But the Kids Love Me

Growing up with an immense extended family, double digit aunts and uncles on both maternal and paternal sides and each one having a minimum of 3 kids each...  Yes, each one had at least 3 kids.  Some aunts and uncles had much more while a few only had 3 or even less for a couple of them.  Which means that in total, I have over 100 first cousins.  Read that again just to wrap your head around that.  100 first cousins.  And with the wide range in ages among my aunts and uncles meant that some of my oldest cousins are older than my youngest aunts and uncles.  It's funny in that, as a kid you never think about such things.  They're not even aunts and uncles, tios or tias.  They're always referred to by first name, just like the other kids.  

I'm not the oldest cousin from either sides of my family either.  I think I fall somewhere along 5th or 6th on both sides.  Come to think of it, I'm not even the oldest of dad's kids.  I'm his 4th child if I'm being honest.  But still one of the first generation to be born in the states.  I can't even wrap my head at attempting to count how many 2nd and 3rd generation offspring there are from those 100+ cousins.  Granted, several of them haven't had kids of their own just yet, but most of them are of age.  I'd venture a guess that there's probably close to 150~200 first cousins once (and twice!) removed.  

What I'm getting at with this brief review of my family tree is that as I've grown up, there has ALWAYS been kids around.  Whether it's been immediate family, younger generation cousins, their kids, what have you, I've literally lived my life with kids always being around.  Which is probably why kids running around playing has never really bothered me like I know some people do.  About the only time kids come close to bothering me is when they're past fussy and just screeching, screaming, crying for no particular reason.  

So what brought about this long preamble was to maybe explain this weird thing that I've noticed happen since pretty much forever.  And that is, kids love me.  It's funny and probably sounds a little conceited but kids somehow end up being drawn to me.  Often times, the younger they are, the more often they approach me.  My brother even once told someone that I was the 'Baby Whisperer.'  

With the extended family, the younger cousins would end up coming to see me in my room whenever family came to visit.  Maybe it was the video games I always had, the room decor, whatever.  But even as I got older, the kids kept coming forward.  And while there were a handful of little cousins who were scared of me...  hah, when I was in my late teens/early 20s, one cousin in particular had become so scare of me, her family would use me as a threat to get her to behave.  "If you don't clean your room, Louie's coming to see you!"  I became like the boogie man for her.  But that was the outlier.  More often than not, kids, babies especially, would happily sit in my lap and before long, they started poking my face with their chubby little hands.  And it never bothered me, I enjoyed having them around if I'm being honest.  When my brother and his girlfriend started having kids, I LOVED having them around, spoiling them as much as possible.  Same with my sister's boys.  But even beyond that, the reference I made about my brother calling me a "Baby Whisperer" was when we were at Disneyland with his girlfriend's sister's family.  Their daughter was a year younger than my nephew, maybe 4 or 5 at the time, and while we were all in the queue waiting for a ride, the little girl just walked up to me, put her hands up and waited for me to pick her up and carry her.  Apparently, she had never interacted with anyone in that manner before, usually keeping to herself and my nephew.  And yet, here she came up to me, someone she hadn't really met before, sure I saw her as a baby because of the family connection, but we never interacted before.  And now she wanted me to carry her while we were waiting in line.  

Something similar happened again a few weeks ago when I was at Disneyland and my editor was there with his family.  I joined them for a bit as a 'tour guide' and after an hour, his little 5-year-old started talking to me.  Both my editor and the mom were kind of speechless because the little girl always keeps to herself around strangers, very shy.  And she was having a conversation with me about her day at Disneyland.  I just kind of shrugged at my editor and said, 'It happens.'  

Obviously my little downstairs neighbor who kept asking me to join her in the community pool a couple of years ago.  She'll still come up and give me a hug when I see her around.  I think of my friend's daughter and when we would have our Disney days, she would hold my hand and want to play while in line for rides.

When it comes to my dating life, I've long reached the point where meeting single moms was part and parcel with dating.  Especially once I reached my 30s, meeting a girl who DIDN'T have a child was unlikely.  But again, it didn't bother me.  And often times, their kids would take to me before mom was even sure of where we stood in our relationship.  I was always a little uneasy once a potential paramour wanted me to meet her kids because in the back of my mind, I kind of knew what was going to happen if things didn't work out between us.  And sure enough, it did several times.  Girls tried to push a relationship before it was fully ready, "Oh, you need to meet my kids!"  and then a few weeks later, things would sour and now the kids would be gone from my life.  One of the many girls I dated had 3 kids, all under 10 (RED FLAG!!!) and I was uneasy when she wanted me to meet them after just a couple of weeks of dating.  But she pushed for it, I met them and I'm pretty certain they were fond of me.  The oldest one, Alan, 10 but he also had some severe medical issues going on.  But the kid also felt comfortable enough with me that when we would be out and about as a family, he would ask that I help him when he needed to use the restroom.  Holly was so happy with that development.  I felt awful when she and I broke up a few weeks later.  

And the one little girl who became such a large part of my life.  She was already 11 when I started dating her mom (and breaking up and getting back together ad nauseum over the years).  The first go-round with her mom, she was very hesitant, tentative around me for the first few months while her mom and I dated.  Honestly, when her mom and I broke up that first time, I didn't think much about it because she seemed so distant.  But when her mom and I touched base again...  Her mom had already started seeing another guy but I was going to be in the neighborhood and if she wanted to meet up for a movie, the 3 of us, totally platonic, that would be ok.  We met up at the theater but she hadn't told her daughter I was going to be there.  Avoid confusing her since mom was dating another guy.  They turned the corner at the outdoor mall and her daughter rushed right past me to look at the movie posters, she didn't register I was even there.  I exchanged pleasantries with mom and she finally called her daughter, "Hey, look who's here!"  The little girl turned around, saw me and came RUNNING to leap into my arms for a hug, almost bowling us both over.  

it's a Numbers Game

This is the story of a missed opportunity. And the opportunity, the potential, would have been life-changing at the tender age of 18. 

In 1990, California had already been conducting their statewide lottery for a couple of years and it also happened to be the year I turned 18, I was old enough to buy a ticket to play. That spring semester I was living at my grandmother's in order to graduate the Rancho, the same school I started at my freshman year. So I was sharing my uncle's room rather he was sharing his room with me but that also meant I was sleeping on the floor because he didn't have a spare bed. And he was 25 at the time or about to turn 25, I don't remember if he was working or not but he would only stay up watching late night talk shows including Wally George. So while he'd stay up watching TV, I would fall asleep usually by 11.

I know multiple times throughout my life there have been periods where I do talk in my sleep. This was especially prevalent when I was much younger including into high school age. And on top of that, Grandma's house was also the location of the garage. And if you've read my other stories, the garage and Grandma's house as a whole had a lot of unexplained phenomena occur over the years. So that leads right into that spring semester, me asleep on the floor of my uncle's room and he was awake watching TV and I started talking in my sleep.

My uncle was only half paying attention because I had probably done it multiple times before while I was there. But that following morning he specifically mentioned that I had rattled off a series of numbers. He only remembered four numbers that I had mumbled in my sleep. But he did tell me those numbers that following morning and I thought it was such a bizarre thing to happen. He dropped me off at school and I went about my day didn't, think much of it until the following morning when looking at the paper and recognizing that the four numbers my uncle remembered I prattled off matched four of the six lottery numbers that night. A $60 million dollar prize at the time. 

I think for the next couple of weeks he kept a notepad next to his bed just in case something like that ever happened again. 

I was just randomly remembering that earlier today. How much my life and the lives of those around me could have, would have turned out differently if we had taken the initiative to maybe play those numbers on a whim that morning. 

$60 million paid out in a 20-year annuity, they didn't offer lump sum payments at the time. So $3 million per year before taxes to an 18-year-old?  Pretty dangerous, no?  

Then again, earlier that semester, as the jackpot was ever increasing, my civics teacher took an entire class period to talk about the lottery jackpot and what that money would amount to. The breakdown. Mind you, this was when the jackpot was only $20 million. He got into the minutiae of just how much that kind of money earns you per day, per hour, down to the second lol. 

But he also took the time to discuss how to invest that kind of money. Granted, in the 32 years since he gave us that advice, some of his figures would no longer be applicable. But it was still a solid investment strategy for the time period. 

And I've still retained all that info on the off chance I'm ever lucky enough to fall into that kind of fortune. 

Reminiscing

 It's only natural, I feel, that when you lose someone close to you, that maybe you start to ponder your own mortality.  Even more so now that you realize that you're just a few short months away from 50.  Half a century.  To be totally honest, I didn't think I'd make it this far.  Oh, I don't mean I expected to have gone to the great beyond just yet.  But maybe I hadn't really planned on what life was going to be like this far along.  I mean, as a kid you think 50 is just so far out in the future, who has time to figure out what you're going to be doing then?  After all, at different stages in life, I just assumed certain things were going to happen, develop, life was going to lead me in a different direction.  And to be totally honest, I never expected to be where I am today because of it.  

As a child, I loved the idea of flight.  I was obsessed with aircraft and flying.  I was in Air Force Junior ROTC in high school and I just "KNEW" I was going to head off into the military.  Going even further back, I was all about space travel and my 6th grade career day report was about being an astronaut.  TV production was just a hobby because dad bought a couple of VCRs and a video camera.  If you're old enough to remember the shoulder mounted camera with an umbilical cord to a separate recorder and massive batteries for each.  I would stage small scenes with my brother and cousins.  Stupid little shit that kids would do but who knew something like that would eventually become a 30+ year career?  

2005

 

2018

And thankfully, this career has given me the opportunity to travel, see more of our country.  I am forever grateful I've gotten to visit New Orleans, Washington D.C., and Philadelphia to name just a few.

Capital Building, 2010

Looking for the basement, 2016

Jefferson Square and St. Louis Cathedral, 2012

Pike's Market, 2017

Rocky Statue, 2018

But even discounting my professional career, there's so much that I'm truly appreciative of in my personal life.  But first off, let me openly admit, and this kind of touches back on the surprise that I'm still alive...  There were plenty of times that we didn't get into more trouble than we could have/should have in our youth.  That time we somehow ended up with 8 guys trying to cram into Paul's little Mustang II and I was the most sober one so therefore, I'm driving.  Driver's seat fully pressed up into the steering wheel, 5 in the back, two in the passenger's seat next to me, too much body heat that the windows started to fog over... and oh look, there's a San Bernardino County Sheriff coming in the opposite direction.  Danny started singing, "Yes Jesus loves me, yes Jesus loves me, the bible tells me so."  We were coming back from our youth services meeting at the church if the cop stopped us.  

I don't recall if it was the same night or within a few weeks of that when Paul, Danny and I were dropping off a buddy of theirs when the buddy got into a heated argument with his wife.  In the middle of their apartment complex.  At nearly 2 in the morning.  Naturally the neighbors called the cops.  And oh, the wife pulled out a gun!?  Paul managed to talk her down from it, got the gun away from her and handed it to me to clear it.  I made sure it was safe and gave it back to him and he quickly tossed it into the bushes when he saw the Riverside PD officers coming up the footpath.  

Another night I'll never forget was after staying out late drinking and shooting pool, I was dropping off Cory at home and since we were all hungry, stopped off at Del Taco on 14th, right there next to the old Evergreen Cemetery.  Cory, despite living near there for a little over a year wanted to see it up close.  I drove into the middle of the cemetery, parked along the side of the road and the fog was thick enough to only see maybe 50 feet in any direction.  As soon as I stopped, Cory grabbed his bag of tacos and jumped out of the Goose, wanting his own little picnic amongst the tombstones.   Dude, dude, DUDE?!  Pawel, who had been following us, came up to the passenger side window, "Where'd he go?"  Cory finally wandered back after finishing his dinner and when I mentioned some of the headstone markers had Pagan symbolism on them, he wanted to go see.  Dude, this is a pretty sketchy neighborhood and shit's always going down here.  We've got protection!  He took his bike padlock and wandered off again to see the headstones I mentioned.  Fuck, man...  
We managed to locate a few in the dark and before too long, an RPD patrol car pulls up and lights up their wigwags.  Fuck man, just try to explain this one away.  3 dudes in the middle of the night in a cemetery, bike padlock on one of them, this is NOT going to end well.  
Fortunately for us, the officer was a really nice lady who told us to get back in the van and go home.  Yes, MA'AM!  and we were gone before the backup arrived.  
It's funny, another friend has often said that he's glad he didn't know us back in the day.  We all lived in Riverside at the time and are in the same age group, so it's likely we could have been friends.  But he's repeated often that if he had been friends with us and all the stuff we got into back then, he would be dead.  Wouldn't have been able to keep up with us, much less how much we were drinking back then.  OMG, the house party at Timmy's the night of the blackout.  No, we didn't get blackout drunk...  Well, not all of us.  But the power went out in the neighborhood and just came back up as I was pulling up to the house with my date.  Wild Thing was unstoppable, drunk to the point he started "surfing" on a coffee table.  Someone managed to get him down from there and take him outside to cool off and not even a minute later he comes RUNNING back into the house, belly flops on the wobbly coffee table and starts to "swim" on it.  

Anyone who's followed me or been friends for any length of time knows all too well my history of REALLY bad dates.  Are they out of the ordinary or do I just have a better memory and recall them better than others?  I mean, does everyone go through such ridiculous stretches like I have?  I've had 2 relationships that lasted 6 years each, although neither of them were that length of time consecutively.  And one relationship that lasted almost 2 years.  We even moved in together for a time.  And that was a giant clusterfuck right from the get-go, we should never have dated, it was literally only going to be a hook-up that somehow got dragged out and extended and she ingratiated herself with family and friends.  Seriously, that girl, right after we met, sent flowers to my mom and my sister for Mother's Day.  She hadn't even met them.
When we finally broke up, it got even more awkward.  She begged me not to make the news public, some bullshit about if her parents found out, they were going to not move to Florida.  Turns out, she used my silence to wedge a divide between my friends and I by playing the victim in our relationship.  Which was made more awkward when she kept trying to sleep together in the same bed as me.  My bed, to be clear.  Until one morning I woke up snuggled up next to her, my hand cupping her... Odd that I had never woken up like that before with her.  I moved out to the couch the next night and for the remainder of the time we lived together.  

What sort of life have you led, any accomplishments you're most proud of or maybe there are some regrets along the way.  And as the song goes; Regrets, I've had a few.  But then again, too few to mention.  

Mawwige

Mawwige is whut bwings us togethaw, today...

I've been going back and forth over what I've been wanting to say since even before Saturday's nuptials. Despite my career involving sometimes writing scripts, putting words into other people's mouths, I often find it difficult to express myself in the moment. My mind is racing at a thousand miles an hour and my mouth just can't keep up, I get tongue tied, my rate of speech speeds up and slows down as I search for words to accurately convey what I'm feeling. So it's with that in mind that here I am removed from the day of, and finally just sitting down and writing out everything that's been on my mind. Everything I wanted to say to the newlyweds. And I hope it comes across with the intentions that I have in my mind and in my heart. Forgive me if this goes astray.

I've said it before that Carol literally walked into my life 10 years ago. I was the manager of an adult kickball team and had invited my new teammates to my place in Huntington Beach for some pregame drinking. If you know anything about adult kickball you know drinking is a significant aspect of the "game." I was at my place with a friend and we were already a couple of beers in, walking back and forth between the inside of my place and my patio overlooking the street. This little blue Honda pulls into the street, goes back and forth before she finds a spot to park in and she's walking up towards my unit. She knocked, the door was open, I said come on in and in walks this young woman in our team colored t-shirt and I had no idea at the time that she would eventually go on to become one of the best friends I've had in my life.

If you know Carol, you already know how big and kind her heart is. How she will go out of her way to...  I can't even say she does good, but rather she is good. She is just a good person through and through, she doesn't do it for anyone, it's just literally how she is.

We bonded over a mutual love of pi and in the nine March 14th's we've been friends, we've only missed two Pi Days together. The pandemic and then again this year with her having moved to Ventura. 

If you know Carol at all, then you know Marley. And if you know Marley you may know a little bit about the backstory of how he came into her life. Granted I wasn't fully aware of how their relationship began until about 4 or 5 years ago when she finally told me.  We were coming back from a night out at a Home Alone/Christmas Story photo thing in Hollywood, we stopped for a bit to catch Danny playing at some bar in Whittier and Carol tells me she had gone to the animal shelter and seemingly looked for the saddest looking dog that she could find so she could take him home. And from her description he was just matted in fur, covered in fleas, just this mangy looking little dog that, by all accounts, nobody would adopt. That is nobody except Carol. And now looking at Marley you would never guess the kind of life he may have had if it hadn't been for Carol. That's just the kind of person she is that she went to a rescue shelter and literally, literally rescued Marley. To the point where you've seen just how spoiled and taken care of and loved this dog has been the entire time they've been together. 

Carol is unbelievably thoughtful and always looking to do the little things which don't seem so little when she does them. Case in point, a few years ago at her beach birthday party, we were all setting up under the canopy on the sand and she happened to notice the scrap of paper just kicking along the footpath. Literally someone's trash that they just tossed away and was just laying there. She walked over to pick it up and then walked it the additional 15 ft to deposit it into a trash can. Again this is just a small example of the type of person she is. It would have cost her nothing to just ignore it It's another piece of trash, there's countless pieces of trash littering the beaches up and down the state and yet this one scrap, one used up napkin, she walked over and properly threw it away. 

And it's in this type of attitude that she always looks for the best in people. Even when those people may not be thinking along the same lines towards her. Which brings me to what I know about her love life. And yes I've seen too many guys... I wouldn't want to say mistreated but they definitely didn't treat her the way she should have been treated and respected. A lot of these guys were by most accounts very self-involved. Very egocentric. I've often used the term metrosexual. That they would spend more time primping and preening themselves then she does. God one guy even had his own peach tree dish facial scrub and apricot scented body wash. There was the other guy who, man that guy just smoked like a chimney. He literally... I can't even describe how much that guy just bothered me so much from the time I met him. And when he left, I felt relief for her but at the same time felt very sad that she was hurt by it all, the entire experience.

So when Carol told me that she had been using dating apps, and I guess this might be a surprise if some people didn't know how they how Carol and Greg met but when he came along she was really excited. I don't think they had gone on their first date yet when she told me about him. But she also made a point to say that he wasn't her usual type. Which to me obviously meant he wasn't metrosexual hahaha. That he rode a motorcycle and that he had tattoos, again not what she would usually date. And over the course of the next few months she just kept gushing about how much fun she was having riding with him. I even jokingly called her a biker chick. And then he volunteered to dog sit Marley while she went off to Japan for an extended vacation long overdue. Over time seeing Carol and Greg on their adventures together, I could see, I could sense a difference in her attitude, in the way she held herself. And I've said this multiple times before Greg ever even popped the question.  Haha, even just remembering her getting all excited that they were stopping by a jewelry store while on another date. I joked at the time, sounds like he likes it and he's gonna put a ring on it. Haha!  I finally told her after I saw the ring, that she didn't just look happy but she looked content. Almost, almost complete, I would say. Looking back now I guess I could see she found her other half... I'm already starting to well up again just thinking about it and writing this all out.  Seeing the two of them together just feels right. They feel like they belong together, like they've always been a couple. Oh yeah, Greg and Carol?  Oh, they've been a thing for years, I can't seem to remember a time when they weren't together. 

Wuv...  T'woo wuv... 

Cheers to many more happy memories of and for you both. And uh, well I didn't want to be the one to say it but, Uncle Louie wants to see some nieces and nephews soon!  

Much love to you, Mr. and Mrs. Greg and Carol Bloom. 

Salud.