Fellow Bloggers, Grincheluda has left the building

Is the coast clear? Is Santa gone? Ugh, Argh! oh how I Suck at Christmas. Who woulda thunk? Family, food, gifts, twinkly lights, reindeer with unusual appendages...catchy tunes. Christmas would seem to be right up my alley, only: Bah Humfucker bug, It is Not. I would rather go to the beach and skip the whole thing. I would rather not haul out the expansive collection of both high dollar and dollar store ornaments (also ratty old home-mades from the third grade). I would rather not have a tizzy when Happy has a tizzy because her little boyfriend's mom And sister got her gifts and expect her to come over for a gift exchange when we didn't get them anything. I prefer not to argue with my mother about getting a damn tree. I would rather not spend last minute exorbitant traveling costs so that G. (that smart, smart boy) can make a quick getaway to Hot Springs, Arkansas of all places. I would rather not chase and shreeeeek at poor Pop-pops because he wants to fondle the breakable X-mas crap....I would rather not Not NOT! But ya know what? I did. All of it. The whole schmorgie. Thank you, Jesus. Thanks alot.

Red Red Wine Goes To My Head

A bottle of vino. All of it. In my art studio. I got to feelin' sooo good, I made out with Myself! Usually people apologize for the glare but I left in to give ya'll a flashy feeling.




My baby girl turns 15 only once. After the parade and Happy was on her way to Disneyland (!) w/the little boyfriend & family(his b-day is soon), Pop-pops was konked and G. was at rehearsal...I commenced to celebrating good times. Happy! We started off her day @ 6:30am w/Mananitas sung in her room by Nana, G. & me....Estas son las Mananitas....muchachas bonitas, the whole enchilada. She shot outta bed to open presents which included new pj's, gold jewelery, make-up brushes and greeeeen eyes shadow, Tinkerbell diary & pen set action...a teeny tiny purse for her cellie. My mom made her some very bitchen pin-up girl curtains...then during the course of the day: 2 birthday cakes...Splash Cafe in Pismo Beach, a walk on the pier, a parade, then her dad picked her up to shower her with his side of the family's gift cards, cash and a video Ipod. So I'd say the trip to Disneyland was in excess of being Happy. But, that's just how we roll.

Is it me, or is G. the coolest band geek ever???

This weekend, there was a parade & everything because Happy turned...

Sonny California

We had ourselves a time. Splashing and running about. Pop-pops is a true blue California Boy.

Lookit what I just learned how to do

Sorta. Tricks with mirrors. I took a whole bunch of pictures of meself! I uploaded them and got all excited because I am not as ugly as I thought I had become. I thought I had let myself go to the dogs. So I put on a little lipstick and voila! Hag no more. Heee hee... I have been as busy as a beaver in my Art Studio. Didja think I I forgot all about that whimsical/mystical endeavor? Well, here it is. This little spot in the house makes me so happy. Futzing with pictures, glueing stuff, painting and cutting up, oh it's so nice to have my own little enclosed space. A lot of Art Therapy goin' on in there. Aaaaaahh....I love it.

My Computer Keeps Freezing

Everything is a race against frozen time. I gotta go get a 12pk of beer. Unfortunately it's for the repair man. Fortunately, he's very affordable, just a little drunk and very busy.

Obviously, I'll Need Extensive Therapy

G. turned 17 last Saturday, my Rad Sister who resides in Hot Springs, Arkansas whom I have yet to tell ya'll about...turned 47 on Sunday and my mother, the WonderNana turned 69 on Monday. Plus she was sick. So I kept making toast and tea. And Birthday Cake and Birthday Banners and handmade Birthday Presents (with love but come on, this was no time to get crafty)....there was this mammoth pile of dishes. I felt like I couldn't keep up with my own life. So I burnt a few pieces. So what? One pair in the morning, two in the afternoon. In a row. Smokey little possibilities...heeeee heee.

Jazz Hot, Lickety Split & Yes sir, that's my momma!

Happy Tuesday, Dear Nana

Happy Tuesday was weird happy but Definitely Happy. So my mom has a blood disease called Lupus. It's in remission. She's one of those fighter types, born a premie in 1937 and the oldest of 10. She's the Boss around here. She doesn't let her Lupus get her down. Even though she will tell you all about the countless surgeries and how it will shorten her life span, and she has a handicap thinger for the car because of it. How she lost all of her hair and had to wear wigs and so on.... how she almost died when misdiagnosed and we had to take trips to Santa Barbara to see a specialist every two weeks. She sounds like an old soldier, all brave and matter of fact. But I remember how scarey it was listening to her laying in the back of the car, moaning and crying all the way up the San Marcos Pass. How she had to take steroids and swelled up to almost 3 times her normal size. And of us always being @ the hospital....Which brings me kinda clumsily to how we spent our Happy Tuesday. @ the damn hospital. My mom got sick and I had to take her to emergency. She's fine now. Perfectly fine. She even went to a Martha's Ministry meeting to help w/the Christmas Boutique. But it was a whole Happy Tuesday for me and Pop-pops in the parking lot and nearby park. It was 96 degrees too (!) for some record heat breakin reason. Hot, hot, hot so we were happy in the shade of the Magnolia trees planted in the parkin' lot. I found a whole mess of those seed pod thingies. Ha ha. I Love those things. They remind me of tiny little elegant organic velvety microphone sticks. There I go, being all clumsy-like but I'm sure if you ever played with these as a kid you know what I mean. I Love my Mom is what I mean. She makes the best tortillas in the whole world. I shit you not. Better than her sister, my aunt Big Josie. Better than her best friend Bobbie Villegas. She can whip them out in no time too, from the masa to the rolling them out to putting them right in your hand to fill them with what you will. Oh. They practically melt in your mouth.

Tinky gets fed up with the Paparazzi

Lickety Split Photography Service

And then the Little Lost Boy KONKED.

Tinky & her crue

Low-Key but Extremely Happy Tuesday:The Halloween Episode

We kept things on the down low. We were going for warm & Comfy. Sometimes Halloween can be cozy....this was one of 'em. Happy made a very nice Tinky from the Hood. And her little boyfriend sported brand new (so soft on the inside) green sweats and a zig zagular cut bright green shirt. A beanie and a red feather in his cap: he was good to go. Our own ghetto version of Tinkerbell and Peter Pan. My coughing punkin Pop-pops was a lost boy. With a top hat, a onesie cords w/attached vest, long sleeved ensemble & some war paint. Only he hated the top hat. Zoe the Beautiful German Shepherd was a blue-eared hippy freak-dog. We ate pretzels and chocolate and had a grand old time. Some of us stayed up until the wee hours watching Young Frankenstein. And somebody kept getting up to eat candy. We took lots of anti-posed and uncooperative photos. The only one who was a willing picture hog with me was Francisco-Stein. I'll see if I can't upload my bounty when Blogger is good and ready. Until then I hope I painted a picture of our colorful Halloween. Oh, and G. was 6'3 and I think a half, looking like an Indian standing tall, wrapped in a big fuzzy blanket, holding his warpainted baby brother. So he went as a sleepy totem pole from Neverland.

Lickety Split Catch-Up Service

Happy is ready for her close-up, Mr. Demille. And oh what a cwazy week it's been....Homecoming, a missed Happy Tuesday, many hours chauffering people many miles. G. went to Three parties in One night. Pop-pops paid his first (awwww!) visit to the E.R. We all caught colds and my wee sneezer took it in the bronchial passage. Wheeeeezing scarily. I reverted back to his newborn days of checking on him every milisecond to make sure he was still breathing. Yay for chest x-rays that rule out pneumonia! PPhewww. It's over and while I was living it, I was wanting to blog it. But the livin' made the bloggin' unattainable, if ya know what I mean. On Sunday, which has somehow turned into the day of ass kicking around here, We kicked ass in the living room. Re-arranged the stuffing out of it. Now where there once was clutter....there is a flow, if you will. I feel a clutterfucked weight lifted off my sturdy shoulders and it feels mighty nice.

I am a Lucky Dog

16 year old son holding 16 month old son.

A little extra Art Therapy

This Time It Happened Right Before Our Eyes

Only we didn't see it. Not until the Eggos were smokin'! There were 3 generations of womenfolk in the kitchen. And only one Pop-pops. We were talking. So Happy, being very particular about the hue of her waffles, SET the toaster setting (!) before gingerly placing her frozen treats into their respective slots. We failed to notice my littlest button pusher/mover as he Did the Deed. But it was done.

Tuesday ala Happy

Happy Channeling June Carter Cash

Coaxing Happy Tuesday

Oh, it all started out fine. Bringing out the green make-up & the green guitar....deciding on the dresses and the necklaces. Something as simple as the back of a dress can de-rail the whole thing, though. I gotta be careful. I wouldn't want to say Happy is temperamental so much as moody as hell....but I Laugh in her Face! Hah, They call me Grace (under pressure)!! Plus she loves me so I can make her smile by just lookin' her in the eye. And if I should tell her she looks mysterious, she squints right back at me, as if I am the mysterious one. She's clever and Happy is even more beautiful on the inside. I'm not just saying that because I'm Happy's mother, neither. Alas, she is also muy delicada......tres Fragile'. It was chilly up in the foothills so she wrapped herself in her Big FluFFy red robe until we set up for the shoot. I wish I would have taken that picture. Next time.

Happy Tuesday: Behind the Scenes

Please notice the Jalopolicious Chevy Blazer Happy is standing on to get a better shot. That's our ride, man. My older brother's hand me downs, but it runs and there are no payments....what more could I ask? Other than for a Volvo Station Wagon with the caged off cargo area, of course....Midnight Blue, 2007, tinted windows, Fully loaded with surround sound 20 disc CD/DVD little TV thingers in HDTv, maybe even a Tivo. Why not?
Happy Tuesdays, driving around in that, would be Very Happy Indeed. What the fuck am I talking about? Happy Tuesdays are already almost a little too happy around here just as they are...!

Lickety Split Carpentry

I learned from the best. Really, I did. My dad said,"Oh I just knocked some sense into you, mija."

Why I love Doing Shit Like This

It was a Makita nailgun, with the sky hook not in a completely out position. I was in a half sheathed garage, we were framing a big custom house in the ritzy part of town. My dad was perched in the trusses waiting for me to gopher an intricately cut plywood he had just called out the measurements for....So there I was, directly underneath him when the nailgun did not stay safely hooked onto the damn son of a bitch 2x4. It hit me in the back of the skull, people! I dropped the plywood and commenced to keeling over....Don't pass out don't pass out don't pass out....And when I didn't my dad, the very seasoned rough framer, asked if I was alright then asked me to give him the plywood I had dropped. The next day my older brother gave me a hardhat....But the damage was done. I've not been the same since. I get inordinate amounts of pleasure from the silliest things. I find beauty in burnt toast. I have to do something artistically fartistic. Everyday. I don't know what will happen to me if I don't. It's not so much an artist inside of me yearning to create. I get a big ass kick out of it. That's why I do it.
Aaaah, it felt good to come clean about that!

Pop-pops is an Extraordinary Machine

Happy the filmaker and Fiona Apple have some curbside fun in Sunny California

GATED COMMUNITY

I hope whoever reads this can join me. I cordially invite you to watch the video below and feel like one of us. You know who you are....the tenderhearted artsy fartacular peoples out there. Do you recognize yourself as a little naughty but not too naughty (maybe kooky not altogether ooky) as you swim thru the blogosphere? Smart, sexy women and men who are reading along with me as I have a true blast coming clean. Speaking of which, I gotta tell you I have been such a McSappity Sap. I actually got all teary eyed watching Blind Melon....what's up with that?!?

Blind Melon - No Rain (1991)

Happy Tuesdays just Got 60% Happier

I (ahem) am Happy to report, my family just won our first item ever @ The Nipomo Library Auction. A lovely steel string lime green guitar! With a strap. My old classical acoustic doesn't have it's own strap. Wooo Hooo. So Happy Tuesday was filled with Music as well as the Senior Photography seen above. A new musical instrument in our house means we learn new songs because (ahem) I am verklempt....talk amongst yourself, I'll give you a topic: Wyclef....Okay, there's this song that G. wants to sing, I think it's called "If I Were President" The chords are E, C & G...so G. picks up our brand spankin' new lime green guitar with the plastic still stuck to the pick guard and starts to figure it out. His sister's chord dictionary came in handy....This is a big deal to me because he used to be a wind instrument snob. Any dummy could play the guitar kinda guy....But now, Thanks to Wyclef and our highest bid, we have brought G. over to the String-ed side!! Mwahahahahah!!!

It was the end of the loaf...that last little blackened hope for toast.

Que Viva Art Therapy!

I was in the mood for some peanut butter toast. When I put the bread in the toaster, I thought..."I'm so glad my clever little baby doesn't pull the ole switcharoo on my toaster settings." I was looking forward to some warm toast slathered w/PB & Honey....There was confidence and just a smidge of melancholy as I pushed down the toasting lever & remembered my therapy sessions. I came to the computer to look at the pictures & check my e-mail. So right around the time I started missing the sound of my delicious toast popping up, I looked over and saw the smoke, silently billowing from the kitchen. Hah! Was it my subconcious artsy farting or just Pop-pops back to his old tricks? I took my burnt offerings outside and placed them on my table of rocks and shells. Only to have both slices eaten by either the dog or the cat. Art eating mother f'ers. Good thing I had back up burnt toast.

Bjork - It's Oh So Quiet

Bjork - It's Oh So Quiet release date: 9-12-1995

Lickety Split Cleaning Service Royale

Lickety Split Cleaning Service

I must come clean

And admit I come from Royalty.
This is my mother in Guadalupe, California. 1953.

Now do you see why it's important that I finish building her this castle?

Tunnel under Highway 101 Blues

Mas G.