Congratulations Chelsea Compton!

Congratulations go to Chelsea Compton on her graduation from Princeton High School.

Cogratulations Angelica Jones!

Congratulations go to my niece Angelica Jones on her Junior High graduation.

The tale of Brutus

As I arrived at the end-of the-school-year, first-grade class picnic the other day, little did I know that my daughter and I were soon to be lifted into the pantheon of athletic greatness. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if we appear on a Wheaties box some day.

Before I get to all that, I should probably set the scene for you. It was a beautiful sunny day as all of the first-grade parents brought their dishes-to-pass to the outdoor picnic shelter at my little girl’s school. You wouldn’t believe the amount of food sitting on those picnic tables that day. Hot dogs were the main course. (If you call them “wieners,” you’ll be a sure hit with the first-graders.) Along with “Dirt Dessert,” my wife made these little mini-cheeseburger-looking concoctions out of Nilla wafers, Junior Mints and frosting. (And she gets on my case for eating too much sugar!)

After all of the first-grade tummies were filled with these sweet delights, it was time for the games to commence. The kids and some of the parents ran in some three-legged and human wheel-barrow races. They also had some type of tag-like, capture the feather game that I had never seen before. You know, typical picnic festivities.

And then I heard a rumor spreading about a possible water-balloon toss contest taking place. Normally I would be all excited to take part in a competition like this, but I had come straight from work that morning and still had to go straight back to the office after the picnic was finished … so I intended to only be a spectator.

But then, my daughter gave me the look. The one one with the big puppy-dog eyes and the curled-up bottom lip that she knows will get me to do absolutely whatever she wants. So I said, “Sure, I’d love to play the water-balloon toss game with you in my buttoned shirt, khaki Dockers, dress shoes and black socks.” (That’s how people know if I’m dressed up or not – if I have colored socks on, I’m dressed up.) I figured that I’d probably go back to work with a wet crotch, but since that happens on a semi-regular basis anyway, I figured heck, why not.

As I looked down at the water-balloon my daughter had been given, I started to get worried. All of the other kids had balloons that looked like they were only half-filled with water. Our bright red balloon was filled waaaaaaay past capacity. If it was an eight-ounce balloon, it had to have at least 16 ounces of water in it. It was literally pulsating with the water pressure that it contained. This was a quantity of liquid that is dropped by plane over forest fires in Arizona. I was going to get wet.

However, the great and powerful gods of water-balloon tossing smiled down on my little girl and me that sun-drenched day. As she made her first throw in my direction, I debated the need for a scuba mask and life jacket. It shimmied and shook as it arced gracefully through the air. When it landed in my hands, I could feel it’s reverberations as I fully expected to be drenched. But somehow, I remained dry. The balloon was intact.

After silently celebrating this small victory to myself, I realized that my daughter was about to get soaked in front of all of her sugared-up classmates. “There goes my Father’s Day present,” I thought as I tossed the balloon back.

Since she’s only 6 years old, we have not yet spent a whole lot of time on her catching abilities. So as the water-filled bladder wibbled and wobbled into her forehead, off of her hands, into her right knee, off of her left foot, and rolled six feet through the twig-filled grass, you can imagine my surprise that it remained unscathed and full of water.

As the competition progressed, and we had to throw the balloon further distances, it landed, bounced and rolled off of every square inch of the Bureau Valley North School District. We could have gotten a fungo bat and had some infield practice with this balloon. I believe that it was possibly made out of some kind of Kevlar material or maybe the stuff that they make the black boxes out of that they always look for in fiery jet airliner crashes. In the stories that I will tell my grandchildren, I will to refer to this particular balloon as Brutus the Big Red Unbreakable Water Balloon. If you look up the word “indestructible” in the dictionary, there should be a picture of Brutus and his taut, red, rubbery skin.

We won the competition that glorious day. As I was getting ready to go back to work, I looked back at the crowd of first-graders that had gathered around my daughter as she displayed Brutus to her friends. I guess that they all wanted to catch a glimpse of what immortality looked like.

I had come to that picnic as an every-day, run-of-the-mill Dad, looking for a hot dog and some sugary desserts that I’m not supposed to have at home. Thanks to a tough little balloon, I left as one-half of a legendary sports duo.

And my crotch was relatively dry.

Column Sketch

Here’s a rough sketch for this weekends column. Aren’t you just tingly with anticipation?

BV Graduates

Here are a few graduation caricatures I did that were given out this past weekend.

Congratulations Leslea & Darrell!

Congratulations to Leslea and Darrell Wallace on their big day with the newest box from Sawdust and Paint.

I Like To Pick My Seat

The other day, I got a chance to do what most virile, manly men of my caliber can only dream of doing. No, I didn’t go grizzly bear hunting in the Yukon or spear-fishing for tarpon in the Gulf of Mexico. I did something much more masculine. I got to spend a Saturday afternoon attending a high school prom premier followed by a little girls dance recital.

My job as the eldest male in our brood is to make sure that things happen on time and that we stick to the schedule. My wife’s job is usually to make my job as difficult as humanly possible, but this day was going to require her full cooperation. This testosterone-filled double-header was going to be a true test of our abilities. The premier wasn’t scheduled to start until 4:30 in the afternoon, and my daughter’s dance recital was to begin at 6 p.m. in a town 20 miles away. Precise timing was going to be needed in order to pull this off.

My son and his date were scheduled to walk down the prom premier stage fairly early in the ceremony, so things were looking good from that standpoint. We sat in the third row of bleacher seats at the back of the gymnasium so my wife, daughter and myself would be able to slip out virtually unnoticed. As I sat there reveling in our genius, I started paying attention to the two rows of people ahead of us. As people squeezed past us to go up the bleachers, I noticed that the guy wasn’t all that happy about letting people by. He mentioned to his wife how people should arrive earlier if they want to get good seats. He shouldn’t have to move to let late-arriving people by. Amen brother! I could not possibly agree more with this guy. When someone gets to an event early enough to get good seats, they should not be inconvenienced in any way.

And then it occurred to me that we were going to have to squeeze past these people to leave prom early to get to the recital on time. Uh-oh! This guy, whose seating beliefs I wholeheartedly agree with, was probably going to get more than a little ticked off when it was our time to go. Sometimes I just think that I don’t have quite enough stuff to worry about.

My son and his girlfriend were announced, and as they walked off the stage to their seats, my wife looked at me and mouthed the words, “It’s time to go.” This was it. Time for the confrontation. As I debated whether or not I could Fosbury Flop over the first two rows of people, divine inspiration hit me. I did what any take-charge kind of guy like myself would do in this given situation. I let my daughter lead the way. It is remarkable what you can get away with when you’re holding the hand of a 6-year-old girl in a dance costume. People smiled as they parted like the Red Sea, and we were out of there and on our way to the next event.

We arrived at the auditorium where my daughter was to perform with plenty of time to spare. We leisurely strolled inside, got my little girl where she needed to be and set out in search of some good seats where my wife would be able to take some decent pictures. As we entered the auditorium, we saw the perfect spot and headed straight for it. This was going to work out great. I was going to have a nice comfy, close-up seat to plop my derriere in to watch my daughter shake her tail feather. It couldn’t have worked out any better. And then my wife got involved.

As I followed her down the aisle of seats, she turned and told me to sit in the end seat. I told her that we should sit in the center for optimum viewing. She told me that she was going to sit in the center but that I had to sit on the end so we could save seats for our family members who hadn’t gotten there yet. Oh this wasn’t going to be good. Hadn’t she learned anything from the prom seating fiasco?

I don’t like to save seats for people. I become a nervous wreck because I know that a gang of beer-swilling, Marlboro-smoking, motorcycle-riding ruffians is going to come in and demand those very seats that we were saving. It’s a well-known fact that beer-swilling, Marlboro-smoking, motorcycle-riding ruffians like to attend little girls dance recitals on Saturday afternoons.

Well, as I settled into my guard position seat on the end of the row, I cast a glance around the place to see what kind of crowd I was going to have to deal with. I didn’t like what I saw. There were mothers and fathers, grandmas and grandpas all holding bouquets of flowers in one hand while grasping some sort of video-recording device in the other. All looking for the perfect vantage point to set up their camera equipment. This was going to get ugly.

As I honed my steely “Don’t even think about sitting here” glare, my wife pushed past me. When I asked where she was going, she mumbled something about going to get an extra program for my daughter’s scrapbook. I looked on in utter disbelief as she left me to hold the fort on my own. Her job was to protect our right flank, and she was AWOL. I’m pretty sure that’s how General Patton forced Rommel out of North Africa in World War II.

Looking back, I must have cast a pretty impressive shadow that day. As it ends up, nobody really even tried to get past my sneering wall of defense. As my parents and my aunt and my in-laws came down the aisle that day, I proudly smiled as I stepped aside to grant them access to those precious seats that I had so nobly guarded. As they sat there enjoying the performance that afternoon, I chuckled to myself because they had no idea the price that had been paid for them to enjoy those seats.

If you think war is Hell, you’ve never been to a little girls dance recital.

Nothing is not Something Update

Right now, Nothing is not Something is looking at a Fall 2012 launch date on the GOComics website. They have several other features that they want to get out there and promote so I will have to wait my turn in line. It sounds like a long time away, but I’m willing to bet, it is going to sneak up on me pretty fast. So until then, I’ll whip out some of the sketches and other assorted artwork associated with the strip so everybody can have a glimpse of what’s going on.

The Izzy Box

Cheeseburger In Paradise

Do you know there is a brand spanking new American Girl Doll Store in suburban St. Louis? Neither did I until our car was pulling into the parking lot for the brand spanking new American Girl Doll Store in suburban St. Louis. If the car didn’t have automatic-locking back doors, I probably would have employed a high-speed jump, tuck and roll tactic to avoid going to the brand spanking new American Girl Doll Store in suburban St. Louis.

Last weekend, my wife, daughter and myself traveled south to visit my sister-in-law who lives just on the Missouri side of the Mississippi River and a short commute to downtown St. Louis. At least my sister-in-law considers it a short commute. I consider it an extended high-speed gauntlet with ever-present possible death around every corner.

By means of full-disclosure, I should admit I don’t do cities very well. My brain experiences information overload pretty easily, so it doesn’t take too much for me to freak out around a bunch of traffic. Add to that the natural stench of Cardinal fans, and it just seemed best to sit me in the back seat with my daughter while my wife occupied the co-pilot seat. There were Doritos and juice pouches in the back seat, so who was I to complain?

After going to the Arch and some other downtown stuff, we made our way back to the suburbs. From my vantage point in back, I could see my wife and sister-in-law whispering and giggling about something. I couldn’t make out what they were saying due to the crunchiness of the aforementioned Doritos, but I should have known something was up.

My daughter spotted it first. The huge red and white sign that greeted us to the brand new store as we exited off the interstate. She squealed with delight as we drove around looking for a parking spot. I just squealed. My wife looked back at me and sternly told me that if I was really good, maybe we could go to Red Robin and get one of their really good cheeseburgers. There’s a chance I might have stuck my tongue out at her. What did I care? I was full of Doritos and warm apple juice.

This store was impressive. It had only been open a week, and it was terribly busy as little girls took their dolls inside for salon-style pampering and catered tea parties. They had these little stations where you could pick out your doll’s hairstyle, hair and eye color and even skin tones. I didn’t remember anything like that when Mom took me to K-Mart to get my GI Joe doll, oops – er, I meant to say action figure.

As I wandered aimlessly around the store, I noticed I wasn’t the only guy in there. There were quite a few of us in fact — mostly in a slumped-over state, shuffling our feet to the manly walk of shame. Eye contact was avoided at all costs, but we could all feel the shared pain and humiliation.

I went in there under the premise that we were just going to get some clothes and/or accessories for an American Girl doll that my daughter already possessed. It wasn’t long after, I realized that wasn’t going to be the case. My daughter had other things in mind. She planned on walking out of that store with a brand new doll – with some brand new clothes and/or accessories.

I could see that I was going to have to be the voice of reason as my wife and my sister-in-law were also cooing over the spooky life-like looking dolls. I saw my wife bend over as my daughter whispered something in her ear. I was getting ready to stand firm and give speeches about the value of a dollar as my wife told her, “I don’t know. You’ll have to ask your Daddy.” I was prepared to flat out tell her that there was no way on God’s green earth that we were going to buy another American Girl doll.

And then she gave me the look. My daughter does this thing where she lowers her chin, rotates her head over her right shoulder, and rolls her big blue eyes up to mine and makes this little fishy face while she almost inaudibly utters, “Please?”

As I handed my wallet over to my wife, I told everybody that I was going to wait outside. Have I mentioned that it was raining. In fact, downtown St. Louis had a storm blow through that afternoon that had actually seriously injured several people and even killed one other person. The local news that evening had video footage of baseball-sized hail smashing cars and taking down trees. I had decided that I would rather take my chances with Mother Nature than spend one more minute in that pink Hell.

As I sat there on the damp bench outside the store, I received a text message from my niece, who also happened to be in St. Louis that day. For many years, I have mistakenly assumed her to be a girl. However, she informed me that she was going from the baseball game where she had just seen the Cardinals beat the Brewers over to the hockey game where the St. Louis Blues were getting ready to kick-off a playoff series with the Los Angeles Kings. You know, guy stuff. Did I mention I was sitting outside of a doll store?

So there I was, hunkered down in a cold drizzle, with no wallet, wearing a Chicago Cubs T-shirt in the recently storm-ravaged suburbs of St. Louis. I probably could have panhandled some extra cash but not even the homeless would wear a Cubs shirt in St. Louis. I was truly a sad sight.

Once we were back in the car, my daughter introduced me to the newest member of the family – Zoey Lou. She looks freakishly like my daughter, which I find to be rather disconcerting, but everybody else thinks is cute. If she’s lucky, maybe my niece will take her to a football game this fall.

And by the way, the cheeseburger was delicious.