belated Christmas favorites

Christmas wrapping from The Waitresses

Here's one for TJ

Bonanza

Been watching Bonanza again recently. First off, I love the show. As corny as DeAnne thought it was, I liked the messages and the fact that it took place in parts I've once roamed -- namely Tahoe and the Eastern slopes of the Sierra Nevadas.

But more than that, I'm coming to laugh at how life imitates art.

It's me and my three boys, each one looking a little and acting a lot like the Cartwright boys.

First, there's Ben, the father. Just out to make it in the world, poor Ben never seems to be able to pin love down. So, instead, he settles for building an empire for himself and his sons. Maybe it's not a bad idea.

Then there's Adam, the smart, tough-to-crack oldest son. Brady is a lot like Adam. He's smart, a bit of a loner and always seem to be above the fray.

Next, there's Hoss, the loveable galoot who can kick ass and take names, but is a huge softy inside. That describes Tanner to a TJ.

Finally, there's Little Joe, the fiesty little brother who gets in his share of trouble fighting for what's right and fighting for the babes. While it remains to be seen if Nolan's as much as a ladies man, he certainly is going to be a mean, ornery cuss, what with his two big brothers telling him what to do.

It's funny

how DeAnne wanted to meet my mom for the nearly eight months we were dating. Now, mom is making a special trip to Redding, probably her last, and we are no longer together.
I looked forward to my mom meeting the someone I thought would grow old with me and my boys. I looked forward to getting the "Mom Seal of Approval."
Now, I'm alone. Showing off only my house and back to making lemonade.

When??????

When?

It is the question that haunts me, that plagues me, that defines me.

When is it my turn for love?

When is it my time to be happy?

When do the good times start?

When do I just give up trying for love?

When do I chuck it all and run away?

When does all the bullshit cease?

When can I get the answers to all the questions I have?

When is it time to move on?

When will mom die and I finally be really alone?

I need a new tune

All my songs are sad ones lately. I need to a new iLife playlist

Here's my playlist:

Girlfriend break-up

Last goodbye -- Jeff Buckley
Just Once -- James Ingram
Alone again, Naturally -- Gilbert O'Sullivan
The breakup song -- Greg Kihn
Goodbye to love -- the Carpenters


Mom Dying

In my time of dying -- Led Zeppelin
Great Gig in the Sky -- Pink Floyd
Sunshine of my life -- Stevie Wonder (she used to sing it to me)
And when I die -- Blood, Sweat and Tears
Fade to Black - Metallica
Cancer -- My Chemical Romance
Try not to breathe -- REM
Everybody Hurts -- REM


Work sucks
Bang on the drum -- Todd Rundgren
take this job and shove it -- Johnny Paycheck

3 word wed.

dissolve, trinket and zest

It was his zest for living that drew him to Golden Gate Park that Sunday afternoon in 1986. Wannabe love-ins? It didn't matter if hed been born to late for the real thing, he wanted to see, to be a part of something ideal -- if only a re-creation.
A new high school graduate, the boy-come-man was beyond doing things for experimentation purposes. He was looking for the experience, a chance to, perhaps, find himself. At the very worst, he would trip hard and wind up on the Great Highway. At best, well, he could magically be transported back to the Summer of Love.
He parked his old Nova, a beater with nearly 200,000 miles and nearly as many stories. He placed the paper on his tongue and felt it slowly begin to dissolve. Now, he would only have to wait.
In the distance, he heard music. Not the Grateful Dead, whom he'd come to see, but some Afro-reggae sounds. It would be his pied-piper, drawing him in as the trip started.
Lined up along roads leading into the park were hippies, old and young, selling trinkets and other wares -- and ends to a mean to make it to the next show. From beads to hemp products to tie-dye shirts, the avenue was a throwback trading post.
He walked along, getting deeper in the park and deeper into his high. The more he walked, the better he felt. The better he felt, the more he felt like walking.
Until he came to a clearing -- the Great Meadow. The sounds magnified. So, too, did the sensations.
Unsure where this journey would lead, he was sure it would be memorable. If he could remember it.

Beauty is where you find it

One of the oddest, most intriguing things I saw on the beach in Arcata over the weekend wasn't the carcasses of two dead seals. They were the nastiest.

No, on Trindad Beach on Monday, the boys and I took off down the sand looking for adventure. They saw rock that looked like a big, fat lady. I found roses strewn about the beach. Which got me thinking -- why were they there? Were they remnants of a beach wedding, or a Viking funeral? I'll never know. But I will always remember their beauty. Here's one look

Three Word Wednesday

And the words are: agree, execute and providence


The order came from the commander, "Execute them, every last one of them."
The rebels had been holed up in the bunker for weeks, supplies dwindling, but not their resolve.
It was a noble cause they were fighting for -- in 200 years, freedom fighters such as they would be called insurgents by some -- and they believed it providence they break free from the tyrannical rule from abroad.
But there they were, locked in, clamped down upon and growing weary. But they would agree among themselves never to give up the fight, to die honorably.
And as the bugle blared out the order to charge, each checked his rifle, his ammo and his resolve to die fighting.

Life's a beach

It's not soooo bad?!

Well, 40 came and went. I didn't get struck by a mighty thunderbolt. I didn't have all 6 of my friends jump out and throw a surprise party for me (thank god).
But I did have a good time turning 40; better than I expected.

And maybe that's because I got two gifts I'd been seeking for years.

The first was from the ex. She texted me HAPPY BIRTHDAY! on Friday morning. My reply: I don't feel old ... and where's my fricking present.
Her gift to me: You are old ... and you present is not having me as your nagging wife for the next 40 years!!!
Sounds like a MasterCard commercial to me.

The other present was nearly two decades in the making and involved perhaps the first true lover of my life. Karen, KB for short, has a Sept. 10 birthday. She's now 40, too. I called her out of the blue on Wednesday to wish her a happy one. We got to talking. She's married with three kids about the same age as mine. She's in a loveless marriage. She feels stuck.
But that wasn't really vindication. That, actually, sucks.
No the present came when she said that her life's biggest regret was not coming back to me. Not that I'm anything more than a booby prize, but I think she always knew how much I loved her. He, apparently, doesn't. KB said she realized about a year into her marriage that she'd made a mistake, that she wanted to tell me, but by that time I was already dating the future-former-Mrs. Williams and that KB didn't want to mess things up.
KB even admitted to parking outside Raley's (where I worked graveyards) on the night before she sent her wedding invitations out trying to muster the courage to knock on the window, seek me out and figure out where it would lead.
Which leads to one of the most prophetic quotes of all time: "It's better to regret something you've done, than something you haven't done."

While there's too much time passed for me to even think about KB, the thoughts did drift into the "what ifs" this weekend on the beach. To think about how much different my life would have been is staggering.
But I'm not complaining. I'm happy where I am -- something I don't think I realized before 40. Yes, there is work to do, things to tend to, flaws to fix. But, by and large, life is good.
The final birthday present was the best: a "surprise" party from my boys in our Arcata hotel room. Instead of my six friends, it was thrown by my three favorite people.
Who could ask for more?

Needled

On top of the things I don't ever want to do again: Get a steroid/cortisone injection in my foot.

I'm not the biggest puss in the world, but fuck that hurt. Almost worse than the plantar facistis plaguing me for the past three months.

40 and Un-fabulous

Well, I guarantee this will be a birthday I never forget.
Unfortunately for all the wrong reasons.
My life feels like a laundry list of "Everything bad, can and will happen:"

• Girlfriend troubles
• Work issues
• The knowledge that, other than your mom and your kids, no one's going to make a fuss on your landmark birthday
• Acutally turning 40 and realizing there's so much more you could have done with your life

And that's the killer. Shoulda, coulda, Eastwooda.

Yes, it's not too late for me to really start living, but all I want this week is for it to be over, for the birthday to be over. On top of everything, it's like an albatross around my neck. Just let me turn 40, be done with it and head to the ocean, the one place I truly find peace and serenity.

The $64,000 question

It's been rattling through my head for the past few days:

If not now, when?

It applies to all the aspects of my life, the good and the bad.

Happy birthday to me -- or none for me and one for my homies

I love the lyrics from Cracker's " Happy Birthyday to Me." As someone who doesn't get too excited over his own birthday, I get a little geeked singing Cracker.
Especially today.
No, I'm not turning 40. That is still a few weeks off.
No, today, I'm 17. It's a birthday that will probably pass under the radar, with maybe mom calling to remember. Other than that, who knows. Maybe Chris, who enjoys this birthday more than the bellybutton one because "you have to do something to get this one, all you have to do for the bellybutton birthday is keep breathing."

After all, most people don't really remember your sobriety birthday.

That's right, 17 years ago today I embarked on a life-changing journey -- one I thought utterly impossible at the time.
But here I am, nearly 40 and still sober.

It gives me pause to think I've done something so difficult for the better part of two decades. I remember sitting on Paul's couch, smoking joint after joint until I was sure I couldn't get any higher. I remember wasted mornings sitting next to the Raley's in Antioch, drinking for hours after my graveyard shift ended. I remember rocking up an 8-ball of coke and sitting in a circle with two buddies as we freebased all fucking night, anxiously waiting (fiending) until our turn came around. I remember driving back into Reno from the Fallon Naval Air Station peaking on LSD with six guys in my 1976 Chevy Nova.
There were good times.
There were bad times.
I can't lie.
It made me who I am and I wouldn't trade any of it. But, as I near 40 and somehow look back on the what-ifs of my life, I wonder who and what I could have become if I wasn't a partier, if I wasn't an alcoholic, if I wasn't a dope fiend.
Maybe that's the course I would have ridden down regardless, just at a different point in my life (I did get sober at 23).

It's funny how 17 years can seem both like one day and an eternity. I remember things I've done, places I've been during the party years.
But I also look at who I am today. He isn't that same guy.
He's a little less fun, more reserved and a lot heavier.
Getting sober made me grow up, the arrested development (and that's an accurate term of how my life's seemed to go) unleashed in a confusing array of love, marriage, the baby carriage and starting the single life over again.

I think often, lately especially, of who I am and where I've been. If I could have taken a different path - one less traveled, perhaps? Sadly, it's the nature vs. nurture question, and it's unanswerable.
I am who I am, and my world helped shape me.

So today, I will sit back, celebrate quietly and know where I am is because of where I've been.

And then turn my attention toward 40.

Three Word Wednesday

in haiku

a million dollars
is spent in the nick of time
Now he's unnoticed

I double-dog dare you

Never one to back down from a dare, I've taken up the Thom G. double-dog Three Word Wednesday gauntlet. This week's words are gamble, omitted and temporary.

-----------------------------------------

Jesse sat back in the chair thinking about the past 24 hours and nervously dreading what the next 24 would bring.
He fucked up and knew it. But that's how he lived, on the edge. He'd done it all his life, ever since that first rush of jumping off the trestle bridge as an 8-year-old. He didn't do it for pride, because his friends would bestow some horrible trestle-linked-chicken nickname on him. No Jesse had the fever -- not for more cowbell -- but for greenbacks. Cold, hard cash. As an 8-year-old the 20 bucks his friends cobbled together would have made Jesse run naked through Wal Mart.
It was his Quixotic mission, chasing the almighty dollar.
He knew it was a gamble to take the Pick 6 long shot at Del Mar. He knew it was even more dangerous to do it with the mob's money.
But that was water under the bridge. Now he'd have to find the six-grand he pissed away at the track. And fast.
There would be no time for excuse, Vinnie wouldn't hear it.
He wouldn't care that the Racing Forum omitted the fact that Friedegg had a stress fracture in its leg and had been in one of those goddamned inflatable temporary casts leading up the final viewing.
The only thing Vinnie cared about was the return on the 4-g's he'd "loaned" Jesse earlier in the week.
There were no "broken legs" promises. It was understood.
Now Jesse, not wanting to end up like Friedegg, in a cast, began scheming.
"Hey, Jack," the phone call began, "Meet me at the Blue Room in an hour. I've got a proposition for you."

God didn't make little green apples

and it may not rain in Indianapolis in the summertime -- but it sure as hell has rained in Kansas City this past week.

Not that it's a bad thing, but it's simply so foreign for this California kid. My hope is to bring back the thunderstorm -- sans lightning -- when we head home on Monday.

That being said, we had an interesting night Saturday at the Royals game vs. Tampa Bay.
In all the baseball games I've ever been to, and that odometer's passed 1,000 a long time ago, I've never had to sit through a rain delay. I've seen a rainout by the wimpy-ass Giants in a "storm" that would make Midwesterners laugh. But I've never actually seen the ground crew roll out the tarp, unfurl the diamond-sized plastic and anchor it down in a matter of minutes.
The closest I get to rain delays is seeing them flash on the AP wire -- "The St. Louis-Chicago game is being delayed by rain." "The St. Louis-Chicago game has resumed after a rain delay of 1 hour, 13 minutes."
But from out COVERED seats last night, we watched, not only the monsoon roll in, but the grounds crew do their rain dance with fascinating precision. (PIX TO COME ONCE WE GET HOME).
And we waited. And waited. And waited. For 1 hour, 13 minutes.
And then the grounds crew undid their magic. And we played on. And somewhere in Redding, Calif., and around the country, the AP flashed that our game had resumed.

Be careful what you ask for

That's the feeling I had Monday morning about 0-dawn-30.

I had come to the Midwest on vacation with the usual wants -- fun, frivolity and a Royals baseball game. Oh, add a honest-to-goodness Midwest thunderstorm. Not the kind in Cali that sparks endless forest fires, but the kind where you get to stand in warm rain and see the cool bolt lightning.

Well, our first night in Muscatine, Iowa, we swam, had dinner and relaxed on the deck until the mosquitoes had dinner on us (there is still a ton of standing water from their recent floods).

An hour or so after heading in, the skies lit up with lightning, boomed with thunder and weeped with rain. Cool. Check that one off the list.

But, oh no. Mother Nature wasn't done. I've always laughed at people in California who actually watch the Weather Channel. It's pointless.

But not in the Midwest. It's essential. The weather changes more than No. 1's moods.

And it has to be tiring to hear daily that a thunderstorm might be on its way -- the same way I'd get tired if the USGS told me an earthquake might be happening tonight.

But we went to bed Sunday with the thunderstorm warning, although my Uncle Mark and I had plans for an 8 a.m. golf outing.

Not so fast.

About 3:30 a.m. the heavens opened. Lightning. Thunder. Rain -- wideways rain. And winds -- gale-force winds.

It woke me up long enough to realize I wasn't going to play golf and turn the cell phone alarm off. Then, about 5:15 a.m. my cousin's son, Jake, came in and said his mom and dad wanted to see me.

Serious faces for so early. Steve said I should be prepared to shepherd everyone to the basement, that the tornado sirens should be wailing shortly. You know shit it serious when people who live there look a little panicked.

We watched the Weather Channel, saw a super cell moving over us in a color I didn't know existed (usually it's red for monsoon rains) and right as the loop showed the cell passing over Muscatine the power shut off.

What the hell?

Well, the worst of it had passed, the storm shuffled east into Illinois. But the damage had been done (pictures coming when I can download them off the camera). We went to Davenport in the morning and saw destruction and misery. It really was a storm they'll be talking about for the next decade (Do you remember that day ...).

The puzzling thing to me, however, was where in the hell were the tornado sirens? With sustained winds of 95 mph, I wanted sirens. According to the news, they were straight-line winds and not a vortex. I assume there wasn't any hot air to mix with cold and form a tornado. Still, it was more than I asked for.

We're not in Kansas anymore

And we're not in heaven, we're in Iowa.
That's right. The Williams boys' roadshow took off Saturday from Lawrence, Kansas, headed up I-35, took a right on I-80 in Des Moines and wound its way across Iowa to Muscatine, home of the Hamptons, Meyers and Snyders (cousins, aunt and uncle).
While Kansas is always fun for the boys and myself (it's become a vacation home base), Iowa was a new experience for all. A vast expanse of flat amazed and bored on the six-hour drive to Muscatine (the only place on the Mississippi River were it travels east-west).
We're hanging with my cuz Stacey and her family, lounging by a pool, going to Quad Cities to a baseball game and doing just what you're supposed to on vacation -- NOTHING.

But the highlight of the trip so far for me is the awesome thunder and lightning storm on Saturday night. I a place that got tattooed by flooding and more flooding in the past two months, many Iowans are sick of rain. But for a California kid, the fury of a storm moving across the plains is a site to behold. Sunny all day Saturday, the clouds kicked up in the south about sunset, followed by flash lightning off in the distance. And then, as Midwest storms do, it rolled through with the subtlety of a right cross. Buckets of rain, booming thunder and lightning so bright I could count my freckles.
Of course, No. 1 got a little freaked about the tornado warnings flashing on the TV, but we assured him he'd have plenty of time to duck into the basement should the tornado siren actually go off.

We've got a day and a half left in Iowa before heading back to the Land of Ahs. A golf outing, a birthday party and perhaps some fireworks are probably in store.
And hopefully more severe weather.

Overwhelmed

I'm on sensory overload after seeing "The Dark Knight."
Too much to digest in one setting, for sure.
Suffice to say everything written about Heath Ledger's Joker character are dead on (no pun intended). He's funny, insane, disturbing and genius. The only negative about his portrayal was that it left you wanting more, in some instances making you stray from what was a genuinely original script and plotline.
You knew you were in for a ride when the Joker's magic trick makes a pencil dissapear in a gangster's eye.

However, there are so many twists, turns and plot subtleties that "Dark Knight" is one of the movies you have to see twice (kinda like "Superbad," where it was necessary to see it again just to get all the penis jokes).
And that's not a bad thing.

Small town, big name?

Ok, so we're on our way to Kansas City for a glorious two-week vacation. The boys and I are sitting in Java City waiting for board the plane.





We're minding our own business when who in the name of the Wide World of Sports plops down next to us but the voice of the Kings, Grant Napier.



Proof positive that Scaramento is still a small town? No one bombarded him for an autograph or told him he's a New York Yankees honk or told him his radio show sucks.

wordless wednesday

Flashback alert

No. 2 spent some of his birthday money today on the new Guitar Hero: Aerosmith. A win-win, as I get to Wii-out with and without the kid.
A convert to Guitar Hero (yes, it seemed silly, difficult and frivolous at first), I have come to embrace the scrolling notes and Mini-Me ax.
While the jury's still out on the new game (wasn't real impressed with most of the first set of songs, though I've never been big on Mott the Hoople and "All the Young Dudes), I did have one of those moments. You know, the moment you're rocketed back to the days of yesteryear, to a fun, carefree (and for me) high time. The first song of the game is Cheap Trick's "Dream Police" (they live inside of my head, in falsetto, of course).
My first alone concert was Cheap Trick on the Dream Police tour in Hawaii at the Blaisdell Arena. Sure, I'd been subjected to the Fifth Dimension at Wolftrap with the 'rents, and dragged kicking and screaming to Up with People by my Uncle Rex, but I'd never spread my wings and soloed. Until Cheap Trick.
I don't remember much. After all, it was 1980. I was 12. And, man, I got wasted. Nosebleed seats, a bunch of Marines next to me and my friends and a bunch of Da Kine (it was Hawaii, after all).
However, I still remember, for whatever reason, that the Dream Police live inside of my head. Not "I Want You To Want Me," "Surrender" or "Ain't that a Shame." But "Dream Police."
I also remember, equally stunning, that my folks had NO CLUE how trashed I was.
"How was the concert, Aaron" was the Parental Inquisition. Thank God.
Fast forward to today, when those same Dream Police re-invaded my head. All I could do was chuckle to myself when No. 2 asked if I knew this song.
Yes, TJ, I do.
Oh, by the way. It was the first time I've made it through a song on the second level without missing a note. It really was "inside of my head."

Sins of the father

The car screeched to a stop. A small boy, frozen in his tracks, began to cry. And wet himself.
The ball he'd once been chasing rolled on down the street.
It's amazing how fate steps in to those life-defining moments. When they work out, it's good fortune; when they don't, the Gods are out to get you.
The youth's mother, still white with the terror she saw in shit-your-pants slow motion, ran to the boy.
"Are you all right?"she asked. "Oh, my God, Jared. How many times do I have to tell you not to play near the street. You wait until your father hears about this."
The driver, equally aghast and whiter than mom, climbed out of his car and asked if everything was OK.
"No thanks to you," the protective hen shot. "You kids scream up and down this street without regards to anything or anyone. One of these days you're going to kill someone."
The kid, a 20-something really, slunk back into his car knowing the woman was lashing out in fear and irrationality. He had not been in the wrong; actually driving the posted 25 miles per hour speed limit.
The boy, Jared the 4-year-old, actually was at fault; as much at fault as a 4-year-old can be.
But now he was wet and knowing his father, prone to fits of rage, was going to "talk to him" when he got home from work.
Even at 4, Jared knew to duck first and wait for the bullets to stop falling.
He had been accustomed to waiting at the top of the steps when his dad, John, came home from the insurance office where he worked.
Good-mood daddy meant sliding down the steps into his arms; bad-mood dad meant slinking back into his blue Thomas the Tank Engine plastered room.
Today, surprisingly, was good-mood dad. John had closed on a deal he'd been working at for months.
But Jared did not slide down the steps, even at the sight of his father's smile. The thought of his mother's threat burned in his brain, a scar he would carry for a long time; that no matter who he surrounded himself with that he was "this close" to anger, disappointment and rage.

Oh, snap! I mean burn!

Is there anything worse than burning yourself? Cooking breakfast for No. 2, the birthday boy, I reached for the pan of fresh-out-of-the-oven cinnamon rolls. Without the hot pad. There really isn't anything comparable to the sound of sizzling flesh.

Or the stream of profanities unleashed after flesh stops sizzling and begins to F'ing hurt.

I've broken a few of these

Got this off a link from gorillamask.net (one of the funniest sites on the Web)


Top Ten WTF? US Sex Laws from collegetimes.com


1. Oral sex is illegal in 18 states, including Arizona. (That's just wrong)

2. In Virginia, it is illegal to have sex with the lights on. (depends on if it's a 2 a.m. pick up or not)

3. It is illegal for husbands in Willowdale, Ore., to talk dirty during intercourse. (Mud, filth, sweat grime).

4. Sexual intercourse between unmarried couples is illegal in Georgia. (whole lot of scofflaws in the ATL).

5. Engaging in any sexual position other than missionary is illegal in Washington, DC. ( what about with Marion Barry and a crack pipe?)

6. In Connorsville, Wisconsin, it is illegal for a man to shoot off a gun when his female partner is having an orgasm. ( No need. If she's orgasming, she's already seeing fireworks).

7. In Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, it is illegal to have sex with a truck driver inside a toll booth. (Huh? Is that even possible?)

8. Having sexual relations with a porcupine is illegal in Florida. ( Do I make you horny, Baby? well don't get all prickly about it)

9. It is illegal in Utah to marry your first cousin before the age of 65. (After that she's not hot enough any more).

10. Sex with animals is perfectly legal for men in Washington state, as long as the animal weighs less than 40 pounds. (Aye, chihuahua!)

Sink or swim

After contemplating for weeks, I finally got off my butt and bought a pedestal sink to replace the leaky, rust-stained thing I had in the hovel's lone bathroom.
A Father's Day gift card from Lowe's covered the majority, the rest came from Mr. Checking Account.

Pop Quiz: How many times did Mr. Bad Example have to go to the hardware store, not including the initial trip to Lowe's?

Answer: If you guessed three, you win . . . nothing. But you are correct.

In all my misadventures in Home Improvement, I've never, I repeat, never gotten it right on the first try. It stands to reason -- if I could get it right, I would be a plumber, carpenter or handyman.
But I soldiered on.
It's funny how removal, usually, is the easy part. I say usually because I've gone to put in a water line for an ice maker only to have the ancient copper tubing crumble at the wall, water spraying everywhere and the shut off valve nowhere to be found on the property.

This time, however, there was no real drama.
1. Turn off water? Check.
2. Unscrew all lines? Check.
3. Remove sink and cabinet? Check.

Cleaning ensued and the process of installing the loomed.

After removing everything from the package, Problem No. 1 surfaced -- the water supply lines weren't the right size at the wall. So instead checking to see if there were any other problems, off we go to Ace for a remedy.
With Problem No. 1 solved, sort of, I was back at it piecing the lavatory sink together.
Only to find out the hot-water supply line with half-inch at the faucet and three-eighths at the wall. Round 2.
Only this time, I decided to make sure I didn't need anything else. Learning, slowly, but learning.
And find something I did. It seems the P-trap, that's the curvy thing at the bottom of the drain for you non-plumbing types, was about a half inch off. If the P-trap lines up with the wall drain, the down-spout drain didn't meet the P-trap at a perpendicular angle. And vise versa.
Back to Ace.
It's funny how you're greeted the second and third time in a hardware store on the same day -- "Didn't work, huh?" the clerk who helped me the first time asked.
I wonder if they have a tally sheet to see how many times dumbasses like me return.
Well, we found the right hot-water line and a flex P-trap line. Then I was off to pick up No. 2 at a birthday party. No more going back to Ace for me today -- they closed at 5 p.m. and it was already 4:15 p.m.
So pick up the kid, make small talk and head home to finally finish my project?
Yeah, right.
The flex trap had gender issues -- both sides wanted to be female. Shit, I can't have a lesbian sink. I need it fixed.
Back to the scene of the crime -- Lowe's.
Return the faucet hardware (the one that came with the sink turned out to be OK after all) and look for a non-transgender P-trap. Gotcha.
Then like magic, things start coming together. Lines connect, putty is put in place. Water is turned on and . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . it drains. No leaks (for now, the realist in me knows it will leak eventually).
But for now, I have a sink that works, isn't rust-stained and stops dripping when you turn it off.
And it only took six hours to install. A new record.

Another favorite photo

This will be shown to any and all prospective dates TJ will have.

What's in a name?

Apparently, quite a bit if you're 10 or 8.
The word "Dick" came up in dinner conversation, which turned into a rip-snorting good time for B and T. Actually, it was almost soda-snorting-out-the nose good time for TJ, who almost lost it.

The "offending word" came up when the TV music station began playing Moby's "South Side."

"Cool, Moby," I said to anyone and no one.
"Isn't that a book?" No. 1 asked.
"You mean 'Moby Dick'?" I replied.

Laughs all around.
"You guys are laughing at 'Dick'?" I asked.
More snickers.
"You know," I said in my best "I remember-when-candy-cost-a-nickel-and-gas-was-under-a-buck" voice, "Dick is actually a nickname for Richard."
Crickets.
"You know, just like Jack is a nickname of John," I told them.
"Why wouldn't you just want to be called Rich?" No. 1 asked.
"Because not everything used to be dirty," I said. "You do know that gay really"
"Means happy," No. 2 interjected.
"Yes," I said.
"Still," No. 1 said, "I think I'd stick with Rich."
Indeed.

My favorite photo

As a writer, I'm OK (we're all self-deprecating, you know). As a photographer? Let's just say I shouldn't quit my night job just yet.

Still, every once in a while, I get it. that shot that makes me stand back and say, "Wow."

This is from a hiking trp I took with the boys about four years and 100 pounds ago.

We are on a trek up to the top of Maggie's Peak rising above Lkae Tahoe at Emerald Bay. Brady stood on the rock overlooking the lake, and I snapped.

Even a blind squirrel gets a nut.

The patriotic alternative

No firework on the Fourth of July? Even for an in-the-closet Communist, that's just downright un-American.

So we hopped in the Family Truckster and journeyed up to Mount Shasta's fesitval of blowing shit up.

The boys and I found friends. I chatted, they played, Brady flirted with a girl "he doesn't like' (ah, to be 11 years old again).

Then it got dark. And we saw fireworks.

While I didn't think they were all that good (although I was looking from behind the lens), the kids all thought it was great. And afterall, isn't that what it's about?

A perfect place

There's something about the ocean. It's mesmerizing draw is magnetic. Me and the boys escaped the heat for the Father's Day weekend and headed to the Redwood coast. Not cuz I can't stand the heat, but because I like the ocean more than the lakes and rivers we were going to play in.
After checking in at an Arcata motel (that not surprisingly smelled a little like Da Kine), we headed up to Trinidad and the beach.
Truth be told, if I weren't tethered to Redding via an ex-wife and my three cherubs, I would live near the ocean.
It's the place I feel the most peace. The soothing sound of the surf. The feel of sand between my toes. The waves lapping at the shore. The water coming on shore and washing away all traces, all footprints. The faint taste of salt on my lips.
Add to that the beauty of the weather-beaten rocks and it's about as perfect a place as you'll find.
Pictures to come.

Getting old fast

It's funny how life turns full circle. One day, mom and dad are wiping your ass. Then all of a sudden, you're charged with taking care of them.
On Thursday, I drove to the Bay Area to take my mom to chemotherapy. In addition, I took Ferris to the eye doctor.
It wasn't an option that I would take the day off work, drive three hours on minimal sleep and stay up all day taking care of mom and Ferris. It wasn't a duty. It was an honor.
But it reminded me that they're getting old. And, in turn, I'm getting old.
But for me, the capper to how old these two really are came at dinner. The 4:30 dinner.
Ferris is a creature of habit. Up at a certain time, nap at a certain time, eat at a certain time.
And like clockwork, the dinner bell went off at 4:30 p.m.
I used to laugh at the cliche of old people hopping in the car for the earlybird special at Hometown Buffet or whereever. Until I live it.

Different, but the same

He sat on the sand, the cold, wet sand, watching a boy dance in the breaking surf. And though he'd known this boy, his son, for 10 years, it was as though he was watching a stranger.
Maybe because, as of late, they had been strangers.
And while the boy pranced in the sand, turning cartwheels and running from the encroaching surf, he thought about how little he really knew the boy. How could his son, so serious, be so playful? How could the boy, so self-absorbed and selfish, find joy in something as simple -- and free -- as running on the beach of the Marin Headlands.
They shared likes and dislikes. They battled and laughed. They were genetically linked.
But something had been unplugged recently. The boy had grown angry with his father. The father disillusioned with the angry youth.
It hadn't always been that way. Or had it?

Making lemonade

It sucks when your mother, the one who's battling Stage 4 lung cancer, tells you to get off your pitty pot and work on finding happiness.
What do you say?
"Sorry, mom. You're out of your fucking mind. I'm miserable. I want to be miserable because life sucks and doesn't hand me everything I want. I am nearly 40 years old, my 10-year marriage was a sham for the final 5 years, the ensuing divorce has been a blessing and a curse, I find love again only to watch it disappear. I' ve got a job I love, but in a business I despise. I've got a kid with serious fucking problems. A kid who hates me and everything I stand for even though he doesn't really believe it. What? I've got to medicate him too? And my two other boys are good kids caught in the middle of a situation that makes Iraq look like a fucking Sunday at Disneyland. I'm fat and am back at the point in my life where I was after my divorce -- feeling completely alone, lost, unloveable, wandering through life and about two seconds from snapping and going postal on someone."
Somehow, I just don't think that would fly.
So, I've decided to make lemonade. That's right. Life's handed me a giant fucking lemon. Bigger than that goddamned peach in the Roald Dahl book. So I've got to make lemonade.
And it starts by putting one foot in front of the other and walking. And doing. And sitting. And writing. And venting. And talking. And crying.
I don't know how I'm going to come out of this. But I will. I will wake up every day and just go. I will make a list of things I need to do before going to sleep and wake up and hit the ground running. I will not beat myself up when I do not finish everything on the list. I will cross them off as they're done and move on to the next item.
And hopefully, one day, I will look up and realize I've made something of my, what I feel today, is a pretty fucking miserable life.

Gotta go drink some lemonade

I want to marry Paul McCartney

Because I'm SUUUURRRREEE I could live on $50 million, PLUS $70,000 annually, AND pocket change for nannies and other "necessities." That's what Heather Mills is bitching about gett from the ex-Beatle.

Just for one day I'd like to live in the world of the rich and famous. If for nothing more than to prove to myself that the grass really IS greener. The incessant bullshit about "how celebrities still have problems" simply rings hollow. Sure, they have problems. But $50 million can BUY a lot of happiness and make a whole lot of problems disappear.
Don't get me wrong. There are a lot of things in my life I wouldn't sell for $50 trillion. But I pretty sure all that cash would make me happier, better looking and a helluva nicer guy.

So get over yourself, Heather. After all with $50 million, you can buy a zillion fake legs at about $2,000 per stick.

Heeeeee's back

That's right -- Mr. Bad Example is back. After cutting his teeth at San Jose State University, Mr. Bad Example took a seven-year hiatus to become a "real" journalist. Now a "respected" sports editor in Redding, it's time for Mr. Bad Example to return.

In the days, weeks and months to follow, I will re-assume my college personna of Mr. Bad Example, albeit a lot older, a lot greyer, a little wiser and with a ton more miles.

Mr. Bad Example will poke fun at the obvious, take hypocrites to task and have fun -- again.

AW