Jacked about America...

Courtesy of the great Tony Beyond:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/tonyjcase/5429267385/

Today was the second day of a new job.  Another new job.  Another too-abrupt too-soon departure from an old job, another group of colleagues and new friends left behind. I like to tell people that there is benefit in these hops; once I leave, everything comes together. I have that stank about me, I suppose. So, even though I judge my performance and these career stops as harshly as you might think, when I depart, it seems like the groups I leave behind do pretty well and stay pretty together.

This new gig: I returned to a company I worked for from 2002 to 2005, and a few of my old colleagues who had left, they're also back.  I feel a little like Norma Desmond (which is the gayest thing I'll say all day, tip of the hat); people are hollering from the rafters, figuratively of course: "You're back! Gasp! How exciting!That sort of thing!" Some of it is half-hearted, I can clearly see, but there is some of it that seems genuine, and I do feel appreciated because of it.  It's another jarring left-turn in my life, and I apologize to people who are among the unlucky ones in this world that have had to deal with me. I make jokes to folks that there is a John Bernhard support group. If you've been tortured by me, there is a group that gathers to discuss and work through the trauma. I need to stop bouncing around, and I need to stop making jokes. This is no laughing matter.

Speaking of laughing matters: When I got home tonight, I was excited to see how the dog I am dog-sitting would fare.  Yesterday, she stayed in my place outside of her crate all day and didn't have any sort of weird reaction. Nothing torn up, no piles of dog crap, etc.  Well, tonight, when I got home, I was hoping to see a restless but completely-restrained-and-refined-ne-elegante-dog-je-vivre! The Dog of Life, the Dog of all Dogs, a happy, bouncy, excited, tail-wagging canine festivus! I had visions of pulling out chicken jerky and feeding a delighted, smiling 50-lb dog as it grinned and chowed down.  Shockingly, none of this occurred when I got home.   Instead, this dog, who is a mere 24 hours from seeing her owner again, and for 12 days has been a model citizen, an excellent houseguest.  Tonight, when I walked in, she left a dozen dinner-plate-sized puddles of diarrhea and/or vomit and/or urine all over my place. Twelve spots.  Twelve different carpet-soaked-oh-please-Jesus-may-the-stain-not-be-too-rich types of stains.  Each one requiring cleanup on aisle twelve.  The poor animal!  Anyway, I showed an enormous amount of empathy and care by proceeding to yell at it for the next three hours as I cleaned up all the crap and soaked and scrubbed and soaked again and got the Dyson out and scrubbed and soaked and scrubbed and emptied three bottles of carpet stain remover. [At 11:30, I am getting ready to go find some baking soda at the store to ensure that the residue beneath the carpet doesn't result in some sort of foul stank.  To think, just 24 hours until she was outta here!


Aggggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhh.  a;lkdfja;ldfjal;kjdf;aldfjal;jdfal;kjsdf.  That's the level of frustration; that's the headache. That's how much I can't wait for this thing to be outta' my hair.  And its hair outta my life.  Harsh, I know, and I will still rub her belly affectionately when I see her; just not here, not at my house.  


It is likely my fault, all this panicky excrement all over my place.  I left her out of her crate; stupid move, even though she seemed to handle herself well yesterday in an identical situation.  But today, for some reason, I opened the blinds and opened the windows; every car that drove by she probably thought was me or someone to take care of her. I suppose I am lucky my couch isn't torn to shreds, or the pillows on my bed arranged into an effigy of me with her gnawing and ripping at my neck section between the smaller couch pillow and a larger bed pillow that is supposed to be my torso.  She didn't go that far; it surprises me, too, because this is a dog that likes to sleep in bed next to someone, under the covers, fully extended, front legs curled and T-rexed, on her back, with her hind legs spread wide open and fully extended.  And she wants to be covered under a blanket like this. And then she sleeps like a dog would sleep, all snorty and twitchy and joggy in her sleep, and laughs and moans and snorts and the hogging of the blankets.

I've done my best to clean the spots, but here is how bad it is: I am going to ask the landlord if I can use some of my security deposit and re-carpet the place. It's that bad; there's that much damage. Upstairs and downstairs.  I cleaned like a mofo, all gloved and sweaty. I was literally dripping with perspiration from the anger/shock/fist-shaking/visceral/poop-stained-carpet-scrubbing.  Shit was intense.  I stripped down to a pair of gym shorts and put on yellow rubber gloves and started to clean.  I soaked five towels with three different rug cleaners, then water, then more cleaner. I've done about as well as I could, given the extremely shitty circumstances.  The residual odor is feint; the stains are a hopeless patchwork of round yellow spots on my cream carpet.  Sure enough, when we returned from our vigorous, angry four-mile hatewalk, the house smelled a lot better. [Incidentally, the dog and I stumbled into a paved trail that winds along Salt Creek Beach, deep into the glittering, gilded bowels of a housing development called Ritz Cove, then under the Pacific Coast Highway onto the grounds of a five-star resort called the St. Regis.  It winds along the ridge that resort is perched on, then back under the PCH and back to Salt Creek Beach.  The homes you pass are literally ten figures. The view from the trail is into these massive, tall-windowed facades and in the dusk, you can see inside and these enormous palaces, worth millions and millions, all of them new and modern and just decked out. If you are ever in the area, I HIGHLY recommend the trail.]

So... I've vented. I now need to go clean the rest of the house.  Her owner, Sam, she's coming over reclaim her.  God bless America.

I need to go talk to my landlord tomorrow about the carpet thing. That is job one.  And tomorrow is day three on the new job. My goodness, I feel like I'm walking a razor wire, sharp-end up.

This summer has been astonishing.

I just toweled off with the same bright yellow towel that Lily and Milo ask me to dry them off with after their baths every Saturday night. Every weekend, the yellow towel gets the request. Pretty awesome.

The shower I take after I drop the kids off and I have, like, an hour to be normal -- it's such a great time every week for me. I don't have to be on-point dad (which, when solo, is really, really hard to do; and I am NOT good at it; and by Sunday afternoon, I am beaten). I don't have to be on-point business man (which means "buttoned up", "squared away", "quiet", etc. -- qualities I struggle with when sober, and REALLY struggle with when I've had an adult beverage or two.) Anyway, I get an hour to just relax, take a long shower, wash everything really well, shave my head, put on my warpaint, think about the next five days and head out of here on fire.

Usually, I would stop at Del Taco at that point. Not tonight. I decided tonight in the shower, not tonight. No Del Taco, no nine o'clock sideache, no to the nasty gas that always strains my Mondays. Truthfully, it takes a while for me to unwind on Mondays and get back to business mode, but... maybe Del Taco has something to do with it. So not tonight.

This weekend was actually pretty spectacular. We had our share of little flare-ups, but we contained 'em, we kept everything tight. We even made a list on Saturday morning of what we'd need to accomplish to have a great weekend. Funny enough, two hours into it, we were already wavering a little and it made Lily upset. "Dad, we're not getting off to a great start! Get back to the list!" I mean, WTF, right?

So we got back on the list. And it worked itself out.

They are always surprised that I don't take their Sunday morning pajamas off until lunch time. They chuckle about it all morning. "We're still in our pajamas, Lily," Milo will giggle. But I have been telling them Sundays are a day to recharge, lay low, stay in, or go out with friends. So mostly, that's what we do.

Tonight, before dropping them off at their house, I got to go in the backyard and swim in the pool with them and the rest of the family. It was good to just talk and bond and try to be normal. They've been so great throughout this crisis I created in my marriage a few years ago. Tonight was a good omen, in my opinion. We did hang out it, it was fun, we did get to share some stories -- and we got to marvel at Lily who literally went from timidly dipping her nose into the water to full-fledged mermaid in an hour (long swims underwater, jumping from the edge into the water, shedding her life jacket, etc.) She was amazing tonight. She is getting so tall. Her personality is definitely beginning to manifest some permanent positions on things. She definitely is into boys. She asks me all the time who she should marry. When the tween shows on Disney Channel are on during the middle of the day, she loves the Jonas brothers and some of the kids on Hannah Montanna. I can see that little era of her life is just getting underway. And it will be interesting.

One side effect of this summer situation -- me working in LA all week, them hanging mostly with their grandma and grandpa every day because their mom is working doubles to try and bring some income into the house. Grandpa is home all day because he lost his job -- is that Lily and Milo do seem to be developing a good relationship. They tussle and argue from time to time, but 99% of it is the side effect of fatigue or hunger or whatever. Because when we're fed and quiet and clean and happy, we all cuddle on the couch and read books or watch movies or lay out some sort of elaborate social scenario involving the toys in their room.

Ahh, their room. It's so wonderful. It smells so good in there, the bedding is cute, the toys are always organized, the two of them have taken pride in that space. It's been so amazing to experience.

I am not sure what it is, but this last 60 days or so seems like such a pivotal period. Big move out to LA and UP the corporate ladder; gigantic transformative service from my brother and his family; fantastic new lady friend who is light years away from ever being serious with anyone; Lily readying for kindergarten; Milo busting out of toddlerhood like it was on fire. He is a BIG kid and is bold and fearless and tries to play in a space where he sometimes gets hurt. But that's what he does. He rough houses with the bigger kids at parties, he is pretty brave with Lily and me when we wrestle.

Anyway, I know I'm jumping all over the place and my paragraphs contain like eight paragraphs worth of information in them, but it's just been that kind of weekend.

Hanging with those people in LA on Thursday and Friday was unbelievable. I never imagined IN MY LIFE that I would ever be in those kinds of social settings. Spago on a Friday in what seemed to me to be the luxe table in the joint; it was elevated and well-lit and the wait staff was all over us all night long. The food was unreal. I had braised rabbi, with a full rib-cage lined with rib meat that you are supposed to eat! (I didn't). The VIP we were with got "goulash" and some waiter emerged from the kitchen with a preparation cart and assembled an unbelievable beef goulash with beef roast plucked from a just-out-of-the-braiser pot. It was stupid.

Then we end up at Skybar on Sunset Blvd, in Beverly Hills. Like, right in the epicenter of modern pop culture. And I was dining in a room filled with icons the rest of us worship. And let me tell you, everyone was beautiful beyond description. Gorgeous clothing, hair, the cars lined up outside -- Rolls Royce after Rolls Royce, Bentleys, some misguided jerk in a giant Hummer... Everything was there. And we spent like there was no tomorrow.

It was incredible.

At one of our stops, we ended up waiting in the lounge for a table at Boa and I was standing -- no joke -- about five feet from Mischa Barton. She's faded and sad and it's awful, but I ended up partying with her and a friend.

The next night, we were on the patio enjoying mojitos and appetizers and Daniel Baldwin and his family sit at an enclosed area nearby. It is clear from the moment they sat down -- I was the one who spotted him and everyone did their "No, it can't be, no ways" and then finally realized and did their earnest, serious "Yeah, it IS hims" -- that he is a gigantic mess of a human being. He was vicious to his wife, his oldest son appeared to be a special needs boy gone wild. He didn't really look retarded, but he stumbled around and acted like one. It was amazing. After a few moments of us all starting at him, he caught on and they started playing it up. He loved it. It was incredible and terrifying to see them be as mean to each other in public. Like they were almost trying to make a scene. It mighta' been a candid camera moment for all I know.

Everywhere we went, top 40 music was playing LOUDLY. Like to deafening levels. And I loved it! In the limo, it was blasting. In taxis, it was blasting. In restaurants and clubs, it was BLASTING.

It's such an electric place. I clearly would never survive there, but... it was amazing to experience it for a night. I mean, Mischa Barton!? Really!?!?

And, to top it off, I think we accomplished our business objectives of the night which mean swaying the VIP who works for a rival company to come join our time. I think I get to hand deliver the guy to my CEO tomorrow morning. And I get to be the guy to do it.

This summer has been astonishing.