gross. But even so, Andy was doing me a favor by picking my favorites and then I didn’t feel like I had wasted my own money on junk I didn’t like.
Sometimes you would choose something that was yummy like a Snickers bar, but then the person that was going to eat it had to wrap it in sauerkraut or dip it in pickle juice or something like that. Other Gross-rie dare-offs were; a loaf of white Wonderbread soaked in the juice of canned red beets until it was so soggy you had to eat it with a spoon and that was after you ate all the cold, yucky beets or three bananas smashed up and mixed with all of the little packets of stuff you got back by the deli, which would include hot, red peppers, salt, pepper, ketchup, mustard, soy sauce, relish, hot sauce, sugar, creamer, salad dressing, mayonnaise and the worst thing ever made to eat by anyone; Miracle Whip.

So, remember, WRITE like a kid thinks. Short Verse with simple rhyme!

And there will be 4 winners! Grand Prize and 3 runners up! Enter as often as you want and please invite to enter too (you can post their entries on your blog)

When it rains... it pours... Squirrels that is! Critter Count '09 (Day Two, THREE SQUIRRELS!)

MORNING NEWS:

For the second day in a row on critter count (the trap has been out for two days) a squirrel has found his or her way to my peanut butter laden bread.

This dude or dudette is currently living in the same treed area as yesterday's so I hope they have found one another and don't form a gang to get back at me when I go to the gym in the morning (same parking lot).

This dude had a tendency more toward the superhero than the military!



Trivia question: From my book Go Ask Mom, which character becomes a vampire one night to scare a certain brother?


LATER THAT DAY!

Okay, now you have got to be kidding me! I literally pulled the trap out of my SUV and set it under the tree with NO BAIT. Mowed the lawn (in between cloud bursts) and showered. When I returned to my office that overlooks the garden area I heard a banging sound that was becoming all too familiar. Low and behold ANOTHER squirrel in the trap. That brings my tally for Summer 09 to 3 in two days. I think I am going to put a dab of spray paint on his or her tail and see if it is just the same one playing games with me... Figures I got the squirrel who is training for a marathon too and just loops around Highlands Ranch and back. He or she just wants me to give him or her a lift out to the park so he or she can run back, lazy dude or dudette!

Maybe I should do this as an occupation???

EVEN LATER THAT DAY!

Okay, this is ridiculous. The yard is teeming with activity and now this is in the trap?? Luckily this is just an open the trap and spring the lucky bird brain.
And all for a quarter of an apple (tried new bait to be sporting).

Oh, what will the night bring????

Critter Count Summer 09 Begins (DAY ONE) not counting the trial run that netted a raccoon...

This morning, after baiting my critter catcher last night with a crusty rye bread and peanut butter treat, I awakened to the absolute largest squirrel I have ever seen sitting in the trap giving me a bit of attitude. I loaded him or her up and relocated him or her to a lovely little treed area on the south edge of Highlands Ranch. "Daniel's Park, HERE I COME!" were the last words I heard him or her scream as he or she scrambled across the field toward a grove of scrub oak...

Trivia question: From my new book The World According to Gabe, which character dresses in military garb and is just a tad annoying with all his army talk?

My "little" boy... That was then... This is now

Maybe it is all the graduations that are making me so nostalgic, but.... whatever it is it is making me realize that time goes by SO quickly!

Don't wish a moment of it away, YOU WILL MISS IT!

Okay, maybe not the whining, the fights, the crying, the... well, make the most of it anyway!

From a class of First Graders who just had Go Ask Mom read aloud in class, thank you!

Thank you to Mark Twain Elementary and Ms. Hale's First Graders in Colorado Springs for your awesome letters and pictures. I am so glad you enjoyed the real aloud of Go Ask Mom in your classroom! I liked all of your letters, but chose these two for my blog because this picture makes me happy to look at and I want this many window in my roof to let the sun shine in and this letter just seemed to say it for the whole classroom!

Read a lot of good books this summer!

Mother's Day lives on!

The Mother's Day basket I "designed" for the mother of my sons and my lovely wife is loving this weather on our front porch right next to the succulent garden in an old birdbath that I designed for her last Mother's Day!These Iris come from my childhood home. Dad planted so many varieties of Iris for my mom to enjoy in our back garden. I have carried the rhyzomes (bulbs) with me from house to house and these beauties bloomed on Mother's Day, just in time for our Mother's Day party.

I know my mom can smell their sweetness from Heaven. HERE'S TO MOMS!

Congrats to all of you CLASS '09!

Dance! Dance! Dance!
Stick your necks out and dare to dream!
Live the best life you can!

Reading to a CAT????

This is Baby Ruth listening to my latest chapter in the GO ASK MOM saga. She seemed to like what she was hearing. Then I started to read about my narcoleptic cat...










She got all fidgety and acted like she wasn't listening. Like she didn't care, then....








After hearing enough about another cat, she became ferocious.





I think I should just test my chapters on my greyhound Tootsie (and my beautiful wife)!

THANK YOU TO THE SCHOOLS OF SPRING '09

I really appreciate all of the schools that hosted me this Spring in Colorado, Wyoming and Arizona!

It is always so much fun to rub shoulders with my readers and to hear the stories that teachers tell me while I am visiting, which come from their read-alouds of my books or about that one boy in her classroom who just "hates to read" but got hooked by the kookiness of my poetry or The Tails Tales of Mr. Murphy and how kids got into a great discussion about bullies after hearing chapters from Go Ask Mom or the girl in third grade who told me she was dreaming of being the President of the United States, just like the girl in my book When I Was A Girl... I Dreamed

IT SURE KEEPS ME GOING! How about you teachers who went to college with a teacher who is now in Hawaii or New Zealand or Australia? Can you give a shout out for me to them? Those are locations I think school visits are desperately needed, don't you?

I did my last school visit for the Spring in Loveland, Colorado today! The younger kids were wild, crazy, enthused and fun (end of year). They were laughing, poking, joking and enjoying the fun of listening to me telling them about my work in process FRONT FLIP FLOP (tails of my narcoleptic cat).

The older kids were great and got to hear a first person narrative of the bullying story I based Go Ask Mom and the subsequent 5 books on. I was swarmed by a group of older kids afterwards asking me question after question after question.

The best question of the day was: "Mr. Matott, what was your very best day?" On the way home I tried to think of that and the title for potentially a new book was born: THE BEST DAY!

Thank you my blog following brother...

One of my "buddies" who reads my blogs to his kids sent me this because of my trap tally blogs. He said and I quote; "This is what real men do the capture wildlife!" and "This is why grown men should not play with action figures!" Uh, thanks?

A great flyer sent out by one of my librarian friends to announce the contest! CLICK ON PIC TO MAKE LARGER FOR READING*