Testing Me

Apparently somebody likes throwing everything at me that can be pitched at once just to see how much I can take. I've gotten the incredibly, amazingly marvelous and the rock bottom unbearable all in the month of February.

I came home after work and found a large, clean puddle inching its way towards the tangle of cords and plugs in the corner of the kitchen, where I have most of my electronics gathered. It's coming in under the cabinets from the boiler room behind the wall and miraculously isn't harming anything, just bathing the linoleum, which I mopped Saturday (so no, Mum, it isn't a sign).

The plumber gauranteed Mary it's just groundwater when she called him, so she dismissed it without even checking. ("You'd better borrow a shopvac. Oh, but go next door first and make sure it's not just Dean's sink overflowing. If you're brave enough to go in there.") So I've been sucking up the water with my wet/dry Hoover handvac and ruminating on the fact that I may very well have to deal with this crap for another year and a half.

Cloying Crooners

MEMO to Tim McGraw and Faith Hill, the au courant Camelot couple of country music:

The only thing gayer than calling your first collaborative concert series “Soul2Soul Tour” is calling the second installment “Soul2Soul II Tour.”

Get a clue. And a new publicist.

You'd Think It Was a Photoblog

Park City

Enthusiastic Sauce

Submissive Sauce

We're having a moment here, aren't we? He loves me.

My Skates
(Well, Mom's skates.)

Black Ice

Machine Shop Catwalk, Afternoon (Sneak Preview II)

Cummins Diesel Generator (Hearing Protection Required)

Tracks Through Evanston

An Inconspicuous Departure Makes Me Glad

Let's take a moment to celebrate. She's gone.

At 3:00 a.m. Friday morning, the neighbor from hell retreated in pretty much the same fashion as she arrived: loudly. Lucky for her, I was already/still awake, so I found the racket on the stairs and the hourlong session of vacuuming that followed absolutely hilarious. (My friend said, "So does she really expect to get her deposit back?")

Friday afternoon I found the dumpster overflowing with trash, rags, blankets and broken furniture. I felt like setting the whole mess on fire and doing a Sioux-inspired victory dance around the blaze, but I'm pretty sure the City wouldn't appreciate having to replace the can, and I don't have a feather headdress.

Still. Party.

New York City II

In honor of my status as an honorary New Yorker for the week (on account of my acid tongue, and believe me, I'd love to be a real New Yorker someday), more pics of A, Angie, Morgan, and RaeDell in the Big Apple in June, 2005. And also because I'm having so much fun pretending there's no snow outside. And also because there are 1,500 pictures and they're just never all going to get on the gallery. If you want to see the rest, you just have to come sit down with the me and the Vaio.

Angie, M, RaeDell at Tavern on the Green

One of many, many reasons to go back.

Metropolitan Museum of Art (Mind the moat, girls. Mind the moat.)

RENT (For Kym)

I will never get tired of skyscrapers.

Mecca

You all know how I love Jack.

Crumbling barracks on Ellis Island (where we found the manifest Grandma's mother and two siblings signed in 1904).

Angie shoots Lady Liberty

There was something charming about how he gestured down to us. I wanted to take him home.

July Looks Like More Fun Than February

Operating Turntable

Bruce Gives Rides

Travis' Realtree Gaiters (on MY legs)

and Snowdrift Behind the Mains (which is WHY I wore the gaiters)

Sweet and Sour

I waded through the beer bottle-strewn snow to the front of the house to get my mail just now and found some familiar white trash smoking on the porch.

To my amazement, she smiled at me.

Oh, no. Too late for that. I scowled in reply and before I knew it, it just slipped out: "Shouldn't you be in there packing?"

I snatched the contents of my box and left her standing, mouth agape, cigarette forgotten. I know I was asking too much before, rudely expecting her to be considerate of her fellow tenants. But at this point, smiling at me is just not allowed. I don't care if it was a sneer or an expression of utmost chagrin.

She better make as much noise moving out as she did moving in.

July 2004

Jo and Don's deck.

Jo's garden and willow.

View from rear deck (get a load of that rhubarb!).

The kitchen bar, scene of many late-night, drunken confessions.

Gratuitous footage of the roundhouse in the rain, because I forgot I'd taken these and found them while looking for the pics above, taken in July of 2004.

(Just a note: that last post was #666. Hope I didn't jinx myself, there.)

Castle in the Air

There are three things I have long wanted to do but at this point sort of figured I maybe never would: one, kayak the entire perimeter of the Salton Sea, two, get a breast reduction, and three, buy Jo and Don's house (when they're finished with it, of course).

Numbers one and two I'm still working on. I just never seem to be able to find the time and energy to do the first and the second scares the bejesus out of me even though I think it would be the best decision I ever made. But three? Three is now a definite possibility.

I called Jo today after snooping around the County Assessor's office for some information about the little house a block down that's been vacant since I moved into this wretched Peyton Place. It belonged to a doctor and her husband and was foreclosed on when they divorced and left town, and it has extensive water damage throughout due to the freezing and breaking of every single above-ground pipe. I found the open mortgage to be valued at way more than the house is worth, so I called Jo to whine, and she had something serious to say.

"Can you wait a year and a half? Then you could buy our house. After Don's heart attack I've been thinking that we'd better move closer to one of the kids, probably up by Deed in Rapid City. We'll take the fifth-wheels and the boat and be snowbirds in the winter. You'd really be ready in a year and a half."

I almost cried. I can't tell you how much I love their two-bedroom house two blocks away from here, and Jo knows this. They bought it cheap and run down and poured their hearts into it. The small galley kitchen has an East window, so the morning sunlight pours in, and the window looks out onto the covered redwood deck where Jo hangs waterfalls of petunias in the summertime. The bedroom on the first floor faces West, so the afternoon sunlight floods in. The whole upper level is hardwood floors and beautiful touches, since Don did the work himself. In the big bathroom he walled the tub in with ice-cube glass blocks he salvaged from the State Hospital, and he installed the counter higher than normal. (He was so tickled when Morgan noticed this during one of several tours. "I just got tired of leaning," said six-foot-something Don.) There's an enclosed porch on the front that is a pretty tight squeeze but I'm sure I could find something useful to do with it. I wouldn't know what to do with all the closets and cupboards, since I've never had any storage at all in my apartments.

The basement is the coziest place I've ever seen, with pine panelling and a wood-burning stove. They just finished it in the last few years and Jo scoured the world for the perfect antique sideboard in the corner, where she keeps all the liquor. They installed egress windows in the long basement bedroom and a basement bathroom to change the legal description of the house to two-bedroom, two bath. Don built a fitted-slate corner patio in the front yard, and there's a tiny basketball court behind the two-car garage, which sits back from the street on a new asphalt drive.

They own the lot next door and Jo quoted me the price Don wants for the house and both lots. I told her it was way too low. She said she knows, but to sit tight and see what happens in a year and a half. I can hardly wait. But I am also realistic, and I know that things might change. So for right now, I'm just going to daydream a little. Because that's never hurt anyone, has it?

More Malefaction on Morse Lee

I am enraged and exasperated. I'm sick, and sick of people. I hosted another midnight rendezvous with the police last night, but this time I wasn't the one who called them, and I was far less impressed with this bunch than the last. I was so fiercely annoyed at having to throw something on (clothing torments every fever-raw cell) and answer the door that it wouldn't have mattered who was standing there; the cops were lucky they were cops, because this time I picked up the industrial hammer-sized sharpened pickaxe Jim gave me after our unsuccessful bid for some convention or other (the handle is engraved "City of Evanston- Your Pick in 2006"). I couldn't wait to brain somebody with it.

I had gone to bed early, about 9:00 p.m., hoping the Nyquil rushing in my ears would be enough to drown out the cacophony upstairs, the laughing and stomping and music. It worked for a while and I must have missed the action yet again, because at 12:10 a.m. there was a knock at the door, which I had a hard time opening since I'd closed it over the extension cord I use to plug my truck in.

The pompous old balding jerk (yes I know who he is, and no, I'm not going to tell you) who came in first- weilding his badge as if I might question that he was a cop- asked, "Is this Number Two?"

"No. This is Number Five." It's clearly marked.

A grey-faced hulk who could have been a body double for Lurch lurched in behind him and growled, "Are you Emmy?" I silently wished for Sam and Ammon, polite, concerned, and hot.

"No. I'm Adriane."

Baldy adopted an accusatory tone. "Were you just on the phone talking to someone?"

"No," surprisingly. "You woke me up when you came down the stairs. I didn't know who you were so I picked up my cellphone in case I needed to call 911." He asked me the same question three more times in the exact same words. I noticed a young female cop I've never seen before peering in the doorway with a sheepish expression.

Finally Baldy got on the radio. "Number Seven, we're confused." Pause. "No, we're not with Emmy." They filed up the stairs, leaving the door at the top open, which I hate because the light from the church across the street pours in, and the heat from down here pours out. I heard the cops a moment later in the foyer, their voices competing with a woman's sobs and a man swearing. I pulled the covers over my head and passed out.

There was no time to get to Public Health for a Strep test today, what with the 2100-C Turbidimeter crapped out and the sensor at the Twin Ridge tank on the fritz, probably frozen (weather.com: 17 degrees, feels like 0). There were Bac-T's and TOC's and Alkalinity to take, and I felt pretty good all day despite catching the occasional whiff of Vicks VapoRub. Put a dollop of that goop on the floor of your shower (somewhere so the stream of water isn't direct but still contacts it), turn the water as hot as you can bear it, and voila. Instant relief. Just be prepared to have people snidely comment on your new perfume.

Work in Progress

Mom's friend Donnie gave me a lot of her castoff art supplies a few years ago on the condition that I finish the painting of a bighorn sheep she had started and never finished. Unfortunately her original canvas is unmounted and very stiff and yellowed, so I'm starting over on a fresh canvas, just so she can see I'm making good use of the items, which include several valuable volumes of instruction and a vintage easel the likes of which I would have had to scour the world to find. Having no formal training (except one semester of public school art I pretty much got double the benefit of since I did all Lenny's homework, too- oops, did I say that on the Internet?), it's nice to have some direction and encouragement. I'm hoping to finish this fast since Donnie has been sick, and I'd like her to enjoy it while she's able. It'll have even more significance since her daughter Des got her first bighorn sheep last hunting season.

So critique away, people, bearing in mind that it's not done yet. Feedback is always appreciated.

Asleep at the Wheel

There's a pretty good chance I've contracted Strep from Cordale. I refused to even acknowledge the scratchy throat I woke up with until Morgan told me he was sick. I thought it was just from talking too much and going without sleep.

Mary and Kathy stopped by this afternoon (and I had to feign horror at the state of my house) to talk about the problem neighbors and reassure me that she's evicting them. I've never met Kathy before even though she owns the house, having always dealt with Mary because she lives in town. Kathy seemed like a nice person, if a little odd. She said she liked what I've done with the place, and I wondered if she remembers what it looked like before, the holes and grime. She should be paying me rent.

I'm tired of winter. I'm tired of wading through three-foot drifts down to the main reservoirs, my momentum stolen by the layer of ice beneath the new snow. I'm tired of cancelling plans due to weather. Tired of going ahead with plans and increasing my chances of dying on the road. But I'm producing an astonishing amount of art because I'm stuck in the house, and I can't complain about that.

Jeff called this afternoon to tell me that the effluent turbidimeter is "shittin' the bed" and wanted to know if I knew how to turn just that individual alarm off until we can get a look at it in the morning. I had him set the high limit to something outrageous and put my name first on the dialer just in case. I'm facing the pleasant prospect of a three-day week and the new Salt Lake paper. Last Sunday I did the crossword in eleven minutes while Filter 6 was drawing down and Jeff was in Mesquite at a roping. He didn't win but, as usual, he had three hours' worth of stories about being this close.

I'm this close to many things, but it's easy to be patient when you're me.

Saturday in Utah

Bowling

Dude, where's my car?

I only wear the ugly shoes because it's snowy and they're comfortable to shop in.

I Have a New Crush

I am totally smitten with Eric Morgan Hughes. He's terribly handsome (I'm obsessed with his chin- it's like a squishy little button), he smells good, and he's very, very warm.

Contemplating Mom...

Fall in love with these windows. You're going to see them a lot.

Jeff and Candace (graphite on bone) at their September wedding.
(Check out what I did with the bullet hole, and excuse the distortion. Steer skulls are not flat, and therefore do not photograph well.)

Sediment in sunlight, and yes, that is just dirt- no more, no less.

Me Too

I'm a Porsche 911

"You have a classic style, but you're up-to-date with the latest technology. You're ambitious, competitive, and you love to win. Performance, precision, and prestige - you're one of the elite, and you know it. Plus, you're damn hot."

Take the Which Sports Car Are You? quiz.

Thanks to Mikey, who is also one of the elite.

Bait and Switch

I vowed long ago to purchase anything John Lithgow wants to shill me. And really, I like the soup. Now if they could just get him in the new MX-5...

Day at the Salt Lake Art Center

Sophie Matisse, The Staircase Group, 2001

Lee Deffebach, Sea Change, 1964

Sophie Matisse, (Be Back in 5 Minutes), 1997
(Who's missing?)

Show and Tell

From the May, 2005 service for my grandmother,

my cousin Roger's graceful proof

that I am not the only writer in the family.

I loved Aunt Molly for many things, most of them grander
than what I am about to remember to you

I loved the way she said my name

With a syrupy drawl paced slowly and deliberately
The blending of a low pipe organ and almost a yodel

She could stretch an extra syllable into the word
with a soft strength that made me feel grand and important
even as a very small child

And when she spoke my name I felt the family bond of every generation
from before Aunt Molly to the grandchildren I may someday have
She was larger than life in body and spirit and when she spoke my name
I was proud of from where I came

As her memories were being stolen away a little at a time
at a visit that was long overdue
I firmly expected that she would not know me
she rolled her eyes upward from where she sat
and without hesitation granted me her greatest gift save genetics
She called me by name

That this grand matriarch of our family will no longer utter my name is
cetainly the smallest tragedy of this loss we celebrate today
But it is not insignificant
It is that kind of minutia that is the fabric of our family

I will miss her great persona
I will miss the history that only she could impart
I will miss her boundless humor
I will miss the magical presence of her with her girls
I will miss the hats
I will miss the hands that were also my grandfather’s hands
I won’t have to miss the cooking because that she passed on
But I will miss her

And the way she said my name

...RDV...
05/14/2005

Gung Hai Fat Choy

Wes warms up at Main Street Artisans
"Techno is paranoid."

"She's turning into a blueberry."

Vaseline Monkey

"Gimme the petroleum and nobody gets hurt."

Incidents and Accidents, Hints and Allegations

It's 3:00 a.m., and I'm not sleeping.

I always thought calling the cops would be more fun. Turns out it isn't when you know them. Ammon and Sam coming to my door wasn't nearly as amusing as the drunk guy coming to my door.

I woke up with a shriek half an hour ago when somebody tried to turn my doorknob, rattling the dangling security chain I never slide (but will hereafter). He ran up the stairs while I tried to decide which weapon to use. A few minutes later he was back again, stumbling down to my door (tripping on a stack of fossils, a box of mothballs, and my snow shovel) in the sulphur glow from the light on the church across the street. By this time I could tell he was drunk, unarmed, and smaller than me, so I pulled back the curtain and shouted, "What do you think you're doing?"

"I'm trying to go down these stairs." He was maybe 20, skinny and shirtless (it's 7 degrees above 0), clearly inebriated.

"Obviously. It's three a.m., what the hell are you doing? Get the **** out of here."

He stumbled up the stairs again and around the front of the house, where I heard him shouting, "What am I going to do?" There was another male voice, some stomping, more shouting. I heard them force the front door to the rear apartment upstairs. That's when I called dispatch, not afraid but genuinely annoyed.

Five minutes later I could hear Ammon and Sam talking to the drunk guys in the foyer above when somebody knocked on my door. I pulled back the curtain to find a very concerned-looking young man in glasses and hoodie, and for a moment all I could do was stare. He was black. Which, may I point out, didn't make me feel any animosity towards him, especially since he was chubby and tidy and clearly sorry to be knocking on my door. It's just that I haven't seen a live person of color up close in months, maybe years.

He looked even more unhappy to find me gawking. "Do you know where Eve is?"

"No. Who's that?"

"Eve? Mary?"

"They don't live here."

He rolled his eyes and waved towards the apartment above. "Mary. From upstairs?"

I shrugged. "I don't know those people. I don't want to."

"Well she knocked on my door, and the cops are here to deal with that situation," indicating the shouting in the foyer.

"I know. I called them."

He threw up his hands and trudged back up the stairs, where he met Ammon and, apparently, Mary, a very large girl covered in snow and sobbing. Ammon came down the stairs.

"She jumped out the window because the door handle broke off and she was locked in. The drunk guys shouldn't bother you now. Did you call because of the noise?"

"No. The half-naked one tried to open my door." His eyebrows shot up, and Sam appeared behind him. They are both fit and tall and appealingly clean-cut, the stalwart embodiment of public safety. Suddenly, sagging against the doorjamb in the cold, all I could think about was the flannel sheets and down comforter behind me. "Can I go back to bed now?"

I must have missed most of what went on, and there will probably be more problems, but all I want is sleep, lately such a rare and precious commodity. Mary obviously has the worst kind of friends, people who don't respect her. I hate to cause more trouble for her, but her inevitable eviction is out of my hands now.

Long Way Around

What have I done?

Jane caught me at City Hall Wednesday and made me a Renewal Ball offer I thought I couldn't refuse. "Adriane, if you want to do the poster this year by yourself, we just won't put out a sign-up sheet at the kickoff tomorrow night. What do you think?" She leaned forward in her chair and all but tugged at my sleeve. I could feel Jim's eyeballs burning holes into my back from his office across the hall.

A brief history of my involvement with the Renewal Ball: I've done the poster twice now, not including last year's aborted attempt (April and May were not conducive to time-consuming volunteer work). Upon each occasion, I was lured in with the promise (from Jane, who, as Urban Renewal Secretary, cannot chair the Ball) that I could create an original oil painting of my own concept, but each time the Ball Chair had her own ideas. Luckily they were good ideas, and I wound up creating stellar pieces with digital graphics, anyhow. One mixed-media original sold for $3,980.00, a Ball poster record. But I swore I'd never get involved in the poster again because the point (for me) was to have creative freedom, and it seemed that would never happen. (I know that sounds vain and snooty, but I'm an artist, and we're arrogant, moody misanthropes. Sue me. And next year, remind me that I make a really bad volunteer.)

It's official: I'm a sucker. Jane dangled the bait, and I went for it. When he heard me give in, Jim shouted from his office, "Wear the fox hat!"

Alas, I attended the 24th Annual Renewal Ball Kickoff tonight, only to find myself announced Poster Committee Chairperson. There was a sign-up sheet, which six people inked. If you've ever volunteered for anything, you know that in general, 50% of people who volunteer don't follow through, so I figure I'll have three people to deal with when all's said and done.

And after four glasses of wine, I decided it won't be so bad. I'll wind up doing the artwork anyway, and I expect I can convince the committee to come up with a concept and just let me paint it. Easier on all of us. But I'm a little upset with Jane and her annual deception, and myself for getting sucked in again,especially when there's so much danger of becoming overwhelmed. The Ball is always the first weekend in June, and my Level II test is the first week in May. Fretting about the propaganda for a charity event and reading four chapters on amoebic dysentary are two things I shouldn't have to do in one evening.

This all makes no sense, I'm suddenly very tired, and Blogger is threatening a maintenance outtage. I can take a hint.

More Fun with Neighbors

At 2:00 a.m. I woke up to a sound I hate more than almost any other on the planet: rap music. Specifically, the repetitive, intrusive bass line shaking the timbers of the house. And there was screaming, stomping, and laughing. I should have known there'd be trouble when I saw the four cars in the driveway last night, including a fire-engine red 2004 Mustang with County 1 plates. This garbage has got to go.

The vibrations apparently bothered someone else. I haven't seen a hobo in months, so long I've stopped perusing the corners of the shower stall before I step in, but this morning I just happened to catch movement out of the corner of my eye as I was pulling the curtain closed behind me. He died very quickly. It's always a bit of a disappointment when a hobo doesn't put up a fight.

Mary promised Dean, Anthony and I that if there was one more noise complaint, she'd call Kathy and make her give the white trash in #4 their walking papers. So long, suckers.

Motion

Halftime Show

Nervous Cheerleader

Timber Dome

"Natural Habitat" (Guest Photography by Cordale)

Bear

Dog #4- the inherited father of Daisy's puppies last year- puts Kelly and Morgan well on their way to official kennel status.

Bella and Baby

Spin Cycle

Frontloaders

Morgan's dream team.

Gallimaufry

If Polamalu’s injury prevents him from playing tomorrow, I refuse to watch the SuperBowl. Not that I’m rooting for the Steelers- heavens no. I just want to see it when somebody finally yanks him around by the hair.

Travis called my cell phone at 2:00 p.m. today and said in a grave tone, “I have bad news. The plants died.”

“Huh?” I’m panicking, wondering: Grandpa’s dragon tree? My date palm? The spindly fichus I nursed back to health after Frankie almost killed it dragging it up here from City Hall last January? I almost asked, “All of them?” How could they have died in two days? Everybody looked fine when I watered Thursday.

“Yeah, we lost a breaker and it reset the UPS (uninterrupted power supply); we’ve got things pretty much back under control in the new plant, but just so you know, Gary will be up tomorrow morning to put everything back on the old plant SCADA. Oh, and stay off the U.V. stairs until daylight. I almost broke my neck this morning.”

“Oh, those plants. Okay.” Actually, he talked for ten minutes about the power crash and his clever diagnosis (involving several complicated meters he’s not supposed to mess with and a spectacular power arc), but the above is all he really needed to say.

M and I ran to the Valley last night (Friday) to watch Britan’s halftime show at the varsity basketball game, which is always well attended. (There’s not much to do in Bridger Valley.) Seven-year-olds have got no groove. I love how Britan is always a head taller and considerably wider than anybody her age, even when you discount the ever-present confection of bows and curls on her head. She may be All Girl, but she takes right after her 6-foot-something, 300 lb. dad. (She’s left me black and blue several times just playing dolls, and when we go to Bear Lake she likes to use me as a surfboard. I may be able to hold my breath for a long, long time, but I bruise easily.)

The Mountain View Buffaloes were handing the Jackson Broncos their posteriors when we had to leave right after Bit’s show because we had to go to Kemmerer to retrieve Cordale from his bleeping clueless mother. He talked non-stop on the drive home, but I almost stumped him in 20 Questions with “Grizzly Bear.” Then he almost got us with “Camel.” He cheats, though- you have to pick animals. Otherwise I’d have used my secret weapon: “Four-Leafed Clover.” Nobody ever gets that one. Morgan stumped us with “Ferret.”

I walked into City Hall the other day and nearly had a heart attack. Somebody talked Jo into dying her short steel-grey waves a saucy burgundy, and she looks like Lucille Ball might have at 60. It’s fantastic. I’ll see if I can get her to pose for the Olympus sometime. All I know is, it’s going to go over really well at Kate’s.

Brian's Roper

Weapon of Choice

In keeping with my "anger issues" theme today:

Big Pauly People Iced: Eight Car Bombs Planted: Sixteen Favorite Weapon Angry Cats Arms Broken: Twenty Six Eyes Gouged: Twenty One Tongues Cut Off: Four Biggest Enemy: The Knee Bender Get Your HITMAN Name

Thanks to marymuses, a.k.a. "Mickey Z."

Asshattery at 3:00 a.m.

I am vewy, vewy angwy. If you like to think of me as a 100% meek and forgiving girl, please don't read this post.

The two gigantic, inconsiderate redneck hookers on the second floor (one of whom moved herself and her monstrous two-year-old in with the other despite the lease clearly stating that maximum occupancy is one, and one only) agreed that one would rent the back apartment on the first floor when Mary confronted them and said she had the unit open.

They somehow got it into their empty heads that it was absolutely necessary to move all her belongings downstairs in the middle of the night, even though to the best of my knowledge, neither has a job that would prevent them from accomplishing this during the day.

So last night at 2:30 a.m., I woke up to the sound of two tie-dyed elephants charging down the wooden stairs, occasionally dropping heavy items that would bounce loudly to the bottom of the staircase (directly over my head) and crash into the wall. I kept waiting to hear sirens, hoping one would fall and break her neck. They cursed loudly and giggled and stomped and slammed doors and invited a horde of class-free friends over to participate. This went on for three hours, at which time they decided to hammer nails into the wall to hang whatever worthless idiots like that hang in their homes.

I would have liked to meet them at the bottom of the stairs one trip with a shotgun and my game face on, but instead I tossed and turned for four hours and plotted revenge. I happened to be shoveling out a spot for the Cadillac the other day after work (I moved a pile of plowed snow the size of a Volkswagen) when they came out of the back apartment, and I overheard one saying to the other, "I can't lock the door because she hasn't given me a key yet." If I know Mary (and after three years of tenancy you better bet your buttons I do), the b$%@# still doesn't have a key. And I have two really old eggs in the fridge and a litterbox full of fresh cat poop, and I can get my hands on some smelly shrimp tails pretty easily.

Somebody stop me.

Just Be

As I was filling out my timesheet this morning, I realized yesterday would have been Dad's 63rd birthday. The date always caught me unawares; I'd think, oh I have until February, but then January would be gone and February 1st would sucker punch me and I'd scurry for his favorite pistachios and a silly card, when all along I should have been doing something more.

I put an El Camino on a shirt for him once, and the Chevy logo on another. He liked anything he got, but I think the most excited he ever got over one of my gifts (although he seemed to like the El Camino a lot) was when I gave him a money clip from the San Diego Aerospace Museum, a polished thing with a gold Isle of Man coin from the 1995 Aircraft of WWII collection (I picked the Supermarine Spitfire). He just went gaga over that clip. He did the knee-slap thing I'll never forget, which he only did when he was really excited about something. I do believe he pronounced it "trick." (He did the knee-slap when I showed him the Blackhawk Collection on my computer for the first time, too. His enthusiasm could be so contagious.) He was super excited, too, about the new flat-screen television Morgan and Kelly got him a couple years ago. We managed to remove the old one and install the new while he was napping in his recliner five feet away. It was great when he woke up.

I can't help wondering what I could have found for him this year. I have a habit of trying to outdo myself, forgetting that my family most appreciates the things I paint for them. I painted a '33 Pierce Arrow Silver Arrow (scroll through the Blackhawk Collection- they have one of the three remaining, and it's a breathtaking thing) on a can lid for him once as a Christmas oranament. Come to think of it, he praised that, too.

I think he liked best, though, the simple gift of my company. A decade ago he was glad to have me along at the El Cajon Speedway on a balmy summer night, and five years ago he was glad to have me along in Vegas (remind me and I'll tell you about the crazy weekend he and Morgan and I had when he got stranded with blood-blinded eyes and we drove down to rescue him), and a year ago he was glad to just have me home for a few days. Even if I spent most of the weekend reading to the background drone of his Nascar races or playing violent Nertz with Mom (the louder we got, the louder Fox News got), he was glad to have me there, and that was the most rewarding thing of all: all I had to give to make him happy was me.

I'm going out to buy some pistachios.

Starpower