Category: family

WoW, WDW!

elvis4 Comments

So I’m gonna be in beautiful Orlando, Florida sampling the exotic delights of Disney the latter half of this week, flying home Monday the 9th of May.

So I’m gonna be in beautiful Orlando, Florida sampling the exotic delights of Disney the latter half of this week, flying home Monday the 9th of May.

I’d like to say this will be a booze-and-narcotics driven adventure, a sort of Fear and Loathing vs The Mouse deal, but no, this is family. Kids. Grandparents. The Full Catastrophe.

I should have some blog entries from the trip, I’m takin’ my laptop with me.

But you know, if I have any Florida-local readers who want to, um, get lost in the park with me, you know where to find me. I may also be open to post-park social invitations. Book early, and offer much.

Goofy Golf Therapy

elvis2 Comments

Sometimes you know, when one’s mood is low, there’s not a thing in the world better than playing goofy-golf with one’s kids. I should try to find a history of goofy golf, mini golf, whatever you want to call it.

Sometimes you know, when one’s mood is low, there’s not a thing in the world better than playing goofy-golf with one’s kids.

I should try to find a history of goofy golf, mini golf, whatever you want to call it. It’s an oddity, and I’d guess a singularly american one. I can’t quite imagine the french or the germans playing it.

But in any case, it’s terribly hard to find much importance in the world’s problem or my own when I’m using a tiny, candy-colored putter to knock a florescent orange golf-ball into a grinning dragon’s mouth.

Read more “Goofy Golf Therapy”

First Ride

elvis13 Comments

Ruby, my six-year-old, reminded me of something today.Daddy, she said, You promised we could see if my legs are long enough.And of course I had. The rule has always been, when you can get both your feet securely on the rear pegs, you can ride on the back of my motorcycle.

Ruby, my six-year-old, reminded me of something today.

“Daddy”, she said, “You promised we could see if my legs are long enough.”

And of course I had. The rule has always been, when you can get both your feet securely on the rear pegs, you can ride on the back of my motorcycle.

Read more “First Ride”

Love and Death

elvis2 Comments

Title shamelessly stolen from Woody Allen…. My friend Chris — Papa Christo — my best male friend even in life.

(Title shamelessly stolen from Woody Allen.)

There is no outpouring of love, ever in life, like that when we die.

My friend Chris — Papa Christo — my best male friend even in life. His sister died this week, by her own hand, after a long and terrible depression.

I never knew his sister Holly. I’m not sure why. I met her a time or two, but for some reason, our paths never really crossed like they did with the rest of his family. Now, it’s too late, and tonight now do I learn what a sad thing that is.

I went to her funeral tonight — well, I don’t know if funeral is the right word. She was a deeply religious woman, a catholic, and it was some complex and arcane (to me) catholic thing including a bazillion hail marys, which of course make me want to climb the walls and swing from the rafters naked like a chimpanzee.

But it was the readings after that brought tears to my eyes.

I’ve never seen Chris cry before. I’ve never said “I love you” to him, not heard him say it to me. Yet tonight, before things even started, he was weeping on my shoulder and we were whispering I love you as passionately as lovers.

Tears came to my eyes so easily over his loss. More easily than ever they came over my own loss of a sibling.

So many people stood up to talk about Holly; so much love. God, this woman will be missed. And the pain over the manner of her death spoke deep into my soul, the feeling that she’s been lost long before she died. I know that feeling I said to myself.

Why can’t we tell those we love how we feel when they’re here? Why can’t they hear it, feel it, when love is shared?

I don’t want to wait for my loved ones to die, to tell them how I love them. I doubt I ever said it to my father, I know I never said it to my brother. I don’t even recall when last I told my mother I love her.

Love is so easily shared for the lost. It’s so easy to speak well of those who are gone, to discuss the joy and light and happiness they bring. Yet when they live, the annoyances great and small plague us, loom large, larger than they should.

Does loss change that focus? Or are we simply more comfortable pouring out love to those who are beyond hearing?

I love you. Let us not be afraid to say it. I love you — friends, family, parents, children. Tell your loved ones how you feel while you have a chance. Sometimes they’re taken away before it’s time, sometimes we just forget to say it, forget we feel it. Say it when you can.

Shopping List

Karl ElvisLeave a comment

I find this hand-written list:

Need Kinda
Portable Bathroom Wizard and Pirate Haloween
Outfits
Nun Shepard
Jousting Equipment Sheep
w/Lambs
Female Pirate Rock Landscape, Small
Fairys Waterfall Lit Fireplace w/ accessories
Chopper Motorcycle Guinea pigs
Black and White Ghost Costumes Goose girl
Girl with rabbit
Dragon and Tiger Costumes
Cave w/ vulture

And I’m thinking, I wanna go to this party. Sounds like some kinds kinky soiree.

And then I realize it’s a shopping list of Playmobil toys that my kids wrote up.

Hmm. Not quite what I was picturing…

(Edit: Note that I’ve added more items — I missed the WHOLE OTHER SIDE of the list!)

 

 

 

Liv Wrong

Karl ElvisLeave a comment

Ok, so I got my bracelet. Here, modeled by Olivia, my eleven year old daughter, who sniped the fucking thing before I even had a chance to put it on. You know, she’s such a prim little goody two-shoes I expected this to offend her. In fact, I was counting on it. Instead, she wants […]

Ok, so I got my bracelet. Here, modeled by Olivia, my eleven year old daughter, who sniped the fucking thing before I even had a chance to put it on.

Liv Wrong-1

You know, she’s such a prim little goody two-shoes I expected this to offend her. In fact, I was counting on it. Instead, she wants to be the very first one in her class to sport, not the yellow livestrong or the pink breast cancer or the lame support our troops, but the black LIVEWRONG bracelet.

Maybe this is it. Maybe she’s turned the corner and joined the family.

The thing is, we’re proud as hell of her. She’s kind, friendly, just made honor roll in her school.

But as we always say, we sort of planned on having Wednesday Addams. We wound up with Marilyn Munster.

But there’s hope for for her yet, I think, to get in touch with her inner evil.

Holidays I don’t get

Karl ElvisLeave a comment

All in dreams, I can dream now oh how I I wanna live where it’s like today I wanna live where it’s always this way I wanna live where it’s always Saturday      -Guadalcanal Diary, Always Saturday This is one of the things that brings out the petty peevishness in me. Holidays that only some […]

All in dreams, I can dream now oh how I
I wanna live where it’s like today
I wanna live where it’s always this way
I wanna live where it’s always Saturday

     -Guadalcanal Diary, Always Saturday

This is one of the things that brings out the petty peevishness in me.

Holidays that only some people get. What’s with that?

Presidents fucking day. Nevermind the fact that we don’t have a president right now, since that monkey in the white house never got elected. Nevermind that. The point is, why do my kids get that off when I don’t? Why does my mail man get that off? Why does my bank get that off?

Martin Luther King day. Huh? What? Postman? Yeah, he’s sleepin’. Banks? Stock Markets? All shut down.

What’s the matter with this country? Look at europe; they get every fucking holiday off. They get months of vacation to our weeks. They get to take a siesta, some places, in the middle of the fucking day.

I get up this morning and it feels like saturday, kids playing and all. I poke around and make coffee and don’t much get moving and then suddenly I realize, fuck, it’s a work day, I’m acting like it’s a day off because it’s a day off for my kids.

Dammit, I want my day off. I have stuff to do. I have housework, I have motorcycle rides on a beautiful, mild January day. I have writing I’d like to do, I have cooking I could do with that big tub full of chicken stock. I could go see a movie with my kids. I could do nothing.

But I go to work, where we’re all looking around going, fuck, why are we here? It’s not like most of us are getting any work done.

Sigh.

Life needs more saturdays and fewer mondays. Something’s gotta be done about that.

Pajama Party

Karl ElvisLeave a comment

So it wasn’t quite the Hef sort of pajama party, with love in the grotto and bunnies and a cast of thousands. It wasn’t even rated pg-13. But I had a damned good time New Year’s Eve. We started with the concept of a dress-up cocktail party, classic hors douvres (Hell, I’m never sure if […]

So it wasn’t quite the Hef sort of pajama party, with love in the grotto and bunnies and a cast of thousands. It wasn’t even rated pg-13. But I had a damned good time New Year’s Eve.

We started with the concept of a dress-up cocktail party, classic hors douvres (Hell, I’m never sure if I’m spelling that right), martinis, classic cocktails, you get the idea.

But several people bagged out, we had kids in tow, and our holiday week wound up busier than expected; we all wanted to hang, but couldn’t quite manage the full party we’d visualized.

So someone called an audible at the line of scrimmage, and full-dress cocktail party became pajama party.

Now, normally, I don’t do PJ’s. I don’t even own pajamas. But I kept thinking Hef. So I agreed. Though the best we could do at Target at the last minute was some too-long black silk pajama bottoms with a black thermal shirt. But it worked; and oh, does silk feel good against a shorn scrotum.

So it may not have been Hef, but I still had the world’s most fabulous babes:

And a good time was had by all. Silk, you know! Plus look who I’m cuddled against.

Chibi

Karl ElvisLeave a comment

RIP Chibi. We expected the last one, Addison, to go. This was a shock. Chibi seemed fine two or three days ago. Addison was old; Chibi was barely a year. We found her cold and struggling to breath, and it was like a re-play. But once she was warm, Chibi started to move around and […]

RIP Chibi.

We expected the last one, Addison, to go. This was a shock. Chibi seemed fine two or three days ago. Addison was old; Chibi was barely a year.

We found her cold and struggling to breath, and it was like a re-play. But once she was warm, Chibi started to move around and I thought it would be ok. Weak, sick, but I thought we could save her. Olivia and I bundled her in a tee-shirt of mine and raced across town to the emergency vet.

We handed her to the woman at the desk, who said “Oh, guys, I think it might be too late.”

Chibi had died on the way there, warm and bundled on Olivia’s shoulder. She left our life as she entered it, in a car, kept warm under Olivia’s chin.

Read more “Chibi”

Elvis Lives

Karl ElvisLeave a comment

Final chapter in the skull ring story. I wrote recently about Tony Creed. Today, after being assured that I wasn’t going to get a ring for xmas, this showed up in a small black box under my tree: Tony Creed rules. Take a look at what it says under the eye sockets in the skull. […]

Final chapter in the skull ring story.

I wrote recently about Tony Creed.

Today, after being assured that I wasn’t going to get a ring for xmas, this showed up in a small black box under my tree:

Skullfist-5

Tony Creed rules. Take a look at what it says under the eye sockets in the skull. That’s right, Elvis Lives. Tony did that because he wanted to, because he liked my name and wanted to make a ring that said “Elvis”. We didn’t know that’s what we were getting; we just ordered the 13.

I’d buy more jewelry from Tony in a minute. The dude’s just cool. The ring is beautiful. Exactly what I wanted.

Read more “Elvis Lives”