The Space Monkey's Halloween Adventure

This is technically Ezra’s second Halloween.  Since he was only three weeks old last Halloween, we sat his first year out.  Busy with being brand new parents, we did not have time to think about costumes, parties, pumpkins, and treats (let alone tricks!).  Ezra will probably find it disappointing that we deprived him of an entire year of Halloween festivities.  As we discovered this year, he loves everything about the holiday: the scary decorations, the parties, visiting a pumpkin patch, selecting his own gourd, and especially wearing his costume which garnered him even more attention than usual. 

Ezra dressed as

the famed Soviet [monkey] astronaut, Dryoma.  Dryoma, with his (or possibly her – I could find no clarification) pal Yerosha, traveled to space in 1987 as part of the Bion space program (Бион).  Aboard the Bion 8 biosatellite, the two rhesus monkeys spent 2 weeks in space

where Dryoma defended his ship from hostile aliens,


and befriended other alien species with Tang and crackers.

Once they safely returned to the USSR, Yerosha, a life long military monkey, returned to his work as an astronaut.  Dryoma embraced his new found celebrity, and enjoyed a fast, life of parties, booze and women.

Eventually he was ready for something different so he retired to Cuba.  The Soviet Union presented Dryoma as a gift to Cuban leader Fidel Castro, and the two primates quickly became best friends.

Fidel and Dryoma became inseparable.  They especially enjoyed weekend camping expeditions in their VW bus.

Together they grew old, and happily met each others' needs.  Dryoma would light Fidel’s cigars,

and Fidel would lovingly breast feed his monkey to sleep every night keeping his beloved friend healthy and happy.