Family Fun: by force or by choice, YOU'RE GONNA HAVE IT

So apparently this month is family fun month for Lola. Last weekend my dad came out to the bay for his first visit since I moved here (over a year ago, he really is a caring parent...I swear). This weekend is "Friends & Family" at my shitshow Dept. store job; the slogan for the event is "Friends & Family- If you're here today that's you!!" (My slogan is: "If you're here today and you're willing to spend over $500 you're a friend, if you're willing to go upwards of $1,000 we'll consider you family!! If you're just here to bullshit around then get the fuck out cuz we're not close like that). And finally this coming weekend my lovely Mama is headed out to the Bay for Mother's day weekend (she deserves more than a day). 

My good 'ol dad was excited for his solo weekend visit, it made him feel young and fun again. Typically he's a Mr. Mom constantly hanging out with my younger sibs. He's pretty good at handling them but they still give that back talk sass that only little white kids with too much verbal freedom can give. Its primarily my younger brother who does this. My little sister is pretty chill as an easy going tom boy in her puma suits. 

 So he shed the little buggers and the wife and came to hang with me and the BF.  I've always loved my dad, but I haven't always enjoyed him. There was a period between the ages of 13 and 18 that I sometimes felt like kicking him in the groin and spitting in his face. That sounds harsh but he often tells me that he wants to drop kick me in the chest (this is only humorous because we've never gone to the point of seriously inflicting bodily harm upon one another aka I was never abused as a child and I don't plan to abuse him when he's a geriatric old fart). 

So to entertain the old guy we took him to a Giant's game, Giant's as in the World Series CHAMPION Giants!! I'm still a little confused as to how they're the WORLD champions since they only competed with U.S. teams, then again I'm confused about a lot of things in baseball so I'll just add that one to the list. Unfortunately during this game they did not play like world champs and it was somewhat boring. Boring and hot. In San Fran there is almost always a breeze, especially at this particular stadium which sits right on the ocean. Because of this perpetual breeze its almost always wise to dress in layers as if you were going to be in a J. Crew ad for the fall season. A button up, a cardigan, a jacket, etc. And so we threw on some gear (I'm a fair weather fan admittedly but I still own some gear just to be fun and athletically fashionable) and added some hoodies and what not on top. Well it just so happened that we sat in the only area of the stadium that was about 25 degrees hotter than the rest, no breeze, just the hot sun beating down on us. It was so hot in fact that I stripped down to my bottom tank top layer and ended up getting sunburned. Unfortunately my epidermis is a very, very fair shade so this happens almost every time I'm exposed to direct sunlight for too long. Along with the heat came a wafting of a super sick smell that came upon us half way through the game. It smelled like somebody put a cabbage stew in a dirty sock and threw it in an oven. This resulted in us looking around trying to find where the mystery smell was coming from. Was it a fellow fan emitting bodily gas? Had someone shat their pants after eating too much sauerkraut? Did one of the annoying seagulls or pigeons that circle the stands keel over and die somewhere nearby? It was pretty horrendous but it's source was never discovered. This is probably for the best. 

My favorite part is singing "Take me out to the ball game"
the rest is kind of a guessing game as to what's going on.
Unless it's a home run. I'm not retarded.

Here's one of the more exciting characters on our team.
Brian Wilson aka "Fear the Beard". Yes he dyes it as
an intimidation tactic.

...And people get pretty excited about it.

And here's my guy TIMMY!! As you can see
we share a similar favorite recreational
activity. The difference is I get high and
sit around on my ass, he's a world class
athlete. Other than that we have a lot in
common.

Besides the fact that I got burned, they lost and we spend a large portion of the game looking for where the sock soup smell was coming from, we did enjoy our $40 worth of chicken strips and beverages (stadium prices are no joke. You could practically afford to buy a keg of beer for how much it would cost you to get a buzz going) along with some good clean American fun. Upon exiting the stadium I thought I'd throw my ice into the odd little trough in front of our seats so I could take my collector's cup home. Apparently it wasn't a trough in front of me but instead an open piece of the balcony, which I saw just in time to watch my ice chunks rain down on some poor bastard below. Oops, and I got the fuck outta there before a game day brawl could begin!

Later that night we decided to hit up a comedy show. After doing some research on different venues we ended up going to Punchline comedy club to see JB SMOOVE and lemme tell you this dude is fucking out of his mind and it is hysterical. Luckily my dad has a really out there sense of humor himself otherwise it had major potential to be extremely awkward to sit between my boyfriend and my father as JB is up on stage shouting how he is a big time CUMMA (aka he ejaculates alot) and acts out in full detail himself cumming all over a woman with the excess microphone cord as his prop. He was outrageous and inappropriate and totally off the wall. I would say its safe to bet that half of his material was prepared and the rest was him just going off on whatever the fuck he felt like talking about.

Here are some examples of what I'm talking about:

I stumbled upon this one, apparently from back in the day. A young Smoove: 

You also may know him as Leon from Curb Your Enthusiasm and he was also recently in Hall Pass (which is one of the funniest movies I've seen recently):

We wrapped up the weekend with an Easter Brunch with the pops, the BF, his aunt & her crazy ass Israeli significant other and my dear friend Mr. Meredith. It was lovely to spend Easter with a Jew and a bunch of agnostics (or maybe they're  just too lazy to go to Church). Personally this holiday has never really been about the resurrection of Christ for me but more so about starburst jelly beans and cadbury eggs buried in that weird plastic grass. 

Getting away from family during the holidays

To teach children the true meaning of the holiday.

Mmmm

 San Francisco is a pretty perfect place to be for the non-religious, it prides itself in being the alternative lifestyle capital of the country. In fact I would have gone to Dolores Park to watch the "Hunky Jesus" contest but felt too gluttonous to move around and be active in the world after the endless buffet we went to. I just had too many biscuits with gravy to function. That and I'm not sure how easily convinced my dad and the BF would have been to check out the scene.

I think the term "Hunky" is used loosely. Apparently I missed out
on a lot of pubes and low hanging balls. Maybe next year. 

So after a quick little weekend of Father/ Daughter bonding and fun my pops headed out. But before he left we shared a moment over a pancake breakfast. He told me he was happy for me and proud that I was on the path to success in this little city and advised me to stay put despite the challenges that may arise. As a guy from a small Midwestern town he knows the benefits to both having family and friends to root you down but also the need to take advantage of life's possibilities in the world beyond the homestead.  So despite the fact that I have battled against his fatherly ways for most of my life and found triumph in being an independent spirit, I must admit it brings a flutter of joy and a swell of pride to hear praise and gain approval from my father.