a bummer from a strummer

The John Mayer concert was beyond amazing. His music is just so inspiring and the way he plays that guitar, well…let’s just say that Jessica must be pretty happy in bed. And speaking of happy things, Hadassah and I were pretty happy to discover that margarita’s were only three dollars! Oh, it was the best of times! And even though I was buzzing more than a bee, it was right then and there that I decided to do something creative and artistic and share that creative and artistic thing with the world.

That’s when I remembered the Art Fair mural project. A couple months back, a local downtown art program asked me if I would be willing to paint a giant three-story high mural in their stairwell. They liked the little doodles I drew on the chalkboard at my work and figured it was just the thing they needed. I had put off the project for a while, since I wasn’t sure what I wanted to paint. I mean, three stories worth of art? It had to be something that would inspire anyone who walked in the building and it had to have meaning that would last longer than a minute. And it was all thanks to John Mayer.

The day after the concert I stopped at an art supply store and picked up a blank drawing pad and a box of colored pencils. When I got home, I put the pencil to the pad, and the ideas just flowed out of me. Bright, colorful things just started to appear and before I knew it, I had several pages filled with stuff. I couldn’t wait to show my ideas to the director. Unfortunately, I never got the chance.

When I went to Art Fair to talk with the director, Ann, I ran into Greg, the guy who “discovered” me. Turns out he had just been fired. Apparently, Greg, who had been a volunteer had decided to ask that he paid for his services during the summer. Just a little gratuity. After all, summer months meant longer hours, which meant more opportunities for some extra cash. So it only made sense that he ask. Who knew the answer would lead to a harsh firing? Did those selfish Art Fair people not know how to recognize a good thing when they had it? I mean, if it weren’t for Greg, I wouldn’t be there painting the mural and neither would half the teachers that were volunteering their time to help teach classes. I felt bad for the guy, but I didn’t want all my ideas to go to waste. So I stuck with my meeting, but throughout it I had this really wretched feeling in my stomach. Damn conscience.

After the meeting, Ann invited me to an all-expense paid dinner later that night. It would be a chance for everyone at Art Fair to get to know each other and to have an opportunity to give recognition to those who deserved it. It was a super nice gesture, and for a mere mortal minute, I thought that maybe the people at Art Fair weren’t all that bad.

That night, I went I went to the all-expense paid dinner. At Taco Bell. I know. But it was all they could afford, and so I just stuck with a Chalupa. After everyone was seated in the plastic cream-colored booths, I couldn’t help but think of Greg and the recognition he deserved. Sure, he didn’t create Art Fair, but he made it what it was. It just wasn’t right to be there at the all-expense paid dinner without him there. So I resigned. I went right up to Ann and told her I was leaving and I wasn’t coming back. I was so nervous the entire time, because I knew my resignation would let down a lot of people, especially those unimaginative, non-creative people who were waiting to be inspired. But it had to be done.

A girl who was sitting two turquoise, spinning chairs over, overheard me resign and stood up to announce her resignation. Apparently, volunteering at Art Fair didn’t count as an after-school club, which meant she couldn’t put it on her college application. So she left. And so did two others.

Sunday afternoon, Greg called me to tell me that Art Fair had officially been shut down. Apparently, some of the guests at the all-expense paid dinner were benefactors of the art program and a city official was there too. When a lot of people walked away from their 99-cent tacos and burritos, the benefactors and the city official were not happy and decided something was not right with the way things were being handled at Art Fair. So the city official decided to shut it down…at least for the time being. You know, just to figure things out. Who knew doing the right thing would be such a terrible thing? This was all my fault. Actually, if you think about it…John Mayer really is the one to blame. Him and his inspiring music.

irreplaceable

A couple of weeks ago, I found out that an old high school friend, Celina, was pregnant. Eight weeks to be exact. Which was weird, because when I ran into her at the Gwen Stefani concert, she was downing rum and coke like there was no tomorrow. Guess she didn’t know then, either. But once she did know, Celina’s life changed. She had just turned 21 and realized that she could no longer indulge in twenty-something activities, like going out to a club, ordering a drink and have an adventure that would most certainly qualify her as a cool grandparent. Instead, she would have to spend her first legal drinking year at home, listening to friend and family members alike, recount their wild weekends. And even after she had the baby, she couldnt go out for another two, three years! Talk about a major downer.

But as I soon discovered, I was kinda floating around in the same boat.

With Lucy, my life changed. I found myself putting her needs before mine, just like a parent would do for their own flesh and blood. I was canceling happy hours and outings with my friends just to come home and be with Lucy. I was even discussing different types of dog food and her bowel movements. I didn’t realize I was putting a major damper on my social life until my friend Madelaine pointed it out. She had invited me to a wine tasting event and I had to decline because I needed to feed Lucy. Ok, I guess that was a bad excuse for not going out. After all, when I went to work, I left Lucy in the care of my brother, Collin. So it’s not like she would starve to death or be unsupervised. I was afraid I was becoming like one of those parents who could do nothing but only talk about their new babies and so when Madelaine invited me to dinner and a play, I decided to do something about it.

I made a few phone calls, switched some things around and accepted Madelaine’s invitation. Unfortunately, I took a little too long and Madelaine made other plans, giving me a free and lonely Saturday night. I had successfully (or would it be considered un-successfully?) transferred from the Parenthood Prairie to Loser Land. And it was during my brief stay in Loser Land that I discovered a horrifying fact: Lucy liked Collin, more than me. She followed him more, listened to him more, and even played tug-o-rope with him more. I couldn’t help but feel like I was doing something wrong. I thought I was doing everything a good parent should. I gave her the best food, the best toys, even the best in puppy couture! So why was Collin being favored over me? Was I being replaced?

Meanwhile, somewhere in San Diego, in La Jolla to be exact, three girls were having fun in a nightclub. My friend Hadassah went with her friend Sally to support their friend Ruby in a marathon to help fight lung cancer. Ruby had been practicing for over a year and now it was her time to shine, but like all shinning moments, it made Ruby nervous. So, Hadassah figured a wild and crazy night in a beach city like La Jolla would help out. And it did. For a while, until Sally got really drunk and started throwing up everywhere; the bar, the dance floor, the bathroom, the parking lot, everywhere.

The next morning, Hadassah discovered that not only was her entire party hung over from the party last night, but the alcohol seemed to put a damper on Sally’s mood for the rest of the weekend. She didn’t feel like participating in any of the activities they had planned. Instead of shopping or hanging out at the beach, all Sally wanted to do was stay in bed and sleep, bitching and moaning about everything: the sun, the people, the weather, everything.

Everyone figured that Sally’s sour mood was probably due to the drastic change in location, but when it followed her back home and stuck around during a “Welcome Back!” party, it was enough. One person in particular who had had enough, was Keely, who got into a verbal fight with Sally after hearing her bitch and moan about a “horrible, sucky weekend.” Then, out of nowhere, Keely threw a fast fist right into Sally’s face. The entire party was put on pause for a few moments, but regained its energy once the girl-on-girl fight was in full mode. It ended when Keely threw her body into Sally and broke her leg in a bizarre lower body twist, sending her not only to hysterics, but to the hospital. The fight, the sour mood, and other past problems with Sally led everyone to the same conclusion: she had to go. It was so third grade.

A couple days later, during a mid-Thursday afternoon (why is it everything happens to me, mid-Thursday afternoon?), Hadassah came by to the flower shop. She had just finished having lunch with her mother, when she decided to ask me if I wanted to go to the John Mayer concert next week. I accepted and asked how she came about an extra ticket. In a calm and rational voice, Hadassah explained that it was originally Sally’s ticket, but since she hadn’t paid for the ticket yet, and the fact that nobody was talking to her, it was up for grabs. I felt like I should take back my acceptance for the ticket. I didn’t wanna replace Sally. I didnt wanna do to her, what I thought Collin was doing to me. But then again, it is a John Mayer concert, a guy who Rolling Stone magazine recently named one this century’s rock guitar gods...

P.S. I know this is kinda old and all, but if you have any extra time or just wanna search through some blogs, check out my friend Mel's blog. She went to the Hollywood premiere of Pirates of the Caribbean and got to meet all kinds of world-famous celebrities. Totally blows my tale of Kathleen Turner right out of the water.

i love lucy

It's been said before (and not just by 1980's hip hop group, Whodini), that freaks come out of night. I guess there's something about the dark, soulless streets that attracts something inside the freaks to come alive and to be merry. But for the freaks in Tucson, it's not the night that attracts them. It's downtown. There's Kenny, the guy who wears a leather vest and a headdress made out of soda can pull-tabs and stands in the corner asking people for money for medicinal marijuana. There's Jaime, the mannish woman (or womanish man, depending how you look at it) who's always buying random gifts for married women all around downtown. There's even Ms. Kitty, the lady who owns the shoe shine stand across the flower shop, who hired a homeless man, fell in love and married him two months later. But the biggest freak of them all is the strange lady who came in last Thursday.

It was mid-afternoon and like most mid-afternoons, I was bored. Then She came in. I say She, since I have no idea who she was or if I'll ever see her again. She came in with a spring in her step and some really good, top-notch Amphetamines in her system. I mean, it made sense, since she kept raving about all the beautiful, positive energy that was coming from the flowers from our shop, floating all around downtown, creating beautiful, positive energy for everyone.

SHE: Beautiful. Just beautiful. Yes. Your flowers are beautiful.
ME: Thanks.
SHE: You are beautiful. Life is beautiful. Everything in your shop is beautiful. And I love the beautiful, positive energy coming forth from your flowers. It's making my spirit soar to outstanding heights. It's feeding creative energy to everyone downtown. I could feel it a mile away. My inner me is brimming with happiness and I feel so beautiful and bright. Thank you. Thank you.

She actually went on for several more minutes, inhaling the scent of the flowers to the point where I thought she would have an orgasm, right there in the Frontier Building lobby. God. I wish flower energy could make me feel that good. And that's when I noticed She's crocheted bag move. She saw me look at her bag with interest and pulled out a tiny, little brown ball of furry fluff. It looked like a toy, only it wasn't. It was a real live, adorably cute puppy! I had to hold this tiny little thing! The puppy was so small, it fit right in the palm of my hand, looking up at me with these big brown eyes. The moment an "Awwwww…" escaped from my lips, She came up with a "most wonderful, beautiful idea."

SHE: I have a most wonderful, beautiful idea! Look at you two! Oh! How it makes my beautiful heart cry out with beautiful joy! I am looking, with my soul, at your luminous auras and they are a beautiful, beautiful match! You two are meant for each other. It is your destiny! You belong to each other! I cannot take her away from you. She is yours.

And with that, She walked out the door and into downtown. I didn't know what to do. I was stuck with this tiny little puppy and I wondered if She really left her dog behind. Was I being Punk'd? I had to be. This was too weird not to be caught on camera for millions of people not to enjoy. But there were no secret cameras or Ashton Kutcher jumping out of the plants telling me to look into the camera. This was real.

Soon people began to notice I was holding a tiny puppy and they began to ask where it came from, who it belonged to, and if they had any more, could they buy one. I didn't know if She would come back and ask for her puppy, so I had to come up with a story. Fast.

ME: She belongs…to…my friend! Yeah! My friend. She's in, um, you know, court and so…you know. I'm dog sitting. For her. My friend. You know.

The story sold. I knew I would have to tell my boss Alice the truth, when she came in, but for the time being, my little white lie was working perfectly. That is, until our delivery driver Chamo came back to the shop to ask if there were any more deliveries. His eyes lit up when he saw the puppy and I tried hinting to him, that I would tell him the story later, since we had customers who were admiring the little puppy, but he demanded to know right away. So. I told him the same white lie. I felt bad for doing it, but I didn't want half of downtown thinking I stole a dog.

Chamo decided to stick around and even helped me close the shop, he wanted to meet "my friend" and ask, "my friend," if they had any more puppies. Of course, when "my friend" never showed, I knew She was never coming back. I had a brand new puppy! Now all I needed to do was get Chamo off his crazy idea of keeping the puppy, if "my friend" never came back from court. That and convince my parents I found the puppy on the side of the road. I could already hear my mother's voice telling me I should have ran to the person who gave me the puppy and told them a puppy was the last thing I needed in my life. Oh, wait. That was my mother, who said exactly that the moment she saw me holding the adorably, cute puppy. But since I, "found her" there was nobody to take it back to and so we welcomed a new addition to our family. A new addition, named Lucy (named after that classic Beatles song, Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, because that's the song that was playing on the radio when She gave her to me).

The next day, Lucy and I became better acquainted and I fell in love. Lucy totally took over my heart. As well as the house. As far as Lucy was concerned everything was hers and she let us know this by peeing in the middle of every room. She gave kisses to everyone she came in contact, but being that she is so small, her kisses only came up to everyone's ankles. My parents got the most kisses, as if Lucy knew where her next meal was coming from. She was so smart, so spoiled and so sick.

It was three in the morning when I heard Lucy cry. I had made the living room into a modern Arabian Nights palace, complete with pillows, blanket throws and a canopy made of three chairs and a thin linen sheet. I didn't know how Lucy would fare on my sleigh bed, so I figured a floor bed would be the next best thing. And it was until her crying woke me up and I saw that she was leaking diarrhea. I tried stroking her, comforting her, hoping to God it wasn't anything too serious, but as the minutes turned into hours, I knew something was up and so I rushed to the hospital.

By the time I got to the hospital, the towel I carried Lucy in was covered in shit. Her body was limp and her cries became louder and louder. I was scared. I loved Lucy so much and to see her in pain was just heartbreaking. And when she had a seizure while the nurse was looking her over, I lost it. Tears just started streaming down my face and the nurses had to escort me out. Suddenly, I understood all those Sally Field movies where she deals with the possibility of losing something precious to her, like Not Without My Daughter, Steel Magnolias, and almost any other movie she's ever done.

In the waiting room, time had slowed down. The minutes felt like hours and it seemed like a lifetime before the doctor called me back in. Dr. Shauna Stevens sounded like that secretary Roz, from Monsters Inc., but with a Cindy Brady-like lisp. I couldn't understand the words she was trying to form with her oversized, thick-as-fuck tongue, and I began to cry even more, hoping somebody with articulate speech could tell me what was going on with my puppy! Her blood sugar was really low and her white cell count was really high, which resulted as a seizure. And though low blood sugar was a major factor in Lucy’s seizure, there was also the possibility of parvovirus and distemper, which, according to the doctor, could lead to an early, untimely death.

That’s when they gave me the bill. $800. Well, $765.45, to be exact, but when a bill that’s high, you may as well round up and start imagining life without your morning white mocha macchiato from Starbucks. Of course, being a college student, I did not have that kind of money just laying around and so I turned to my financial aid. My parents. They of course, choked, the moment when the nurse explained the bill and I wondered if the animal hospital was capable of diagnosing two full grown human adults. They asked me if I was sure I wanted to keep this puppy. After all I had only spent a day with the puppy. How attached could I be? Would it really be so bad if I put it to sleep?

I couldn’t believe what they were saying. It was like the first chapter of Charlotte's Web. How could I kill an innocent little puppy? How could I kill my baby? It wasn’t her fault she got sick. She looked so helpless in her incubator with an IV attached in her left leg and it just made me cry even more. Guess this is what it feels like to be a parent. I couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t eat. Oh, who am I kidding. I’m Mexican. When we stress, we eat. The food just comes to us in large quantities. And its all covered it in gooey, delicious cheese.

For the next three days, I couldn’t get out of bed. I kept calling the hospital every two hours, checking Lucy’s status and even though they kept telling me her health was improving, it wasn’t enough to comfort me. I was in shambles and I would be until that memorable Memorial Day, when I got the call that Lucy was ready to come home. There she was, all smiles and all ready to go home. Since then, I havent slept for days, I’ve completely lost my figure, but in the end, when it’s for somebody you love, it’s all worth it.