I Get Drunk For A Friend

I got an email from a long-time high school red-headed sexy lady friend of mine early last week asking if I’d like to get drunk so she can blog about it.

I immediately ran to the store, bought amazing bottles of wine, drank them, passed out, and woke up with a killer headache and my son poking me in the eye saying “wake up daddy! Why are you sleeping on the toilet again?”

After 27 glasses of water I regained my senses and wrote my friend Page back, “YES!!! But where and why?”

See, my friend Page* has this awesome blog called The Mommy Quack. It’s good good stuff, READ IT

*Sidebar: I’m a huge redhead fan. My son’s a redhead and Page is a long-time friend and the poster child of why redheads rock – sexy, funny, brilliant, and just damn good people.  

Back to the story.

Recently Page fell in love with the delicious margarita pre-mixed Skinny Girl. Peppering her hilarious writing abilities with a batch of the insanity of mommyhood and a side of alcoholic relief, she launched a new blog HERE.

That’s when I received the email asking if I’d be the first male guinea pig to try the stuff.

My thinking? It’s alcohol…so ummm….yes!!!!

My second thinking? I should definitely involve the wife.

We make immediately make the purchase, bring it home and begin the consummation. I know it’s not the right word damn it!!!

The wife and I sit on the couch and we take a big sip.

Clicking and clapping our pallets like we’re professional connoisseurs we look at each other and say, “this shit ain’t half bad!”

And that’s when the glasses get filled to the top. The TV gets changed to the 90s station and I run upstairs to throw some deodorant on cause it’s starting to look like a little something-something might happen thanks to the magic of Skinny Girl.

One Hour Later: “Skinny Girl” is now being called “Skinnaaa Guuurl” and the wife is icing her hip from falling down the stairs after going to pee.

90 Minutes Later: The wife and I are sitting on the couch talking serious shit about how the “Skinnaaa Guuuurl” on the label needs to stop flaunting her ass in front of all the hard-working moms and find some damn couth.

Two Hours Later: The wife says: “I think two. It would take me two swings to your head with this empty bottle before it breaks.”

Two Hours and One Minute Later: The empty Skinny Girl bottle is carefully hidden from my wife ever finding it again.

Two Hours and Ten Minutes Later: The wife and I are playing spin the bottle and for some damn reason I keep losing.

Two Hours and Thirty Minutes Later: The wife walks into the room with the cell phone cupped in her hands and says, “OK…I have the Skinny Girl local sales rep on the phone. Do we want two cases a week or ten? Oh!!! And I agreed to get a Skinnaaaa Guuuurrrll car decal on both the car hoods!!”

Two Hours and Thirty-Six Minutes Later: I’m in the car on the way to the store to buy more Skinny Girl to sooth the wife from the disappointment of an 18-wheeler showing up at our front door with the Skinny Girl.

Three Hours Later: The wife and I are on our way to the tattoo shop to get “Skinny Gurl for Life” tattooed on our forheads.

Five Hours Later: The wife and I fall asleep in a pile of hot marital unsexiness with blood dripping from our new awesome tattoos.

Eleven Hours Later: Our son walks into our room and kicks me awake saying “daddy? Why do you have “Sk…..skinn……skinny guuuuurl tattooed on your forehead?”

And why does mommy have an earring through her nose?”

Skinny Girl. It’s a parental lifestyle that we’ll forever be hooked on.

Keep up the awesome Page!!

I Got Tattooed....Again, Again....

Yesterday I got my half-sleeve tattoo worked on again.

This piece has been worked on for many months now. I was hoping we’d get it finished yesterday, but unfortunately my skin could only take a couple of hours worth of tattooing before I just bled like a stuck pig.

So, I’ve got one more session and then…it should be complete.

The artist behind the needle is Dawn Grace at the Tattoo Factory in Uptown Chicago.

Here’s the original outline she did and the meaning behind the tattoo.

The colors on the flowers are definitely not done…she’s still got some work to do on them, but here’s how the piece looks today.

 



So I Got Tattooed....Again

So, I got a tattoo…again!

I’ve been working on a half-sleeve for over a year now.

The artist behind the needle is Dawn Grace. She's so bad-ass you have to wait at least 2 months before you can get time with her.

Here's the original outline she did and the meaning behind the tattoo.

Then, the day before Thanksgiving I sat for almost 4 hours while she started coloring the bad-boy in.

And, the overwhelming agreement amongst all involved is as Dawn put it… “fuck you’ve got a big arm!!!”

So, she only got the background done…and one flower.

February's my next and hopefully last date with her to complete the half sleeve.

But in the meantime…let’s get to the photos.

Here’s what it’s like with just the background colored in.



So I Got A Tattoo

For a while now I’ve had the idea of trying to turn my arm into a canvas of birth flowers for my family.

Last summer, August 2009, I went to a somewhat new tattoo artist and had the first three flowers tattooed. He did a damn good job, but it was clear my standards hadn’t been met.

So, I did what any dude did wanting some damn good ink thrown on their body and hit Google to find an artist. And that’s when I found Dawn Grace.

I emailed her, sent a picture or two, and she shot back, “let’s do this!”

It was March when I emailed Dawn. Her next available opening was in September. So I waited. And waited.

Then, the day came. I was nervous as hell. I rolled up, met Dawn in person for the first time and she immediately got what I was after.

The birth flowers:

Wife – Chrysanthemum

Kids – Calendula

Me – Water Lily

And then the final, the sunflower – the constant in the wife and our lives.

Since I’ve known the wife, we’ve always had a sunflower planted in the yard, or a picture placed on the wall, or stood in awe of sunflower fields running miles long. But, sunflowers were never our spoken connection, it just kind of was. So, I chose it.

Then, I wanted it all tied together by long, flat, thick reeds, to me symbolizing the intricate insanities of life surrounding love and family.

And here’s the results. In eight weeks I'll be going back to get it finished with color.

It was an amazing experience. The inside bicep of the arm is definitely a tender area. Although, I know it’s nowhere near as painful as the ribs, upper chest and inside thigh.

But still, it was painful enough to where I felt I “earned” my tattoo.

And I earned it from a kick-ass artist.

4 Days as a Single Dad

On Friday the wifey took off to N.C. to be with her cousin who’s on the losing side of a vicious battle with cancer. My heart broke as I watched her walk out the door, knowing that what she was about to experience would be something she’d never forget.

As I slowly turned around, fighting the tears, I was met with two kids standing side-by-side, the son holding a car, the daughter holding her blanket. They gave me a look that clearly said, “all right old man…we can do this one of two ways. The hard way, or the easy way…you chose.”

I chose the easy way and quickly made-up a massive batch of chocolate chip cookies….or what I like to call, a pan of bribery.

Saturday I woke up to my son sitting next to me on the bed, looking at my tattoo on my arm and saying, “I’m gonna tell your mommy you have a tattoo.”

I gave them the run of the place Saturday. And they fucking destroyed it. Paints, stuff animals, clothes, blocks, games, Legos, food, spilled milk, TV, and minor amounts of blood. I had given them a total kid day in the house and they took full advantage.

Sunday I woke up to my son sitting next to me on the bed saying, “Daddy, while I was peeing Jasper’s (our cat) tail went through my pee and now he’s laying on your bed.”

We spent Sunday handing out daddy’s hard earned cash. We saw Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, ate Baja Fresh, and spent a few hours at a park swinging, playing soccer and basketball, climbing, and looking at moms…..uh, I mean playing on the jungle gym. They came home dirty and tired.

The wifey comes back Tuesday night and I’m pretty sure by then I’ll be bound, shoved in a closet, and the house will be set on fire.

I love that my wife can bolt whenever she wants and the kids and I just roll into daddy mode. I love that they get my humor, tackle me when I least expect it, tell me secrets, and wake me up spewing awesomeness from their minds. I love that they love me. And I hate that I can’t look back and remember similar experiences from when I was growing up with my dad.

This morning I dropped my son off at school, walked across the street and dropped my daughter off at her school. As her class started walking down the hall, she jumped out of line, ran up to me, hugged my legs, then threw her face towards the sky, closed her eyes and puckered.

 That’s what it’s all about….