Monday, May 21, 2012

Motor City Con/Sick weekend Diary


5-17-12
I hear bots kicking his door at 8:30 and I get up to get him. He’s extremely sick and moody and won’t let me put eyedrops in. Since I have him out of his room, I conduct another search for the missing cat, Hobbes. First place I check is the crib. We’ve got bots’ old crib in there waiting for the new baby. Hobbes used to hide under it all the time. I pull it out but cannot search under it fully. Then check the closets. No Hobbes. So I give up and by then the wife is up and helps me put bots’ drops in. I start preparing a pot roast. She conducts a search outside and runs to Meijer to get some groceries and her prenatal vitamin refill. She comes back and says no Hobbes. I decide to do one more search. I go into the room and see a furry black back sticking out the edge of the crib drawer bottom. I call the wife over to confirm my sight and yes, its Hobbes. I KNEW he was in there!!!! So crisis averted, I go online and update blog and check online shit, which watching cartoons with bots. The wife tries to coax Hobbes out of hiding to no avail.
Hobbes is the craziest cat of the bunch. She found him one night about seven years ago while working as a laundry person at a Holiday Inn. She heard meowing and saw a baby black kitten in the laundry. She surmised he wandered in from the outside and just was there. She carried him around all day and he wouldn’t let her put him down. She called me at work to ask if we could keep him, I said no. Because we already had two cats, one of which was illegal to have in our apartment at the time, that I didn’t want to chance another. Plus litter and food gets expensive! We argued about it all night and she brought him home anyway. Eventually the next morning I agreed she could keep him if she just shut up about it. See, that’s how we work. She will want something, I say no, she freaks balls till I relent. I just relent to end the argument. Basically, the wife gets whatever she wants. It makes for a quieter household I say! Anyway, Hobbes used to be really lovey and cuddly. He’d sleep between us even. But one night, I got out of bed and stepped on him as he was sleeping on my black pants. He yelped and I thought nothing of it. You step on cats’ tails all the time and they yelp and it scares you and them and eventually they get over it. You apologize with treats and that’s the end of it. Not Hobbes. Ever since that moment, he’s been an overly cautious fraidy-cat. He is always hiding or running away when any of us comes near him. He lies comfortably with Jake (his Gay lover) but any time any of us come nearby, he awakes and darts off, leaving Jake sleeping soundly, not afraid of us at all. Hobbes also has a keen sense of smell and we think he’s the culprit behind some territorial markings that have been made on things, even though he is fixed. He doesn’t play with others when we play with them and he rarely emerges to be petted or eat. So it’s a great wonder why we keep him and love him. I think it is for the little moments. Sometimes in a great while he will hop on my desk and get near me. I pet him and he seems to like it. He purrs and for a few brief moments, he is like a normal cat. He sometimes in a great while will get into bed with us like when he was little. He’ll knead and lay down all cute. And I think it’s the miracle factor that makes us like him like we do. He isn’t my favorite cat, like JAKE is, but he’s family. And now he’s cowering in the room and won’t let us near. Most likely he’ll emerge in two more days and finally eat and return to normal. Perhaps he still smells the dog from yesterday. Like I said, keen sense of smell. Any time there is company over, he stays in hiding. Stealthy little fucker. But he’s our stealthy little fucker.
Around noon, we eat the Roast with taters and biscuits that I prepared. Instantly after eating, I feel sick as hell. I got the aches and shakes real bad. The wife heads to work and I survive the day tending to bots, putting his drops in and trying to not focus on me being sick. Around 5, he lays down with me and we watch about 3 hours of Doctor Who together. We’re cuddling, both sick, its quite cute. Finally around 8:30, he goes to bed and I do the same, waking up every half hour till the wife gets home with food. I get up and eat and attempt more sleep. Again, I am waking up every half hour to move. I’m too hot, too cold, all at once. Just miserable. I must get up to pee about 10 times. It wasn’t a good night.

5-18-12
I hear bots get up at 7:20 and the wife and I get into a tiff about who is going to get him. I’m still sick as shit but she is tired and has to work tonight again. I decide to get up and let her go to bed. We argue about it some more. But eventually she goes and lies down and I muster up the desire to just get up and pretend I am not sick. I update blog, answer emails and take the bots to the store to stock up on medicine and OJ for me, yogurt for him. We also head to the disc place for a treat for him and make an appointment at Belle Tire for an oil change and tire rotation. I got a lot of travelling to do in the next month, so its time! We go and wait and wait. We walk around Art Van next door and get hounded by the commission floor salesmen. We head back and the jeep still ain’t getting looked at. The dude offers me to come back, which I counter offer to make an appointment at 9am tomorrow. We head home and the wife gets up. I toss some Nyquil and OJ down my throat and hit the pillow at 11:30. Before I know it in an instant its 1:25 and she’s leaving for work. It just knocked me the hell out! She leaves and bots is playing with his new discs and ipod so I take advantage of a bit more sleep. I cannot keep my eyes open at all! Finally at 3pm, I wake up feeling much better. Throat is still sore and I’m groggy but the dreaded aches and pains are gone! I get up and check online shit and talk with Cody on the phone. His grades have been so good this year that he gets to go on a school trip to Cedar Point! Very awesome! We make plans to 100% for sure go to the Motor City Comic Con this weekend as fans, his first comic con! I’m excited to see how he will react.
I cook some food and watch “Tenacious D and the Pick of Destiny.” I had never seen it before and found it sort of underwhelming. But it was a good time passer. I putz around the house, concentrating on not getting sicker and the bots passes out around 8:30. I listen to some of the old Idiothead tracks and make notes for Shane and I to work on when we get into the studio very soon. The plan is to remix what we can and rework/redo some of the songs and make a “greatest hits” along with a few new songs. Release it electronically. After that I watch a newer Rush Concert on vH1 classic, switching over to the other VH1 to see their “top 20 songs of the 90’s.” I mostly agree with all their choices except like 2-3 of them. Those songs I have never even heard! Odd. The wife gets home around 11:30 with subway. I wanted soup but they were out, so I eat a 6” cold cut. We watch some Adult Swim and then pass out to AVGN around midnight.

5-19-12
I wake up 2-3 times during the night with an extreme case of sore throat.  I down some more Nyquil and suck on some Halls before going back to bed each time. Finally around 8:10 the bots kicks on his door and we wake up. The wife elects to take the car in for the tire rotation and oil change. I sit and wait for her return with some Chloreseptic spray. Anything to get me better so I can take Cody to the show tomorrow. I’m pretty much locked into it at this point. At this point, I am just hoping it all works out well and I get somewhat better. Right now, my throat is on fire and it hurts to talk. She returns and convinces me to head out to town to shop and enjoy some fresh air. We go to Okemos where I get a new light for the fish tank (which burned out it seems), some Angry Birds at TRU and stop off at a record store where bots gets yet another dvd box set. I buy nothing. East Lansing is jam packed full of some sort of art festival and I am at a loss of what to do now. My throat now hurting me bad again, I opt for home so the wife can go to the movies and I can relax. I know she’s disappointed, but I don’t know what I can do about it. I am beyond not supposed to be out and I feel like total crap. We get home and she takes off to see Avengers. I check online shit and watch the bots.
I change the fish tank bulb and it does not turn on. So its perhaps the unit itself that is broken. CRAP! I wonder how much that will fuck my wallet for. Oh, and one of the baby fish was dead when I checked earlier, bringing my dead fish of the week to a total of FIVE. Then I decide to look in my throat to see how bad the damage is. My sides of the throat are definitely inflamed and puffy but I see the main culprit of the ordeal: There’s a canker sore right on my uvula!!! So every time I talk or swallow, or breathe through my mouth, it hurts! I Cloretheptic spray it every two hours and suck on Halls to deaden it.
The wife returns saying that Avengers was every bit as awesome as I hyped it to her to be. Feeling a bit better, we head out to Culvers for some grub and then came back home and the bots passes out around 8:30. We end up watching some UFC and then Army of Darkness that comes on Encore. I pass out to AVGN around midnight.

5-20-12
I wake up at 7am and get ready to go pick up the Codester for his first trip to a comic con, ever. I asked the wife the night before if she wanted to go and she declined. I get dressed and gas up, scrub car and get a drink before I finally check my phone before hitting the road. Several angry messages from the wife saying how I left without her and she wanted the stroller so she and bots can take a walk later today. I call her back and say I am headed back. I get there and drop it off to a moody wife and then head out, kinda steamed at her for the ‘tude. I get a good ways down the expressway before she texts me to say she wants to go now. By now I am a volcano but I keep my cool and call her saying I will come back, but she’s gotta be nice. So I whip around (again) and drive the 15 miles back to get them. I pick them up, by which time the bots has tripped and scraped his legs and head on the hard cement. We bandage him up and head down the road. My day, already at a great stop!
We get to Port Huron and locate Cody’s house easily. We pick him up and head to Novi. Traffic is busy but I ignore it and stay on target. We get to the con and there’s a line wrapped around the building. I am in awe for how busy it is on a Sunday and instantly feel like a fool that I didn’t do the show! We stand in line for 55 minutes for tickets and get in finally around noon. I show the Codester the ropes as to what a comic con is and he is pretty blown away. The wife ends up getting another shirt, Cody gets a shirt and a stuffed Pikachu, and a free Yoda print from Brett. Bots gets a wind up TARDIS, 4 small Die Cast Star Wars ships and a Yoda. I don’t really get anything, choosing to save my shopping bug for Heroes Con in a month. I was more jazzed to see them having a good time. I stop by and talk to Jim and Brett for a while. I see Kevin but he’s too busy slingin’ art to really get over and chat with him. Figure I’ll see him at Heroes. Brett and I talk Expendables #4 time table and trade book plans for it. Early next year it is looking like. Done by March, for sure. No problem! We take one last walkthrough and end up leaving a couple hours after we got in. Hey, when you’ve been to as many comic cons as I have been, you’ve pretty much seen it all in 30 minutes. Besides it is quite busy and we’re hauling a stroller, which makes stopping, rubber necking and browsing near impossible.
We take off and head back to I-94, stopping off at a Chilis to eat. There’s a young parent next to us SCREAMING at her two year old and swatting him rather hard and it takes all my energy to not stand up, go over there and slam her head into the wall. I hate observing bad or abusive parenting. Not saying I am a saint, but I just feel sorry for kids who you know are growing up in a rough situation. Can’t stand it.
Anyway, we eat and head back to Port Huron, playing “Jake is so fat” the whole way. See, we have this cat named Jake and he’s quite huge. And for some reason when Kelly and I drink we try to make each other laugh by saying “Jake is so fat” jokes. I know we could just as easily do “Adam is so fat” jokes, but for now, Jake is the target for our amusement. (Don’t worry folks. We LOVE Jake. He’s well loved, in addition to being REALLY well fed. Him being fat is part of his endearing nature. I wouldn’t have him any other way.) Cody drops some awesome, awesome zingers of Jake jokes and I am amazed by his humor and quick wit! The kid is gonna do alright.
We drop him off, chat with his mom a bit and head back home. Gas up at a Mobil and I grab a slurpee. The whole way home, bots is moody as hell but we do finally manage to arrive safe and sound around 7pm. The wife takes the bots to the bath and I check online shit and update the blog. Then I get to work on the NOTLD sketch cards as she puts him to bed and goes to Walmart for a few items. She returns and I am watching my Living Dead special edition DVD with extras and drawing the cards. She watches me for a bit and then hits the bed. I end up drawing around 22 cards and then hit the bed as well around 11:30, coughing all through the night. 

Some pics from the weekend at Motor City Con....



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