Hope everyone has a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. We're heading up to Utah today to see Grandma and all my aunts, uncles and cousins! I can't wait to throw my first snowball.
I don't know what my daughter will think of me in 20 years, but if there's one thing she won't be able to complain about is lack of pictures of her as a baby. She's got a big camera in her face all the time, but that's just because she's so damn cute. So really, it's her fault. I mean, look at her. Look at those awesome faces she makes. I just can't help myself. I loved this series of shots from last month (Mel took them, and did a fantastic job). I channeled my inner-Andy Warhol when I put this together. I suppose she's my mini factory girl.
A funny incident between the wife and I the other day. Some conversations may or may not have been embellished a little.
INT. RONI HICKS - ROB'S OFFICE - DAY.
ROB sits at his desk, Christmas music plays quietly from his laptop. ROB (fluffy, early to mid thirties, messy hair). GEORGE (forties, cuddly, bear of a man, longish hair) is putting golf balls into a golf ball return. Muffled music begins playing, it's "Where is my mind" from the Pixies.
ROB That's the lil wifey calling (to GEORGE).
ROB answers his cell phone.
ROB
Yo.
MELISSA Hey.
ROB How's it going?
MELISSA Fine. Tired.
ROB Feelin' any better?
MELISSA A little. My throat doesn't hurt as much, but I'm still sneezing like nuts.
ROB That sucks, I'm sorry. At least you're throat is better. How's the little Peanut? Did you guys sleep okay? I didn't wake you up when I left did I?
MELISSA No, we slept pretty good, actually. That medicine kinda knocked me out a little, I think. P is good, just chillin' on me right now, slobbering through another outfit—her third today already.
ROB Awesome.
MELISSA Oh, by the way, is Mark Bangerter your art director friend who got that job in New York?
ROB Yeah. Well, it's in Boston, but yeah. Why?
MELISSA Well, I think you've been cheating on me with a mistress, and he knows her. Her name is Tiffany, isn't it?
ROB (pause) Huh?
MELISSA Well, Mark's wedding announcement just showed up in the mail, but it was addressed to Rob and Tiffany Atkinson
ROB Huh. That's random. Who's Tiffany?
MELISSA (obviously kidding, but playing jealous)
That's what I'd like to know! I think it's your secret mistress, and now the cat's out of the bag.
ROB If I did have a mistress named Tiffany, I don't know how Mark would know her, he lives 3000 miles away. Plus, I would think that he would have known not to send her mail to my house. I've told him not to do that.
MELISSA Well, you're busted.
ROB Damn. I'm caught, you got me.
MELISSA So, who is Tiffany?
ROB I haven't a clue. I've never even been out with anyone named Tiffany. Not even on a first date.
MELISSA All right, I'll let you off this time, you're lucky.
ROB Thanks for not leaving me. You're a peach. Love you.
MELISSA. Love you too. Barely.
INT. ATKINSON HOME - FAMILY ROOM - NIGHT.
ROB is sitting at his desk, working on the computer. He is answering emails, surfing the web, etc. MELISSA (late 20's, gorgeous) walks by the computer, and glances at the screen.
MELISSA Ha, I knew it, you do know a Tiffany! (Pointing at computer screen).
Located on the screen is not only an email from a Tiffany Christensen, but also, ROB had just finished replying to said email. TIFFANY is ROB'S cousin. Well, not really. TIFFANY'S parents and ROB'S parents went to college together about 48 years ago, and have been best friends ever since. The families are so tight, that they call each other aunt, uncle, cousin, etc.
MELISSA See, it's all true, you have a mistress named Tiffany. You lied to me you sonofabitch. Who is Tiffany Christensen?
ROB My cousin. You know, Sid and Brad's sister?
MELISSA Yeah, sure. But she's not really your cousin!
ROB Yep, you're right, Sherlock Holmes, you've figured me out. I do have a mistress named Tiffany. My cousin Tiffany. And she just emailed me for our address so she could send you and I her family's Christmas card. It all adds up. Once again. I'm busted. Damn, woman, you're too good.
THE END
So, the moral of the story is, if your friend is going get you in trouble by revealing your fake mistress to your wife, make sure that your fake mistress ends up being your fake cousin. Got it? Good.
It's funny to me that my friend somehow thought my wife's name was Tiffany, even though he's met her three or four times. Granted it's been three years or so since Mark was at our house, but still. However, I assume it was an honest mistake, like when you're writing or typing one name, but happen to look at or hear another at the same time, so you write/type the wrong one. I'm going to give him (or his fiance) the benefit of the doubt. Plus, look on the bright side, if the mistake hadn't been made, then I wouldn't have had this slightly fun, slightly boring little screenplay to write, and you wouldn't have wasted the last 45 minutes of your day reading it. To me that's a brightside, you may feel different.
Whatever.
Oh yeah, by the way, here is the envelope, in case you all needed to see the offending evidence.
I'd like to apologize to my devoted readers (all three of them) for being such a slacker lately. It seems, for whatever reason, that since my beautiful baby girl was born, I don't feel much like writing. At home I just like to be with her as much as possible, but even when not with her, I've been in a funk. I haven't felt like writing the blog, or in my journal, or anything for that matter. This has even carried over to work, where I've been in a creative malaise of late. The scary part is that I can't explain it, and I haven't been able to shake it. But today I am going to try and power through. They say that when you are stumped, you just have to write. Write anything. Even if it sucks, just to get it out there. So that is what I'm doing. I hope it's been worth the wait. And I hope to be able to break the cloud in my mind, and have more to say.
Okay, on with the post.
So a few weeks ago I found myself scanning through an old Sports Illustrated from 1980, and I found an excellent ad featuring an old "friend". I meant to write about it, but just haven't had the motivation to do so (as explained above).
I got quite a kick out of it, and hope you do too.
If you have trouble reading the type, it says,
"He's always one step ahead. Listen: 'I love today's western look, right down to the boots. And Dingo knows about the West.' Like OJ Simpson, we mean what we say, and what we say is: Nobody Puts Leather Together Like Dingo."
Wow, where do I begin with this one?
I suppose I'll start with the headline. Yep, you're right, OJ is a dingo. He's about the biggest dingo in the world. And why does he have three legs? Did this come out in his trial? Is this how he was able to get away, because they didn't check the footprint of the third leg? Is that extra leg what made him such a great football player? I feel like these are questions that need answering.
As for the copy, he's always "one step ahead", huh? Well, that was true for the past 13 or so years, but it looks like he started to slow down in those Dingos, because karma finally caught up with him this week. Does OJ always mean what he says? Like when he said that he was going to devote his whole life to finding the person that killed Nicole and Ron, did he mean that? Did he mean that he was going to search every golf course on earth for them? Perhaps that's what he was doing in that hotel room in Vegas a few months ago. Maybe he got a tip that the "real" killer was going to be in that room. Well, in a way, he was right, because he was in that room. Nice work, Juice, you've finally found the killer.
And at what point did he go from these brown Dingo boots to the black Bruno Magli shoes? Did Dingo get mad at him? I'm sure that if they did, they were grateful to not have had bloody Dingo footprints all over the cement. Although, perhaps they would have appreciated the sudden exposure that would have come from it.
I was hoping this ad could answer a few questions, but it seems to have caused me to ask more. But that's okay, it was fun anyway—I quite enjoyed the blast from the past, and hope you did too.
Credit goes to Georgie Boy for providing the Sports Illustrated.
Our first Halloween with Penny was a great one. She was so damn cute in her costume. She was, hands down, the best looking Lion around, as seen here.
Just hangin' out in m'lion costume, no big deal. I am a fierce lion, hear me ROAR!!!! After dressing her up, Mel brought her to visit me at work, where, of course, she was a huge hit. However, between it being about 117º in our office, and the lion costume being made of something that feels like wool, we had to shed the costume for the "baby's first halloween" onesie that Grandma bought for her, and the adorable punkin beanie that Sheila (a work friend) gave her.
As for my costume, I decided to be Lars, from the movie Lars and the Real Girl. For those of you who know nothing about this movie, please watch this trailer:
This is a great movie. It is one of the best movies of the past several years. It's heartwarming, it's emotional, it's funny. As you can see here in the following pictures, Bianca, my Brazilian missionary girlfriend came to work with me. I actually got the idea from Court, he was also dressing up as Lars and creating Briana, for his Halloween party Friday night. So, since I pretty much look exactly like Lars, I decided to pilfer his idea for my work party. A lot of work (mostly by Court) went into the Bianca part, but Melissa and I put a few finishing touches on her. And without further adieu, here we are:
Bianca and Lars chillin' in Rob's office. And here are Lars and Bianca enjoying the beautiful weather in the park. Mel dressed as Joy from My Name is Earl.
Bianca really liked hanging out at work, partying with all my coworkers and eating delicious food. It was a fun day.
After work, Mel and I went out to get hit the town (or get some food, shop at a thrift store and then came back home to give away candy to strange kids). Since Mel had already dressed up as Joy from My Name is Earl, and since Court was escorting Bianca to his party, I decided to dress up as Earl Hickey for the evening. The sad thing is that I didn't look at all like I had a costume on—apparently Earl and I are the same person.
The real Earl and Joy. Earl, Joy and lil lion Penny.
We found some cool things at the thrift store, then picked up our favorite Mexican food from Cotixan (mmm, bean burritos and taquitos). We then ventured back to the pad and watched some scary movies while waiting for trick-or-treaters. And we waited. And we waited. So I have a question: where the crap are all the trick-or-treaters in the world? Does no one do that any more? Is our politically correct world to delicate to let the kids go out and get a bunch of free candy? I mean, we had a big bowl full of Snickers, Milky Way, Twix and plain M&M's, and we had TWO groups, totaling about eight kids come to our door. What kind of a world do we live in where kids can't go door to door and let strangers give them candy? It's appalling. As a youth I remember taking out my huge pillowcase, and spending hours upon hours walking the streets of Provo, collecting as much candy as possible, before going home for the big inspection, and then the big feast. Why don't people do that now? If we had a sugar-free, Atkins-friendly holiday, would more parents take their kids out? Is my little neighborhood of four-plexes not good enough for the kids in La Jolla? I'd like to get to the bottom of this, but, my laziness will get in the way, and I have a feeling I'll never find out the answer.
I realize that today's world isn't that safe, and you don't want your kids roaming the streets alone, but I have an idea for all the parents out there, "TAKE YOUR KIDS OUT TRICK OR TREATING!" Isn't that one of the greatest joys as a parent, walking your kids door-to-door, showing their cuteness off to the neighborhood, making them happy, and then, once you get home, pilfering the good candy for yourself? What happened to this tradition? It angers me. It saddens me. I just feel bad for the kids. Come on parents, do it for the kids.
And one more rant from me before I'm done. Why is it when you order an adorable Snoopy costume (for newborns) online, when you get it it looks like it's for a newborn hippo? There's no way there is a newborn human big enough to fit in that thing. Seriously. It says 0-3 months, not 0-3 years! I just don't get it. We could probably save it for a year and use it for Penny next Halloween.
Ok, all right. Enough ranting. We had an awesome Halloween, and we hope that all of you did too. Now bring on Thanksgiving and all that blessed Turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, punkin pie, Lions' football and everything else.
So, I think I've made a recent discovery about Penny. All this time, I thought I was her dad. But recently, I saw a picture that made me think that someone else is her real, biological father. It was quite shocking, and I don't know what to do. Maybe you all can help me. Check out these photos and tell me what you think. Am I crazy? Am I her dad? I just don't know any more.
If this turns out to be true, I must say it would deeply sadden me. I hope he never catches wind of this and one day try to come and take this beautiful little peanut away from me. But I suppose if he is able to provide a happier life for her than I could, perhaps I shouldn't be selfish try to do what's best for her, even though it will be devastating to me. I would really miss her.
