Samantha Downing - A Life Abridged

Matthew Tyler Downing

Happy birthday, Matt.

You would have been 36 today.

And life would have been so very different.

Maybe losing my little brother so early in life was a kind of training for the losses to follow. Despite our short time on the planet together, I've never ceased thinking of you.

Love you, bro.

Sia Furler - Numb

Numb

I saw you cry today
The pain may fill you
I saw you shy away
The pain will not kill you

You made me smile today
You spoke with many voices
We travelled miles today
Shared expressions voiceless

It has to end

Living in your head
Without anything to numb you
Living on the edge
Without anything to numb you

It has to end to begin

Began an end today
Gave and got given
You made a friend today
Kindred soul cracked spirit

It has to end to begin

Living in your head
Without anything to numb you
Living on the edge
Without anything to numb you

It had to end to begin

Living in your head
Without anything to numb you
Living on the edge
Without anything to numb you
Living in your head
Without anything to numb you
Living on the edge
Without anything to numb you

It has begun

- Sia Furler

Sheryl Crow & Sting - Always On Your Side

And The Dining Room

The play is now cast. There were some surprises, mostly because the three women I ended up with aren't often put in leading roles (at least that I have seen). So this will be a great opportunity to let them shine in a very small cast in a pretty momentous point in the organization's history.

Caleb & I did our dog-and-pony show for the Twelfth Night board of directors and were happy to hear a lot of encouragement and support for the play. We also scored the dining room furniture we need from an estate sale for $100.

I'm bringing on Alyssa as my stage manager. She worked with Sam previously, and was set to be my assistant director on Duo, so I know I can work with her and trust stuff will get done right. I trained Caleb in stage blocking shorthand today so he can keep track of it when we get into rehearsal.

Went to Gilda's tonight, but didn't get to say much. What I was going to talk about was this feeling of emotional isolation I have been nurturing for the last few months. Like I'm getting too comfortable with the whole not-dating-thing. I dunno. There's just no time for it right now, and I know that "miz kerbam" will (eventually) cross my path when I least expect it. Just like Sam did. But does that mean I'm getting lazy about it? Or does it even matter?

If you're wondering who "miz kerbam" is, just understand it's an inside reference shared by Samantha's mom and myself. The reference being that one day, the woman I'm supposed to find will just show up - kerbam! I threw in the "miz". It's either very cute, or very late at night. Prolly the latter.

The kids are in the last week of their Pacific Science Center day camps. Then we get a week to prep for school. Then, come 9/6, they will return to the hallowed halls of learning.

Auditions for Ordinary Angels are coming up as well. Please fasten your safety belts.

The Sundays - Wild Horses

Casting Lures

Well, tonight's show was by far the best yet. The house was packed and the audience was on. The cast was awesome and did the smoothest performance so far. There was one missed entrance, but the scene went on just fine. Another standing ovation for our little group.

I've shot all shows thus far. Tonight I had a live audio feed from the sound board. Tomorrow I will shoot the final show with the second cast and will have all I need to assemble not one but two DVDs (1 for each cast). I know why Mary double-cast this show, but I think she won't be doing it again - really more hassle than it's worth.

After tomorrow's show, Kayleigh and I will make an appearance at the cast party. Ordinarily this is where we award the Spammies. Because the group started out performing Monty Python sketches, the awards consist of various cans of meat product, plus an elf shoe, a boot once worn by a stripper at the Lusty Lady, and the Samantha Downing Memorial Grand SPAM Award. This is the only actual trophy, which is awarded to the individual Mary feels best contributed to the overall production effort. It bears the names of all who have won it. Sam was the first to win, and I won for Bye Bye Birdie (when it actually became a trophy). Last year, it was my pleasure to award it to another member of our troupe (MJ), and this year it went to our lighting designer.

Saturday begins the casting process for The Dining Room. Then Sunday I have a few more to read for the play. Then it's Monday. Wheeee.

* * *

The cabinets and trim-out are happening at the house. It's miraculous how cool this is turning out to be. As soon as I locate my camera's USB cable, I will put up some pics.

For some reason, I have been thinking a lot about The Sundays. It starts by watching Muriel perform, which makes me think of the awesome music we're putting together for the tribute CD, which makes me think of when Samantha and I were recording, and we'd be compared to The Sundays. Not that I think we sounded like them - I don't think we did. But there are some similarities in song structure. Anyway, we liked The Sundays. Had all three albums. Saw them live at the Moore shortly after we moved up to Seattle and I won tickets from the local college radio station. And when Sam was in labor with Tyler, she had a mix tape for the hospital called Welcome to the World. On it was The Sundays' cover of "Wild Horses" by the Rolling Stones (the cover, IMHO, puts the original to shame). I'll see if I can dig it up on YouTube and post it here... it's kinda where my head is at.

Toad the Wet Sprocket - All I Want

Honestly, was any twentysomething NOT affected by this song?

Toad The Wet Sprocket

Tonight my past caught up with me, and I sat through what was simultaneously the most beautiful and intensely painful concert I've seen since that Marillion show back in '85.

I'd never seen Toad live before. When they were touring back in the day, Samantha and I were raising kids and working hard. It's really a shame we never saw them, seeing as how they were one of our shared favorite bands of the era. Within six months of showing up in Seattle, Pearl Jam Ten and Toad the Wet Sprocket Fear were on a cassette in our car that tended to stay in the deck and play over and over and over. To this day, I consider Fear their magnum opus, and one of my all time desert island discs. "Walk on the Ocean", "Nightingale Song", "Hold Her Down", "Pray Your Gods", "All I Want" and "I Will Not Take These Things For Granted", all from a single record. Rarely is the alternative music scene treated to such a feast of songwriting and technical prowess.

The concert was held at the Moore theatre in Seattle. We found parking for five bucks. The opener, Matt Nathanson, was one of those really good coffee-house-singer-songwriters-who-play-a-twelve-string-with-a-capo-on-the-third-fret-and-sing-about-relationships-and-sex trying to go from coffee house to a band tour. He was good - very good. He was really funny between songs, and his lyrical content reflected that sense of humor.

With six albums to choose from and almost two decades together, I was surprised that most of the set list consisted of stuff from Dulcinea and Coil. But when they hit any of the Fear material, starting with "All I Want", I found myself weeping. Most of the show was one rockin' single after another, and yet the memories the songs stirred were so powerful I could not help myself. "Nightingale Song" found me singing through a veil of tears and when the first encore consisted of "Walk on the Ocean" and "Fall Down", I thought I could maybe pull myself together.

Then they got called back by a passionate Seattle crowd for a second encore, which consisted of only one song, "I Will Not Take These Things For Granted" the final track on Fear and a real tear-jerker for me (for a host of reasons). I managed to dry my face by the time the lights came up.

Although I'd fronted for 8 seats in the mezzanine, somewhere along the line I found myself 2 tickets short. That and one friend who had actually bought one of the tickets ended up not showing. So we had my brother & his wife, my actress friend, and my LMP friend. I guess we ended up with those two extra seats for Sam and my dad. I know they would have enjoyed it. Several times I could almost feel Sam sitting right behind or "around" me, singing along to the music.

Aside from the drunken idiot who thought it would be cool to wear his Microsoft uniform (yellow polo shirt tucked into his beige shorts with his cell holster and a pair of LL Bean sandals, shades hanging from the undone neck of his shirt), sneak his cocktail into the theatre and stand up to do air guitar solos, attempt to incite some bizarre form of cheering by waving the Nixon victory fingers and/or generally make an ass of himself, the evening went without major incident. I dropped my car load of people off in West Seattle and came home to process the emotional flood.
Crazy what some music can do.

I thought I'd posted the lyrics from "I Will Not Take These Things For Granted" previously, but it looks like not... so here.

One part of me just wants to tell you everything
One part just needs the quiet
And if I'm lonely here, I'm lonely here
And on the telephone
You offer reassurance
I will not take these things for granted

How can I hold the part of me that only you can carry
It needs a strength I haven't found
But if it's frightening, I'll bear the cold
And on the telephone
You offer warm asylum

I'm listening
Flowers in the garden
Laughter in the hall
Children in the park
I will not take these things for granted
Anymore

To crawl inside the wire and feel something near me
To feel this accepting
That it is lonely here, but not alone
And on the telephone
You offer visions dancing

I'm listening
Music in the bedroom
Laughter in the hall
Dive into the ocean
Singing by the fire
Running through the forest
And standing in the wind
In rolling canyons
I will not take these things for granted

Mattress Opens

The past week has been a blur of activity, mostly show-related. Got the program finished and off to the printer (they look good), got Kayleigh to and from dress rehearsals, and monitored the sanding, priming and texturing of the walls in my house (the painters have done all the ceilings and are now putting color on the walls). I also arranged for a security system to be installed in the house. We're getting ever closer. All the millwork arrived and the trim will start going up next week.

Anyway, the show opened last night and was a rousing success. Despite a couple technical and dramatic gaffes onstage, the cast recovered and put on a great show. All things audio (voices, stage mics, orchestra) are the best they've been in years. The costumes are terrific. I think Fiddler had more interesting lighting, but this is a wholly different show.

I designed the Jesters' makeup. Since the part of the jester is being split among four actors, I decided to give them each a clown-white mask and paint a playing card suit on the left eye, the result being one of each suit represented onstage. It was down to the wire with the Jester makeup, and then I had to run up to the top of the house and run the video camera. Fortunately Caleb showed up to help set up, but it was a long, stressful night for my legs.

Like I said, the show was good and got a standing ovation. We have 2 shows today, a matinee tomorrow, and then four days off until Thursday's show - and plenty to do during that time.

Quick Check-In

Had a great day hanging out with my kids yesterday. We had lunch at Red Robin, then walked around at Southcenter, used our Borders gift cards (I really hate Borders, but hey - they were gift cards). Kayleigh found some Nancy Drew mysteries. Tyler was feeling a bit woozy after overstuffing himself at RR (the good news is, he's eating), but we found him some Calvin & Hobbes anthologies. I made a very personal score: my very favorite pirate movie ever, The Black Swan (starring Tyrone Power & Maureen O'Hara) on DVD. Best cinematography 1942, btw. My old VHS copy perished in the fire, and all the online stuff I read had the film coming on DVD next year. Maybe it is next year and I just spaced it. Anyway, I now have my favorite pirate movie on DVD, and it sits on a bookshelf alongside Catpain Blood, The Sea Hawk, and The Crimson Pirate (which is really a Burt Lancaster goofy adventure comedy, but it's good fun).

We sort of fudged dinner, what with each of us "great with child" from lunch. Had our first family meeting post-Sam. It went very well, and the kids are feeling empowered (man, I hate that word) to communicate and negotiate openly. Both kids were all hugs and cuddles. It was one of our few "days off".

Awoke to a phone call from a neighbor. Apparently, she'd been walking down 24th early this morning when Wiley started walking aloing with her. I couldn't for the life of me figure out how he got out of the house, but he'd evidently found a way. It was only after I went outside and found the side window screen in the driveway that I knew we'd have to close those windows at night from now on. He sees a squirrel or racoon and he's off like a half-shepherd/half-African hunting dog. Go figure.

The very nice neighbor lady brought him back and he's on double-secret probation for the rest of the day.

I'm headed off for my Sunday morning coffee with Obi Ron. Kayleigh's first rehearsal on the actual set is tonight. Can't wait to see what they've done with the space.

Rebels and Hard Drives and Children, Oh My!

The data recovery service now has custody of my twin 500GB hard drives and will try to grab what they can of my work materials. Dell promptly sent out a replacement for the defective drive, but that doesn't really help me right now, as I have to wait for the good drive to come back from data recovery with the bad drive. The hazard of a RAID 0 stripe array is that, while it's fast, if one of the drives should become corrupted or damaged, the data is split between both drives. When I get them back, I will configure the system for RAID 1 mirrored, which will create a second backup copy of my data automatically. Should one drive fail, I will still have the data on the second drive as a failsafe.

The tape & mud has started on the house.

Tyler is being really excellent. Today he woke up and offered to cook everyone breakfast. He made scrambled eggs, which were quite tasty! Kayleigh is having some nighttime issues. Now that Tyler is sleeping on the sofa in the living room, she's feeling a bit lonely. We're working on it. For pizza/movie night tonight, we watched Men in Black 2, and a couple episodes of "Futurama". Kayleigh spent some quiet time doing problems in a math workbook she keeps in her bedside drawer. I just tucked her in, and Wiley is asleep by her bed.

I finished reading Rebel Without a Crew, Robert Rodriguez' book. You know, the guy who made the Mexico trilogy (El Mariachi, Desperado, Once Upon a Time in Mexico), the Spy Kids movies, and most recently Sin City. It's pretty much his production journal of making El Mariachi and the craziness that followed. This dude became a human guinea pig for a pharma lab in Texas to raise money for shooting a feature he hoped to sell to Mexican home video. With a borrowed 16mm camera and $7,000 he went to a little town in northern Mexico and shot a really inventive and compelling action film. When he took it to LA to sell to the Mexican video distributors, he ended up with an agent, and then a bidding war erupted, landing him at Columbia. It's inspiring stuff, especially given Rodriguez and I are the same age.

The book made me think back to what I was doing in 1991. Newly married, Samantha and I had made the decision to move north to Seattle. I was writing 14 hours a day. Short stories, novels (I finished three), screenplays... always feeling the urge to get back behind a camera. It had been 3 years since we'd shot Sam's directorial project for her San Francisco State film course. She'd been shifting back toward stage, and I'd gone to DeAnza College in Cupertino to take advantage of some of their film production curriculum. Made several shorts. I was also at Mission College in Santa Clara doing a 2-year animation stint. Made several shorts there too. But in '91, we heeded the call of the north and ended up in an apartment in Renton and then a shared 1913 craftsman above a nail salon on the main drag in West Seattle.

I think Rodriguez and I had very similar backgrounds, creatively speaking. Where we diverged was while he was actively pursuing a very clear goal, I was trying to do too much. I had intellectual properties bursting out of my skull, and I wrote like mad to try to get everything down on paper. Affordable pro-level video was still a few years off; I kept the rust away by writing and directing a sci-fi comedy pilot for TCI cable in '94, using late '70s era 3/4" U-Matic gear. Then I got sidetracked by the videogame industry and made good bank while my soul was prison-raped for the better part of a decade. Kinda took a detour to have a career (I was still doing art, even if it was pushing pixels for the Man), raise a family (not one second of which I regret), that kind of thing. At least publishing RPGs was something creative Sam & I could do together, but that industry has its own set of crosses to bear.

I went back to the drawing board - literally. In 2000 and 2001, I brought back my old comic strip, Zingo, as a weekly 6-panel full color webcomic. It ran on the late, great Big Bad Hammer site. That was fun, but ultimately unsatisfying. I needed to be doing something else entirely.

Before Samantha died, she really tried to push me back to doing film. That was always my first love - creating something visually alive and engaging and entertaining. I had a bunch of stories in my back catalogue, many already in screenplay format. We chose DUO, a romantic comedy based loosely on two of my close buddies from the comic book industry. It was a feature, but we'd done 2 features before (1 of them was actually finished and broadcast on TV), so I knew we could handle it. I got two producers who were each great in a different area. Samantha used her casting prowess and cast the film with a talented group of Seattle actors. We went into rehearsals. We got set to shoot. The weekend of our first scheduled shoot - Samantha crashed. She'd be dead a couple weeks later. There's no way I can make DUO on a shoestring. Not now. Not without Sam. When I make it, it will be with a proper budget and everything in place. And hopefully I can call up Sam's cast and get the majority of them to do it.

So now I feel like I'm getting all these clues and bits of inspiration. The Angels script just kind of wrote itself, I happened to fall in with a group of Seattle indie film people whose work I respect, and the story is attracting a bunch of professionals who want to work on it. It's also under 30mins, so it's not quite the headache of a feature. It seemed like before, I would constantly be leaping over the hurdles strewn in our way. Now, it seems like everything is falling into place on its own. Maybe it's just my change in perception since Sam's death. Maybe I'm going about things differently now. Maybe I'm just older and wiser. Or maybe it's just time to do what I was put here to do.

I'd love to meet Robert Rodriguez someday. I've already met Ray Harryhausen and worked for Richard Edlund. Why not a film icon my own age, who does things the way I do?

Out of the Frying Pan...

Specifically, out of the frying pan that was San Jose over the last week, and back home to our moist, green region of the globe. We even had rain over the weekend - huzzah! Now the sun is shining, temps are back down in the 70s and 80s, there's a cool offshore breeze, and there are are guys hanging drywall in my house!

I returned to face a bazillion demands, from the pleasant (Ordinary Angels production meeting) to the less so (sending my new hard drive to a data recovery company in CA). Just trying to get caught up with paying bills, keeping the kids fed and getting my house and financial records sorted out.

I snagged Monkey Forge as the name of my film production co. While somewhat silly at first, there are good reasons behind it:

1. We are all monkeys.
2. The reference to a certain number of monkeys with a certain number of typewriters will eventually give you the collected works of William Shakespeare... or something.
3. I was born in 1968, Year of the Monkey in the Chinese zodiac.
4. In Chinese astrology, monkey people are clever, skillful, flexible, remarkably inventive and original.
5. The forge is the source of creation for that which is functional as well as that which is beautiful.

Thus, MONKEY FORGE it is. Steve Hartley is already designing a logo graphic, and I will do the text design.

We had a great weekend hosting my friend JS and his wife who are seeking refuge from the blast furnace of Phoenix AZ. I think they liked our trees. And water. And blue sky. And rain. And food. And culture. Plus, the UW has a good cardio center, so he will be close to a facility that can handle his issues. I look forward to seeing them again (in less than 20 years this time)!

Now to get my hard drives ghosted so I can reinstall everything on my work computer and get back to WORK. Because laying out a playbill on my email laptop is like a trip to the DMV... it takes forever and is annoying as hell.

Stay tuned.

Surreal Reunions R Us

I know it's been almost a week - but holy crap.

Where were we?

Friday, 7/21: Got on the flight to San Jose. I was the only one the security guy made take his shoes off. I just think he wanted to see my dead-sexy athletic socks. The flight was uneventful, just the way I like air travel. San Jose airport is still a slum, which is interesting given the gentrification happening all over the Bay Area. When my stepmom bought her little house in Palo Alto back in the '70s, it was a sleepy little college 'burb, not so very affluent. That happened with the rise of Silicon Valley tech culture (and money). Now it's just freaky.

The Varsity theater on University Ave is now a (gulp) Borders. I saw Stop Making Sense there, once upon a time. People danced in the aisles. I saw Das Boot there in its first run (as well as a host of foreign and art house movies over the years). While working on the play Veronica's Room with Sam, I went down to the theater on a break and watched Mark Isham rehearse for a concert. My friend Gordon saw Lords of the New Church play live there. They had a full bar where Cure videos would play and a back alley that was solid graffiti - so much so that it was a landmark; bands would have publicity pics taken back there; Mark, Rob & I shot part of a college film back there. It's very sad, but I must say, unsurprising.

Anyway, veering back on topic, Friday consisted of getting settled with rental cars and motel rooms and whatnot, but I did squeeze in dinner with my buddy Konrad, actor & filmmaker.

Saturday, 7/22: Spent the day with Sam's folks. We drove up to San Francisco and went to the Exploratorium. I still remember when the place opened - I was in Jr. High and it was the coolest place evar. Of course now we're spoiled because we have the Pacific Science Center in Seattle, which is like the Exploratorium only cleaner and with air conditioning. Actually, the Exploratorium has a few more hands-on displays, and a new nanotechnology exhibit that they are getting the guests to build for them. Tyler worked on it for quite some time, and Kayleigh gave it some elbow grease (which we all had plenty of, what with the 90+ degree heat in the old warehouse structure). Even (or perhaps especially) Sam's dad got into it.

Had an early dinner and dropped the kids with the grands for a couple hours while I went to meet with drummer and happy polar bear twin, Steven Fox. Steve will be playing drums on several tracks for the tribute CD. We had a good time catching up.

Sunday, 7/23: Did I mention the Bay Area is having the same heat wave everyone in the country is having? We got some food and headed out to Mitchell Park in Palo Alto for the reunion picnic, the temps already pushing 90 at 10:AM. Crazy heat. Stupid heat. Ended up being 106 that day. Randy reported a high of 115 or thereabouts at his home in Rocklin.

Aaaaanyway, I got to see some friends I hadn't seen in 10 years (since the 10-year reunion), and it was interesting. The guys who were jocks back then mostly hung around the BBQ grill together talking about business acquisitions and whose wife had been caught sleeping with someone else, while the former arts people congregated in the shade of a tree and chilled out (as much as one can "chill" when the temp is climbing toward 100).

I was happy to see several of my old homies. Within minutes we were making with the yak yak like no time had passed. Some of them have kids of their own. Two are filmmakers (New York & Los Angeles), one is a dancer, two are chefs, some own their own businesses, one is a genetic scientist, and others are in software & hardware (of the computer variety). Our friends Paul & Marte showed up, despite the fact that Paul was in Sam's class ('85) and Marte was a year behind me ('87), they average out to '86, and we didn't hang out with our our own class exclusively anyway. Mark Allen & I agreed that we would have ruled YouTube if it had been around back in the day, with all of our backyard video shenannigans (I love that word). Surprisingly, only one person hadn't heard about Sam, so that was easy to handle. (Photo, L-R: Konrad, some dork, Mark, Ray)

After the picnic, some of us congregated back at my motel for a dip in the pool, followed by a nice Mexican dinner (and some muy bueno sangria). Turns out, Paul & Marte are on our return flight to Seattle. This is the second time such a random travel thingy has occurred. In 1999, Sam & I went on an Alaska cruise with her folks. We were on Holland-America, and a Celebrity ship was always right ahead of us or right behind us in every port of call. Turns out, Paul & Marte were on the Celebrity ship. We'd been in the same ports at the same time and had never known.

Monday, 7/24: Randy met us at the motel and we carpooled "over the hill" to Santa Cruz. I was a little rusty on highway 17. It twists and turns through the Santa Cruz mountains, and I used to navigate that sucker on autopilot. But the old knowledge soon returned and I shook off the rust. We congregated at the harbor where my dad had taken his intermediate sailing lessons. It's really cleaned up down there. As a kid, I used to play around the dumpster, which was usually full of porn.

We boarded the Chardonnay II, a beautiful 70' Santa Cruz design. The captain and his two crew were wonderful. We were under sail the moment we were past the breakers. The day could not have been more perfect - not too hot, not too cold, a steady breeze. We couldn't go out as far as we'd wanted to, simply because there was enough chop to make a burial at sea somewhat problematic. Some of my dad & stepmom's closest friends were there - all family, really. They threw flowers until the sea was a colorful carpet. Katherine released the ashes of Admiral Nelson, my dad's Amazon parrot. Then more flowers, then my dad. I was videotaping the whole thing, and was so intent on getting the shot that it wasn't until I was following the light gray splotch on the water's surface that I realized I wasn't "in the moment". So I put the camera down and filled my sunglasses as I watched the remains of my father drift away to be claimed by the sea. "Fair winds, Captain," I heard Randy say. "Following Seas," I added.

We gathered for lunch at the Crow's Nest, a great restaurant there at the harbor. Then Sara, Gavin & Michelle took the kids to the Boardwalk while Randy & I met up with another old Santa Cruz friend, Randy Rhodes (aka Dick Hollywood). Film connoisseur, critic, production guy and all around hack (in the best way possible), RR was a year ahead of me at Aptos High, and was in some film classes with Sam at SF State. We met at the top of Pacific Garden Mall and wandered down to The Catalyst for a couple beers. There is a certain vibe creeping back into Santa Cruz - it feels a bit more like its old self again. There was a homogenization after the big quake in '89, and it hadn't retained that old Santa Cruz bohemian weirdness. Some of that is back.

And The Catalyst hasn't changed at all.

Tuesday, 7/25: Still hot. The whole family met at Hobee's in Sunnyvale, where we had a trustee meeting and ate the famous blueberry coffee cake. Sara, Gavin & Michelle took Kayleigh and went to Great America, while Tyler & I headed into Palo Alto. I helped Katherine get to some stuff in the storeroom (which is basically the finished room in the garage of her rental home, the room that was once my dad's office, and my room when we kids moved in with them in 1984).

Then Tyler & I went up to University Avenue to meet with my buddy Mark, Pixar veteran, husband, father of twin 5yo boys. Mark and I went to school at Aptos, then lost touch when he moved to Athens, GA and I moved to Palo Alto. We reconnected in 1989 when Dave Beach and I were taking film courses at De Anza College and Mark just happened to be in one. The last time I'd seen Mark, the twins were less than a year old and Sam got to hold them. I'm happy that Mark & I have the kind of friendship that is always good - it's not a high-maintenance thing. There is always love and respect, regardless of time and distance.

Came back to the motel and let Tyler have a swim, then I collapsed and got a short nap between phone calls. Sara and the girls finally made it back about 6:PM, and she took off to hang out with her friends. My old friend Mike (whom I've known since 3rd grade) came out and we took the girls out for Chinese food while Tyler hung out in the motel room. After some digestion and whatnot, the kids got a swim and Mike & I got to chat. I'd seen Mike last year when he took his motorcycle road trip to Seattle, but it was still good to get caught up. Good things are happening to the two of us, and I hope it continues.

After a day at Great America, an hour in the pool and a belly full of Chinese food, the kids crashed out and are still not awake at the time of this posting.

Today we plan to have lunch with my uncle, and hopefully will get to see Dave Beach again before we leave.

This has been a wonderful trip, made so by the friends and family with whom we've interacted. But once again, it reassures me I live in the right city, that this area is not my home. I can't wait to get home and see Wiley and James Brown, see what progress has been made on the house, get set for Ordinary Angels casting... it's coming up on Crazy Time this fall.

Hang on tight.

[blink] WHAT?? TWENTY YEARS??

So, yeah.

Tomorrow morning, I will board a plane with my children, my sister and my neice. We will be hanging out in the old hood for a week. Oh yeah, and we're gonna scatter my dad's ashes off the Santa Cruz coast, where we did my grandfather's back in '84. My big bro Randy will be in attendance on the sail, and we're going to hang out in Santa Cruz for drinks that night, sort of an early birthday thingy for him.

Hoping to see a bunch of folks. Will likely be doing exactly that at the family BBQ for the Palo Alto High School class of '86. For you young folks reading this, I'm talking about 1886, when President Grover Cleveland wed himself a young girl in the White House and Karl Benz patented his newfangled gasoline-powered automobile. Coca-Cola was a nickel and Spain abolished slavery in Cuba.

Just kidding. I'm not quite that old.

No, we're talking 1986, when gasoline prices broke $1 per gallon and caused a major public outcry. We had funny colored hair and made sure our ties matched our socks, worshipped teen-avatar John Hughes and an art house Aussie named Mel Gibson. The space shuttle Challenger blew up, Germany was still two separate countries, and Ronald Reagan made jokes about starting World War 3. Huzzah!

It was also the year I released my first film, took a roadtrip to Canada with my future wife, and realized that the easy part was over - I was a legal adult and needed to act the part. So much for that. All that history was part of another life, and although I can look back fondly and remember the fun and challenging times I had when I was "that guy", I'm not "that guy" anymore. So it'll be interesting to see friends from that time, see how they've changed (or not). I have zero expectations and quite a few non-school chums to link up with.

While we're gone, the contractors should be hanging drywall. The garden window is in and the floors & doors have been chosen. There's electrical wire, coaxial cable and CAT5 network cable running everywhere. I hope to come back to solid walls.

I'll keep blogging from CA, if I can. Peace out, my homies.

Serendipitous, And Then Some

Last night, as I slipped off to sleep, I surrendered to the goodwill of the Universe, and asked for good things to be put in my path...

This morning, as I awoke refreshed from a restful sleep, I offered thanks for the gifts it had offered in the past, and made it known I was ready for some Really Good Stuff (TM)...

I went to Southcenter with Kayleigh to replace the leather jacket I'd lost in the fire. We hit Wilson's, and I found an awesome black bomber in a "big & tall" cut (for length, thank you - I have been losing weight). Discovered this jacket (ordinarily $350) was on clearance for $60.

Thank you, Universe!

Took Kayleigh to the West Seattle street fair, parked at my brother's place and walked up the hill to the Junction. As we passed the stalls of Hawaiian ice and tie-dye clothing and political-cause-on-a-stick, I saw that Village Woodworks was having a sale (PLUS they pay sales tax). On a whim, I ducked inside to walk around and look. Ordinarily, they are way out of my range - REALLY awesome, solid wood furniture in the $1000+ range for just about anything. But I happened to spy a solid pine dining table in a country/craftsman style, with corner legs (thick and lathe turned), 4 matching chairs like the set we used to have, $280. AND they'll hold it until the house is finished. One less room to furnish, at a STEAL for the quality!

Thank you, Universe!

On the way back to Gavin's, we passed the south stage, and who should be performing a live acoustic set, but my favorite Seattle songbird, Carrie Akre (formerly of Hammerbox, Goodness and The Rockfords)?! She showcased a few of the songs from her new album in-progress, as well as a few of her earlier solo pieces. Kayleigh sat piggyback and got to see one of her singer-songwriter idols. We got an intimate serenade from 10-feet away, and left the fair at the end of her set, very happy indeed.

Thank you, Universe!

We arrived home to find the painters working on the north side of the house. And Shandalla came over and cooked lemon chicken and green beans and a mozzarella/tomato/basil salad for dinner.

Thank you, Universe!

I'm so happy with today. I mean, it really doesn't matter how or why - whether its random chance, or just my perception of good stuff happening or whether I'm making it happen by putting myself in synch with the Universe. What matters is I feel in synch, and I feel like I'm empowering myself (forgive the use of the "e" word) to manifest good in my life.

It's just another step forward, and it's nice to feel like I'm not taking three steps back at the same time. And it's nice to feel like I'm not jousting my daily windmills for nothing.

Tomorrow starts the kids' Pacific Science Center day camps, so I may not have a lot of time to post this coming week. We leave Friday morning for California. I will try to take pictures and post some here.

Once More, Unto the Breach

So I managed to get through the week (le pant, le gasp). Think I put more miles on the car this week than in the past month. Mostly in trips down to Southcenter to order, pick up and/or exchange lighting hardware for the house. The HVAC guys ended up taking up a lot more space downstairs than before, so there are a number of very... er, "creative" soffit constructs here and there. It is so amazing to see how little these guys consider the other trades when doing their own work. 'Scuse me, just gonna bust through this wall here... what? You don't want a two-foot box hanging down from the middle of your bedroom ceiling??

Anyway, the insurance company, in their infinite generosity, has given me a whopping $1500.00 allowance for replacing my upstairs appliances. That means I will be out of pocket another four grand or so (on top of the four grand for the cabinetry). Joy. We can cover that with some of the contents settlement, but I really have to be careful.

Looks like I will be running speaker and network cable today and tomorrow, and the electrical will be finished up next week (followed by inspection). Insulation will also go in next week, and the drywall will go up while we're in California. Target date for move-in is end of September.

It's hell trying to keep organized records in this micro-office next to my bed, but I really need to pull together all the financials from last tax year to give to my poor, long-suffering accountant. I wonder if there is a subconscious reason I've procrastinated so long in getting the records together - like it's a way to hold onto Sam. 2005 is the last tax year I can file married. A lot happened that year. A lot I'd like to forget, and a lot I never want to forget.

Or maybe it's just because we had a fire and a lot of our records were destroyed, and I've had a host of other priorities at the same time. Regardless of the excuse, I need to get the records to the accountant before we leave for California.

My neighbor/friend/actress/producer Darlene accompanied the kids and me to the hospital on Thursday night to visit Caleb. He's in fine, surly spirits. Apparently, his major criteria for being discharged is that he must fart. I offered to bring him some Taco del Mar, but he declined. Apparently beef broth, jello and tea are more his thing. Honestly, I didn't expect both kids to want to go with us to the hospital - the last two people they visited in such a setting died. But they did, and they were good. The kids left a mantra on the whiteboard:

Happy thought for the day...
FART!

Addendum: Andrew has this posted over at his LiveJournal. I decided to check it out, and surprise surprise...

If You Ruled the Land . . . by wackyweasel
Your first name:	T-bone
How you gained your rule:	Rightful heir!!
Your title is:	Your Great Grand High Majesty
Your symbol is:	the cat, because cats are fluffy and nice
You rule from:	a great, golden, gem-studded palace
At your side is:	your Jack Russel terrier, Wishbone Jr.
Your enforcers, troops, and guards are all:	centaurs! They should NOT be so hot . . . oh well!
Your most popular law is:	Kareoke Wednesdays, with prizes! EVERYWHERE!!
Your least popular law is:	Regulation of a national favorite color
Your worst enemy is:	cranberries - ewww
Your popularity rating is:: 85%
Your chance of being overthrown is:: 16%
Quiz created with MemeGen!

Pirates of the Hasselhoff

Took the kids to Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest. I liked it. Some parts were a bit scary for Kayleigh, but she was never scared to the point of closing her eyes - she just squeezed my hand and whispered, "Eeeewww - that guy has an octopus head!" Tyler loved it, especially the return of the zombie monkey from Curse of the Black Pearl. Be sure to stay for the credits, as there is an extra little tidbit at the end.

Afterward, we went to Seattle Lighting and picked up the fixtures for the house. Drove all the way home with an 8-foot track light bar bisecting the interior of the Sportage. It was cool to get out with the kids and do a summer thing like go to a great popcorn type movie.

Of course, I got home to see my brother had left me a message consisting of this link. He said it would make me want to gouge out my eyes with forks. He was right.

So now I sit typing blind with stupid forks in my eye sockets, and rejoicing that the plumber is back out at the house, fixing some issues. I think we passed plumbing inspection and he was going to make said changes after said inspection. And I have a rental house living room full of boxed light fixtures. I win.

Spare some juju for my good friend Caleb, who has gone under the knife today to have almost a foot of his colon removed. We're thinking about you, buddy!

Manic Monday

Wow.

Just... Wow.

Awoke to Wiley going seven kinds of apeshit because of all the activity happening at the house today. The painters were there, working on the exterior. The electricians were there, running wire. The HVAC guys were there, running heating conduit. I went over and started pruning the neglected hazelnut trees, and of course got pulled aside by each sub for an opinion or clarification.

Then these local gardeners came by asking for work. Half an hour and $100 later, the giant camelia bush in front and its nondescript bushy cousin around the side were gone, chopped up and hauled away. Sweet.

Steve came by to have lunch, which was awesome. Been too long since I've seen the Bro-Hamma.

And here are some pics of the outside of the house now...