Ketchup, part 2: Trip to California, subpart B.

And shortly the All Hallows Eve, full of sugar and expensively-suited small people running up your steps, was upon us.

Halloween-y at Joosh's mom's place. Nephew Liam, being the damn cutest giraffe you'll ever see. Except that his outfit was a tiny bit too tight and he kept trying to yank the crotch free. Technically he was a bit of a skeevy giraffe, I guess.



And still later in the week I drove through parts of LA previously unknown to me (Irvine, Santa Ana, godforsaken places one and all) to see El Jefe, with whom I'd been working on the aforementioned ridiculous project for the last few months. We were supposed to go the Oceanography center, but when I arrived at about 1, there was a police blockade, so we renegotiated our plan to involve mediocre pizza and a park for some fun times.

The kids were along for the ride, and if you know Jefferey and his lovely wife, you'll know at first glance that these two are literal chips off the old blocks. May I present Mini-JLG and Mini-CSH:


They are incredibly funny and absurdly smart. And it's probably a good thing they are home-schooled, because they are the kinds of adorable precocious who would get their hilarious butts kicked and their brains shrunk in public schools (yes, even the snotty la la schools in So. Cal!).

Here I asked them to make their kookiest craziest grossiest faces. This is what they came up with:

With a smidge more prompting (grosser! crazier! C'mon!):



Ash conquers the rings:



Autum(nal) conquers the rock wall:















El Jefe conquers Dana Point (while rocking the ever-sweet 'Refugee Facial Hair' look, apparently grown during the wildfire evacuation the previous week):




The entire family (sans CSH who did not join, but was surely wearing them within a hundred miles of us all the same) wore Crocs. I found this funny.



Hipster parents and their hipster spawn, taking over the world one dress-over-jeans or punked-out-hoodie outfit at a time:

(Please note the evidence of California's real estate market shining on the hilltop in the background, just above jeans/dress girls head).

I didn't get a good shot of the possibly older women dressed youngisher (so of indeterminable age) in tight leopardy-slash militantish yoga wear who Jefe insisted were a lesbian couple. I had hoped you might weigh in on the subject. They were wearing Neimen Marcus versions of ghetto caszh, basically. And I disagreed about the couple thing. But Jefe also thinks that JK Rowling outed Dumbledore (who is CLEARLY not gay, not that there's anything wrong with that) in order to make the actress who plays Hermione feel better about the fact that she is, in fact, a total lesbian. So take his assessments with a grain (or several) of salt.


Prior to the arrival of the other kids in the photo above, I had a total "That kid is STILL on the ESCALATOR" moment with this aging skater punk dad and the daredevil egg-onment of his progeny.

It might be too small to see without enlarging the photo to full size, but man, I could practically hear the bones breaking, precognitive echoes playing over the voice of Brodyman in Mallrats in my head. A few minutes later they busted out a skateboard and went to town. No, no helmut. (God help me, I'm an old old old lady).

So that's about it. There were many other activities on the California trip, of which I did not manage to photo document any further. Visits with grandparents, brothers, mom, dad, step-brother and fam (where I broke the news about the fact that one of their Halloween pumpkins was covered in the recalled "Aqua Dots" beads, you know, the ones that turn into the frickin date rape drug when ingested? Thank you, China, you piece of shit, and thanks all you nutjob USA consumers so desperate for cheaper and cheaper crap that you don't give a rat's ass about where it comes from, how it gets here, what the impact is, etc, until your own spawn are threatened with immediate comas or a case of lead poisoning. Grrrrrr. Though I should offer the caveat that the Aqua Dots were not at all cheap, they are absurdly expensive, actually - I guess you have to pay extra for a drug in your toys that some people actually want and pay good money to procure on or before date night).

Hmmm, I seem to be getting bitter and crankypants. Perhaps I should leave off about now. I meant to end with a tribute to my love and yours, Mr. Ben Harper, who graced us in Portland with his harmonious presence last week, but my account of the lovefest, it will have to wait.

Congrats to Bexy on her last day of classes for the first semester!!! Crazy fast, this semester flew by. I've yet to try the New Year's Drink contender recipe yet, but I will do so soon. There's always the sweet Saphire nectar to fall back on come 29 December, right? Congrats, honey. You are totally rocking the school of law.