Halloween 2022

So, I don’t get to buy a camera, but close. I am PISSED. But also just depressed and indifferent. Feelings are complicated.

Had roast beef and did shitty karate up and down the neighborhood with the kids. Couldn’t find any old Coors bottles to fit my Cobra Kai costume, so I drank Guinness out of a kombucha bottle. 

Oh boy

Zenny forgot her hoodie-vest at school, but she did a good job as the kid from Thor: Love and Thunder anyway. Leif was a knight, cousin Teddy was a mobster with a bad mustache.

 Much spoop

I'm probably going to buy a camera anyway.

- - -

Before all of that, we went to to the historic Ewa train Spooktacular.

We have been riding the spooky train since Gavin was a baby. Now the boy is away at college, but the train remains the same. It's $5 for a 20 minute ride along the old train tracks at night, with teenagers dressed as zombies lurching out at the train as it rumbles by, and cheap snacks available at the concession stands.

Zenny and Leif represented.

So creppy

Whoa scary

Much blood

It was a good Halloween, and I'm not dead.

it's fiiiine

Something went wrong in my latest round of screenings, and my doctor wants to sit down with me on Monday to go over it. While booking the appointment, I was too busy analyzing the receptionist's voice for clues to realize that Monday was Halloween. If I get bad news an hour before handing out candy to trick-or-treaters, it's going to be a rough night. Luckily, I'm dressing as Johnny Lawrence, so if I start throwing candy bars at kids, it'll be in character.

I didn't like Cobra Kai when it first came out, but workplace peer pressure got to me, and it does have its moments

 

This time, if I get bad news, I am not going to do something stupid like a book a trip I shouldn't take and delete 10 years of journals. A plan will be in place. 

The plan so far: 

Step 1. Leave the doctor's office, get in my car, drive to the beach, wade into the water, and give that shark another chance to finish me off.

Step 2. Buy the Nikon D850 I've been wanting.

 

It isn't a good plan, but I have all weekend to think about it.

Just chop the organs out already, Doc. I don't need them anymore, and I'm not interested in having interventions every 5 years until they finally decide to kill me. I have arch enemies to outlive. 

surf, goats, and scotch

For the first time in two years, the Menehune Surf Contest was back on, and there I was, sitting at a plastic fold-out table with Scholastic books to give away and a cute scratch-art jack-o-lantern craft, ready to enrich young minds and get a free lunch.

Wholesome youths waiting for their heats 

The first kid to walk up took a pumpkin, scratched in a pair of eyes, a big smiling mouth, and a dick and balls for a nose. "Look!" he showed his friend, "He's a Chad!" 

I took the child's phone and shot-put it into the ocean. 

Depraved youths in line for free açaí bowls

Next time I’m skipping the craft and just giving them stickers.

On Sunday, we were up at the stables for another horseback riding lesson. One of the students was a toddler in diapers and a spiked helmet, being led around by a nervous-looking instructor who was trying to coax him into patting the horse with the brush without getting stomped into the mud or kicked in the head. Seems like a lot of money to pay to endanger your baby when we have a beach full of sharks right there, for free, but okay. While Zenny trotted in circles with her teacher (and a horse), I wandered around and took unflattering pictures of all the farm animals.

Pretty sure this one was actually a puppet

Mr. Sneeze in Your Face, some blonde kid with great hair, and three copy/pasted ladies in the background 

I asked Chicken Nugget to pose for a portrait and this is what he did

Someone dropped a goat pellet, RUN

Did not get snot on me this time, I have natural aptitude for farming.

The Royal Scottish Country Dance Society got together for a party to kick off the season of dance classes. These used to be fun, back when members hosted the parties in their own homes and everyone got loaded on fried noodles and booze, but these days the event is hosted in a meeting room and everyone sits stiffly on plastic chairs and sips cheap wine. 

 

whoa there, reign it in, folks

I brought a Costco custard pie, the only dessert I know for sure a group of elderly people with finicky diets will polish off in one sitting, and my mother plonked down an entire bottle of good scotch. I don't get along with scotch, but I do enjoy bolting half-shots of my mother's drinks when she walks off and forgets about them. "My scotch keeps leaking out of this hole in the top of the glass," she said, getting another refill. It was a good night to play this game, because after I swiped my third half-a-glass, my aunt announced that my 15 year-old cousin had joined an Air Force program and is going to be allowed to fly actual airplanes. 

 

oh no

Well, why not?

How complicated can planes be, anyway?

 

The rest of the week has been the wrong kind of adventure; doctor's offices, auto shop waiting rooms, long phone calls with the insurance company about out-of-state ER invoices, surprise orthodontics bills, trying to help a Ukrainian immigrant with housing paperwork through a heavy language barrier and sprinkles of anti-vaccination propaganda she heard on Russian TV. 

Punching my way through the evening workouts, feeling very ready for a weekend of pumpkin patch hay rides and Sunday dinner dessert.

Painting and fitness content

Painted some strawberry guavas and started a new 6 week workout program. 

I didn’t make a ton of progress in the last 6 weeks (I got a bit derailed by exploding organs), but I definitely gained strength in my arms, and my knees hurt less with more muscle to hold them onto my legs. 

This next 6 week program has more boxing and MMA training, so I can get my Eagle Fang on and hone my storytime crowd management skills.

Feeling good today.

autumn

October is here, and I am doing that thing where you suddenly realize your kids are running out of Halloweens and start getting really into scented candles, decorative gourds, and seasonal baked goods. This year we're doing trick-or-treating at our house, so I get to set up a driveway candy tent, with a fog machine and lasers. If I can find them. It will be great. Or if not great, it will be me sitting in a lawn chair with a bucket of candy and a beer. The job will get done, though.

Painting has been slow, workouts have been tough. Not feeling completely myself yet.

But I'm getting on with things. 

Went to Beer Lab and found a decent pumpkin ale, then annoyed the saleswoman in Bath and Body Works by demanding meme candles

Making dessert for Sunday dinner is serious business 

 

RESULTS. Good job, kid.

 

View from the grocery parking lot next to my mother's house

PARTY ON MY PANTS. 

These guys use me as a scratching post every time I try to put my shoes on in the morning

I've got a couple of gallery shows coming up in the next few months. Better get my shit together and finish some paintings.

Contemplation counts as part of the process.