This from Bill, to whom Kristin passed off Pugnax (now Franklyn).  Forgive me; I posted Kristin’s update a week late, so Pugnax-Franklyn has actually been with Bill this entire past week.  He is now en route to D.C.! (Frankyln, not Bill).

“Franklyn and I started off on good terms.  Despite having to delay his trip to Washington D.C. by one week,. he started off our adventures by keeping a close watch on my lunch bag in the front seat of my car, as seen in one of our pictures.  If you know me, you know that I have a high regard for sandwiches, and Franklyn must have the same affinity for the breaded meat- and cheese-filled delights, because he was making sure nobody got to my snacks but me.  So, lunch in hand, and critter riding shotgun, it was off to New Bedford, Massachusetts and a hard day’s work.

We arrived at Vectrix LLC at about 7:30am and Franklyn was ready to get to it.  He made sure the sign was in order to help direct the truck drivers in for the day’s deliveries, and then we moved inside to get a handle on things there.  He surveyed one of our police prototypes and found everything to his liking,  so it was on to the forklift.  I just let him sit in the seat, as he isn’t certified to be riding around in that thing lifting and moving heavy objects as he pleased.

It was then that Franklyn decided we should go ahead and do some real, actual, work.  We made our way out to the assembly line to work out some kinks on the new three-wheeled prototypes that my company has designed.  They have an articulating front end and are powered by 30 or 40 amp hour lithium batteries.  He fit right in with the crew,  grabbing up one of the air tools and getting to work.  I let him go to it for a little while before sending him back to my desk to take up his sandwich-guarding duties once again.

Later in the week, Franklyn and I took a little trip to the big city of Boston, Massachusetts.  He had no idea his second week living on Cape Cod would lead to so many adventures in other parts of the state.  We hit some pretty bad traffic on the way, which wasn’t all bad as it allowed me to snap a few photos of Franklyn witnessing some of the landmarks that the Boston area had to offer.  We got one of the big gas tanks in one picture and later we got a good shot of the skyscrapers jutting out into the downtown sky.

We had plans to venture out and see what else the city had to offer, but we were actually visiting my significant other in a celebration of Saint Valentine, and once we got there, we never ended up leaving the apartment.  What can I say; we got a little sidetracked.

However, Franklyn will have a chance to see a little bit more of the city soon because I passed him off to the magnificent Kara Brady.  She’ll be taking him to Logan Airport and whisking him away to Washington D.C., our nation’s great capital.  Good luck to Kara and Franklyn, or whatever his name is now.”

“Our time together went quicker than I could have imagined, and when it was all said and done, I didn’t take the guy on as many adventures as I’d originally hoped to (not even a ride out on to the beach!?!  C’mon, where else in the world might he encounter an SUV with an oversand sticker??).  But we did enjoy the time we spent together.

I was really torn on who to pass the bugger off to; there were a lot of suiters.  My dad, who spent the greater part of the week threatening break in to my car/house to kidnap him, ended up with cold feet when faced with the option of actually being responsible for such a creature for seven days….which may be for the better, because his writing is generally not suitable for a general audience (at least without a reader’s guide, or Cliffnotes, or a translator of some sort.)   Billman was another frontrunner, but I felt like maybe he should venture farther away since he spent a lot of the week around Bill anyway.  I have a friend, Kara, who teaches down in D.C. and would ADORE this project, and for that reason was also high on my list.   I set about acquiring an updated address and planned to send him posthaste as a surprise, and then found out that she would be arriving on the Cape this weekend.  The decision at this point became easy.  Williamman would take the week in the middle and I could still control Pugnax’s next step (to Kara) by proxy.  Done deal.  I’m dying to see what he’s done with Bill and what his name currently is.  I asked Bill to make sure to bring him by the electic motorcycle factory where he works, because, well, I’m obsessed with the electric motorcycle factory and I want everyone else to be as well.

I’ve attached some photos of Pugnax with Ella-Stink, whom he adored.  Ella was mildly amused and mostly indifferent, which is her reaction to almost all that she encounters (boys and opposums aside).  Pugnax was also quite intrigued with the bowling alley in Orleans for its ability to hold on to such vintage bowling hardware without much in the way of maintenance, and not because it’s the only thing to do in the winter when the ponds aren’t frozen and there is no snow on the ground.

He also took a trip with me to school, where I was dying to take his photo with ALL of my favorite students but worried about getting their parent’s permission for publication of the photos.  He did spend a class period hanging with some “Groovy Girls” (who also have VERY long legs and arms) that one of my freshman plays with on her breaks from school work.  He also helped my brother rip up carpet and install laminate flooring, although he couldn’t stand up when he was rocking the toolbelt.  The final shot is him sitting in Bill’s passenger seat… which is where I left him late Sunday night.  I can’t wait to see where he goes from here and hope that one day our paths might cross again.”
Click to view slideshow.

Mita lives in Twentynine Palms, California.  She creates teeny little mixed-media collages using text from old books (sound familiar?).  She was once a librarian, and her love of words carries over into her artwork.  For a little while, she ran MitaBee Art & Books.  There’s a cool article about her here, which talks more about the concept behind her work (her husband is an artist, too!).  You can also follow her meanderings at www.mitabee.com.

I chose this particular sock critter for Mita because he’s a little shy, but extremely playful once he comes out of his shell, and I know that Mita’s gentleness and sense of humor will be good for him.  He has pink & white skulls & crossbones running down the sides of his extremely lanky body, which he tends to move in a very ferret-like manner.  He is confused by absolutely everything, and will definitely need a lot of guidance meandering his way through the world.

I’d been a bit lazy about sending him off (much to his annoyance) when all of a sudden we found out that Mita and her husband were leaving for Mexico in two days’ time, and if he arrived Friday by noon, he could go, too!  So we tore up the street to the post office, where we waited with bated breath while the postal worker measured the box and asked if it contained anything liquid, fragile, perishable or knit cotton blend.  Then I asked what it would cost to get him there Friday by noon: $37.34, guaranteed.  Or $10.23 Priority, which may or may not make it.  I chose the latter.  Thankfully the guy at the post office wasn’t watching when the box started shaking a little; our little friend was clearly very upset that I didn’t think him worth $37.34 and a guaranteed trip to Mexico.  But I have great faith that he will miraculously arrive on time, and that Mita and her husband will find just enough space for him in their luggage (he is, after all, pretty bendable).

Good luck, little guy—-godspeed!

(Here are some pictures of him hamming it up for the camera and gazing out over Marblehead Harbor before being rushed off to the left coast).

HI!!!  I finally arrived at Kristin’s on Cape Cod! 

Apart from arriving four or five days later than expected, I’m adjusting really well.  Kristin named me Pugnax!  I know it sounds kinda dog-ish, but honestly, I only have to live with it for a week anyways, and Kristin says it’s a lot better than some of the other names that were in the running.

I love Kristin!  Hilary was right; she’s really fun.  She has a neat little house and a big stinky dog named Ella who keeps wanting to kiss me on the lips.  (Ew).

So yesterday was pretty relaxing… not much activity.  My box arrived NEXT to the mailbox (precarious placement if you ask me–*ahem* George the mailman–but I guess he just had knee surgery so I can’t really complain that he didn’t walk the package to the backdoor as he usually does).  Kristin’s neighbor Kathy saw me out there and worried that I might be cold; it was she who ripped open my box like a ravenous beast [see photo].  She then proceeded to drive me up to the LandHO!^tm [local bar] where she knew she could find Kristin with all of her teacher-friends after work on a Friday afternoon.  Kristin instructed her to bring me home because a bar was no place for our first meeting….NOT, she swears, because she was embarrassed to bring a stuffed animal into the bar in front of her colleagues.  Who you callin’ a stuffed animal, Kristin?!

Then I spent some quality time with Charlie, my….brother? cousin? littermate? crittermate?…a little dude that Hilary make for Kristin a while back.  We shared a clementine and hung out in the kitchen for a while.  As you can see from the photos, Charlie really looks up to me.

Then this afternoon….we went clamming!  “Yes, I know it’s February,” Kristin told me.  “Yes, I know it’s not quite forty degrees.”  But honestly it was unseasonably warm and when else might I be given the chance to go clamming on Cape Cod?  It was a gorgeous afternoon on the flats. I hope that Kristin enjoyed herself as immensely as I did, although she’s such a good hostess I can’t imagine she would let me know if she were the least bit unsatisfied with our field trip.  I did take one hold-yer-arm-out, Facebook-style picture of myself lounging on top of the clamming basket, which Kristin told me was lame.  I just stuck my tongue out at her.

Anyhow, bowling and beers later on this evening… she told me I can come along as long as I refrain from placing sketchy back-door Super Bowl bets with the bowling alley employees.  Bet she won’t be complaining when I win her lots of money!

And I got to hang out with a PUPPET!  Who looks like a real person!  (Lacy made him—!!).   I took the 78 bus with Lacy and the big puppet, where she got real mad at the dudes who took up the Priority Seating seats (for disabled and elderly) with their stupid bags even though the bus was real crowded and some little old ladies got on.
She felt rage, but let it go.
Her rage was mostly about other things, and when do you ever really get anywhere yelling at dudes on a bus?

Her cat is boring, but Lacy is neat.  She made all these puppets for this theater show she wrote.  It doesn’t have words, which is weird, but it has music and puppets, which is cool.

I like Lacy.

Yeah, well I just received these three photos today with one sentence:  “Cats are boring.”

Poor Bowie; he did not sign on for this…….

Kristin was one of my sister’s best friends growing up, and is now one of my close friends, too.  I have known her a long time.   She is an artist; she’s playful and adventurous; she has a smelly coon hound named Ella (who, according to my dad, has “nice ticking”); she collects arrowheads; she’s mind-bogglingly funny; she’s so-bad-she’s-good at Pictionary; she’s always smiling.  And she has the most infectious laugh I’ve ever heard.  She might have my favorite laugh ever.  You can’t not be laughing when you’re hanging out with her.  If she doesn’t make you crack up laughing, you have no soul.

I chose a very special critter for her.  His eyes are a little crazy (he constantly looks like he’s about to pull a prank); he has a tongue (*NOT a cigarette, as my coworker thought); he likes shiny objects (*warning, Kristin: he MAY be a klepto) and he comes with a special backpack made from mustache material.  Yes: mustache material.  Because like both Kristin and the critter, mustache material is absurd.

Today I sent her a picture of her soon-to-be-houseguest and her response was this: “OHMYGOD.  Does he have a tongue?!  I’m so excited.  I’ve already started compiling a list of adventures.  There aren’t enough hours in the day for all of the things I want to do!”

There’s a chance that this critter may have so much fun playing around with Kristin, and vice-versa, that they won’t want to part ways.  Whatever; Kristin’s adventures will be so funny and ridiculous, she could probably carry her own portion of this blog without ever passing him along to anyone.

Have fun, you two!

So I chose five of my quirkiest, funniest, artsy-est friends, and I will be sending them each a sock critter, complete with backpack and letter.  These five friends will name their little charges, send me stories and pictures, and then pass them along to their friends….who will pass them along to their friends, and so on.  THIS should get some momentum going!

Today I carefully packaged two critters into two little boxes, and sent one to my friend Lacy in Chicago and one to my friend Louise in Dorset, England.

Lacy was my college roommate.  She is one of the funniest, smartest and most beautiful people I know.  She is a professional theater-everything: she acts, she does voice-overs, she directs, she does commercials, she climbs into holes in the centers of round tables covered in giant renaissance dresses and walks around serving dessert plates off of her skirts.  The woman’s done more weird and wonderful stuff than I can even wrap my mind around.  And get this: she also makes puppets for her shows.  What are the chances that two college roommates would both grow up to make puppets?!  Take that, Al Gore and Tommy Lee Jones!  (<—-Just googled “famous college roommates”).  Please take a moment to check out Lacy’s current project, The Story Story, an original, wordless play that brings together visual artists and musicians.  Her creativity knows no bounds.

Lacy will be receiving the handsome, solid-blue critter with three buttons down his front and a look of perpetual confusion.  The only thing I know about him is that he reaaaally, really loves dogs.  I did not inform him that Lacy has a cat.

Louise is the genius behind Odd Sox.  Yes, that’s right: she also makes critters out of socks.  We found each other on Facebook about a week ago and have fallen bum-over-noggin for each other (*she’s British; I’m trying to work in some of her native tongue here).  The most amazing thing to me is that we both use socks and stuffing to make wonky little sock guys, and yet our outcomes could not be more different.  Proving, I suppose, that socks are possibly the most versatile art medium out there.  You should become a fan of Odd Sox on Facebook.  She does giveaways!  And she’s hysterical!

Louise will be receiving the spotted, lint-covered critter whose only claim to fame (thus far) is that he knows how to say “I LOVE YOU!” in 27 different languages.  His backpack straps are even made out of ribbon that says I LOVE YOU I LOVE YOU I LOVE YOU all over it.  He seems a bit wild, which is why I decided to send him to someone with sock-critter-wrangling experience.  Louise, I wish you luck.  I hope he doesn’t I-LOVE-YOU to death.  I also hope you can properly pass him along without him coming back to boil bunnies in your kitchen.

Within the next few days, I will be sending out three more critters to three more friends (look for a new blog post!).  Please stay tuned for updates.  And thank you all, truly, for following this!

By the way, my mom suggested that I post about how I heard from sock critter #1, and that he was tossed into the back of a Winter Hill Gang van and that’s why he hasn’t written.

Thanks, mom…..?