Where Does the Time Go?!

At the beginning of this year, I promised you, my faithful and not-so-faithful readers, that I was going to make a concerted effort to post more frequently. As you may have noticed, I have failed miserably. I do have an excuse though: Time flies!

We have been really busy here at Casa del Blanco lately. There just doesn't seem to be enough hours in the day to get all the things done we want to do. I know you, dear reader, are probably busy too, so this excuse of mine may seem lame, and even whiney, but it is the only excuse I have, so please bear with me.

Alas, most of the things that have kept me busy would not be very interesting for you to read about. Sure, my recent haircut came out nice, but I'm afraid the  details of the whole procedure would not keep you riveted. So here are some of the more interesting things that have happened hereabouts:

• I've picked up a few gigs doing character development on some top-secret projects, unfortunately, I can't tell you anything about them. Yet.

• I gave a guest lecture on caricaturing at a local cartoon class taught by my friend and mentor Mat Brown, and had a wonderful time. The class was full of bright, talented, amateur cartoonists, which is a refreshing change from the usual slug-a-beds you encounter in the student population of most local cartoon classes. The highlight of the evening was when Perfect Wife posed for the students for a caricature. It was a brave move on her part, and I believe she left with her self-esteem intact. It was pretty funny- if you  weren't her.

• Perfect Wife and I celebrated 20 months of marital bliss yesterday! We went to a fancy restaurant (Fancy for us, they had silverware and everything! Also, no item on the menu had "Mc" on an entree name.). I had the best piece of prime rib I ever had, served with something called a Mashed Potato Garlic Cake, that was yummy too. Unfortunately, PW's salmon was overcooked. When we complained to our waitress, we were comped dessert and drinks. That would have been nice if we were paying for it, but we were using a gift certificate.

Sadly, when we returned home, I realized how long it had been since I had eaten beef (we've been eating chickens and piggies mostly, lately), and I experienced a few hours of gastric distress. It wasn't pretty.

It was still a wonderful evening.

• The biggest time-sucker for PW and I, is that we are performing in another local musical. If you have ever performed in a play, you know how much work is involved. I got lucky this time, as I only have a small role that involves no heavy lifting. PW, however, has a fairly large role, so it keeps her pretty busy. She is, of course, wonderful in the role, and I get goosebumps watching her from the wings. Lest you think I am biased about her performance, she even got a nice nod in the local paper's review.

One unfortunate side effect of our participation in the show is that we are out of the house a lot at night. This has caused Rocco the Wonder Dog to begin to have some " separation anxieties".

These anxieties usually manifest themselves by Rocco befouling the kitchen floor while we are out. Cleaning up dog droppings at 10 at night is not exactly the perfect ending to the day.

The show runs 2 more weeks, then hopefully life will get back to normal.

Or as normal as life gets around here.