A father-daughter weekend

Tana hadn't been away from Jade over night since she was born six years and some change ago.  And Jade has made a lot of big steps these last few months with reading and swimming and growing and eating and eating.  So two nights in Monterey for Tana by herself seemed a lot more doable than even six months ago.  She took off on Friday.  It's Sunday.  It's over now.  Jade's at her friend's birthday party...I'm here with a half cold pacifico and my keyboard.

So while Tana's been in Monterey getting use to not having a blond shadow, Jade and I have been having a lot of fun.  Friday we started off taking the couch apart and building a fort.

 Then when we got bored of the fort I set up the camping tent in the family room and we slept downstairs staying up "late" watching movies and wrestling.

She went to a short playdate at her friend's house down the street the next day and I got to clean it all up and vacuum, dust, shower, blink...I can see how the grind gets snowballing the more you extend yourself out.  By the time Jade got back the whole place was cleaned up.

Cuddling that little dwarf, wrestling, bathing her and brushing her hair in the tub, just chilling with this little lady who used to be a small crying burrito, talking with her at night and generally just telling the schedule to go fuck itself for a weekend was so rewarding.  And though we really don't have any pictures to show from it, (other than these) that's sort of the point I guess...it's just another turn away from fear road.  Fear that these things must go documented.  And the documentation must be good and exciting so smile, not like this, like that, now stand on one foot, now do your best Christopher Walken impression, now standing backflip...oh crap, the lighting wasn't right, lets do it all over.  I'm not like that at all, but I like to keep my memory types balanced: try to write about events, take pictures, record movies and more now than ever just enjoy good times as they are happening and soak it in like a hippie because I know these days are fleeting.  She won't always be in kitten pajamas with a head of unruly hair, grin so big her gums are stretching.

I'm at a point with life where I'm going more day by day because stress (self inflicted) and genetics (no pill for this one) don't seem to be in my favor.  The men in my family don't seem to last long so I've figured out how to cheat thoughts of an early demise by throwing "death" at the bottom of my "to do list".  And since I do great with lists until the last few items or so, well it seems like the perfect place for death to take permanent residence.  It's sorted.  Got an empty check box next to it.  Bland font...lower case "d"...So now I don't have to think about it and I'm free to tackle the more pressing matters first in the hierarchy of my "list", like laying on the bed with Jade and singing a new song we made up, or drawing cat zombies or just drifting in and out of sleep in a tent in the family room on a windy night.

...And after I wrote the above blog, Jade and I ended up taking Bart to a toy store in San Francisco.  While we were waiting for a transfer I couldn't help but take our picture.  And to make it even more hypocritical I added some fun vintage FX I applied from my iphone.

Before and after Photoshop

In scanning pages in my sketchbook I came across this drawing.  Mike wanted me to try and emulate the sci-fi movie character sketch style.  He asked me to draw an intergalactic dark crystal inspired convict.  I don't think I got it.  Looks more like one of those shitty paintings on the side of an 80's arcade game.  I hear Bill Sanchez (one of my artcollege profs) telling me "it's good to work outside your comfort zone kid!  That's it, yeah!  Wrap it around!"    I did find a good use for that photo I snapped at Shay's storage locker last time he was in town.  No joke.  I added a layer over the top to make it look dirty.  I also added so much black that you PC users can't see anything at all.  Perfect!  Whatever...I will probably update soon.  It was kind of a quickie job.

So here's a look at the sketch pre and post Photoshop

Sketchbook nearing it's end...

I've got about 3 pages to go in my old sketchbook before I start in on a new one.  So I'll be scanning stuff in and posting it before it starts collecting dust on the shelf of forgotten-ness.

I got a whole bunch of dog dirt for Halloween.

The weekend started so well.  Friday was the company halloween party.  Which was nice because free long lunch, it was an excuse not to go to the gym AND a group of my colleagues dressed up as some of the characters I created for the products.

My personal favorite had to be Elebot.  The original character is on the paper thingy.

Got home and Tana and Jade and I headed over to our friends' place for dinner.  The husband, who's a pretty great guy actually and a new friend of mine, asked if I wanted to go see a show on Sunday.  I said sure, why the fuck not?  I'll go see "Skinny Puppy".  Sounds like fun.  Live music always rocks right?  Mistake number one.

The next day was Saturday.  Halloween.  Jade had a kids costume/birthday party to go to so while Tana was working out, I was in charge of doing Jade's ghost makeup.  I really think if I weren't colorblind I could do this for a living.  I went a little overboard though because when I dropped Jade off at the party, her friends were all dressed up as cute kitties and princesses and happy little fairies.  You know they're all 6 years old more or less.  And coming up to the door I can hear the girls running around inside playing etc.

Well, he he, when Jade came in she looked like this.

She wanted me to do it though.  She kept telling me to break so she could see herself in the mirror. The blood in her mouth was her idea.  And I informed her, ghosts don't bite people or drink blood, but who was I?  The ghost guru?  Here's a before and after:

 

 

So it instantly cast this dark cloud over the whole kids party vibe, which I thought was kind of funny scene after they all got used to it.  And since the party was in our "basic" neighborhood, we all sort of decided to do the house to house thing as a big parent/kid mob.  This actually ended up being quite shitty.  I felt like a fucking sheep.  And had we all been dressed in sheep costumes, that would have been perfect, but twas not the case.  And the fact that everybody in the neighborhood had their lights on but nobody was home was not only ironic, but fucking sad after about 23 minutes.  It was like Spinal Tap, when they couldn't find the stage.  I broke off and got the car, scooped up Tana and Jade and we went home.  It was dark out, still early.  We grabbed our little chihuahua Eddie, fed our big dogs and headed out closer to our house this time by ourselves.  We had a great time trick or treating with Jade.  Perfect in fact.  Later that night, Jade answered the door and passed out candy.  Tana and I drank wine and champagne and enjoyed the evening.

Sunday we took our 3 dogs to Point Isabel dog park on the bay past Berkeley marina.  Our massive brown lab Henry is a love.  He's like a horse on ecstasy and no-doze.

Our yellow lab Che is smaller and getting up there in age, but she still gives life her all.  She gives moaning groaning and licking her dog hole her all as well.

Eddie is our newest addition.  A four year old miniature pincer chihuahua mix.  Got him from a rescue.  He's built like a loaf of wheat bread with itty bitty weight lifter legs...although I must say he looks pretty regal in this shot.

So we all had a nice time, dogs went swimming, Jades swinging from trees, collecting sea glass.  I gave my first drum lesson to a 3rd grader.  It went great.  It's like I knew exactly what to do.  Granted it was the first lesson but still.  Had her playing a beat by the end of the session.  Weekend's wrapping up right, Chinese food for dinner and I'm starting to get tired.  Almost forgot...Skinny Puppy.  My friend comes and picks me up, bay bridge closed so we head over the Richmond/San Rafael bridge to Golden Gate bridge to get to the club on Van Ness in SF.  After two horrible opening acts I was ready for something...just something that resembled music.  Nope.  The sounds that I heard were like a chain smoking gorilla getting pulled apart on the torture rack with a microphone jammed in his face and the gain set to "ear stab". Loud industrial noise and screaming over distorted farts  is what I heard.  Can't even mosh to it.  My band has a song called Prepare to Scream.  We play sci-fi punk and hard rock.  But this shit didn't have anything musical to it.  No beat, no rhythm, just noisy horseshit.   I love punk, hard rock...I even dig live metal.  Prefer it.  But this shit?  The fat shot of Pete's espresso and the 2 six buck cups of bud light on a funky garlic eggplant mu shu stomach probably didn't help the claustrophobic mental raping I experienced, but fuck I have to forgive myself for pete's sake.  And the crowd...my friend Don who I play music with, said he was a Skinny Puppy fan until he saw who the other Skinny Puppy fans actually were.  I fucking wish I couldn't vouch for that.  I really just wish I had my sketchbook.  I never saw such a collection of badly designed tats and vinyl pants stretched over goofy bodies.  Lots of fuzzy bearded boys with horrible eyeliner ideas.  Could probably blow up burning man with the amount of god damn hair product in there and that's still only the guys I'm talking about.  Whatever.  Art ref.  It's in the memory bank.

So the show lets all the dad haters out and we head home.  I get home about 12.  Hang out in the office and decompress.  But I remember I have to drive Jade and her friend to school the next morning so I get my shit ready for work, then I go to let the dogs out before bed.  Trick or Treat!  Henry shat 10 gallons of bay/ass water onto the linoleum in the storage room dog area.  That I assume goes into the "trick" column.

So two towels, a whole lot of simple green and I'm ready to let the dogs back in.  Place is all cleaned up, aired out, made Henry a new bed.  Che's good to go, made sure Henry got the last bits of liquid hell out of his winker and put him back in.  Mistake number two.  Hit the sack around 1:30 am.  Tana wakes me up at 6:30.  He did it again.  This time he got the mixture juuuuuust right...a little less water, more shit and a dash of fuck me.  Steamy hot fucked up dog diarrhea.  Like microwaved bowel pudding.  Demon ass gravy.  Foggy muggy ass mist all downstairs.  Thank gods of whiskey for the storage room linoleum.  But even in that little space he'd crapped in multiple spots and stepped in it and tracked butt spit all over the place.  Here's the morning shot.

So I kick Henry in the ass, clean up the shit murder scene as Tana called it, slam some tea and take Jade and her friend to school. Henry spends the next night outside.  Barking, howling, complaining.  Not a lot but enough for for to feel bad about it. Tuesday night I'm thinking he's over it.  Put him back in his area in the storage room.  Mistake number three.  Wednesday morning, shit murder scene number three.  Well we have our own skinny puppy now and his name is Henry because that dickhead's not getting any fucking food until he figures out his asshole.  I love that guy, but damn it.  And funny thing is, I didn't get close to heaving until the end of the third cleanup when I got a bit of shit of my finger, wet and runny and I said out loud to myself "alright it's on my finger" and that's when the dry heaving started.  I got it under control.  You'd be proud.  The garbage guys weren't stoked.  Last night we felt bad for him howling and barking and pissing off our neighbors so we brought him inside...that's right...and guess how I spent my morning.  Master blaster strikes again.  Will we never learn?