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.

As Girl of Approval Wishes

G. Wanted in on Happy Tuesday

So, as not to leave anyone behind, Happy and I incorporated 'im. My biggest son had a more ambitiously Happy Tuesday in mind. He wants to use this shot of him (and his shadow Kokopelli) for his senior portrait. Oh, if things were only that groovy. In other good news: after auditioning for the Nipomo High School production of the Wizard of Oz (!) G. was selected to play the part of the Tinman. Woot! Perfect casting in my book, because as you know: "Oz never did give nothin' to the Tinman, that he didn't, didn't already have."

California Is On Fire!!!

But in Nipomo, we are only getting ashey and creeped out by the eerie glow of the Sun (bad video orange-ish). Not to mention the wacky warning from the local news to Stay Inside if you have breathing problems. What?!?!
As an inside activity I mixed the shit out of some media (as you can see above), kissed my kids a whole buncha times, worked on the arch to my art studio, and broke my vacuum cleaner. How are your inside activities goin'?

It Was Still A Happy Tuesday

Even though: My babe had a fever, my art studio is a disaster area, I got no sleep, we had an emergency plumber problem (which included me and a bucket)....But the show must go on! The player played on....

I knew when I started this blog that I wouldn't be all that timely, if you know what I mean....I had misgivings about commitment. But the good news is that I feel like I'm neglecting my little site here if I don't write for a few days turned into a week....Ever the autistic Pollyanna, I'm turning that into inspiration. I tell my kiddies all the time: aspire to be easily inspired. I've been quoted on that in a high school essay. So I'm thinking I made it up. It's written in lumber pencil on many a drywalled arch...Textured and painted over but it's still there. Aspire to be easily inspired! Try it, you'll like it.