larger view larger view larger view larger view larger view

Vanilla Ice is HOT. I don't care what anyone else says, but man he looked good last night at The Nile. And he rapped well too! Who knows if I'm the demographic he's going after on his current tour, but as a 31-year-old, I look back fondly on my freshman year of high school when "Ice, Ice Baby" was a hit and my school dance team performed a routine to it at our first pep rally. And I must admit, I got sucked into the season of Surreal Life when he was on it. So when I heard he was coming to Bako, I HAD to plop down the $23.50 to see him.

My friends and I showed up early for the publicized 8 p.m. start time, so we could get a good spot in line. People milled about until they finally let us in at 8:30. We had picked the right spot to wait cuz we ended up first in line!!! Things were loooking good, we got a good table near the front, we heard there was a FREE buffet included with our tickets, we were ready to get our Ice on.

First stop: the bar. $7 for a whiskey coke? Yikes! Second stop: the buffet. Hm, tortilla chips, beans, rice and something that resembled enchiladas. We'll just have some chips, thank you.

OK, Ice, we're ready for you! Wait, what? An opening act. OK, that's normal. But, hmm, screamo? I'm a little too old for that.

What? A second opening act? At least this was rap ... getting me into the mood. OK, I'm ready for the Ice Man.

A third opening act? It's getting near my bedtime. And, AH! Screamo again! How do those "singers" talk the next day?

This has got to be it. Ice time! Wait, no!!! A FOURTH opening act! This is unbelieveable. Oh, but it's Vecar. At least it's music, with a melody, and a singer who sings, and who also jams on the electric guitar. Love it! But ... yawn. It is soooo past my bedtime.

Finally, 11 p.m. and Ice appears. All 40 of us left in the audience rush the stage. He's giving out tatooed-knuckle punches. He's pulling hot chicks onto the stage. He's gladly accepting joints from the audience and puff, puff passing back and forth with his fans. He's opening bottles of water and shaking them over us. He's pouring the water on his "dancers." He sings "Ice, Ice Baby," "Go Ninja, Go Ninja, Go" and "'Play that funky music white boy..." and then there's a song about sex, and a song about pot, and a song about "Oh my God." And, wow, he rocks the drums!

Vanilla Ice performed a minute for each of us. At 11:40, the show was over. But I did jump, I did dance with my hand in the air, I did get wet from all that water being sprayed around, and I was smiling ear to ear. I'm not THAT old. And neither is the Ice. Thanks for visiting Bako, buddy! Too bad you couldn't stay a little longer ...

That's me on the left (with Shellie and Leann from work)! Check out more photos from the Vanilla Ice concert at Bakersfield Paparazzi.

larger view

Sanding is fun. I mean it. It's meditative. It's an escape. It's mind numbing.

It's also very painful. You name it, it hurts! Back, shoulders, biceps, triceps, forearms, hands, fingers, hips, knees, feet.

Last night as I worked on the bottom trim under the sunroom window, my feet kept cramping. This morning my knees are killing me. Monday night I lost an arm wrestling competition due to my fatigued arms going into a spasm.

But enough complaining. The pain is totally worth it. Check out the photo of my progress!

Oh, and I broke one of my sanders already. Yikes!

larger view larger view larger view

I forgot to mention in my previous blog the plans for the sunroom, which is off of the dining room. The sunroom was the favorite room of the house for the pets. My cat enjoyed napping in the sun, and my dog enjoyed chewing his bones on the only carpeting in the house.

But when I start sanding in the dining room, saw dust is going to go everywhere, and the thought of trying to cover up or clean the already-nasty carpet daunted me. So, with the help of a friend, I tore it up! Someday I plan to tile the sunroom floor, anyway. So after the dining room project is done, I now have my next room renovation planned.

Tearing up the carpet revealed some handprints in the concrete from 1992. Add those to the handprints on the back patio and footprints on the driveway, and a lot of families have left their marks in my home. I wonder what mark I will leave? Oh yeah, the entire renovation!

larger view

Last night I turned the gas off to my furnace and covered the floor register with butcher paper. It's warm enough now to not run the heater, and I wouldn't want a bunch of saw dust to get into the furnace.

Saw dust, I write? Yes -- it's time for me to commencing phase 2 of my dining room renovation. Many of you may remember my posts from the fall, when my roommate and I stripped four layers (90 years) of paint off the wood trim in the dining room. Well, now it's time to sand all that beautiful wood to bring out its natural grain and smooth over the gouges and nicks.

This is my second time sanding wood trim in my house. Two years ago I sanded the living room. It took me three months of nightly and weekend warriorism. The dining room has a lot more wood, but I also have pledges of help from friends this time around. I hope to finish by June. Then I will stain and seal the wood to match the living room.

I am looking forward to the meditative nature of sanding, of studying in detail every curve and line of the oak, imagining what the wood has seen over the 90 years since the house was built, and the life of the oak before it was cut into lumber. Did it dot our Sierra foothills? Overlook one of our rivers? Shade an undulating meadow?

The Craftsman movement of the late 1800s-early 1900s was about honoring nature and creating a seamless habitat between the outdoors and indoors. The arts and crafts movement was also about working with your hands, and creating furnishings and decor yourself so your spirit lives in the work. This is why I work so hard to restore my 1917 Craftsman bungalow. My passion lives in this house.

I am a public crier. I admit it. Recently, I have cried at work, in doctors offices, while meeting with a mortgage consultant, in church, at a meditation class, and while on the phone with lawyers and customer service representatives.

Now, granted, I'm going through a rather emotional time in my life (divorce will do that to you), so the crying can be forgiven. But in my everyday life, crying is actually kind of normal. My whole family is like this. We just cry. And once we start, we can't stop. We'll cry all day.

Check out this article I wrote in 2003 for the Oakland Tribune about the phenomenon of crying in public — after I had broken down in tears several times at work and felt the need to justify my so-called weakness. I found a book called "Crying: The Natural and Cultural History of Tears," in which I read that crying was once revered as holy and considered "tears of grace." And in an article I found by two university professors, "The Psychophysiology of Crying," crying has two functions: to heal the body by flushing out negative emotions, and to alert others that something is wrong and in need of fixing.

However, one source — an etiquette teacher — admonished crying in public, particularly at work — as being inappropriate and a sign of weakness. Yes, I have cried to every boss I have ever had. But I've never had a boss shoo me out of his or her office or tell me to stop crying or say I'm being weak. Everyone is human, and luckily I've never worked for a boss who was a jerk.

In today's Eye Street section in The Bakersfield Californian, we ran a wire story about crying in public (prompted by recent teary episodes by Hillary Clinton and Ellen DeGeneres). Here's a link to the story, by Jessica Yadegaran of the Contra Costa Times.

What grabbed my attention were her tips for holding back the tears. I have tried many, many ways to stop myself from crying. Here are my responses:

1) Take deep breaths. The oxygen helps clear your mind and calm you down. My response: The relaxation brought by deep breathing actually causes me to let down my guard and start crying even quicker.

2) Excuse yourself and head to the privacy of a bathroom stall. Stay there until you feel composed. My response: Isolating myself from the public situation actually allows my thoughts and emotions to invade the silence and bring on the tears all the more. I'd rather stay at my desk and distract myself with work, albeit with misty eyes.

3) Be prepared. Know your emotional hot buttons. Ask yourself the "what if's," particularly before work meetings. My response: If I think about what might make me cry before entering the situation, I'll already be in the crying mindset and then there will be no way to stop the tears. In fact, I'll just cry sooner.

4) Separate your identity from the work project. When someone questions your opinion, don't take it as rejection. My response: I am quite immune to someone questioning my opinion, but when someone takes a direct attack on my intentions or ethics, I take that very personally. Luckily, this is a rare occurrence. The last time I cried over this was more than 2 years ago.

5) Pinch yourself or dig your nails into your palm. Both sensations take your mind off the reason you wanted to cry. My response: Now this is a new one for me. Next time I feel the tears come on, I will try this. As long as I don't pinch or dig hard enough to really hurt myself — and then I will cry!